Chapter Text
Even at eighteen, Richie and Eddie still managed to share the hammock in the underground clubhouse. Bev had sewn some additional material to either side of the original fabric and reinforced the ties to give them a little more room and support, because she knew that occupying that space together was more important to them than either would say out loud.
One of Richie’s knees was bent high, propped on the parabola, the other leg stretched so far out that his foot dangled over the edge near Eddie’s elbow. Eddie’s feet were crossed at the ankles, just resting against Richie’s lowered thigh.
Mike and Bill were sat on boxes, playing cards on an upturned bucket. Bev and Ben were sprawled on a rug on the floor, propped with pillows.
Stan was late; he’d been playing baseball. He thudded into the hideout with a spit of dust under his shoes. ‘Right. I’ve got a date.’
Bill twisted his head around sharply. ‘W-what do you m-m-mean?’
‘For the prom.’ Bev rocked to lean on her elbow. ‘You asked someone?’
‘Who?’ Eddie furrowed his brow.
‘Melissa.’
‘Melissa Bridges?’ Richie looked impressed.
‘Yeah.’ Stan took a handkerchief out of his back pocket, wiped down the top of a barrel, and then sat down on it.
Bill clenched the cards in his hand. ‘W-wow.’
‘What’s she like?’ Mike asked.
‘She’s very pretty,’ Ben said quietly.
‘She’s beautiful,’ Bev huffed. ‘And more importantly, not a complete bitch.’
Richie snorted. ‘Don’t worry, Bev. You’re one of those things.’
Bev threw a cushion at him. ‘Asshole.’
‘I didn’t realise you knew her that well, Stan.’ Eddie commented.
Stan wrinkled his nose. ‘I don’t really. She’s on the softball team, so we see each other around, and she was at the game. She came up to me after. Said I had a good pitching arm. And I don’t know,’ he shrugged, ‘I just asked her if she had a date yet. She said she hadn’t, so I said I’d take her, if she wanted.’
‘Swish.’ Richie whistled. ‘I’d better get off my ass and ask someone already.’ He slapped Eddie’s calf. ‘Is your mom free that night?’
Eddie jostled him off. ‘Fuck off, Tozier,’ he said, but there wasn’t as much ire in it as Richie expected.
‘I didn’t think,’ Ben started, then stopped, curling his legs under himself. ‘I didn’t know if we were doing dates. I know that Bev’s taking Mike and all.’ He could feel himself blushing, and begged the colour to drain away.
‘We’re not going like that,’ Bev stressed.
‘No,’ Ben said hurriedly. ‘Yeah. I know.’
Mike’s eyes flicked between the pair on the floor, not knowing if he was supposed to say something. He’d been surprised when Beverly asked him to the prom, and touched that she wanted him to be there, so that the Losers could all be together. He knew it wasn’t a romantic invitation, and nor did he want it to be, but he’d still felt a little odd about it. Technically, Beverly was Bill’s ex-girlfriend, even if they hadn’t dated for very long and it had been a long time ago, and Beverly was very much Mike’s friend in her own right.
But Beverly had mentioned she’d told the Losers her plan to invite Mike, and that they’d said it was a great idea, and that they wanted him to come with them, so he’d figured that the Losers were all alright with it, that they understood. But as he looked at Ben now, he wasn’t so sure. After all, who else would Ben Hanscom want to be his prom date than Beverly Marsh?
‘Oh,’ Stan said, the corner of his mouth dipping. ‘I thought -- I thought if we were doing this thing, then we were going all out. You know, like Richie said. The whole “experience”.’ He marked the word with air quotes. ‘Was I wrong?’
Bill straightened his shoulders. ‘N-no. No, I m-m-mean, I f-f-figured we’d all be t-taking dates.’ It was only half a lie. ‘I m-might ask N-N-Nancy Wright. F-from English class. I d-don’t think anyone’s asked h-her yet.’
Eddie picked at the whitlows around his fingernails. Richie watched him snag the skin enough that he drew blood, pooling into the cuticle.
Bev looked at Ben, then forced her gaze elsewhere. ‘What about you, Eddie?’
Eddie pressed his injured finger to his lips to try and quell the flow of blood. Richie waited for his answer, as patiently as he could.
‘I haven’t really thought about it.’ Eddie said. ‘Don’t know who I’d ask.’
Mike cocked his head. ‘What about your neighbour? Denise.’
‘She’s a junior,’ Richie said, too quickly.
‘S-so?’ Bill said. ‘You can t-t-take underclassmen to p-prom.’
Eddie looked at his finger. It was still bleeding. He clamped his other hand around it. ‘Maybe.’
‘You can take my mom if I can take yours.’ Richie tried.
Eddie rolled his eyes, then leaned to rummage in his bag for a disinfectant wipe and a plaster.
Richie watched him gently tend his wound. It still was a marvel to him how literally anything Eddie did was fascinating to him. He studied Eddie as magnetically and delightedly as Stan could be when he was watching birds. As awed. As distant.
Stan rather felt like he was bird watching too, as he tried to get a good look at Bill’s expression, but Bill refused to catch his gaze. His stomach twisted. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked Melissa outright, but he hadn’t thought it was something he needed to check with the others first. It was just the done thing when it came to prom. He was simply fulfilling the brief as it had been laid out over the years of studying social rules. And he’d wanted to get it out of the way, so he could tick it off the list.
Bev, on the other hand, didn’t know where to look. She could tell that Ben was feeling self-conscious, and she didn’t know how to help. There was always a little bit of tension between them, but normally it felt sort of good.
He made her nervous, but in a girlish, innocent way that compelled her to tuck her red hair behind her ears. She was special to him, she knew that, and she liked that she was. But if Ben still harboured any feelings for her, like he once had for sure, then he’d never said anything about it. Never done anything about it.
She’d asked Mike to the prom because she was the only one who could, and she really did think they ought to spend it the seven of them. But when she’d let herself indulge a fantasy of her prom night, she’d always imagined herself beside Ben. Part of her was scared that he wouldn’t ask her. Another part was scared that he would. Asking Mike meant she didn’t have to face either.
Sensing the mood in the room was souring, Mike stacked the cards and started to shuffle. ‘Shall we play some knock-out whist?’
The Losers were all grateful for the change of topic. They gathered in a circle, and each pored over their hands, wondering what cards they were going to play.
---
Richie walked Eddie to his door, as he always did. On Eddie’s porch, his eyes drifted over to the neighbouring house. Denise’s house.
‘Are you gonna ask her?’ Richie queried, as nonchalantly as he could.
Eddie’s eyes flicked to follow Richie’s gaze. He stared at the white columns of Denise’s veranda, the bright yellow door. ‘I said, “I don’t know”.’ He looked back to his friend. ‘Who are you going to ask? Really, I mean.’
Richie shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’
Eddie’s brow furrowed. ‘Well, yeah. It’s prom. Of course it matters.’
‘A few days ago, you seemed cool about not going at all.’
Eddie kicked the pot of a long dead plant. His mother wasn’t good at keeping plants alive, usually because she over-watered them, over-pruned them.
‘It’s not that I don’t want to go,’ he said leadingly. ‘It’s just —’
‘What?’
‘In my head, after all that stuff Bill said, and you said, I kinda thought it was just gonna be that. A night for us. For the Losers, I mean. I thought that was the point. I thought the biggest “Fuck You” part of all of it was that we weren’t gonna do prom their way. We were gonna do it our way. Just us, all together, like it’s always been.’
‘Just us?’ Richie snagged.
Eddie leaned against his front door, but said nothing.
‘So,’ Richie took a couple of paces forwards, spun on his heels, and leaned against the door beside him. ‘You saying you don’t wanna bring a date?’
Eddie sighed. ‘I will.’
Richie rocked his head towards Eddie’s. ‘You know you don’t have to. You can go stag.’
‘I’m not going by myself if no one else is. That’d be —’ he cut himself off.
There was a pause. Richie licked his lips, anchoring his gaze on the house across the street, as he wondered if he really could make the suggestion he was desperate to without arousing a series of follow up questions.
‘What if we both went stag?’
Eddie snapped his head to him. ‘Huh?’
‘Why not? You’re right. It’s a Losers night. That’s why I wanna go. So let’s just go.’ His heart was jackhammering.
‘Really?’ Eddie scoffed.
‘Yeah.’ In a moment of complete madness, or perhaps it was just love, Richie let his head twist so that their faces were centimetres apart. ‘Just us.’
Eddie feared that anything else he said, anything that made Richie think about it too long, might make him change his mind. And all the questions and rebukes he did have were fading away as he took in Richie’s face so close to his own, close enough that if he were brave enough, he could press their lips together and steal a moment from another life, where things were different.
‘You in, Kaspbrak?’
Just barely, unable to fight it, Eddie smiled. ‘Alright.’