CH. 38 | EPILOGUE

"and you will promise to talk to me all the time?

no one talks so wonderfully as you do."

— oscar wilde

★ 彡 BILL HEARD A VOICE in his head. It wasn't his own.

The small voice in his head sounds so different. It's so much deeper than he can remember, and it scares him a bit that when he finally spits out a word after five years; it doesn't sound like himself or what he can remember.

To be completely honest, he says Stan's name faster than he can register and too fast for him to stop. He almost regrets it when he realizes he spoke. His voice is so raspy, and it comes out as a kind of mumble.

"What did you just-," Stan gapes at Bill, nearly jumping forward to stand directly in front of him. "What?" He's cupping his jaw now and it makes Bill smile as he aligns his hands over Stan's.

Bill drops his own hands so they're touching his throat to feel his vocal cords. They feel hoarse and disused.

"You going quiet on me again?" Stan chuckles, but Bill could tell from his eyes how serious he was asking his question. He wanted to know if it was a one-time thing. "Because I'm okay with that. I love you, Bill." He murmurs seconds later. His partner sounds guilty, eyes flickering to the left, and Bill can tell this is coming from the arguments minutes ago.

"I love you," Bill assures him, his eyebrows furrowing as he concentrates hard on talking clearly. It still comes out raspy and his words jumble together, but Stan got the gist of it as he reaches down and kisses him.

Four hours later, little Fred from Georgie's class sends Bill's younger brother home from their impulse sleepover. Bill tries to stay calm and not lash out at Georgie for not bothering to tell him where he was spending his night, so he reminds himself that Georgie hadn't meant any harm.

His little brother seems apologetic enough though, determined to make Stan and Bill lunch after their greeting at the front door of the silent house. Twenty minutes later, they all sit down with sandwiches that look all slightly lopsided and unique from each other. Bill tries to go through at least half of his sandwich, trying to fight through a gag when he continues to taste the extensive amount of mayonnaise George had spread on.

"Do you like my sandwiches?" Georgie asks, smiling across the small, square-shaped table at them both, and Bill can hear the tapping of his foot against the bottom leg of Georgie's chair.

"They're great, little man," Stan chuckles, already finished with his sandwich, but Bill can tell from his slightly uncomfortable facial expressions that he's not a fan of the combo of mayonnaise and mustard. Nobody is, Bill thinks to himself.

Bill almost forgets about the couple of sentences he'd uttered hours before to Stan. Stan, with uncertainty and anxiety-filled up in his chest. I love you, with nothing but raw emotion and confidence, but vulnerability. Found him, came later, four hours later, and he didn't even mean to say the words out loud before they were said. He supposes that's what people mean when they say they don't think before they talk.

He feels guilty when Georgie looks at him, the typical, 'younger brother' look of longing for appreciation and praise. Then he remembers that him talking for the first time in a long time doesn't have to be a secret and that he can express his emotions through words, rather than tight lips and the use of facial expressions.

"They're good, Georgie," he lets out in the usual raspy voice he's already tired of. Georgie's eyes widen immediately, and instead of replying, he stands up and runs over to him, engulfing him in a tight hug, his sandwich still in hand. Bill laughs, actually laughs out loud, not just one of his silent laugh-seizures, and Georgie's eyes are suddenly full of tears.

He wants to tell him not to cry, that it's okay. He wants to tell him everything in the world he had been too afraid of not saying without being able to express it through the emotion that words carry. Your dad loved you so much, would be a good start. Your mom loves you too, even if it's hard for her to show it, and his eyes burn at the thought of his mother, even though he can't figure out why. I love you more than the two of them combined, and it's not a lie, he loves him too much sometimes.

"You talk now, for good?" Georgie finally says after releasing the hug, Bill opened his eyes to see his little brother looking at him with so much optimism and hope in his eyes.

Bill nods, before realizing he didn't even need to nod. "For good," he settles for.

"What changed?"

He turns to look at Stan.

After a dreadful half-hour call Stan sat through regarding Richie venting on his "soon-to-be" relationship with Eddie Kaspbrak, Bill calls Mike. They're not that close, he knows this, but he's not ready for the questions and the interrogation everyone else will give him. So he calls Mike, because Mike is mature and collected, and because he trusts him.

"Bill?"

He's never called someone on the phone before and answered in five years. It feels oddly natural to him as he goes to answer anyway.

"Mike," he nods to himself, gulping at his reflection in his full body mirror placed over his bedroom door. His hair is ruffled a bit and his clothes are a bit wrinkled, but he still can't help but smile back at himself in pride.

"Holy shit, okay," Mike coughs out, and Bill lets out a laugh, followed by the boy on the other end of the phone. "This is new."

Bill hums in response, not sure how to carry a conversation after years of never having to. The boy sits down on the corner of his bed, looking over to his beanbag on the floor, where Stan and Georgie are currently fighting out with Bill's pillows.

"Still getting used to it," Bill says after a quiet moment, and it takes a bit for him to articulate why he had called Mike in the first place. Right, for a safe space to talk.

"It must be weird. It's been a while," Mike answers vaguely as Bill exits his room and slides down to the floor against the hallway wall, phone up to his ear.

"My voice isn't what I remember. Well, I didn't remember, but now that I've got it back, it sounds all gross and rough."

"Sounds like puberty, man." There's a soft chuckle from the other end of the phone.

"I don't think I'm gonna tell my mom. Not for a while, at least. I'm trying to ease in and she's just gonna make it so much harder. But she'll figure it out at one point," Bill sighed and began his ramble. "I sound like my dad. I didn't— his voice. His voice was literally in my head the first time I talked today. I thought he was there with me."

"Maybe he was. Maybe he is," Mike said carefully, as though not to startle him.

"Yeah, maybe he is."

Nobody mentions it when Richie and Eddie come back from spring break with their hands interlocked, Richie with a tan and Eddie with a new spot of freckles covering his nose. Not even Myra, who casts Eddie sympathy glances and guilty stares across the room in their Western Civilization course. She's got her hair curled a different way this semester and a tan similar to Richie's, but Eddie doesn't turn her way.

At lunch, Ben and Beverly sit on opposite sides of the table instead of adjacent to each other as usual. Bill takes note of how Beverly's demeanor is exactly of before, and how her eyes once and a while will glance up to stare at a girl from Bill's statistics course. Bill doesn't miss how Ben's shoulders are a bit drooped down and he doesn't smile as much. He wishes he missed it though because Ben looks at Beverly the same way Stan looks at him, and Bill in return. Like there's flowers in her eyes and a song in her heartbeat.

Instead of dwelling any further, Bill asks Mike if he can have one of his potato chips, and the table gapes at him while Stan laughs.

Days, maybe weeks later, Bill finds himself sitting at his father's piano bench with Stan. The piano's placed hidden away in the living room, dust collected on all the keys and the sheets of paper been untouched for quite some time since his mother had used it times ago.

The air in the room feels different now sitting here next to Stan at the piano. Bill's fingers graze over the keys and softly tap on a few, letting the room fill with some soft chords that ring Stan's ears. His boyfriend stands up and grabs the first piano piece he can find, placing it on the piano holder for Bill to see.

It's the song. The one his mother and father played at the old house, where the piano fit in the middle of the room and the sun filtered through the windows and the open curtains to give the whole room a golden glow that fit the vibe.

As he plays Mr. Sandman, he lets go of memories of his mother and father singing softly to the beat of the song, of their smiles, their last laughs, and he thinks of Stan instead. Stan next to him, beginning to mumble the lyrics next to him.

Don't get him wrong, Stan is a terrible singer, but hearing the soft hum next to him helps him let go of memories so much easier. He wants to make memories, not dwell on past ones filled with joy that slowly flicker to days without his father and the pain after.

"You thinkin' of your mom?" Stan mumbles after Bill finishes. Bill finds it odd Stan didn't ask when he learned to play the piano, but Bill supposes he knows what he's thinking too well anyway.

"I was. Then of you," Bill replies honestly, and turns to his left, at Stan's soft eyes and the golden rays of the sun seeping in through the windows behind the closed curtains. He gently places his hand over Stan's, laying his head on his shoulder, facing the music.

Later, he stands and opens the curtains, letting in a new light.

+ + +

i'm still in shock that i've finally finished this, considering this has been with me for over three years now. thank you from the bottom of my heart to the people here supporting me from the beginning, during the process, or if you just binged this right now. i seriously love all of you and every single comments makes my whole day.

this last chapter was so hard to write because i didn't want to let go of the characters yet, so that's why it took me so long to write, even if it's so short. i've been writing this very out of order for a while. also you can definitely tell i wanted to keep a lot of characters endings open, just because their stories aren't over yet. feel free to ask me anything about anything in the comments. also, i might do a couple bonus chapters later on!

im working on new projects from this fandom and other fandoms, so look out for those at one point! thank you all again for reading!

love, penny :)