✓ | BETTER WITH YOU → richie tozier ³

zero

"I'M CALLING bullshit on this whole school thing."

Ash rolled her eyes, glancing at Richie who was sprawled across her lap.

A memory from the summer of freshman year clouded her mind of Richie lying across her lap against the lockers of Derry Middle, saying, "Except not you, beautiful. You're not bullshit."

A faint smile appeared on her face as she remembered it, and then said to him, "Richie, you can't call bullshit on school now. We start tomorrow!"

He craned his neck to look up at her. "Well, no shit Sherlock, I had no idea!"

"Hey, watch the attitude, Motormouth!" Ash said, and Richie grinned at her.

"Christ almighty gorgeous, you'd think because we had sex I'd get more appreciation!"

Ash shoved him, making him laugh, his eyes crinkling as her cheeks flamed.

Stan snorted, watching the pair of them. "God, you all are worse than me and Bill."

Ash turned to look at him. "Um, excuse you! We've been separated for three years, Uris, so butt out!"

Richie raised his head up out of Ash's lap and stood, brushing off his jeans. "I'm gonna go take a shower right quick. Be back."

He headed out of the living room, leaving Ash with Stan, Bill, Ben, and Eddie.

Stan looked at her, and then dropped his voice. "Thanks. For coming back."

Ash's forehead creased. "Uh, you're welcome? Why?"

Eddie blew out a breath of air, shaking his head. "God, without you, Ash, I don't know what he would have done."

She looked at each of them, Eddie biting the inside of his cheek, something he only did when he was really nervous.

"What's going on? What do you mean?"

Stan hesitated, and then took a deep breath. "Ash, Richie was. . .well, he wasn't, um, normal. He kind of shut himself up. It was like when you all had your fight, only. . .only a lot worse."

She stared at him, and he barrelled on recklessly, "He, um, he tried to. . ."

He trailed off, and Ash's face went deathly pale. "No."

Stan slowly nodded. "God, it was horrible. We had to bring him here, to where Bill and I lived because we couldn't trust him in his own house. Some days he would just skip school all together, and when he did come he always ditched different periods."

Ben swallowed, saying, "It got to the point where we always had to watch him. Because if we didn't, well, we were afraid he would do something again. He never really talked to us, and he never, ever let anyone touch him. Ever. We stopped mentioning you, we stopped saying "Beep, beep Richie.", we stopped even referring to memories with you in them because the littlest thing would set him off."

"He'd st-start screaming." Bill said quietly. "He'd yell and th-throw things. . ."

"Basically the only person who could calm him down was Eddie." Stan jerked his head towards him, and Eddie bit his cheek harder. "Eddie could talk to him, Eddie could touch him- Christ, Eddie could even get him to come to school."

"Eddie was the only person he could tolerate mentioning you. If it was a one time thing." Ben said, and Ash looked at him.

"How? I mean, why you?" She asked, and Eddie shrugged, his cheeks pink.

"I don't know. He never got mad at me. Everytime he would start to freak out, Stan or Bill or Ben would just call me, and I'd come over to get him to stop."

"O-one time," Bill spoke up. "Richie was c-crying and screaming and j-just. . .completely flipping out. I think someone- I don't remember who- had been stupid enough to say "Asshole D-Duo" or something. Anyway, he was yelling th-these awful things like-"

"Like, "None of you gives a shit about me, no one gives a shit about me!" and "Fuck off! God, I fucking hate all of you!'" Ben cut in, and Ash's mouth dropped open.

"He said that to you all?" She asked in horror, and Eddie slowly shook his head.

"He wasn't the same. At all. It was like the old Richie had been cut away completely from him." He said, twisting his fingers together, and Stan continued from where Bill had left off.

"Anyway," He pressed on. "He was saying that, and somehow Bill managed to call Eddie and Eddie just comes bursting through the door, and Richie is just yelling at the top of his lungs and Eddie strolls up to him and grabs him by the shoulders and says, 'Richie. Look at me.' But Richie just keeps fighting him and telling him to fuck off and Eddie shakes him by the shoulders and says in a really loud voice, 'Richie!'"

"And he stops." Bill said quietly.

"Just like that?" Ash asked, glancing at Eddie, who nodded.

"Just like that. And then he just. . .collapses into me, sobbing his eyes out and shaking really, really hard. And he keeps saying over and over and over again, 'I love her. I love her. I love her. I love her.'"

Ben slowly shook his head. "I don't even remember how many times he said it. But after, Eddie leads him back into the bedroom and stays with him until he falls asleep and then comes into the kitchen and helps pick up the stuff Richie threw."

Eddie presses his lips together. "It was one of the really bad ones. After, I asked him what had triggered it, and he said it was the person saying 'Asshole Duo' and that he had found an empty package of your cigarettes by Mr. Keene's drugstore."

"Our place." Ash mumbled.

"Yeah." Bill said. "H-he saw your initials on them."

"God." Ash said, swiping at her eyes which she realized were watering. "What did he. . ."

She couldn't finish and Eddie said in a flat voice, "We found some scissors in his drawer and Richie lying half dead on the bathroom floor. There was so much blood, and I remembered Bev and the sink. Then, we took him to the emergency room, they patched him up and sent him home, and I stayed with him."

"Did he do it again?" Ash asked, and Stan firmly shook his head.

"We made sure he didn't. By this year though, he was a lot better. It was just a really dark point in time for him and for us."

She nodded, twisting her hands together, and then looked up as Richie bounded back into the room, his eyes lighting up as he saw Ash and a grin flitting across his features.

"Hey, beautiful, c'mere."

Ash glanced at the boys, and then stood, the corners of her mouth quirking up into a smile.

"What?"

Richie shook his head hard at her, making water droplets from his damp hair spray her, and she shrieked.

"Screw you, Tozier!"

He laughed, taking her in, and said, "God, I am so in love with you."