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AS THE GROUP MADE THEIR way to the pharmacy, Eddie started ranting about the dangers of touching the new kid. Cordelia couldn't help but smile at the boy.
"I think it's great that we're helping the new kid but we also need to think about our own safety. I mean, he's bleeding all over and you guys know there's an AIDS epidemic happening right now as we speak I mean my mom's friend in New York City got it just by touching a dirty pole in the subway and she got AIDS blood into her system through a hangnail, a hangnail! And they can amputate legs and arms. But how do you—how do you amputate a waist?"
"Eddie, you're being ridiculous," snickered Cordelia as she placed her chin on Stan's back, letting the cooling breeze run through her long locks of hair.
"You know that there are alleys full of AIDS infected needles, right?" They pulled into an alleyway beside the building before getting off their bikes. Cordelia fell back off the bike and into Richie who laughed at her clumsy mistake. Her pale cheeks turned red from embarrassment, and she hastily adjusted her black skirt.
As everyone else hopped off their bikes, Lia led the boy over to a small wooden box so that he could sit down. He gave her a gracious smile, and she returned it with a grin of her own.
"Richie, wait here," Bill ordered. Cordelia looked up at the brunet and noticed that him, Stan, and Eddie were all ready to run into the pharmacy. "Come on."
Lia glanced back between Richie and the others before following the group. She watched as Eddie rifled through numerous medical supplies, making sure he was getting the right things to help the kid. She glanced over at Stan who was counting the crumpled money that was in his pockets.
"Can we afford all that?" Cordelia asked Eddie, switching her attention between him, the assortment of medical supplies in his arms, and Stan's hands. Eddie's brown eyes looked down at Stan's money which appeared to be only a few dollars.
"It's all we got," Stan frowned.
"You kidding me?" Eddie bit his bottom lip and looked away in frustration. Cordelia rested a hand on his shoulder, but knew that she wasn't really helping any.
"Wait, you have an account here don't you?" Bill asked, turning his head to face Eddie. The latter frowned and furrowed his eyebrows at the leader before taking a step forward.
"If my mom finds out I bought all this stuff for myself, I'll spend the whole rest of the week in the emergency room getting x-rayed." Bill looked over at Cordelia. She shook her head knowing that her mother would abuse her for spending money that wasn't for her grandma's medication.
Suddenly, a young girl that looked to be the others' age appeared at the end of their aisle. Her long red hair was pulled into a ponytail that rested upon her shoulder. Her face was littered with freckles and had beautiful baby blue eyes which widened when she saw the group.
She quickly hid a box behind her back in order to not let the others see what she was holding—not that the boys would understand what they were for.
"You okay?" Cordelia asked her, their blue eyes locking.
"I'm fine, what's wrong with you?" Lia was taken aback by the abrupt rudeness that the red-haired girl displayed.
"None of your business," snapped Stan, equally secretive as the other girl.
"There's a kid outside," Eddie vaguely explained. "Looks like someone killed him."
"We need some s-s-sup-supplies but we don't have enough money," Bill further explained. The girl looked down slightly as she formed an idea in her head.
She walked over to the counter where she started flirting with Mr. Keene. Cordelia's face scrunched in disgust as she watched the young girl place the older man's glasses on her face. She never wanted to go back to the pharmacy again after watching him lean closer to the girl.
The red-haired girl went to hand the glasses back to the pedophile but her hand hit the cigarette stand, knocking it over. She did that on purpose. Glancing over at the other four, she nodded her head as a cue for them to leave.
Stanley accidentally tripped over his feet, bumping into Eddie who then fell into Bill. The brunette groaned at the clumsy boys before wrapping her small hands around Eddie's arms and pulled him out of the pharmacy seeing as he was the one carrying all the supplies.
The refreshing air conditioning was soon taken away from the kids as they sprinted back into the alleyway. Cordelia made sure she watched where she was stepping, taking heed of Eddie's warnings of the needles.
Carefully placing the items down, the Kaspbrak boy started cleaning up the new boy's stomach. Cordelia knelt down beside him and struck up conversation with him to distract from the burn of the hydrogen peroxide.
"Hi," she greeted with a smile. He turned to her and gave a slight smile back before hissing in pain. "I'm Cordelia. And you are?"
"I'm Ben. I'm the new kid," he frowned. He didn't realize that her not knowing him was because she attended another school, but because she never cared to notice him. So, she told him.
"I wouldn't know. I attend a private school out-of-state," she explained, refraining herself from glancing down at his gushing wound. "It supposedly has the 'best' education, but I think they're wrong. I have a poor memory."
Ben lightly chuckled at the blue-eyed girl in front of him. A sharp pain caused by Eddie disrupted the melodious sound of his laughter.
"Just suck the wound," Richie told Eddie, causing Cordelia to raise her eyebrows at the raven-haired boy. It was clear that he had no knowledge of taking care of a wound.
"I need to focus right now," Eddie snapped at him as he applied another piece of gauze over the letters that were carved into his stomach by Henry Bowers.
"You need to focus?" repeated Richie in disbelief.
"Yeah, can you go get me something?"
"Jesus," the raven-haired boy groaned with a roll of his huge, bug eyes. It wasn't his fault that his eyes looked so large. His eyesight was so horrible that he needed a large prescription, causing his glasses to be thicker than most. Those thick lenses acted as magnifying glasses.
"What do you need, Eds?" Lia asked him, getting up from beside Ben and walking over towards her closest friend.
"Go get my bifocals. I hid them in my second fanny pack." Cordelia furrowed her eyebrows. She had no idea that he had two fanny packs, but she wasn't that surprised. He was very precautionary.
"Why do you have two fanny packs?" Stan laughed, staring at the smaller boy in front of him.
"I need to focus right now, and it's a long story," brushed off Eddie as he continued trying to patch Ben up.
"I don't want to hear it," Richie told Cordelia, resting his forearm on her shoulder. He pushed his body weight onto her, making her take a step out to balance herself so she didn't fall over. She let out a chuckle at his action and continued letting him use her as an armrest.
"Oh, my God, he's bleeding," voiced Stan as Eddie pulled off some of the gauze. Cordelia nearly let out a shriek at what Eddie was doing. "Oh, my God!"
"Edward! You're doing it wrong!"
"No, I'm not!" he argued back, turning his body to face her.
"Yes, you are! Let me do this." She brushed Richie's arm off, letting it fall to his side limply. Her Mary Jane shoes padded against the concrete as she jogged over to Eddie.
"You have to suck the wound before you apply the bandage. This is 101," Richie demanded of her. She rolled her cornflower blue eyes at the Tozier boy.
"You don't know what you're talking about," she said as she pressed the gauze back down on the wound. She carefully grabbed the medical tape as a familiar face appeared.
"Are you okay? That looks like it hurts," the red-haired girl from the pharmacy asked as she made her way closer to the group. Ben was quick to push his shirt back down to cover his wound from the girl.
"No, I'm good. I just fell," he lied with a slight smile.
"Yeah, right into Henry Bowers," remarked Richie, earning a smack on the arm from Eddie.
"Shut it, R-R-Richie!" Bill scolded.
"Why? It's the truth." Ignoring the Tozier boy, the girl walked over towards Ben and Cordelia. The latter couldn't help but smile at her actions.
"You sure they got 'The Right Stuff' to fix you up?" she coyly asked with a wink before Ben blushed furiously. Lia gave Ben a knowing grin which caused his cheeks to burn more furiously.
"You know, w-w-w-w-we'll take care of him," Bill cut in, noticing the exchange between the two. "Thanks again, Beverly."
'So that's her name,' Lia thought. She started to feel guilty for only thinking of her as a red-haired girl and only that.
"Sure," she curtly nodded her head. "Maybe I'll see you around."
"Yeah, we were maybe thinking about going to the q-q-q-quarry tomorrow, if you wanna..." Bill trailed off, suddenly becoming very nervous while asking his crush to hang out with him and his friends. "Come?"
Beverly gave him a small smile which tugged at her pink lips. "Good to know. Thanks."
She walked away with her back from the pharmacy in one hand, waving back at the group with the other. Beverly smiled sweetly at them before she turned the corner. Cordelia suddenly frowned at the exchange that had taken place. She wasn't invited to the quarry with them, and she felt the sting of loneliness in her heart again. No one seemed to notice her mood change.
"Nice going bringing up Bowers in front of her," Stan scolded Richie once Beverly was out of ear-shot.
"Yeah, dude, you heard what she did," Eddie continued. Lia shook her head as Ben glanced up in confusion.
"What'd she do?" questioned Ben.
"More like who'd she do. From what I hear, the list is longer than my wang," Richie smirked as he grabbed a hold of his crotch. Cordelia groaned in disgust and turned away from him.
"That's not saying much," commented Stan as he averted his gaze from Richie to Cordelia.
"They're j-j-just rumors," denied Bill with a frown.
"Anyway, Bill had her back in third grade. They kissed in the school play. The reviews said that you can't fake that kind of passion." Bill blushed greatly as Stan smirked at him. Ben's face dropped, and Cordelia frowned as she saw his expression change.
She wanted to reach over towards him to comfort him, but she didn't want to draw attention to him. She also didn't know how he'd feel about the sudden physical contact seeing as they had only met a half hour previous to that moment.
Richie clapped his hands together causing Stan and Lia to jump in surprise. "Now, pip pip and tally-ho my good fellows, I do believe this chap requires our utmost attention," commanded Richie in a false British accent. Cordelia frowned at him, wondering if that's what he thought she sounded like. Stan snuck a glance over toward her to see her reaction and wasn't surprised when he saw her lips turned downwards. It was Richie after all. Lia's focus turned back to Ben who still had to be taped up. "Now get in there Dr. K and fix him up!"
"Why don't you shut the fuck up, Einstein, because I know what I'm doing," Eddie spat back as he knelt back towards towards Ben, "and I don't want you doing the British guy."
"Suck the wound. Get in there."
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EDDIE HAD BROUGHT CORDELIA BACK to her house after finishing up with Ben at the pharmacy. The two decided to walk back because they knew that Eddie wouldn't be able to ride the two of them back to their houses without having an asthma attack.
"I had fun today," Cordelia grinned, thinking back to everything that had happened. It was the most excitement she had since her father died. She wanted to ask if she could go with them to the quarry the next day, but she was scared of being rejected. What she didn't know was that Eddie was working up the courage to ask her.
He loved spending time with her, and he knew that the others did too. She was the odd one out in the group, but it fit her so well.
"I'm glad you were able to join us, even though it was not what any of us were expecting," he responded back with a small smile of his own.
"That makes it all the more interesting." She let out a small laugh, causing Eddie to join in. They stopped in front of her house, and the laughter faded. "Thanks for letting me spend time with you and your friends today. You are all loads of fun."
"You don't have to thank me, Lia. The others liked hanging out with you today." Cordelia stood there for a few seconds, wanting him so badly to ask her to spend time with him and his friends tomorrow as well.
"I better head inside before my mother realizes that I've been gone," she stated with a frown. She gave him a platonic kiss on the cheek before walking up to her front door. She realized something just as her hand touched the hot metal of the door handle. She gasped, "Oh, Eddie! I almost forgot about your shorts!"
"Just give them to me tomorrow!" he called back to her. "We're going to the quarry if you want to join us." Lia smiled widely before graciously accepting. She ran down the steps, gave Eddie a hug, and then ran inside.
She took off her shoes and ran upstairs with them in her hand, trying to be as quiet as she could be. She brought the Mary Jane's into her bathroom and she started to wipe them down with a wet cloth. There was no way that Martha could know what Cordelia was doing that day.
Once the black shoes were free of dirt and mud, Lia placed them down beside her four poster bed. She rifled through her suitcase full of dirty clothes after taking off Eddie's shorts. She was planning on washing his shorts before giving them back to him, but also remembered that she had yet to take care of her suitcase.
Ruth knocked on the door and after Cordelia let out a soft 'come in', the elder opened the door more. She smiled at the sight of her granddaughter with sun-tinted cheeks and the faint expression of a smile. She was very happy that she was able to distract Martha long enough for Cordelia to spend time with kids her own age in the town.
Lia turned her head and grinned at the oldest member of her family. "Granny Ruth!" She hopped up from her position on the floor and embraced her grandmother tightly. She peeled away with a grin still etched on her lips.
"I take it you had fun today?" she questioned. Lia's head erratically bobbed up and down in an excited manner.
"Oh, yes! Eddie, his friends, and I were playing by the barrens. They were quite interesting," she giggled, thinking back to Richie and Eddie's conversations. "They invited me to go to the quarry tomorrow."
Ruth smiled at Cordelia and stroked her cheek gently. She cupped underneath Lia's chin before inhaling. She didn't want to be a bearer of bad news, but she didn't know what else to do.
"My dearest Cordelia," Ruth started, "I love you so much. I would absolutely love for you to spend more time with those kids, but I cannot cover for you forever." Lia's smile slipped off her face almost instantly. Ruth's heart broke at the sight of her dispirited grandchild.
Before Cordelia could say anything else, Ruth's eyes caught sight of an article of clothing on the bed that did not belong to Lia. She moved over there and picked up the shorts, raising an eyebrow at the youngest Watson.
"Those are Eddie's shorts, Granny Ruth," explained a flushed Cordelia. Ruth's eyes widened at the statement that came out of Cordelia's mouth before playfully teasing her.
"Why are Eddie's shorts in your bedroom?" Cordelia's face turned even more red, if that were possible.
"Granny Ruth!" she shrieked. She ran over to her grandma and ripped the article of clothing from her hands.
"Do you fancy him?" the elder inquired with a smirk, sparing a glance at the redness that painted Cordelia's face. The younger of the two wanted to curl into a hole in order to hide away from the embarrassment that she felt.
"No, I do not fancy him! Eddie and I are just friends and always will be." Ruth chuckled at the mortified expression on Cordelia's face. She decided that was enough teasing for that day.
"Alright, I'm finished," she smiled. Lia glared playfully at her grandma, trying to cool her hot cheeks with her hands. "But you should have expected this teasing, deary, seeing as all your new friends are boys."
Lia's heart stopped as Granny Ruth left the room. There was no way that she could fib her way around that statement.
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eddie, lia, and richie are the golden trio. don't fight me on that
don't be a silent reader :)
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