Chapter 16: Bill the Brave

"Bill can you please bring me clean sheets from the linen closet?" his mother calls.

Big Bill leaves his sketchbook and pencils on the desk and goes down the hall to the linen closet. It was only going to be a couple more days before Mia came to stay with them. The young teen is very unsure of what to think of the incoming house guest; it's bad enough that they're in a house that isn't theirs, but to have a stranger come and stay was beyond weird. He hardly knows his cousin, and if you get technical, they weren't cousins anyway because their mothers are adopted sisters. Plus, he'd heard of stories about his uncle... the man was an infamous drunk and terrifyingly clever. The law would not stop him, and he never cared who got in the way of his final quest... evidently gaining custody of his daughter. Bill had heard these conversations from his parents when they thought he was asleep. He'd listen from the top of the stairs and it wasn't hard to hear the whole story because his mother got every detail of the situation.

Bill grabs a few sheets and pillowcases and walks to the small room next to the bathroom. His mother is milling about, cleaning as much as possible and preparing to make up the bed.

"Thank you, Bill," she says, taking the linens from her son. "I have to get your father in here to do something about this window."

"It's s-stuck?" the teen asks.

"Very stuck and with autumn just around the corner, poor Mia will catch a chill."

"W-Why is she staying w-with us?" Bill blurts, letting his insecurities get the best of him. "W-We barely know her."

"Because she needs a safe place to live Bill," Sharon Denbrough answers firmly. She'd already had this conversation with her husband about opening their home to this child and she doesn't want to explain it again.

"B-But if Uncle Joel finds her again..."

"Bill..." she says exasperatedly. She looks up to meet his gaze. She understands his concerns about her alcoholic former brother-in-law, but they can't think about that. She lays out the sheets and begins putting them on the mattress. "She is a family member in need. Your Aunt Caroline has no one else to turn to and hopefully, she will find a new job soon before he can even find Mia. And I promise it won't be forever... But family is the most important thing to us, and we always help each other, even in our darkest hour. Now, can you please get that corner?"

Bill goes over and helps fix up what his mother wanted.

"I know it's a big adjustment, and I know it's a big risk with Joel, but Mia has nowhere else to go. Imagine being trapped like that, unable to go anywhere without this evil presence following you."

Is she serious? Bill thinks to himself. That was their whole existence in Derry with IT, Henry Bowers and his gang. But of course, parents never noticed or talked about those things. It's as if they were made to ignore it. Bill hated having to look over his shoulder every time he walked down the halls at school, trying to avoid being accosted by one of Henry's goons, or having to walk home alone at night, fearing that IT would jump out of every dark corner. IT knew what he was afraid of and fed on his fear.

He watches as his mother finishes making the bed and then begins busying herself with other chores. She always did that when she was trying to forget something. She begins humming to herself as she goes downstairs.

It's then that Bill notices Georgie playing on the stair landing. He's making car noises as he drives them around the hardwood floors. The big brother approaches the little one.

"W-Why aren't you p-playing in your room?" he asks.

"Because there's a monster in my closet."

"There's no m-monsters in your closet."

"There is too. I hear it breathing at night. It smells so bad."

"Then j-just close your closet."

"I can still see the orange light under the door."

Bill looks at his brother's face. His big brown eyes show genuine fear and are even starting to develop tears. It's the same fear that the teenager had seen when his brother had encountered IT on his own. Georgie couldn't sleep by himself for months afterwards, the same look was there. It was the whole reason that Bill investigated the creature and tried to find out more, which eventually led to that battle in the sewers with IT.

While Bill had told him that the monster was gone, it was clear that Georgie had still not let go of his fear. In fact, last night, the big brother had heard the kid go screaming into his parents' room after another nightmare. It pained him to see his brother go through this, but no amount of therapy could heal what they'd been through. What they most likely needed was time, and the fastest bus ticket out of Derry, which they had been granted with the evacuation.

The older of the two boys' gazes at his brother for a long few minutes before deciding to go back to drawing. He sits down at the desk and tries to concentrate on his latest image. But unfortunately, his little brother's playing and his mother downstairs in the kitchen cause too much noise. He decides to go outside to draw, gathering his pencils and pad of paper.

Bill walks out to the curb of the round-about and sits on the grass. Fortunately, the weather was still relatively mild, so he didn't have to worry about the wind blowing his papers or wearing a sweater. He sits in the afternoon sun and begins trying to get his inspiration back. He pauses for a few minutes before beginning to draw again.

…

Meanwhile, across the round-about, Will Byers rides up to the Wheeler house on his bike hoping to find Mike and ask him to hang out. But when he knocks on the door, Nancy answers it and tells him that their mother took the two younger kids into town to get fitted for winter clothing. Disappointed, Will still thanks Nancy before turning to leave.

He's grabbing his bike from the driveway when he notices a kid sitting on the front lawn. Immediately, he recognizes him from yesterday at the mall. He was the tall one of the Derry kids.

The shy boy hesitates, wondering if he should go up to talk to him. He is worried that the Derry kid might ignore him or get mad that he was bothering him. He really didn't want to make another enemy, there were enough problems in Hawkins as it was.

His mind goes back to the day before... the kid did seem pretty nice, not snarky or rude in any way, maybe a little bit shy. The kid was also probably self-conscious about his stutter so maybe Will shouldn't bother him. He and his friends had helped stand up to the jerks at school and the group from Derry did thank them for that, but other than yesterday, there had been no further interaction between the Party and the Club.

Will then notices that the kid has a pad of paper and pencils with him. He appeared to be drawing on the curb. This piqued his interest as he was quite the "artist" himself... at least according to his mother.

Despite the internal debate, Will makes his way over to the kid. He walks his bike until he's practically in front of Bill.

There's a long pause before Bill looks up.

He too recognizes Will from the other day at the mall. They stare at each other for a long moment.

"Hey," Will says as casually as he can.

Bill swallows. "H-Hey."

"What are you drawing?"

Big Bill sort of shifts uncomfortably, wanting to hide his drawings, being self-conscious about his art skills. He shuffles the papers a bit.

"N-Nothing," he says.

There's another long pause.

"What's your favourite thing to draw?" Will continues, still debating whether he should just ride away.

Bill is surprised that the kid wants to talk to him, but he could somehow sense that they were alike in some ways. Pretty timid and probably an outcast, being called 'Zombie Boy' by those bullies. He wonders why the kid was called that, but he was more curious as to why a kid from Hawkins would want to talk to him, Billy being a loser and all... it was the name of their club.

"P-People," Bill answers.

"Do you do like portraits or is it like candids?"

"Candids?"

"My brother is a photographer, so I kind of know a lot about pictures and the words he uses."

"R-really? Cool."

There's another pause.

"D-Do you like to draw?" Bill asks.

"Yeah."

"What do you draw?"

Will swallows, knowing that admitting he drew D&D stuff would really sully this kid's image of him, but as he thought about... what did he have to lose at this point?

"Fantasy stuff," he finally decides. "Castles, dragons, wizards, that kind of stuff."

"C-Cool," Bill says. His interest is now piqued. "I never tried stuff like that, it seems t-too hard."

"Really?" Will says. He brings his bike closer and even though Bill tries to cover his drawings, the shy one of the Party decides to continue the conversation. "Because I find drawing people the hardest thing. Drawing stuff like dragons is actually not as hard as you think."

He sits on the curb next to Bill. The two artists look at one another, their similar interests keeping the conversation going.

"The fun thing about fantasy is that it's so easy to make up something new. If you make a mistake, you can always make it part of the drawing, like a three-headed knight or a rabbit with fangs that eats the heads of other knights!"

Despite the unusual characters, Bill is still hooked on this kid's perspective. He thinks back to what Beverly said about liking fantasy stories. Maybe if he could learn to draw those kinds of things, he'd have more to talk about with her.

He inhales sharply.

"C-Could you t-teach me?"

"Really?" Will asks, surprised by the kid's request.

"I-I would like to learn to draw other st-stuff."

Big Bill then hands Will a piece of paper and a pencil. Will begins to show Bill the best ways to approach drawing fantasy creatures. The kid from Derry is impressed by his classmate's knowledge, he's practically an expert in it. Some of the words Bill doesn't even understand, but he still listens.

Will shows Bill how to try and avoid straight lines in certain instances, and he grows more comfortable speaking, acting almost like a teacher.

Soon both boys are drawing on pieces of paper, experimenting with different creature ideas. A few times they laugh at what they create, and they barely notice the sun beginning to set behind the houses.

"H-How many h-heads should the H-Hydra have?" Bill asks.

"As many as you want, but make sure one of them can breathe fire."

The kid from the Loser's club realizes that they're almost out of paper, so he shuffles around a few and Will notices a picture of that pretty girl from Derry.

"WOW!" Will says. He reaches over and grabs the image of Beverly before Bill can stop him. He loves the use of orange/red crayons and the smudging done on the page. "This is great."

Bill turns red and tries to take back the image. He quickly shuffles it back into his folder of drawings. He wasn't proud of the fact that he had a crush on Bev and was drawing her without her knowledge, but also he'd drawn it on a rainy night and a leak in the roof has caused the colouring to be smudged.

"How did you get splatter of colour?" Will asks.

Bill hesitates, still deeply embarrassed.

"The... The roof was l-leaking and it splashed on...on it."

"It's really good. Does she pose for portraits at all?"

Bill turns red and just looks down at his shoes. He stumbles to find the words but is struggling to and his stutter is not helping at all.

"N-Not really, b-but... and artist has to f-find inspiration a-anywhere..."

Will can tell he's stepped into something that Bill is not comfortable talking about. The girl was really pretty, and it was clear that he liked her. Will did find the girl very attractive too and she seemed really sweet the few times he'd interacted with her. She was also tough as nails when she fought the jerks on the playground.

The two kids sit in silence for a little while, unable to move forward from the mention of Beverly.

"She is really pretty," Will says, shrugging and trying to brush it off for Bill's sake.

The Derry kid just nods and just then a car pulls into the round-about. Will recognizes it as his brother's car. Johnathan rolls down the window.

"There you are Will, Mom's wondering why you're not home yet,"

"Oh shoot!" he says, getting up and going for his bike. "Sorry Jon, I got side-tracked."

"It's fine, just throw your bike in the back. Mom is going to flip if you're not home for dinner."

The younger of the Byer's boys frantically rushes, shoving all his drawings to the side, grabbing his bike, opening the trunk and lifting it in. He then goes to get into the passenger side and stops.

"I'll see you tomorrow at school Bill," he says waving and putting on an earnest smile.

Bill waves back, managing a tiny smile too.

The two boys nod at one another before Will gets into the car.

Johnathan then backs up and drives off towards their home. He gives his brother a few side glances, surprised that his shy sibling had made a new friend outside the usual crowd. They seemed to share an interest in drawing and the photographer of the group decides to share this info with his mother after his brother was in bed.

Bill sits on the curb for a long moment, happy for the first time since they'd come here. Hawkins no longer felt as strange or as nerve-wracking as before. There were some nice people in the town and when he went to school on Monday, everything would seem a little more familiar.

He gathers all the drawings and puts them in a folder. He glances at a drawing that Will had done, with writing on it.

It read.

Will the Wise and Bill the Brave

A/N: Special thanks to Guest and DylanJ10000