Chapter Ten

The sun hadn't even crested the horizon yet, but he yawned awake anyway, stretching tall as he sat up. Drilled into him as a boy, his body clock was precise and hardly ever wrong, even on nights as late as the one before.

His grandfather had bid him the night off, and today too, on the understanding that he'd do extra chores tomorrow. Mike thought that was more than fair, and had grinned brightly to convey how much he appreciated the man's leniency. He was a taskmaster for sure, but there was a heart in there too.

He grinned at the colours cast by the pale morning light filtering through the paper on the windows. It had been a whole lotta work, but seeing the room come together had made every second worth it. They'd teased Eddie in good humour about it whenever Richie wasn't around, but Mike was real proud of what they'd achieved, and incredibly proud of the mind behind the whole plan. He swung his head around to look for the boy in question as he prepared to get up to use the bathroom, and smiled gently to himself, pausing just for a second to look.

At first, he'd nearly missed him, curled as small as he was, Richie half-draped across his side, one long pale arm framing the opening of Eddie's sleeping bag. The taller boy was an almost protective crescent shape around Eddie's much smaller form, and Mike's heart gave a small thrum. On the sofa, Bill and Stan were top-and-tail, both turned towards the back cushions, Bill's sleeping bag crooked behind where Stan's knees were.

Ben lay on his front, face pillowed on his arms, a soft rose on the tops of his cheeks. In sleep, perhaps even more so than when he was awake, the soulful boy's expression was soft and open and lovely. He'd never met anyone like Ben, who had seen so much darkness and suffered so much awful, and still smiled so sweetly, kindness leaking from him to anyone who looked remotely like they needed it. There was a real, gentle strength in Ben that it was impossible not to admire.

Mike had never felt the odd one out of the Losers Club, despite the myriad of reasons one might have expected to make him so. He had no history with any of them in Derry, the four years they'd all been together was hardly anything compared to the depth of history that their original four shared. Mike was home schooled, lived just outside of the main town boundary even, and he'd been the last to join. To an onlooker, these were reasons why his place in their ranks might come as a surprise. And yet, he never did feel that way himself. Even though there were deep connections that criss-crossed the many members, he'd never felt like his were any weaker for his late appearance.

They'd built their new histories together since that fateful summer, and it never ceased to amaze Mike that he belonged.

Even when, as he looked now as the five sleeping boys and stepped gingerly over them to leave the room, he had an inkling there might lie changes in their futures.

~.~

Eddie knew it was still early before he even opened his eyes, could feel it in his bones. He lay still, enjoying the languid, lazy process of waking. There was a familiar sound close by, soft and snuffly. He could feel the day's potential already, seeping warmly into his skin. A page turned gently somewhere.

Actually, he thought as he swam a little closer to wakefulness, that warmth on his skin was a comfortable weight. He shifted one shoulder experimentally, but instead of the blanket falling further down as he expected, it tightened gently, and-

Oh.

Eddie froze, and he didn't need to move his head or open his eyes to know what the warmth on his neck was. Richie was asleep against his back, his dark jungle of curls brushing the back of Eddie's head with every breath. He felt much more awake, all of a sudden, his pulse jumping in surprise as his eyes finally popped open. Richie's arm was thrown over him, long pale fingers curling at the outside edge of the sleeping bag as though to keep it there, and Eddie could feel the press of Richie's knees behind his own, even through their sleeping bags.

He was broken from his potential startled panic, however, when the sound of someone turning a page came again.

Well, shit.

Someone was awake, which means someone had seen, and so much for keeping secrets. He hadn't even had time to figure out what he wanted to say, or if he even did want to say, and what if they were sitting thinking about- What if they'd decided they didn't want to be friends with queers, and they'd accidentally ruined everything and- Ohhh fucking, shit. This was bad, this could be real bad, what if they told everyone, what if-

Richie murmured then, right against the back of Eddie's neck and making him jump, and the arm over him crooked, drawing them closer together. Richie was a warmth all up Eddie's back already, but the gesture was so gentle that it broke through the rising panic in his thoughts as if the taller boy had known Eddie was freaking out.

He flushed. That was stupid and sappy, but… He appreciated it, anyway. Even if Richie hadn't actually meant it, he'd made Eddie realise how stupid he was being.

The Losers were his friends. Sure, maybe telling them he was gay was still gonna be hard, and maybe he was still worried about it. But they wouldn't tell Derry. They wouldn't do that, be so cruel. They were his friends, remember? They weren't out to hurt him.

And besides, Eddie realised with an embarrassing jolt, this wasn't the first time they'd woken close together at a sleepover. It wasn't like they never, y'know… It wasn't like the Losers didn't… hug, and stick close to each other and stuff. Eddie swallowed the lump in his throat as rolled his eyes at himself. He was over thinking, because he knew they were soulmates. That was all. The others didn't know that, did they?

He finally shifted, yawning and pushing himself up on his hands to look over the room. As his eyes found Ben sitting with his back against a table leg reading a comic, though, the greeting on his tongue died. Because Richie gave a soft whine and tightened his arm around Eddie's waist, burying his face in the pooled material of Eddie's sleeping bag.

Eddie gave him an automatic shove as his face burned, and Richie mewled again, his face scrunching up in confusion as he flopped onto his back.

"Eds…" he mumbled, sleepy voice coloured with complaint as he slipped back into sleep.

Eddie met Ben's eye, his whole body burning, and almost couldn't say good morning when the bigger boy simply smiled warmly. Eddie kind of wished Richie wasn't so damn clingy when he was sleeping. He avoided looking at his best friend as he wriggled out of his sleeping bag and put distance between them, before pointing awkwardly at the door and scuttling out as quickly as he could, almost tripping over Mike in the process.

By the time he'd brushed his teeth and splashed his face with cold water a couple times, Eddie was feeling a little bit better. Anxious was normal for him, of course, but it wasn't usually this bad. He felt… Well, he felt kind of guilty, he supposed. Like he was keeping some terrible secret. Only this time, he wasn't just keeping quiet about the fact he liked boys the way he was supposed to like girls, or even the fact that he liked Richie in a way he'd always believed he shouldn't.

Now he was hiding that he'd found his soulmate, too. And that felt… Well, it felt worse than he'd expected, and he wasn't sure what about it it was that gave him the heavy dark weight of guilt in his belly, but it did.

Eddie fingered the collar of Bill's nightshirt as he looked at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. His face was flushed pink and awkward-looking, and he was chewing his lip absentmindedly. He eyed his clothes from the day before, still folded neatly on the floor amongst the untidy contributions of his friends.

Although he itched for clean clothes, he knew it really wouldn't kill him to wear them again. He had to get over things like this, striving for absolute cleanliness. Knowing he was doing it to stall on going back downstairs, Eddie shucked off Bill's spare nightshirt - brought with him in the hopes that Eddie might somehow be allowed to sleepover at the Tozier's last minute, knowing how Richie's clothes drowned him so, - and smiled, folding it neatly for him and grabbing his clothes.

Stan was awake by the time he got back, already out of his sleeping bag and looking somehow sleep-rumpled and still neat at the same time. Bill and Richie were still out cold, though the former had flipped onto his back and tossed an arm over his eyes. Stan met Eddie's eye the moment he appeared in the doorway, rising from the sofa with a smile.

"Took you long enough." he murmured in greeting as he passed by, Ben and Mike chuckling quietly at Eddie's surprised expression.

"He's been waiting," Mike grinned when Eddie looked to them for explanation, "I think he needs to go."

Eddie squirmed guiltily.

"Oh. Whoops."

Mike's headshake told him the apologetic tone was unnecessary. Eddie glanced at his watch, even though he'd looked at it not ten minutes ago in the bathroom.

"We got a while before we meet Bev," Ben said, then, eying their two sleeping friends, "Mike and me thought maybe we could go to the quarry today."

"It's supposed to be pretty hot today." Eddie answered automatically, distracted with the task of choosing where to sit.

You could still get sunburn in March if you weren't careful. Eddie paused half-way to the ground at Richie's feet, landing with a bump as he remembered he'd left his fanny pack at home. He hadn't been expecting to need-

Well, he didn't need it, not really. They had supplies at the Clubhouse, of course, if they needed anything. He was just so used to carrying it.

"We can pick up sunblock when we meet Bev at the Barrens." Mike answered easily, tossing Eddie a controller with a smile and snickering when Eddie look at it in confusion.

"Uh…"

"Wanna see whether Richie's ability to sleep through anything works with video games?"

Eddie blinked in surprise, but he could feel the way his lips curled upwards, and Ben laughed with them.

"I wonder if he'll beat Bill." the quiet boy hummed, and it was decided.

They were just getting set up when Stan reappeared, neat and prim in his pressed trousers and button-shirt, and although he rolled his eyes and scooped up his sketchpad to settle back onto the sofa, his eyes were alight with the joke.

They weren't even a whole minute into a level of Splatterhouse before Richie was scrambling from his sleeping bag with an obnoxiously loud yell and demanding Eddie play him next. Since that woke Bill, the other four called it a tie, and Eddie was less anxious when Richie dropped right behind him like he had a dozen or more times before, his long legs on either side of Eddie's, his chest brushing the shorter boy's back and his arms looping around him as he tried to help with the controls.

They won, of course, despite the others complaining loudly about backseat gaming, and when Maggie came down with an exasperated fondness on her face, Eddie dodged having to play against Richie by offering to help her with breakfast.

It turned out a double win, in Eddie's opinion. Because not only did he get to laugh at Richie's indignant and melodramatic howling for what he called abandonment, but he also got to see how dopily Richie looked at him when they all flooded the kitchen on command to see pancakes being dropped on plates.

And if Richie pulled his chair up too close to his side and deliberately brushed their fingers together every time he reached for the syrup or the leftover popcorn and sweets they'd deigned to use as toppings, then that was a win, too.

~.~