𝐫𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 | 𝕣𝕖𝕕𝕕𝕚𝕖

chapter twenty-four: god only knows

"Hey, Bev," Ben whispered to his then-girlfriend, Beverly Marsh. "Does that guy seem suspicious to you?"

He subtly pointed to a boy across the aisle who was a little sweaty and darting his eyes everywhere.

"Um, yeah I suppose." Bev replied, mainly focusing on reading the airline's small catalogue.

Beverly had managed to scrape up some cash from her father's diner's cash register along with Ben's hotel earnings in order to book a very expensive flight to California, which she was then aware that Richie and Eddie would be there.

"Do you think he's doing acid?" Ben whispered, but caught the attention of the boy regardless. The boy pretended to not know what he said.

"Either that or he's menstruating." Beverly concluded.

Ben nodded even though he didn't know what menstruating was. "Masturbating, right."

The boy was in fact Bill Denbrough, who too had a mission on his mind, very similar to Ben and Beverly. He was searching for his fugitive friend, Richie Tozier. Not only that, but Bill was also missing his neighbour, Eddie Kaspbrak. He was completely shocked when he realised that they'd ran away together.

"Hey, dude, you alright? You masturbating?" Ben spoke to the sweaty boy.

The boy eyed him strangely and didn't understand the word. "I-I'm fine. Suh-stop snooping."

Beverly rolled her eyes behind her magazine, "Ben, leave the kid alone-"

"Kid? Suh-sweetheart, I'm s-seventeen!"

"Sweetheart?" She put down her magazine but saw a flight attendant eyeing them.

"He sounds like a snake." Ben whispered to Beverly.

"O-oh, now you're muh-making fun of my stutter, h-huh?" He was getting flustered and angry but his voice remained quiet. "I-I'm the only one cuh-crazy enough to ruh-rescue my b-best friend."

"Rescue?" Ben furrowed his eyebrows.

"Never mind. It's n-n-none of your business."

"Jeez, what a wacko." Beverly sighed and returned to reading her airline magazine.

Ben hummed in agreement and went into deep thought about what the deal was with that weird kid.

★

'God Only Knows' played on the radio as Eddie sang along with somewhat a heavy heart. He had the privilege of enjoying The Beach Boys with his mother's blessing and boy, was he thankful for it, but he'd just witnessed what he could only assume was a fatal car accident.

All he could do was remind himself that it wasn't his or Richie's fault.

It didn't matter anyway, because he and Richie were just about to cross the Colorado border. They were so close to reaching their goal, and it definitely shocked Eddie. He didn't think they would make it that far.

It was as if the cops didn't truly care about them being 'wanted'. They took Patrick and Henry out of the equation- they had no obstacles left! It was just easy breathing while crossing a few more borders.

"What should we do when we get to California?" Eddie asked, trying to get the image of a crashed car out of his head.

"I don't know, what do you wanna do?"

"I wanna do something," Eddie twirled some of his hair between his fingers and briefly thought of how much he missed his straight, styled hair rather than his curly hair that just got in the way. "Wild."