Chapter Text
The kiss changes both everything and nothing at all. The everything that changes, the hands that reach for each other in the hushed dawn, the eyes that lock over morning cereal, the afternoon laughs that melt into each other, the evening caresses on smalls of backs, is painfully overshadowed by the nothing. This nothing looms over their every moment, stolen moments shared together in ecstasy, rapturous but constantly aware of the behemoth that sits in the corner of the room and spits at them.
Richie’s leaving. A fact as constant, as reliable, as the autumn wind.
If Eddie hadn’t hung onto Richie’s forearm with a vice-grip as Richie welcomed the estate agent into the house, if Eddie hadn’t sat on the porch, face schooled into careful apathy as the estate agent took photos of the now finished cottage, if Eddie hadn’t sobbed with wild abandon into the frigid midnight air, great wracking moans that heaved Richie’s heart out of his chest with ghostly arms, Richie wouldn’t have guessed anything was going to change. Everything was going to change. Everything, and nothing at all.
It takes three weeks for Richie to book his flights. He opens and closes the page, getting as far as typing Edinburgh International to LAX into the search bar, but without fail, his hands shake violently and the laptop slides off his lap with a satisfying thud. Eventually, with a belly full of Dutch courage and Eddie squeezing his hand, he manages it. His flight leaves in a month.
The house sells easily. A young couple buys it, and they visit three times before putting the offer in. The man brays about the way the light floods into the study in the morning, and the woman squeals about the terrace balcony on the second bedroom. Richie accepts the offer, despite the fact it’s five grand under the asking price.
One week later and the For Sale sign is replaced by a bright red beacon, SOLD. More times than he’d ever admit, Richie catches Eddie staring at the sign with malice in his eyes. Richie always makes sure that he looks away before Eddie can catch him staring.
Two weeks, and they’ve hit the half way point. They’re still sleeping in separate rooms. Eddie had packed all of his possessions into boxes the day after Richie had booked his plane ticket. Richie only lasted six minutes of watching Eddie carefully fold his jumpers and his socks and those fucking tartan pyjamas before he had to excuse himself to wail violently in the bathroom. He’d given himself three minutes, before wiping his eyes furiously with a balled up piece of toilet paper, and emerging from the bathroom with a watery smile and tired eyes. But, as soon as he caught sight of Eddie sat on the bed, one of Richie’s old fleeces clutched in his hands, his attempts at self-preservation proved futile. They’d collapsed in a heap on the bed, a mass of shaking limbs, clutching, scrabbling hands and hushed confessions. I adore you, I adore you, I adore you.
Three weeks. They’d spent the last days in bed, moving for nothing but sprints to the toilet and visits to the kitchen. They don’t fuck. Richie surprises himself with the realisation that he doesn’t want to fuck Eddie. Not yet. He can’t bear the thought of their first time being a goodbye fuck, a ‘I’m sorry I’m leaving you’ fuck, a ‘you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m still going to leave you anyway’ fuck. So they don’t. They lie together, they touch often and kiss sometimes. Eddie drags his nails down Richie’s arm absently, a soft scratchy feeling, as if to remind Richie that he’s still here, if only for now. Richie spends most of his time running his hands through Eddie’s hair, hair that was once immortalised in a plastic-perfect quiff but now stands on end, wild and free. They talk, regale each other with animated stories from their past. Richie tells Eddie of Bev, of Bill and Ben and the time they all got drunk and swam in the water feature of their college, he tells Eddie about his mother, about the time she took him apple picking when he was seven. Eddie tells Richie about his mother, a long, painful tale that ends in sorrow, but he also tells Richie about Rupert, and how they’d met and how the sky caught fire the first time they’d kissed. Richie had expected jealousy to bloom in his stomach, hot and bitter, but it didn’t.
“What’s America like?” Eddie asks on a Wednesday afternoon.
Richie tightens his grip around Eddie’s waist. “It’s … pretty fuckin’ shit most of the time, corrupt politicians and gun crime and hatred and bigotry but …”
“But what?”
“My parents lives there, and … it’s home, it’s shitty, but it’s home. Well, it was home, I guess”
“Was home? Why? What changed?”
“You gonna make me spell it out for you, Eddie Spaghetti?”
“You know I am,” Eddie said, batting his eyelashes coquettishly. Richie rolled his eyes.
“You’re such a little shite, you know”
“That sounded pretty Scottish”
“Mike’s been rubbing off on me”
“I should jolly well hope he hasn’t been rubbing off on you,” Eddie said with a faux-stern expression that was so ridiculously, so absurdly Eddie that Richie couldn’t take it anymore.
“Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
“Eddie, you know – I … You know that I really …”
“What? C’mon Rich, spit it out”
“I …”
“Richie”
“I really think we should mow the lawn tomorrow afternoon”
“…Oh”
Richie loved Eddie. It was a fact as clear as ice, as real as snow, as blatantly obvious as the nose on his face. The “I adore you’s” flowed easily, the “you’re my entire world and more” came naturally, but the admission of love, the wrenching his chest open, displaying his heart, that was different. Telling Jasmine he loved her had been easy, partly because he’d never meant it. Endless false confessions. Perhaps it was cruel. Regret wasn’t something that Richie was used to.
“I’m going to stay with Mike”
“Huh?”
Eddie slumped down onto the sofa next to Richie, and tucked his head neatly into the junction between Richie’s neck and shoulder.
“I’ve asked him, and he said I could stay with him until you … if you … y’know. Until then”
“You know I’m coming back, right? I’m going to come back for you”
“I know you want to”
“Eddie,” Richie implored, shifting on the sofa until he was looking directly into Eddie’s eyes, “you’ve got to believe me, I’m going to come back for you”
“I believe you’re going to try”
Richie grabbed Eddie’s hands. “Eddie, please”
“Mike said I can take Mr Chips out anytime I like, I might bring him around here, check up on the house sometimes”
“Don’t change the subject”
“I hope they don’t change the house too much, I’d be ever so sad if I came back and it looked different, if it looked –”
“Eddie!”
Eddie closed his eyes, pulling away from Richie slightly.
“If you promise you’re coming back to me, it makes it too hard. I’ll just sit and wait, and I can’t … I can’t do that”
“I told you, I’m coming –”
“Don’t,” Eddie said, eyes still closed, “stop it. Just – tell me you’ll try and that’ll be enough”
“I’ll try”
Mike calls it a practice run. A trial run, he’d said, seeing as the last time Eddie stayed with him ended in a sleepless night for all three of them. Eddie’s reticent at first, initially refusing on the grounds of being patronised, but initially relenting after Richie pleaded with him that it probably was a good idea, if not for Eddie then for himself. Slowly, like melting ice, Eddie agrees. They bundle themselves into Richie’s car, the same car that Richie will return to the dealer the morning he leaves, and drive to Mike’s.
Mike’s house is warm, almost uncomfortably so, and Richie watches as Eddie peels his sweater over his head, face flushed red.
“Thanks for this, Mike. You’re a good friend”
“What about me?"
A familiar voice echoed from the kitchen.
“What the fucking fuck? Stan?!”
“Such a lovely greeting, Richard. Ever the pleasure to see you,” Stan said, sardonically, as he passed Mike a small tumbler of honey-coloured liquid.
“I thought you’d flown back to Ireland?”
“I did. I came back, though. I’ve grown rather fond of Scotland, and the things that live in Scotland”
Mike’s face flushed scarlet, and Richie hooted with joy.
“Well, well, well! The plumber and the wizard, a true storybook romance”
“Richard, do shut up. How are you feeling, Eddie? Mike tells me you’ll be staying with us for a while,” Stan said, turning to face a rather down-trodden looking Eddie.
“I – I was, but if you’re staying here too, I don’t want to … I don’t want to impose, you know”
“Shush, you’re more than welcome here. Has Richie told you about Skype?”
“Skype?”
Stan rolled his eyes at Richie. “Have you really not told him about Skype? Isn’t that what all the long-distance lovers are doing these days? Skype sex?”
Richie slapped a hand over Stan’s mouth, but got bitten for his efforts.
“Take your damn hoof off my mouth, Richie! All I’m trying to do is help you in your long sexless months ahead”
“We haven’t … um … we haven’t done that, not yet” Eddie stammered, face letter-box red.
“You haven’t? Huh. Well, Skype does serve purposes other than getting you virtually laid, I suppose. Do you still want me to show you what it is?”
Eddie nodded wordlessly, and followed Stan into Mike’s office leaving Richie and Mike standing in the living room.
“Ah take it ye told ‘im then?”
“Whatever do you mean, Michael?”
“Ye know exactly wha’ ah mean,” Mike said, passing Richie his own tumbler of whiskey before going to pour himself another. “Ye know exactly what I mean. The fact ye didn’t balk when Stan mentioned you two fuckin’? That’s how ah know ye know what ah mean”
Richie slumped into the cushiony arm chair, folding his limbs awkwardly. “Yeah, I guess I told him”
“It went well though, aye?”
“Sort of. I mean, he feels the same and … I know he knows that I adore him, but how well could it possibly go when I’m leaving him the day after tomorrow to fly back home to a country I no longer consider my home?”
Mike sipped his whiskey coolly, “ah see”
Richie sighed. He could hear Eddie’s voice floating through the house from the office, Stan’s voice chasing it.
“If ya don’t come back, if ya decide to stay in America, yer gonna have to tell him yerself. Ah won’t do it for ya”
“I am coming back,” Richie spat, but Mike just shook his head.
“Ah know ya think ya are, but be realistic, Rich. It’s a big commitment to make to someone ye’v only been involved with for a few weeks”
“That’s … that doesn’t even make sense, I’ve … I’ve loved Eddie for longer than a few fuckin’ weeks, Mikey, you know that”
“Aye. I do, but does he?”
“…Yes. He must know, I tell him all the time how much I adore him”
“Aye, I’m sure ya do. But does he know ya love him? It’s different,” Mike said, simply.
“I haven’t … managed to say those words yet. Not exactly, but he knows. He must know”
“Hiya, Eds”
“Hello, love”
Richie’s heart swells.
“This is weird”
“I know”
Silence falls around them. Eddie’s face, pixelated and two-dimensional on Richie’s screen, looks small and distant, and Richie’s fingers itch with the desire to reach out and stroke Eddie’s cheek. He does just that, but instead of flesh, warm and soft, the pads of his fingers meet glass, unmoving, cold.
“How are you?”
“I saw you less than three hours ago, Rich”
“I know, but a lot can change in three hours. Have Mike and Stan convinced you to have a threesome with them, yet?” Richie asks, cringing immediately as the words leave his mouth, but Eddie just laughs.
“Not yet, but hey, you never know, loneliness does strange things to a boy”
“Do you think you’re going to be lonely?” Richie asks, and now it’s serious. The smile slips off Eddie’s face like butter.
Eddie shrugs, a tiny movement Richie can barely see. “I guess. Probably”
“We’ll skype every day right? I’ll ring you twice a day, if I have to. We’ll talk all the damn time. Ask Mike to get you a phone, we can text, we can –”
“Rich,” Eddie interrupts, “it’s going to be okay. You don’t have to talk to me every waking second of every day. I’m going to be fine"
“It’s not you I’m worried about,” Richie mutters, but thankfully, Eddie doesn’t hear him.
They talk for hours, with Stan and Mike each making multiple cameo appearances throughout the night, until Richie’s eyes start to droop, weighed down with leaden tiredness, and the pauses between their conversation grow longer and longer until they’ve drifted in and out of sleep in comfortable silence for over an hour. The last thing that Richie mutters to the slumbering Eddie are those words he can’t bring himself to say when Eddie’s awake.