Kisses | Reddie

twenty ☆ carnations

by: jukeboxpills on ao3 (all credit goes to this fabulous author uwu)

@pennywheeze helped out with this oneshot, so go check her out on Tumblr

~~~~~

It was Valentine's Day in Derry, Maine, and Eddie had not expected it to be out of the ordinary from any other previous Valentine's Days. Or any other nonspecific day. Eddie woke up in the morning, combed his hair, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and left for school. Just a normal day in the life of Edward Kaspbrak.

The perfect normalcy of this particular date was ruined when Eddie arrived at his locker. Tucked into the slotted vent at the top was a pink flower. Eddie groaned and pulled it out.

There was nothing connected to it, and he found nothing in his locker when he opened it. He decided it must've just been shoved into his locker as a joke or something. Someone didn't want the flower that had been given to them, so they just shoved it into the first locker they came across. He nodded to himself, satisfied with this story, and pulled the books he needed for chemistry out of his locker before closing it and leaving the flower inside. He could've thrown it out, but who knows. Maybe the person who left it there will change their mind and come looking for it.

Eddie found another on his chair in chemistry. He reassured himself it was just another accident as he carefully placed the pink flower on top of his chemistry book.

Eddie found more flowers. One in the spare fanny pack he always keep in his locker. One at his seat in every one of his classes. One in the nurse's office when his watch beeped and he had to go take his pills. One in the bathroom when he went during history to escape his teacher's boring drone like he does every day.

By the time the lunch bell rang, Eddie had eight soft pink flowers stacked on top of his books hidden in his locker, safe behind a combination no one else knew. At least, that's what he had thought. Someone must've gotten into his locker to put the flower in his fanny pack. Or maybe he had put one there and forgotten about it. It could happen, Eddie could be very forgetful sometimes.

On his way to lunch, Eddie met up with Beverly. This year was tough because, for the first half of the day, Eddie didn't see any of the other Losers. Luckily he had lunch with Bev, art with Ben, and Home Ec. with Stan. Unfortunately, at the end of every day, Eddie got the pleasure of participating in gym class with Richie Tozier.

On the way to the cafeteria, Eddie explained to Bev what had been happening with the flowers. Beverly just smiled at him the entire time.

"What?" Eddie asked, shooting his friend a confused glance as they sat down at a table, both with a brown bag in hand. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Beverly's smile just widened. She shook her head. "You think all those flowers were accidents?"

Eddie nodded and opened his lunch bag.

Bev pointed to a booth behind him with a big yellow sign reading: "CARNATIONS 25 CENTS." Under it was two girls looking bored with a metal cash box and a bucket filled with the pink-tinted flowers.

"Someone's into you," Bev said, unpacking her own lunch bag. "And it's serious if they're going through all that trouble. How many did you say you got?"

Eddie ignored his fire-haired friend and stood up. He pushed his chair back and marched over to the carnation booth.

"How do you get them so pink?" he asked, wanting answer to the most important questions first. Also trying to make small talk before interrogating the poor girls working the booth.