Chapter Text
Eddie is standing outside his room, room 104 with his heavy suitcase by his side, Eddie fishes for his room key inside his bag pulls it out then pushes the door open and is greeted by a small dorm room with two single beds either side, his roommate is already in there and has seemed to have already moved in, his roommates side of the dorm is mainly light blue and blue greys, everything is neat and perfect with some photos of birds that he seemed to have taken himself as Eddie notices the shelf with multiple bird books and cameras, his roommate is peacefully sitting on his bed facing the window reading a book about birds.
Eddie takes a few steps in expecting his roommate to say something but he just continues reading his book, maybe he hasn't noticed me? But just as Eddie thinks that the door behind him closes shut with a loud click but still his roommate doesn't bother to even glance behind him. Eddie continues to walk into the room dragging his suitcase behind him and flops down onto his bed across from the boy. Eddie stares at him for a little bit wondering why he isn't noticing his presence but then he remembers he's at a school for boys who misbehave, is that why he's being ignored? Were all the boys like this? He's never been around someone with an attitude, his mother always told him to stay away from riffraffs and he always did. When he finally concludes that the boy isn't going to say anything Eddie steps up to the plate and takes to first step to communicate, "Hey." Eddie nervously greets the boy before him but he simply ignores him and just calmly turns a page like Eddie isn't even there and for a minute Eddie really doubted if he was there but if there was one thing that Eddies mum always complained about it was that he was stubborn, "I'm Eddie Kaspbrak, I'm your roommate." He says holding his hand out for the blonde boy to shake it.
Finally the boy takes notice of his presence and looks up at him, straight into his eyes, he has honey blonde hair and warm brown eyes, the type of eyes that turn golden in sunlight everything about him was warm but his glare made Eddie feel so cold, he placed a book mark in his book closing it then leaning back not shaking Eddies hand, "I'm Stan." He simply says, Eddie puts his hand back down.
"So is this your first time here?" Eddie asks feeling awkward.
"I've been coming here since Yr 7." Stan says in such a monotone voice that Eddie wonders if he even has emotions.
"Oh wow 4 years? And they didn't fix you up?" Eddie realises what he has said and panics for a second, he never really had control over his mouth and for a split second an emotion was on Stan's face but it was gone so quick Eddie couldn't tell what it was.
"They don't do shit here." He pauses for a bit staring at Eddie for a while and then continues, "its just like any other boarding school just with more harsh punishments. . . That doesn't fix anyone just drives them more."
"Okay, sorry." Eddie quietly apologises feeling a bit guilty for what he said, Eddie feels so out of place and he knows that Stan knows he doesn't belong here, if all the boys are like this he's going to stick out like a sore thumb, is he going to get bullied or be an outcast? Eddie has never really been bullied or never had anyone to hangout with, he's never truly been alone especially when he was with his mum but now he's 16 and alone so alone in a place for bad kids, how did he get here? Where did he go wrong? Just as all these thoughts were crashing down on him Stan tilts his head back in a way that makes it look like he's kind of smiling, kind of. Handsome. Eddie thinks but then quickly shuts out that thought.
"You don't have a good grip on that mouth of yours huh?" Stan asks abruptly.
"Huh?"
"Your mouth works faster than your brain." He simply says.
"Sorry." Eddie replies.
"It's okay if anything that's like my friend Richie, he has a mouth dirtier than a sewer but faster than a race car to the point where sometimes you don't understand what he's saying." Stan says fondly.
"Oh." To be honest Eddie is surprised this boy even has a friend with his attitude, he seems so emotionally disconnected that he could unplug someone's life support machine to recharge his phone, or sell your soul to the devil for just a small bag of chips and not lose a wink of sleep over it.
"But I guess there are some things that I should tell a new comer like you." Stan says interrupting Eddies train of thought. "Even though this is a school for "bad kids" most of the people here are just weird . . Not bad but Henry and his goons, Patrick, Victor and Belch are horrible, don't look at them, don't breathe their air and don't say anything to them, Richie often forgets that last one and gets the living shit beaten out of him." Stan says still monotoned, the way he speaks makes it seem like he doesn't want to but like he must, kind of like a chore, you don't want to but have to. "And our sister school next door . . Keep dreaming, any contact with them and you're fucked but you don't want any contact with them anyway they're even worse over there than here oh and just stay away from the fence dividing us." He flatly says with no context picking his book back up.
"Well with all the things I have to stay away from . . Is there anything I should go towards?" Eddie asks to try and lighten the mood.
"The library is mostly empty only a few students are there and no matter what you're going to get to know Richie he hangs out in my room a lot." And with that Stan was lost in his book again. Eddie was now looking out the window his view wasn't all that bad, he was 4 stories high off the ground and had a view over the schools garden, there were all sorts of vegetables and flowers then Eddie started to wonder about Stan, he was weird that's for sure but he oddly liked him, sure he has a bit of an attitude but it's not to that point where he's obnoxious, his room was really neat, neater than Eddies back at home and pleasant to look at too, it had a colour scheme that worked though a bit boring and Stan doesn't look too bad if Eddie had an ideal partner it would probably be Stan but just as he thought that there was a loud bang from down the hallway outside then stomps coming closer and closer to the door. "Speak of the devil." Stan says unfazed still looking at his book.
"What?" Eddie asks confused.
"Richie." Stan replies flatly.
"Oh." Eddie says but is muffled out by the fast repeating knocks on the door, Eddie sits there for a bit expecting Stan to get up and let his friend in but he doesn't so Eddie nervously gets up and walking up to the door, as soon as the lock unlocks with a click the door flies open slamming into Eddie and sandwiching him between the door and the wall, a tall boy runs in straight to Stan and starts talking to him about some sort of experience he just had but Eddie can't understand what he's saying right now because he's too preoccupied with the buzzing pain throughout his body, he just got assaulted by a door then the wall decided to join in so the pain was everywhere though it quickly left but decided to linger in his head for a while longer.
Eddie slithers out from behind the door and closes it walking back to his bed and sitting down on it, Richie was talking about how he was hanging out with two girls at the sister school next door, Eddie looks at Stan with a look about to say 'I thought we weren't supposed to go there' but before he could get any of it out Richie says "here hold this, I even got photos with them." He hands Eddie a small paper roll, Eddie has never seen this before, he was just about to unroll it when he thought that's probably not a good idea, so Eddie just sat there with it in his open palm while Richie was showing Stan the photos on his phone. "Here." Richie says shoving his phone in Eddies face quickly scrolling through the photos, in the photos were two red haired girls, one had super short curly hair that was a bit unkept and messy, while the other one had straight hair that ends right at her shoulders but slightly curls in at the tips, though Eddie thought the girl with the short crazy hair was super pretty.
"So what were you doing with them? And how did you get in without anyone noticing you? You would stick out so badly, crazy matted hair, huge glasses, and not to mention your like 6ft tall." Eddie spews out without thinking.
Stan slightly smiles while Richie bursts out with laughter. "Ouch, awfully blunt of ya, well I'll have to let you know little boy that I'm a super sneaky ninja and can sneak around anywhere." He practically shouts he's that loud.
"I heard you coming here from down the hall," Eddie says a bit pissed off now, he never liked being called 'little' or 'short', "and what were you doing there anyway? I can't imagine a girl wanting to hang out with you."
"Well little man this may surprise you but ladies love me, I'm quite the catch with my oh so awesome personality and my even better looks." He says with a grin and with closer inspection Eddie notices all the little hickeys in his neck, "oh and where are my manners? I haven't even introduced myself! I'm Tozier, Richie Tozier." He says holding his hand out for Eddie to shake.
"Eddie Kaspbrak." He says taking Richies hand to shake but instead of shaking it Richie flips it over and kisses the back of his hand making Eddie quickly pull away, his face turning a peachy pink over his tan skin.
"So Eddie Kaspbrak . . . I've never seen ya around before, so you must be new, so buster watcha do to get here?" Richie says shining his phones torch into his face like he's interrogating him.
How the hell was Eddie supposed to say 'oh hey guys I'm here because I was doing things with a boy I shouldn't' he could never say that instead he lied, "Drugs." Eddie says without thinking, what was he thinking though? He knows nothing about drugs but it was the first thing that came to mind.
Stan looks down at the paper roll in Eddies hand while Richie laughs again, "if you were here for drugs you would know that that in your hand is a blunt" Richie says smiling.
Eddie looks back down in his hand in shock, he's never been around drugs before and now he's holding one right in his hand, straight away Eddie tries to give it back to Richie but Richie doesn't take it and jokingly says "Hey, you're the drug expert, that's why you're here remember?"
Eddie doesn't know what to do and starts to slightly panic but then Stan calmly says "beep beep Richie." And with that Richie takes the blunt still smiling.
"Well we'll be smoking this so I think you wanna get going, maybe explore . . . I think you'll like the library, there are some nice kids around there, just walk across the court to building C" Richie says lighting the blunt not looking at Eddie. Eddie gets up and goes to head out the door but right before the door is about to call he hears Richie call out, "oh and don't go near the fence!" And with that Eddie is now out in the hallway on his way to the library walking blind.
Eddie is on the bottom floor of his dorm walking down some hallways when he runs into a fight already? He thinks to himself as he tries to slip by, the fight is between a pretty boy with auburn hair and a boy who even looks really friendly in the middle of a fight, they're both wrestling on the ground over something but Eddie can't see what but that doesn't matter anymore because he's already outside in the courtyard.
For a school full of delinquents it's awfully pretty, this place seems like a lie everything seems so ethereal, plants over growing everything and nice butterflies greeting you everywhere but the people that inhabit this place are 'weird' like Stan says but Eddie doesn't believe him, hell there was a fight back there, this is without a doubt a school for bad kids but then a noise pulls Eddie out of his thought about halfway through the courtyard . . . Is someone crying? Eddie thinks to himself, he can hear crying . . . A girl crying, it's coming from the fence, he knows he was told twice from both Stan and Richie not to go to the fence but this person is crying, what if she needs help?
As Eddie walks closer to the fence he see's a girl sitting down with her head in her knee's with long brown hair touching the floor, as Eddie gets to the fence he meekly calls out "are you okay?" Her crying stops, "hey what's your name? I can go get a teacher" Eddie comforts as he puts his hand on the fence making it jingle.
The girl suddenly spins around launching herself at Eddie grabbing his hand on the fence pulling it through twisting it painfully, Eddie screams out in pain but is quickly cut off, "if you don't give me money I'm going to break your arm." She demands Eddie applying more pressure.
"I-I don't have any money!" Eddie screams.
"Well that's too bad for you." She says with a wicked smile, applying more pressure to Eddies arm as he struggles and right before Eddie feels like his arm is about to pop another hand flies past Eddies face grabbing the girl by the hair, pulling her towards them making her smash her face on the fence, blood splatter from her nose onto Eddies arm and she lets go.
Eddie pulls his arm out of the fence stumbling back and grabbing it to make sure it's not actually broken, everything seems fine but then Eddie is swiftly grabbed again and is pulled away by the guy who helped him well he's practically being dragged, Eddies legs aren't moving but the boy has Eddie wrapped around in his left arm while his right arm is carrying a giant sack full of a bunch of things that are square shaped, the boy is running like he's being chased so Eddie looks to see who's chasing them and it's the pretty boy from the fight before and he's gaining on them fast. "If you don't want to be in the same position like you were at the fence then I suggest you start moving your legs." The boy carrying him suggests and Eddie realises that it's the kind looking boy from the fight and with that Eddie was on his own two feet running.
A few minutes later of binding and turning around corner they lose the pretty boy and the stop to catch a quick breather, "You must be new. . . You went to the fence" He says breathing heavily.
"Um yeah, thanks."
"No problem, I'm Mike." Mike says walking down the hallways with Eddie following.
"I'm Eddie, so why were you being chased?" He questions.
"Well you saw us fighting a few minutes ago." He says stopping at a small door.
"Well what made you guys fight? What did he do wrong?"
"He didn't do anything wrong, I stole his book but thanks for thinking I was in the right." He says as he opens the door walking in.
"Wait you stole his book?" Eddie says surprised, that entire fight was over a book? Mike walks over to a table where there's another boy sitting and empties the sack in front of him, a ton of books spill out some crashing down onto the floor. Did he steal all of these?
"Oh hey Mike." The boy says innocently, "who's this?" He says gesturing to Eddie.
"That's Eddie, he's new here . . . I found him at the fence." Mike says putting the books into a neat pile.
"The fence! Usually people at least warn new comers of the fence, well anyway I'm Ben and this is our library." Ben says with his hands up in the air like Eddie is supposed to bask in the glory of the library that's no bigger than a very small classroom.
"This is the library? It's tiny and dark!" Eddie looks around a bit more noticing there's no computers and only three desks.
"Well it's better than the 'official library'" Ben says with quotation marks.
"Official? Is this even the actual library?" Eddie questions suspicious on why they have their own dingy one instead of just going to the normal school library.
"Well our one is ten times better because it's not full of assholes and if we see anyone in here who isn't supposed to be, we can just beat 'em up." Mike says as he starts putting the books on the shelf in order of category.
"And why am I here?" Eddie asks.
"Mike helped you and I guess he didn't really have a choice to leave you behind and your new meaning you don't really know anyone so you could join our group and help with our library!" Ben says with such enthusiasm that it would be almost impossible for Eddie to say no to being their friends.
"Well okay . . . I'll help with your library but I don't want to do anything bad!" Eddie clarifies.
"Aw where's the fun in that?" Ben asks a bit disappointed but before Eddie could answer Mike joins them with a game of monopoly, "let's play a board game for now!" He finishes.
Right as they finish playing monopoly with Ben winning and Eddie coming last the time was now 9:45. "Crap! It's 9:45! We're meant to be in our dorm room by 6!" Eddie says full of panic.
"People are always late to their dorm it's normal, just don't get caught." Mike says as Eddie grabs his dorm keys an fly out the door.
Eddie runs down a few hallways until he finds him self in the courtyard again and continues to run into the dorm, not a single teacher or body guard was in sight which Eddie thought was weird but he just ignored it and continued on into his dorm room, when he gets inside Stan is already asleep and the room stinks of weed, Eddie walks over to the window opening it and hops into bed, tomorrow is another day.