You and Richie Tozier had an odd sort of relationship.
It first reared it's head when it became apparent in around fifth grade that you two were just as foul-mouthed as each other. Where Richie was a motormouth with no filter, and any thought that swum to his consciousness simply HAD to be blurted out, your words were carefully chosen with just the right amount of dry wit to pair with whatever filthy phrase tumbled from your mouth to feel like a slap to the face.
It was a relationship built off mutual respect, an understanding for one another, but that was as deep as it went. You and Richie had probably exchanged less than a hundred words in the five years you'd known each other, even if you did find him funny and a little endearing with those massive, Coke-bottle glasses perched upon a freckle-smattered snub nose.
Nothing good would come of two trashmouths uniting, and so you never bothered to make real contact with the boy.
Until today.
You'd stayed after school to brush up on your biology, because, what, just because you had the largest vocabulary of swear words of any thirteen-year-old you knew meant you couldn't be smart at the same time?
In any case, you'd been making your way to the back gate with your bag slung over one shoulder, when the hum of passing traffic outside the fence halted, and other sounds of the seemingly-silent schoolyard began to creep in.
Sounds that sounded horribly like Richie Tozier getting laid into by Henry Bowers and his gaggle of goons in the crook of a gap between the art and drama block some feet away.
You didn't hesitate; spinning round so quickly you kicked up a load of gravel, you marched toward the shadowed gap, from which pitiful whines and curses coupled with laughs and thuds were emitting.
You halted at the edge, staring down in momentary shock. Richie looked even scrawnier than he usually did as he was now, half-standing and slumped against the wall, seemingly held up only by Bowers fisting a handful of his shirt.
"That's it, Bowers, let it all out," Richie said weakly, words slightly slurred. "Bottling up frustration shows itself in funny ways - like, imagine if you did something violent. Then where would we be?"
Bowers gripped a handful of Richie's wild, dark hair and slammed his head into the brick wall. Richie hissed, blinking hard to ward of unconsciousness, because the pain was bad but God if he wasn't terrified about what Bowers would do to him if he were passed out.
"Bowers!"
The yell stopped both seventh-grader and junior alike, both eyes snapping to the girl silhouetted against the opening of the alley. Richie's eyes widened behind his glasses, because if there was one person he didn't want seeing him like this, it was you.
Bowers stared you down with a malign fury, but you refused to budge, glaring back with a venom searing in your irises. Finally, Henry scoffed and broke the stare, and you took to opportunity to march forward, wedging your body between his and Richie's slumped on the floor and protesting feebly in the form of pawing at your ankle, trying to shove you away from the teenager who so obviously wanted to hurt you.
"Get lost, you dippy cunt," Henry snorted, backing up a little. "What're you gonna do? Bite my ankles?"
"Get away from him and go home to your deadbeat daddy, Bowers," you snarled. "Or better yet, why not Hockstetter's? If you're looking for a frustration outlet, I hear he's provided you with that a couple times before."
Before you could blink, two furious hands had grabbed fistfuls of your shirt and had shoved you against the wall. Bowers was so close you could smell the hot dampness of his breath pushing into your face, see each individual twitch of each wound muscle in contorted face.
"You little-"
"Hey, there's no judgement, I mean, what is this, 1959? But really, picking on seventh-graders is subpar, even for you. You'd think after sixteen whole years of being a fucking dickbag you'd at least have an age-appropriate victim range, but I guess not."
"That's the problem with you trashmouths," Henry breathed. "You never know when to close your goddamn mouths. I could kill you both right now, and who'd have anything to say about it, huh, shortstacks?"
"I'm not afraid of you, you son of a motherless whore," you spat back.
"How perfect," he hissed. "I'm not afraid of you either." One hand left your shirt to reach into his back pocket, and with a sudden jolt of fear, you saw the bronze handle of a knife glint in the afternoon light.
"But you're afraid of your dad."
That did it. The hand grasping the knife hilt faltered, and his gaze was on you fully. You had his undivided attention, but now, when you needed it most, you couldn't scrape up a word to say.
You felt your eyes fly open and your jaw drop as Henry was suddenly struck with something so hard it sent him reeling; his hands let go of your shirt, and you shoved him away from you, scrambling blindly away from the wall and falling into step with a terrified-looking Richie Tozier, bruised and bloody and holding a four-foot-long wooden object aloft.
You gaped, wordless. "Is that a fucking baseball bat?"
"Gym closet," he breathed back, eyes wide as coins. You glanced behind you, where a door spilling tennis balls was indeed swinging ajar, and in your peripheral vision, you noticed Henry finally regain balance and turn to the both of you with furious malignancy contorting his face into a scowl so ugly it was terrifying. "Fuck. Go, go, go."
You took off at a run together, flying for the back gate like your lives depended on it - which, you reckoned absently as you sprinted for the fence, it kind of really did.
The two of you shot out of the school grounds, dithering for a mere second before Richie seized your wrist and tugged you to the left, yelling in squeaky panic, "the woods!" You followed his lead, darting into the shadowed greenery, never once stopping to look around, to see if Henry still pursued you.
In fact, you didn't stop running for almost five solid minutes, before the both of you collapsed, exhausted, near the thick stream cutting through the vegetation.
You dropped to your knees by the water, cupping two handfuls of the cool stream and pressing them to your sweaty face, over the damp tendrils of hair curling round the back of your neck as you regained your breath. In your peripheral vision, you saw Richie, without even stopping to roll up his pants or toe off his shoes, wade into the flowing water and dunk his entire head under.
You laughed despite yourself as he resurfaced, gasping with flushed cheeks, sopping hair and Coke bottle glasses dotted with specks of liquid like rainfall flicked against a window. He waded back over to you, seemingly oblivious to how his hair dripped onto his slightly-bloodied Hawaiian button-down. He collapsed beside you on the bank, whipping off his glasses and rubbing them dry on the hem of his shirt as you watched him in silence.
Finally he slid those chunky red specs back up his snub, freckled nose, magnifying his brown eyes comically.
"You think we're safe?" you asked, breaking the comfortable silence, drawing your knees to your chest.
"From Bowers? Never," shot back Richie. "But for now, we're good, yeah. Hey-" His hands skittered to his sopping hair, slicking it up. "Whaddaya think? Danny Zuko?"
"I think John Travolta would rue the day he ever took an acting class if he saw that," you giggled, reaching up and tangling your hand in his hair, destroying his hairdo. He batted your arm away and instead carelessly pushed his wet hair back away from his face.
"To turn the conversation away from this hateful bullying -" he glared at you, and abruptly switched into a crude parody of a Southern Belle accent - "ah do declare, it seems ah owe you's a big ol' thank you after you stuck ya skinny neck out for me."
"Careful, Trashmouth," you snorted. "That sounded almost sincere."
"Pshh," Richie deflected, knocking his shoulder into yours. "As if." A pause. "I meant it, though. Thanks."
"Yeah, it's cool. Bowers' had it out for me for a while, so, I know what it's like."
"Yeah but..." Richie trailed off, seeming to gather his thoughts. "Most people still wouldn't've done it, y'know? Just because some toad got knocked around the ear by Bowers doesn't mean they'll stop him from doing it to someone else, right?"
"Wouldn't they?" you caged, eyes on the ground. "Wouldn't you?"
"Probably not." Blunt as ever. You appreciated that. "But you did, so, what was that about?"
"I don't know. Bowers doesn't scare me, I guess. It's not like I have any friends he can go after, so..."
"Oh." Another silence bloomed between you two, somehow not awkward. "I liked it."
"Huh?"
"You. Standing up to that dickbag. 'Son of a motherless whore'? That was fucking hot."
You rolled your eyes. "Yeah, okay Tozier. Don't have a cow just because it's the first time you've heard a girl curse."
"It's not that! Just... I thought it was cool, alright? Fuck, just accept the damn compliment you wasteoid." Richie seemed to be getting incredibly more flustered with each word.
Catching his increasing embarrassed frustration, you relented. "Okay, okay, Trashmouth. Thank you. I guess I just... I hoped that if I were that far up shit creek, I'd want someone to help me." The sentence felt odd on your mouth, like a food you'd never eaten before. You had no idea why you were even telling anyone this - this being as close to sincerity as you'd had in years - and especially as the anyone being referred to was Richie Trashmouth Tozier, who'd likely pull your hair teasingly and laugh all over your confession.
Instead, he huffed bitterly. "Yeah, I get it," he mumbled softly. He looked up at you earnestly. "So, how 'bout this? We stick up for each other from now on?"
You looked at him. "You serious."
"Serious as I've never been."
You snorted a laugh. "Alright, Trashmouth, you got yourself a deal."
"But one more thing?"
"Yeah?"
"We are not friends."
"Well, fucking obviously."