Chapter Text
“Did you tell him?” Mike’s voice asked through the phone. Ben shook his head even though he knew Mike couldn’t see it.
“Not yet. He...he had a rough night yesterday. I’m not sure he even slept at all.”
He could hear the sadness in the sigh that his friend exhaled.
“I hate seeing him like this. I can’t...I can’t believe we didn’t even know until now.”
“Tell me about it,” Ben groaned, leaning back into his desk chair as he held his phone to his ear with his shoulder.
Eddie was gone at class with Beverly for the next two hours and, not that he particularly liked talking about his friend behind his back, but they were all too worried about him not to check in every now and again.
“He and I have been looking through the campus website and all their organizations for a few days now, but either he dropped out or he literally does nothing outside of going to class,” Ben sighed, scribbling some plans onto his calendar to pass the time.
“I think Stan got my box in the mail yesterday, but I’m not sure. It could’ve been today. I probably should’ve just asked him what his roommate’s name was first.”
“You’re already making more progress than the rest of have so far, dude. I’ll probably tell Eddie when he gets back from class, but I don’t want to get his hopes up if it turns out not to be him, you know?”
Mike hummed on the other end.
“I just can’t stand to see him get any worse than how he’s been dealing with this. I think...I think if this guy isn’t Richie, he might not come back from this.”
“We’re gonna’ find him, no matter what. Just focus on that. He’ll be okay ‘cause we’re not done until he’s happy.”
Ben laughed a little to himself.
“You really are a godsend, Mikey. I might just have to steal ya’ from Bill if you pull this off,” he teased.
Mike snorted a laugh.
“There’s more than enough of me to go around, Bill can share.”
“I’m holding you to that. I’ll see you later man, I should finish this project before Eddie gets back,” Ben finished, saying goodbye as he hung up to continue his work.
As he expected, Eddie walked through their dorm room door almost thirty minutes after his class ended.
“Still refuse to ride on the back of Bev’s bike?” Ben teased, only glancing up for a second to make sure it was Eddie and not one of their other friends.
“It’s not safe and I’m not ten, I’d just fall off,” he sighed tiredly, dumping all of his things onto his desk before flopping back onto his bed.
“Counter point; you would’ve been back twenty minutes ago.”
Eddie just groaned in response.
Ben spun around in his desk chair until he faced the opposite wall where Eddie lay face down on his bed.
“So...I think I deserve a hug for being the best roommate ever,” Ben smiled coyly.
“You’re a fucking idiot if you think I’m getting up to give you a hug,” he spoke into his comforter.
“Not even for finding Richie for you?”
Eddie froze.
He shot upright like a rocket and pressed his back to the wall.
His face was stark white and his eyes were wide and glassy like he could burst into tears at any moment.
“Really?” He whispered, tears welling in his eyes as his voice cracked.
Ben spun his chair around to grab his laptop and pull open the email Mike had forwarded to him from his friend at the UCLA library.
“Technically Mike found him, but he’s looking for you t-“
Eddie practically dove off the bed to wrap his best friend up in a hug. He was shaking and weeping, but with the widest smile on his face.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he muttered over and over into Ben’s shoulder. “Oh my fucking god, thank you so much.”
Ben just laughed lightly, rubbing the smaller boy’s back as his breathing slowly became steadier.
“You don’t have to thank any of us, Eddie. We just want you to be happy,” he spoke sweetly, making his friend melt at the sentiment.
“Fuck,” he cried, laughing and smiling as he wiped the tears from his cheeks. “What the fuck did I do to deserve you guys?”
Ben just squeezed him tight smacked a loud, overdramatic kiss to his cheek, which made the other boy laugh loudly.
“You’re like my little brother and I love you, dude. If you say he’s the one for you, we’re gonna’ do whatever it takes to get you to California.”
Eddie just held on tighter.
“You have no idea how much this means to be, Ben, I love you so much.”
They stayed in that position for longer than either would like to admit, just clinging to each other. Ben eventually pulled his phone out of his pocket and sneakily texted that their friends could come over and intercept some gratitude from their smallest friend, which was met with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. He wasn’t sure if Eddie had fallen asleep on him from the steadiness of his breathing, but when he looked over the boy’s shoulder, he saw he was very much awake and staring at the boy’s Facebook page.
“Hey,” he prompted, getting Eddie to sit upright whilst still sitting in his lap. “Is that him?” Eddie smiled and held out his phone for Ben to see. All he had was the profile photo and header, but his attention very clearly skipped right over the personal information in the profile and went straight to the header picture that had Richie holding Eddie by the waist from behind and Eddie screaming with the widest grin as the jumped into a lake behind them.
It was a look none of Eddie’s friends had ever seen before, aside from Bev who had actually taken the picture.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Eddie smiled, clicking on the photo to enlarge it. “This was the Fourth of July I think. Maybe our sophomore or junior year of high school.”
“You look so happy,” Ben commented, hoping he wasn’t overstepping.
“I don’t think I ever laughed like that with anyone else,” he explained sadly. “You guys are amazing, don’t get me wrong. I love all of you so, so much, but...I never realized the reason I could be that happy was because of him. I didn’t even know how without him.”
Ben sighed, grabbing the laptop out of Eddie’s lap and typing away before raising the volume and playing a song. Eddie’s eyes lit up, not even needing to ask what Ben was playing as the voice started singing. He simply flopped down on the bed with his arms pulling his hoodie right around his body and closed his eyes.
When I wake up, well I know I'm gonna be,
I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you.
Even Ben, who had tried his hand at songwriting a few times back in his poetry-writing days, couldn’t help but be amazed at the songs this mystery man churned out of nowhere.
He wanted it to be Richie, if he had to admit it. Not that he wanted Eddie to be surprised with an ex-boyfriend who didn’t remember him, let alone for Richie to have to be plagued with the mental and physical repercussions of that kind of accident, but something about it felt right. Something about the mystery man was too intertwined in their story to be a coincidence.
But I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more. Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles to fall down at your door.
For someone who wasn’t religious, he prayed everything would turn out okay. Eddie was the kind of friend he never thought he’d have, but now that he did, he was more protective of him that he would’ve ever guessed. Even just watching him listen to the song, he seemed so sad and Ben knew he’d do anything to make that look go away.
When I'm lonely, well I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you. And when I'm dreaming, well I know I'm gonna dream, I'm gonna dream about the time when I'm with you.
“I didn’t think I’d ever be telling you to go after your ex,” he started, thankfully earning a small chuckle from Eddie. “But he’s special. Whatever happens, don’t forget about how you felt in that picture.” Eddie sat up and looked at him as he spoke, his eyes sad and almost...scared. “No matter what happens when you see him, remember that having a smile like that on your face is something worth fighting for.”
He smiled and hugged his friend as the song faded out, pulling on some shoes and tucking his phone into his pocket.
“I know, Benny. I lost him once, I’m not losing him again without a fight,” he chuckled, despite the seriousness in his words. “I’m gonna’ take a walk. I think...I think I just need to think about all of this for a little while.”
Ben modded, tossing him his dorm key and headphones from on the bed and, just like that, the boy was gone.