TITLE: Jukebox Heroes
AUTHOR: Sharkbait
RATING: PG-13 for violence, disturbing content, child abuse / neglect, substance abuse, and just thirteen-year-old boys in general
CHARACTERS: The Losers Club (but especially Beverly Marsh), Pennywise, Henry Bowers and Co., 80s music
PAIRINGS: All iterations of Losers/Losers
NOTE: An exploration of the small moments and connections between the Losers Club
Venus
goddess on the mountain top
burning like a silver flame
Even while it's happening, sometimes you recognize A Moment.
There's them, right, and then there's Beverly Marsh, who whips her dress off and rockets past them like a shooting star. Beverly Marsh who leaps off the cliff with zero hesitation while they stand around like dipshits in their tighty-whities, and leaves them all in the dust. "What the fuck!" he yells. Because what the fuck.
Puberty doesn't start with Bev (well, maybe it does for Eddie), but goddamn, if she doesn't pour some gasoline on that fire.
That is A Moment, folks. Right there.
They jump in after her, of course, because otherwise they'd be too pussy to live. They splash around and goof off like always, but it's not just like always. It's different.
It's after her.
Not that he turns into some lame-o mushy dickhead now, unlike other people he could mention. Just because she has tits and probably smells nice doesn't mean he has to fawn all over her like she's the second-coming of Jesus Christ wrapped up in a Molly Ringwald burrito, like their very own walking, talking Pretty In Pink come to wash away their fucking sins.
Look, it's not like he isn't aware she's a girl. He's aware. Trust him, he's super aware. He's just not a total drooling dweeb about it like the new kid or Bill.
Thing is, even though it's weird as hell having her around, actually hanging out with her doesn't feel that weird. Like, talking to her and dicking around and stuff. Bev's pretty okay for a girl, just like Bill and Stan and Eddie are pretty okay for scrawny little geekazoids and Ben's pretty okay for a short fat geekazoid.
Just like Richie's pretty okay for a four-eyed trashmouth geekazoid.
Jesus, compared to them, she's practically cool. Who gives a shit if she's a girl?
Ben and his goo-goo puppy dog eyes give a shit, that's who. Bill gives a shit. If you believe the rumors, a lot of guys at school have given a shit.
When they get bored with swimming, everybody wades over to the bank to climb out. Halfway there, he slips on algae, and Bev catching his arm is the only thing that keeps him from the world's shortest, dumbest belly flop. "You all right?" she asks.
Only hip deep now, and even without his glasses, he can sort of maybe see the shadow of her nipples through her wet training bra. He stares at the blurry water beaded on her neck and eyelashes instead because he's not a creep, even if he talks like one. "Uh, yeah," he says. "Thanks."
Maybe he kind of gives a shit, too.
Stan digs his boombox out from its hiding place under his clothes, tunes it to the only station that comes in around Derry that isn't bullshit grandpa music or drunk bible-thumping hillbillies. Beverly spreads a towel on the rocks and stretches out to dry off while Bon Jovi sings about laying your hands on him, and all of them just gawk at her like assholes, because maybe they all kind of give a shit.
Puberty, man. What a bitch.
Later, after they go to Ben's to look at his creepy Xeroxed murder walls, there's the inevitable point of separation when it's close to curfew and time to head home. It's obvious Ben wants to follow after Beverly, even though they're already at his damn house. Bill wants it, too, Richie can tell - he's blind, but he's not that blind - but Bill ends up riding off the other direction with Stan like usual, one street and two houses away from each other since first grade.
It's him and Eddie that get the honor, because Bev lives in the same crappy part of Derry they do.
They wheel their bikes together, and debate seeing Batman or Honey, I Shrunk The Kids on Saturday and whether or not Eddie is a wuss with lousy taste in movies (the answer is yes). Beverly doesn't say much, but so what else is new? "You got any big plans this weekend?" Richie asks her.
"Not really," she says.
Eddie's bugging his eyes out at him behind her, and he doesn't know if it's because he wants him to invite her or because he's terrified he'll invite her or all of the above. Pretty tempting idea, if for no other reason than to screw with Eddie (and because Richie's just a lovable asshole like that), but they're already at Turner street, Eddie's favorite shortcut, and before you know it, the moment's passed by.
"So, um, see you around, I guess," Eddie fidgets with his watch, darting nervous glances everywhere but at Bev.
Smooth. "Later, Eds," Richie says. "I'd say give your mom my love, but incest's illegal in Maine. Don't worry, I'll stop by tonight and do it myself."
Eddie's lip curls in revulsion. "You are genuinely disgusting. You know that, don't you? Right? That you're disgusting?"
"Yeah, it's your mom's favorite thing about me, next to my giant dong."
Beverly's just shaking her head, the kind of exasperated that's almost laughing. "Bye, Eddie," she says.
The tips of his ears turn red, the little nerd. Pitiful. "Bye," he mumbles, and takes off in that stiff-legged I'm-not-running-you're-running way of his, stupid fanny packs rattling.
Like he said: pitiful.
Just the two of them left after that, walking in silence, which is about what he expected. Bev is usually pretty quiet, and to be honest, most girls seem about as interested in talking to him as they are in catching the clap.
"You live in that yellow house on Birch, right?" she pipes up out of nowhere, and it surprises him so much, he just blinks at her like a moron. "The one on the corner?"
His brain finally kicks into gear. "Uh, yeah, that's right. Hey, wait, how do you know that?"
She shoots him a weird look. "Because I see you there all the time?" she says, like he really is a moron.
He shoves his glasses up his nose. "Whoa, whoa, are you stalking me? Do you, like, follow me home, and look in my windows and shit?" the idea has a certain appeal. "You know, if you want to see the goods that bad, all you gotta do is ask."
Beverly looks him up and down, raises one eyebrow, and his face gets hot. "I saw plenty of the goods today, thanks," she says, and rolls her eyes. "It's on my way to school, Sherlock. You seriously never noticed that I ride past your house like everyday?"
He didn't not notice. It just didn't, you know, fully register, and anyway, mornings are not what you'd call his peak operating hours. He has a lot on his mind, okay. "Sorry, you must have blended in with all my other stalkers."
"Right," she drawls, wry as fuck. "There's just...so many."
"More and more every day," he cracks, and she snorts, that almost laugh again. He slides a look at her from the side of his Coke bottles. "You live in one of those old apartments over by the video place and the laundromat," her eyes pop wide, shocked, and he smirks. "Yeah, that's right, I know shit, too. I've seen you out smoking on the fire escape."
She maneuvers her bike around a pothole. "So why didn't you ever say hi?"
His face feels even hotter. Probably got sunburned today or something. "I don't know," he says. "Why didn't you?"
"I don't know," she shrugs one freckled shoulder. Her hair's short enough now, he can see she has freckles on the back of her neck, too. She glances over and catches him staring at her, and smiles, a little crooked. "I guess maybe I will now."
Richie swallows. "Yeah, um, all right."
They're standing in front of his house, yard full of weeds and cracks in the driveway, peeling harvest gold paint from before either of them were born. For a second, he thinks maybe he should just walk the last stretch with her - her building is only like four streets up - but then he remembers he's not a complete dork.
"Well," he finally says. "See you later."
"See you," Beverly echoes, and when she walks by, he gets hit by a wave of cherry cola lip gloss, something sweet and spicy that's either perfume or one fancy fucking laundry detergent.
Shit. She really does smell good.
Richie stares after her, dazed, before he snaps out of it, shakes his head. "Hey, I'll leave my blinds open tonight, in case you want a front row seat!" he yells.
She laughs for real this time, and flips him off over her shoulder.
Yeah, Bev's cool, all right.
He watches her disappearing figure 'til he starts to feel like a creep again, then finally heads inside. No beater Pinto in the driveway means no Denise. Probably out with her stupid friends or whatever reject she's screwing this week. She's eighteen, so the curfew doesn't apply, not that she'd give a rat's ass if it did.
Mom's home on the couch with Kenny, a few beers deep and watching Jeopardy. Exhibit A of where his sister gets her shitty taste in men. "Hey, Buddy Holly, you and your little boyfriends have fun braiding each other's hair?" Kenny says, and laughs, because Buzzed Kenny is an even bigger asshole than Sober Kenny and twice as unfunny (if that's actually possible).
"Why, looking for somebody to do your nose hair?" Richie snaps.
"Come on, you two, don't start," Mom pleads, only a little slurred, but hey, it's early. Her eyes are big and brown and unfocused when she looks at him. "Hi, baby. There's Salisbury steak on the stove."
Dry-ass gristly mystery meat with slimy onions and canned gravy? No thanks. Richie grabs a cold hot dog wrapped in Wonder Bread and a bag of Chips Ahoy, and locks himself in his room before they crack into the next six-pack and the fun really starts.
He stuffs his face while he rereads old Swamp Thing comics and listens to a cassette of Moving Pictures he dubbed from the record. When that gets boring, he jacks off, because hello, he's thirteen. Jacking off is basically a full-time job.
He doesn't think about Beverly in her bra and blue panties, her legs or her tits or her ass, because it feels weird and gross. Like she'd know he did it.
It's later on, when he's drifting to sleep, that he thinks about Bev, but not like that, not like it sounds. Richie thinks about Bev on the cliff, about her flying fearless out into nothing and the sun in her wild red hair.
And Bill and Ben might be (are totally) drooling dweebs, but they aren't all wrong. That Sixteen Candles shit looks good on her.