✓ | BETTER WITH YOU → richie tozier ³

seventeen

MIKE WALKED into his kitchen, setting his grocery bags on the counter.

"Ash!" He called. "I have food!"

There was no answer, and Mike heaved a sigh. "Jesus, she's still pouting?"

He walked up the stairs, saying, "Ash, look, I know you're upset, but you have to eat."

He knocked on the spare bedroom's door. "Ash."

When there was again no answer, he opened it, saying, "You are going to eat whether you–"

He stopped dead, feeling his face go pale.

"Holy fuck." He whispered, his eyes scanning the walls.

They all bore the same message, written in something that looked mysteriously like blood:

YOU WERE TOO LATE.

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!" He shakily turned and bolted down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

He had to go to the one person he knew could help.

The one person who wanted nothing whatsoever to do with him.

~

A loud banging on Stan Uris's apartment door woke Richie up from his nap.

"Fucking hell." He muttered, and motioned for Stan to sit down.

"I'll get it, Stan the Man, you enjoy your cuddle time with Bill."

He smirked as Stan's face went fire engine red, but before he could say anything, Richie had turned and exited the living room, walking towards the front hallway and opening the front door.

There, standing in front of him, his face as white as snow, was Mike Wheeler.

"Richie." Mike said anxiously, and Richie growled, "You son of a bitch. I don't want to hear anything you've got to say."

He peered over Mike's head. "Huh, where's Brenner? Thought she'd be hanging all over you. Ashley always did have a way of seeing the best in everyone."

The words bitterly fell from his tongue. He hadn't called her by her full name in a long time, and the word felt foreign. Distant.

"She's not here." Mike said. "She's gone."

Richie snorted. "Well, why don't you go find her? This is a waste of my time."

And then, he closed the door in Mike's face with a slam.

"Wait, you asshole!" Mike exclaimed through the door as Richie began to walk away. "She's gone, Richie! Do you hear me!? ASH IS GONE!"

Richie stopped slowly, and then headed back towards the door, flinging it open, his eyebrows drawn.

"What the hell are you talking about, Wheeler?"

"Can I come inside?"

Richie narrowed his eyes, but grudgingly held the door open for him.

As Richie closed the door, Mike hurriedly began to tell him what happened, ignoring the fight they had had before.

As he finished, Richie said in a hard voice, "Why did you leave?"