Chapter Text
The first time Eddie woke up to Richie plastered against his side was the very first time they shared a bed.
It was the simplest solution Eddie could come up with when he woke in the middle of the night to find Richie, once again, loitering outside his bedroom door.
Really, the fact that the idiot tried to be quiet about it just made it all the worse, creeping around his own home like a cat burglar. It had Eddie waking up tense, the hairs on his arms standing up, a dreaded tingling at the back of his neck.
Richie couldn’t actually expect Eddie to sleep like that, with an unknown entity breathing right outside his door, but every time Eddie dragged himself out of bed and yanked the door open, Richie would startle like a deer caught in the headlights, mutter some half-garbled excuse, and flee back to his own room.
He didn’t know how Richie slept in the months before Eddie filed for divorce, packed his shit, and moved across the country to crash in the guest room in Richie’s condo, but he was starting to get a clearer picture.
He’d never thought much about the text messages that came at all hours of the night. He figured that was just how Richie lived, no routine and no sleep schedule to speak of. It was mostly random shit; bad jokes, bullshit factoids he’d pull out of his ass, some faint memory he’d bring up solely to harass Eddie with. And Eddie would wake up and immediately jump into some heated argument about something inane, feeling fucking alive, and knowing there was a world outside those walls.
The fact that Richie would almost always respond immediately at what had to be about 4 am over in LA didn’t quite register to Eddie back then. No, it didn’t become apparent just how little Richie had been coping in the aftermath of Derry until Eddie could see those bags beneath his eyes for himself.
Eddie was no stranger to nightmares, both the real, and the kind you dreamed up. But Eddie never got caught in the deadlights. He couldn’t say for sure what Richie saw in there, but whatever it was, it was fucking him up. Bad. And Eddie had a small hunch it had something to do with him.
So he was a little lost on how to approach the situation here. Eddie wasn’t the guy you went to for comfort, that had never been his forte. None of his efforts had ever seemed to be good enough, not with his mother, not with his wife. Seemed like he was always putting his foot in his mouth one way or another, and then he’d just end up wavering somewhere between conciliatory and snappy.
Still, it wasn’t like he hadn’t tried bringing the whole thing up. Eddie was worried. Unfortunately, Richie was an expert in redirection. He’d fling every distraction in the book at Eddie and then flee, leaving Eddie blindsided, like he’d just been flashbombed.
Eventually though, enough was enough.
Eddie woke once more to the telltale creak of floorboards outside his door, and his sluggish brain could come up with only one solution to put this to rest. He dragged himself out of bed, trudged his way through the hall like a zombie, past Richie and straight into his bedroom, where he promptly collapsed onto the bed inside.
Eddie didn’t have the processing power to register Richie’s sputtering behind him as anything more than the buzz of a mosquito, and he swatted it away with a grunted, go to sleep, Rich. And then Eddie was slipping away beneath the veil of sleep, and the warmth of the sheets that cocooned him in the scent of Richie.
***
Eddie woke to a heat all along his left side.
Myra.
Except, no. No, that was wrong somehow. They didn’t do that anymore. Hadn’t for a long time.
It was the obnoxious, yet somehow familiar, snoring that had Eddie’s mind pinging somewhere, and he sluggishly opened his eyes to find a tuft of dark hair in his face—and then Eddie was being warped thousands of miles away from his old life and back to the present.
Richie. That was Richie slumped half onto Eddie and using him as a mattress, holy shit. Eddie was lying on his back, and Richie had his arm wrapped tight around his waist, head tucked up onto Eddie’s shoulder, and the full weight of his unconscious body bearing down against him.
Wow. Richie was getting real cozy over there. Eddie may have been the one to crawl into Richie’s bed, but he was really taking that as an open invitation to get all up in Eddie’s business.
He raised a hand to Richie’s shoulder, and the words, ‘Hey, Rich, watcha doing there buddy?’ danced at the tip of his tongue. There wasn’t much give when he gently pushed up, but when he eased off, the full weight of Richie slumped back down onto him once again, and Eddie let out a little breath and sank back into the mattress, his body going slack without his permission.
Fuck, why was this asshole so heavy? So big? This sweaty motherfucker was always running hot, he was like a furnace over here, heating Eddie up from the inside out. Jesus, Eddie could even feel his stomach pressing against his own, expanding and contracting with each breath that reverberated against Eddie. This was beyond close. He’d probably never been this close to another person in his life.
He was really gonna have to give Richie shit for that snoring of his, but something about those heavy breaths had Eddie breathing along, just like Richie would have him do when they were kids, during one of his ‘asthma’ attacks. There was a deep, penetrating warmth sinking deep into the pores of Eddie’s mind, getting him all fuzzy.
Eddie wasn’t sure when they got all tangled up like this, or how he didn’t wake up earlier. He hadn’t checked the time last night before he slipped beneath these sheets, but it had to be early morning now, judging by the sliver of daylight spilling in through the blinds.
Maybe there was an unspoken invitation there, maybe when you crawled into another person’s bed it gave them free rein to get up and close like this.
That, or Richie was just that desperate for some kind of—of hug, during the night, that he saw Eddie lying there across from him, and just couldn’t help himself from closing the gap.
Was this what Eddie had been missing all this time? What his fumbling words couldn’t accomplish? Eddie could’ve offered up a hug, a pat on the shoulder, anything.
People didn’t touch Eddie. You don’t seem like a hugger, he’d been told once. And maybe they weren’t wrong, but he felt like he could be one right now. Richie needed this, Richie needed Eddie here in his bed, that was why he was here. Eddie could do this for him, yeah, he could lay here like this, probably forever. This was good. It had to be good for Richie to be sleeping as soundly as he was.
Eddie didn’t often get to see him without his glasses. His face was bare and soft, his mouth open just a little, and shit, he was drooling on the shoulder of Eddie’s pajamas. It should’ve been gross. Why wasn’t it gross?
He tested the give of Richie’s body again, pressing up against him, just to feel how solid he was, to feel that weight bearing down on Eddie again.
A loose strand of Richie’s wavy hair tickled Eddie’s nose. He was definitely still using that cheap apple shampoo, the one he said he’d been buying since college because he liked the scent. Eddie had gotten a whiff of it in the bottle, but it was more potent like this, more human, combined with the natural oils of Richie’s skin, his general musk, and the ever-present sweat that always beat out the spice of Richie’s deodorant by the end of a long day.
Eddie ran a hand down Richie’s bicep, squeezing gently, and tucked his face against the crown of Richie’s head, and took in a good, deep breath. Richie’s room, Richie’s bed, Richie, Richie, Richie, he was everywhere, bleeding into every fibre of Eddie’s being.
Fuck, Eddie was dizzy. He was falling into some kind of spell, he could feel his mind slipping away from him, thoughts getting more muddled and strange by the minute. How was it possible to feel this—this good, this light? It was like those few times he’d indulge in a bath after a long day, heat cranked to the top, all his muscles forced to unwind in the unending warmth penetrating every pore.
Eddie dozed in and out the whole morning while simmering in Richie’s heat, and the faint damp of sweat that melded them together. He was blissed the fuck out, and the longer the morning stretched on, the higher Eddie soared. He was like a cat rolling around on the hot pavement on a summer’s day, soaking up every ray of sun. Every dazed thought took on a hazy, euphoric tint.
Wasn’t this a great idea? This, right here? Wasn’t it all worth it? Moving here had to be the best decision Eddie had made in his adult life, that was for sure.
Morning light slipped through the curtains, lighting the room up little by little and seeping into Eddie’s being, as if he too was a being made of pure light. Richie’s room, with the warm brick accent wall and the framed posters on the wall, and the big oversized, dark brown duvet couldn’t be any more cozy.
Eddie felt the exact moment Richie startled awake.
Richie’s whole body stiffened. He jolted up, sucked in a breath, and muttered a quiet, “fuck.”
And then he was scrambling off of Eddie in an alarming creak of joints, taking all the warmth in the room with him.
When Eddie managed to peel his eyes open, Richie was staring back with an alarm that had his eyes bugging out the moment they locked gazes.
The panic was contagious, because Richie was looking at Eddie like he’d never seen him before, like Eddie was one of those nightmares that got him up at all hours of the night.
“Richie?” Eddie’s voice came out hoarse and quiet.
Richie’s whole face seemed to spasm, and his mouth sputtered open and closed like a fish. His eyes faltered down the length of Eddie’s body, and then back up again, and his cheeks darkened a couple shades. He looked a mess in his old ratty The Cure shirt, hair splayed everywhere.
He twisted around, hunching over his knees, and shoved his head into his palms. “Shit, fuck.”
“Richie?” It came out louder and more concerned now. Eddie began to sit up.
“I gotta piss,” Richie mumbled, and then he was hijacking it out of bed and straight into the ensuite, door slamming shut behind him.
Eddie was left abandoned on the bed, the cold seeping into his side, and the large spot of drool on his chest.
What the fuck?
***
Eddie was forty goddamn years old. He could cook a few eggs by himself.
He’d slowly been integrating different foods back into his diet, and just yesterday Richie had cooked up a whole breakfast spread for Eddie, with eggs, bacon, sausages, and even avocado on the side. No adverse reactions, not even to the eggs—who could’ve guessed?
Unfortunately Eddie had failed to school his surprise at Richie’s capabilities, which led to Richie putting on the Snobby French Chef voice, staring down at his nails and telling Eddie he could possibly give him a lesson or two on how it was done.
If he thought he was gonna get anything but a fuck you to that generous offer, he clearly didn’t know Eddie. It rankled him that the guy who bought takeout five nights a week somehow had more familiarity in the kitchen than he did. But Richie was nothing if not persistent, and eventually, with enough needling, and something like sincerity, he got Eddie to agree to Richie showing him the ropes the next day.
Well, it was the next day, and Richie had been locked in his room for about an eternity now. Eddie had time to perform his morning ablutions, make his coffee, finish it while answering emails, wear a path in the carpet with his pacing, take the trash out, and decide, what the fuck, Eddie could make some eggs and bacon by his goddamned self. He didn’t need Richie to supervise, and he couldn’t wait forever for Richie to finish having his inexplicable, stupid freak out.
What did he even have to freak out about? Like, seriously. What was the problem? Why’d he have to look at Eddie like that, like—
Eddie had never in his life even entertained the possibility of a one-night stand, but he got the feeling this was how it felt to have somebody wake up and regret you. Like Eddie was the punchline to a joke that started with the main character rolling over from a big night on the town to find a drunken mistake sharing the bed with him. He’d look towards the camera, and scream.
Fuck that. No, seriously, fuck that. That wasn’t what happened, that wasn’t what this was—Eddie was doing this for Richie, for Richie’s sake. Richie was the one with the overactive anxiety pushing him to lurk outside Eddie’s door at odd hours of the night. Maybe Eddie’s solution had been a little unconventional—and this reality had really started to set in by now—but that didn’t mean it was completely unreasonable, that it didn’t make sense!
And Richie was the one who got up in Eddie’s space, clutching him like a piece of driftwood in the middle of the ocean. None of that was Eddie’s fault, he was barely awake himself, hardly thinking straight for allowing it. The possibility that Richie may have been asleep too when he rolled over to Eddie’s side of the bed hadn’t occurred to Eddie at the time, but even if it was true, it didn’t change anything, it was still all Richie’s doing.
What right did Richie have to freak out, anyway? It wasn’t like he’d never woken up beside a man before.
Probably.
Eddie’s still wasn’t 100% clear on that one, but Richie had made a few allusions to hooking up with men at some point in his life. He’d been drunk at the time, and it’d almost sounded like a joke, like something you could brush off. Almost.
They hadn’t talked about it—about the fact that Richie could be into men, or at the very least he’d had some kind of period of experimentation—but it had been spinning around in Eddie’s head near-constantly since, making him recalculate all he knew about Richie, about what it meant to be a man attracted to men. If someone as obnoxiously into women as Richie could be into men too… maybe anybody could be. Really, anybody.
Regardless, it shouldn’t have been that big of a deal for Richie to wake up with a man.
Which meant it had to be Eddie specifically driving that feeling of horror that caused Richie to scramble out of bed looney-toons style like he couldn’t stand to be there even a moment longer.
The scent of burning jolted Eddie back into the present.
“Fuck, shit.” Eddie shoved the pan onto one of the unused burners.
The bacon was a shriveled, blackened husk of itself. Eddie scooped it up with his spatula and dumped it on top of the other strips of bacon that were in only slightly better shape.
Well, whatever. Eddie liked to be thorough. He didn’t need any parasites swimming around in his guts. If yesterday was anything to go by, Richie could cook bacon just fine, yet Eddie had watched him eat it practically raw, and there was no way anything good could come from that.
The kitchen in Richie’s condo was a sleek black, with warm, brown timber flooring. The modern aesthetic contrasted with the fact that everything he owned in here was well-loved, to put it generously. He was living like he was still in college with mismatched dinnerware and cutlery, not to mention the vast collection of novelty mugs.
Eddie shoved the dark blue ceramic plate that was the only one of its kind far away, onto the kitchen island. The eggs would be better.
The eggs were not better. The eggs were worse.
A part of Eddie had really believed he could crack the egg straight into the hot pan, just like he’d seen Richie do yesterday. The shell shattered into a million pieces, along with Eddie’s belief in himself. He spent the next few minutes struggling to scoop those shitty little slippery pieces of shell out of the hot pan with a spatula, burning the tips of his fingers twice for his efforts.
He was attempting to flip a half-fried, half-scrambled egg over in the pan when Richie decided to make his presence known with a loud, obnoxious whistle.
“See that you’ve gotten the party started without me, huh? What’re we having, jerky?”
Eddie whipped around to see Richie leaning up against the kitchen island. He was holding up a charred piece of bacon as if for inspection, but his eyes were surveying Eddie, and there was something cautious in his overly casual stance. His hair looked like he’d combed it out, which was something he only ever did when he was leaving the house, though he didn’t look like he was heading out, what with the sweatpants and the shirt with the words, “Chicken tender slut” splayed across the front—not that you could ever really predict what Richie was comfortable wearing out in public.
“Did you think I was gonna wait all day for you to finish jerking off in the shower?” Eddie bit out.
Richie’s forced casual facade crumbled immediately. The arm holding him up slipped, and he slammed his elbow against the counter, hard.
“Fuck, shit, fuck.” Richie hissed through his teeth, clutching at his elbow.
“Idiot,” Eddie said automatically. When the theatrics didn’t immediately end, Eddie stepped closer to the island. “Are you okay?”
“No, man,” he gritted out, hunched over the countertop, “I'm having a midlife crisis.”
“What, because you bumped your elbow?”
He let out a strangled laugh. “Yep, that’s it.” He took a couple deep breaths in, steadying himself, and then eventually lifted a weary head to look back up at Eddie. There was an echo of that look he’d given Eddie back in the bedroom, something almost nervous. “Your shit’s burning.”
“Shit!” Eddie whirled around and nabbed the pan handle, pulling it off the burner. He scraped the bottom with the spatula, back and forth. “Everything sticks to these fucking pans,” Eddie muttered.
“I think you need more oil, dude.”
“I think you need new fucking pans,” Eddie spun around, furiously pointing the spatula in Richie’s face.
Richie just laughed, although the laugh was quick to edge into something like hysteria.
Eddie went back to aggressively scrubbing the bottom of the pan with the spatula, while Richie was uncharacteristically quiet. Eventually Richie let out a long, world-weary groan, and Eddie peered back over his shoulder to see Richie rubbing his hands down his face.
“Ughhh, fuck me, man.” He dropped his hands down to the counter, clasping them together, and stared down. “Didn't mean to go all boa constrictor on you last night. Kinda hard to control these limbs when conscious, let alone unconscious.” He winced a little. “Can we both agree it’d be better to just wipe that one from the books? From our collective memory banks? You know, men in black style? Never bring it up for all of time, and so on and so on.” At this, he finally looked up at Eddie, his face half-cringe, half-plea.
So. Eddie had his confirmation. Richie was asleep.
There was no intent behind him drifting towards the warm body in his bed. Why would Richie seek Eddie out for comfort?
Still. He seemed perfectly content to cuddle up to Eddie, clinging to his side like a lamprey, right up until he realised it was Eddie he was clinging to.
You don’t seem like a hugger.
It was an offhand comment made by one of Myra’s aunts at a family gathering. But what did it really mean? Did he not seem like a hugger—or were people just that eager to come up with any excuse not to touch him?
Neurotic Eddie Kaspbrak. Uptight Eddie Kaspbrak. Freakshow Eddie Kaspbrak.
Something was wrong with him. Eddie didn’t know what, but clearly there was something everybody could see but him. Even Richie—Richie, who was one of the people who wasn’t supposed to.
Eddie had spent his whole adult life feeling like the odd one out in every room, but that part of his life was meant to be over, things were meant to be different now. There were five people in this world who were supposed to see Eddie for who he actually was, and yet, now here Richie was pulling this shit.
“Fuck you, man,” Eddie muttered, turning his back to Richie once again.
“Uhh,” Richie let out a stupid, swallowed sound.
“No, fuck you. Why do you have to be so—so—” He paced around the kitchen, strangling a ball of air with his hands and shaking his head. “Waking up to Eddie Kaspbrak. How fucking terrible. Let me go scald my skin off in the shower for two hours. Won’t somebody hit me with the neuralyzer, because clearly we haven’t had enough amnesia already!” He cut his steps short to look back at him. “Fuck off man, I’m not actually radioactive, so you can put away the Geiger counter. And you can just fuck off. Okay?”
Richie looked nothing short of flabbergasted, as if he’d been slammed with a comically large frying pan to the head. “What?”
Eddie felt the heat crawling up his neck. It was a mistake to speak so freely.
Richie shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “No, no, what?” His eyes frantically searched Eddie’s face. “Eddie, Eds. What the fuck are you talking about?” A nervous, incredulous laugh bubbled out of Richie. “You think my, what, delicate sensibilities were offended waking up to you?”
Eddie raised his eyebrows, pinched his lips together, and shrugged his shoulders—well, that’s how you’ve been fucking acting.
“Dude,” He said, “No! What? No, I’m—” He gestured to himself, and then to Eddie, then back and forth in choppy movements. Whatever he was trying to convey, Eddie wasn’t getting it. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be tearing his skin off over here. I fucking drooled on you, dude.” His voice went all high-pitched at the end, and he clutched the counter, leaning forward. “And then you’re in here, with your fucking, passive-aggressive cooking, glowering at me every chance you get. I thought you were gearing up to tear me a new one. Not, not, this—”
Eddie froze, no words coming forth.
Richie slapped his enormous forehead, and held himself up against the counter with it. He let out another groan. “Eddie, Eddie, man. I’m the fuck-up here. I’m the ones who’s—well, you didn’t sign up for any of this shit. You just needed a place to stay. I happened to have a spare room. Bada bing, bada boom—now you’re here.”
He snapped his fingers as if to symbolise the weeks of—admittedly impulsive—preparation that led to Eddie upheaving his whole life to make it thousands of miles across the country to hole up in Richie’s guest room.
Richie cleared his throat and stared down at the counter. He continued, quieter, “Now you feel like you gotta, what, climb into bed with me because I can't get my shit together? And when you do, you end up with this hairy hog clutching at you, sweating on you, and fucking up your sleep even worse.” He let out a cringing laugh. “Like, fuck, man.”
Oh.
This was embarrassment. This was fear of being a burden. Eddie had read it wrong.
Eddie was no stranger to said emotions—but this was Richie, the guy who’d been Eddie’s lifeline in the months since Derry, keeping him going, tethering him to the outside world, and now putting him up in his own home. And here he was acting like he was the burden?
He looked small, hunched over the counter like that, those wide shoulders bunched up together.
“You didn't fuck up my sleep,” Eddie took in a steadying breath, “Last night, I mean, that was—that was the best night of sleep I've had since I got here,” he said, and then promptly clamped his mouth shut and felt the heat rush to his face.
Richie finally lifted his head, staring back up at Eddie with surprise.
“I—really?” Richie said, eyes squinting in sheer disbelief. “With me crushing you half to death and everything?”
“I’m not made of papier-mache,” Eddie scoffed. “I—I—no, whatever, forget it.”
“Hey, hey, hey, you can’t take it back!” He laughed, a little frenzied. His cheeks darkened a couple of shades. “No, I mean, me too. Me too, obviously, man. I slept like a fucking baby. All tucked in and cozy. I was floating high in dream world, sleeping on cloud nine. I don’t think I’ve ever slept that good in my life. And that includes the times before I knew there was an intergalactic clown terrorizing the kids in my hometown.” Richie had begun to lean forward, emphasising everything with his hands. He cleared his throat and shifted back, putting on an overly casual air. “Turns out you make an incredible mattress, dude.”
Eddie couldn’t help the huff of disbelieving laughter that escaped him, and he shook his head. What was Richie saying?
Still, he had looked pretty fucking blissed out this morning, Eddie couldn’t deny that. Just the thought had Eddie back there, lying on the bed with Richie’s head tucked up on his shoulder, his hands clutching at him. A sliver of the warmth from before lit up Eddie’s body, rushing over his skin, as if it had never left. It had been a good idea, when it came down to it.
Never slept that good in his life, that was what he said.
“Okay, well, good,” Eddie said. “It’s like. You just sleep better when you’re not alone. You just sleep better. I’m pretty sure I’ve read studies on that. So,” he raised his eyebrows at Richie. “After all we’ve been through, not that surprising.” He let out a breath that was almost a laugh. There was a nervous, jittery energy fueling him. “So, you feel like it helped with the, uhh…” Nightmares. Thought spirals. Whatever exactly it was getting Richie fucked up at any given moment.
Richie licked his lips. “I—yeah, it fucking helped. Obviously.” He looked at Eddie carefully. “But, man, just because—you’re not, like, obligated to sign up as my emotional support mattress just because I’m having a bad night, you know?” He was shifting from side to side, twisting the piece of burnt bacon back and forth, and the more he talked, the more flushed his face appeared. He laughed, off-kilter. “But. Hey, no, I mean you’re always welcome to join me if you don’t mind sharing with a wookiee.”
And then he warbled out a dead-on alien cry.
It was worlds apart from the Chewbacca impressions he used to do as a kid near-constantly, the ones that sounded more like a drowning cat.
Eddie just blinked at him for a long moment. “Wow,” he said. “And it only took twenty-seven years.”
Richie grinned. “I’ve got the Wookieespeak down pat. Take a guess at what I said. Four words. I’ll give you the first, ‘I’”
“Fuck off.” Eddie had a spidey sense for Richie’s bullshit by now.
“Close. Second word was actually ‘fucked.’”
Eddie turned his back to Richie.
“Eddie, wait, Eddie, come on, last two. Ring a friend if you like, ask a member of the audience.”
Eddie continued ignoring him, at least until he felt something hit him in the back of the head, and he turned to the floor to see the discarded shriveled piece of bacon on the tiles.
He whirled around. “Are you a child? Playing with your food?”
“Not sure that can be called food.”
Eddie huffed. “Hey, Richie, you have egg on your face!” He used the spatula to eject one half of the aborted egg out of the pan and towards Richie. It hit the counter, flopping to the floor instead.
The other half fared better, and probably would have hit Richie if the asshole hadn’t dodged to the left at the last second.
Things devolved from there, with Eddie grabbing the egg from the floor and shoving it in Richie’s face and Richie laughing like a maniac all the while, wielding the hard pucks of bacon like a weapon.
He really made Eddie into an insane person sometimes. Brought him down to his level. But scuffling in the kitchen had a way of dispersing that strange tension in the air.
Eventually Eddie gave up on breakfast, letting Richie entice him into getting takeout once again. They could cook another time. They spent the day lounging on the couch watching TV—or, more accurately, talking over it. They said a whole lot without saying much at all, and without a single reference to that morning.
Still, Richie’s words stuck in Eddie’s mind, playing on repeat.
Eddie was always welcome, always welcome—welcome in Richie’s bed.
It would have been easier if Richie had just come out and said directly, let’s try it again, tonight. But Richie was having a hard time. He was embarrassed; that was plain to see now, and during their little spat he’d seemed nervous, and ashamed of his own struggles. In retrospect, Eddie could kind of understand the reaction in the bedroom earlier, even if it was stupidly dramatic and irritating and he didn’t like thinking about it.
Was it Eddie’s job to read between the lines, and figure out what was best for the both of them?
Eddie sat on his bed after performing his nighttime routine, the possibilities spinning round and round in his head.
Was Eddie supposed to just wait until Richie had another nightmare before initiating again? But wasn’t it too late by then? They’d both end up with disturbed sleep. What if Eddie didn’t wake up when Richie came? And what if Richie didn’t end up getting up at all, just laid in bed for hours, tossing and turning. Eddie wouldn’t even know anything had happened, not until he saw the bags under Richie’s eyes the next morning.
He pictured Richie lying on his back in bed, like how he’d lain there after the deadlights, that same look of disoriented despair on his face.
Then, the rest of the memories came. Richie yanking Eddie to the side, and then down to safety. The choking way he’d said his name. How he’d patted him down, practically pawed at his chest. The sheer force of the hug he’d wrapped around him, and the way it had stuck in Eddie’s mind long after he’d gone back home to his wife.
Eddie was moving before he could think better of it, gathering up all his supplies: his phone, his charger, a bottle of water, tissues, and an extra pillow.
He knocked on Richie’s door instead of just barging in like he’d done last time. It was so much worse, being completely awake for this. His heart was making a racket in his ears like a real asshole.
Eddie had time to regret his entire life in the silence that stretched on before Richie finally got his ass up to open the door.
“Hey,” Richie said. There was something careful there in his surveying gaze that traced Eddie’s face and all the shit in his arms. After a couple moments, he hummed and tilted his head to the side. “Just one night with this king bed and you can’t stay away, huh? Always knew you were a size queen.”
Eddie shoved inside, shoulder checking Richie on the way. “Beep beep, Richie.”
It was much easier to lean into annoyance here than let the embarrassment of typical Richie statements swallow him whole. Anyway, whatever the bullshit that was spilling from Richie’s mouth, it wasn’t him turning Eddie away, and that was all that mattered.
They spent the next ten minutes bickering as Eddie got himself settled, and the next twenty after that bickering some more in the darkness beneath the sheets, just a couple feet apart.
Neither of them made any attempt to bridge the gap between them.
It was one thing to end up unconsciously pressed together during the night, but it was a whole other to do so while awake. It was intimate enough like this, more than Eddie had expected; sharing sheets in the dark, hearing every little sigh, feeling every creak of the bed or tug of the duvet when Richie shifted. Even the way Richie’s scent had embedded deep into the fibres of the bedding was intimate too.
Still, Eddie had accepted the possibility that Richie would probably be a clingy sleeper, and they might find themselves tangled like they had before. He was prepared for it, no matter how stifling or sweaty the night would be.
So, maybe Eddie was a little surprised when he woke up from his alarm for work in the morning to find Richie squarely on his own side of the bed, hands and limbs kept to himself.
And that was fine too. That was fine.
Regardless, Eddie felt better rested, and Richie was dozing peacefully despite the alarm, so things were going to plan, if not exactly how Eddie anticipated them.
Eddie continued sleeping in Richie’s bed at night. There were a few nights where Eddie would wake up at some point to find Richie’s head leaning against his bicep, or his legs tangled up with Eddie’s, and just that was enough to have a zap of affection rocketing through Eddie that was almost too strong to handle.
Eddie didn’t often remember his nightmares, but it wasn’t uncommon as an adult to find himself waking up in a gasp of confusion, heart going a mile a minute, his mind a million miles away and convinced there was something out there to get him.
There was nothing quite as effective at shocking him out of this delusion than to find Richie’s brown mop of hair splayed across the pillow beside him. It was always a lot easier to get to sleep after that.
While Richie never said anything explicitly, Eddie definitely noticed the change in him too. There were fewer random naps during the day, or inexplicable cranky moods. He seemed less scattered in general, the bags beneath his eyes easing up for once. He couldn’t be sure Richie was experiencing fewer nightmares the same way Eddie was. But they had to be less disruptive.
He only witnessed the aftermath of one firsthand.
Eddie woke up to find Richie staring at him from across the bed, and those dark, haunted eyes crumpled up the moment Eddie met his gaze and mumbled a sleep-weary—‘Rich-ie?’
And then Richie was mashing his face against Eddie’s shoulder and clutching his bicep tight as a vice.
Eddie had hesitantly pet his hair, like a dog, unpracticed and awkward, because it was the only thing he could think to do. They stayed like that for several long moments, curled towards each other, Eddie’s heart thudding loud and strong with unbearable, unending tenderness for this big animal. Richie deserved peace. He deserved every good thing this world had to offer him.
Naturally, Richie had to break the moment by sniffing loud and wet and threatening to use Eddie’s nightshirt to blow his nose.
Things devolved from there while Eddie scrambled for tissues, trying to fight off a laughing, snotty Richie who seemed dead-set on getting at his shirt. Eddie leaned into the bickering, if only to bring some of that normalcy back, which it seemed like Richie needed.
If there was ever a time to bridge the gap, it would’ve been that night. That was the time to do it, they’d been so close just moments ago.
Eddie laid there and thought about rolling over and tucking Richie in close so hard that he almost believed he’d actually done it, but when he woke in the morning, he was firmly on his own side of the bed, and Richie was hugging a pillow tight to his chest—Eddie’s pillow, the one he kept between his legs when he slept on his side.
He was clutching the pillow so hard his fingers were making indents, and for a moment Eddie could feel it, the pads of his fingers, the warmth, the weight, the closeness.
His head rushed so hard he had to stifle the urge to yank the pillow out of Richie’s grip and fling it across the room, and then—and then—Eddie didn’t know what he would do after that.
He was beginning to unravel. There was some force buzzing inside Eddie, wearing down his patience, an insanity that only intensified the longer they did this.
The insanity must have reached its peak at around the two-week mark, when Eddie read an article on the benefits of sleeping in cooler temperatures.
It barely registered as a thought in Eddie’s mind, definitely not something as concrete as a plan.
All Eddie did was adjust the thermostat that night.
Richie was surprisingly diligent about showering every night before getting into bed with Eddie, especially considering before they started this, there were times Eddie had seen him lounging in the same clothes a couple days in a row if he didn’t have anywhere to be. He was thorough about getting cleaned up too, must’ve been for how long he spent in there as if there wasn’t a drought in California.
Todays shower, however, seemed to be cut short, and Richie swung the bathroom door open earlier than expected, and then halted two steps into the room.
“Woah man, you trying to freeze my balls off?”
“It’s better for you, dickweed. The cooler the better. It helps with melatonin production, deep sleep, stress hormones, and uhh, your metabolism too—don’t forget that,” Eddie said from where he was already firmly tucked under the sheets, the duvet up to his neck.
“Thanks, Dr. Oz.” He approached the bed, almost cautiously, before sitting down. “Is this your way of saying the LA heat isn’t for you?”
Eddie scoffed. “Oh, fuck off with that. It’s not like I’m sleeping without an HVAC system in New York.”
The Eddie hates LA bit was getting old, as if any minor inconvenience would have him running back to New York. Sure, it was just a bit, but it was one of the more consistent ones, and Eddie was getting tired of it.
Richie sat there, watching Eddie like he was trying to figure him out. A gust of cold air blew in their direction, and he shivered in the threadbare shirt he was wearing, with his loose pair of shorts.
“Oh, stop that. It’s not that cold. Learn how to use a blanket like a normal person.”
“I don’t do anything like a normal person, what makes you think I’m gonna start with blankets?” But he eased under the duvet anyway, settling down without further questioning. Good. That was good.
It wasn’t a plan, it really wasn’t. But if two bodies during the night sought out the only warmth around, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
***
This chapter in a nutshell:
