ethereal : it oneshots

the better ending

pairing: bichie

a/n: this is a happy ending to my bichie book, not a love song. it's specifically for @yourclassicgay but if you haven't read the book that's okay, just pretend its a post breakup au. if u want context, bill sent richie a very vague text that richie interpreted as a suicide note.

on that note, tw: graphic depiction of suicide, blood, etc

richie wouldn't find out what had happened to bill for another week. he'd heard nothing in the news, so he was hoping all was better, but it wasn't guaranteed. youtubers weren't exactly hot shit with the media, and even though suicide was a serious topic, richie couldn't picture a british reporter talking about it.

nevertheless, he kept his eyes out for any sign of bill denbrough in the media. 'kept his eyes out' probably isn't the best way to describe it; he scoured the internet for anything new.

what he found, instead, just broke his heart. old tweets talking about bill and richie, or youtube videos with bill looking cheery as ever. but whatever bill had done, it wasn't tracked on the internet. richie could only hope that was a good thing.

he reread his texts with bill over and over again, hoping and praying that he could see anything but a suicide note within them. 

two months after they'd broken up, richie had deleted stanley and georgie's numbers from his phone. he'd stopped reaching out to eddie, and he'd recoiled from beverly's kindness. he was, in essence, completely alone. after receiving bill's texts, he'd dmed stanley on instagram in panic, but stanley hadn't replied.

he'd wondered for nights, if he'd just said something better, could he have saved him?

richie did what he had to do; he flew to london.

the whole plane ride there, save for the hours he was sleeping, he couldn't help the feeling climbing into his chest. he was still utterly and completely in love with bill denbrough, and god forbid anything bad had happened to him, richie was going to die on the spot.

it had been expensive to get a flight in the same week, but that was the life richie was living now, he supposed. by the time the flight had landed, he'd chewed up his entire bottom lip, and it was a complete mess. his cuticles were ripped and raw, the pink edges threatening to leak blood.

god, if bill was okay, so help richie he was going to grab onto him and never let him go again. richie had made his mistake. he'd let a small thing feel large, and he hadn't been there for bill. he wasn't going to make his mistake again.

when he landed, richie immediately caught a taxi to bill's place. weird thing was, he sorta figured he wouldn't be there. but he wasn't sure where to start, and he still had bill's address memorized.

he pounded on the door, his backpack shaking up and down as he knocked. he felt his hands shaking as he pulled them away from the door. 

the door creaked open after a moments hesitation, and richie was face to face with an unusual stanley uris. his eyebags were sunken in, and his blink was abnormally slow. he wore a sweater that clung to the moisture on his skin in an ill-fitting way, and gulped at the sight of richie.

"what are you doing here?" was stanley's first question. his voice croaked out like an angry spirit, and richie realized that as he saw stanley, stanley saw him. 

richie's acne had gotten much worse, and the left side of his face had entirely broken out. his bottom lip was peeling and encrusted with blood. he hadn't combed his hair in god knows how many days.

"is he alive?" richie pleaded. there was a despair in his voice. he watched the sound of grief hit stanley's ears and noticed as stanley's cold eyes softened. stanley inhaled softly.