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“Whatever our souls are made of
his and mine are the same.”
— Emily Brontë
Waking up alone isn’t so much an uncommon occurrence.
Reaching an arm out to feel for a body that is no longer there, or the ghost of a kiss on the temple. A brush of fingers against the forehead, pushing away the hair that drapes across it. The sound of running water and a singing voice, or the pitter-patter of rain against the window and some late-night talk show from the other room. Sometimes there is nothing, no sign that another person was in the apartment at all.
That’s fine, it’s all well and good. Insomniacs in a world of dreamers.
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Richie adopts a cat and names her Thor.
This is funny because she is small and jittery, anything louder than flipping a page will cause her to jump and slide off the counter pitifully. Nothing like the powerful lord of thunder that Eddie knows.
“I don’t really get Chris Hemsworth vibes,” says Eddie late one evening, tossing the toy to the other end the room and watching Thor slide on the hardwood after it.
“Thor is just a title . Anyone can be Thor.” Richie plays a few keys on his piano, shoved into the corner across from where Eddie sits on the mattress, trying to tune it. His words are slightly warped by the screwdriver in his mouth. “Jane Foster was, for a little while.”
“Must’ve missed that movie.” Eddie leans back on the bed and stretches, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. Richie needs to wash his sheets, Eddie thinks distantly. They smell like weed and sweat and the popcorn they were eating in bed the previous night.
Something is tossed at Eddie. After feeling around for a few seconds, grabbing onto whatever it is, Eddie realizes that Richie threw the screwdriver at him. “ Comics , smart ass.”
Eddie laughs at himself and rolls over, shoving his face into the pillow. Richie plays a few melodies, sounding soft and far away, almost, then pauses, playing two notes back and forth between settling on one that must sound wrong to Rich, because Eddie can’t tell.
“I need the screwdriver back,” says Richie, his voice muffled.
Sitting up, Eddie looks over at where Richie is hidden by his piano. It’s “new”, as in, “300 years old and bought for $75 in a yard sale”, and Richie has spent the last few hours trying to turn it into something he can practice with instead of just the keyboard. First the cat, now the piano. Am I not fulfilling something? Eddie had asked.
Baby, you’re all I need , had been Richie’s response, handing over the cash to the man at the sale. Eddie was still skeptical.
Still, he pulls himself off the bed and leans over the top of the piano, poking Richie’s hunched back with the screwdriver. He’s half inside the piano, digging around underneath the keys doing god knows what. And Eddie thought surgery was complicated.
Richie takes the tool without another word, not even pulling his body out, and Eddie returns to his spot on the bed. After a few more minutes of Richie tinkering, going back and forth between working underneath and playing, he finally gives up for the night.
Eddie feels Richie flop onto the mattress beside him, muttering something about an E-flat key. His hand finds Eddie’s hair and tugs lightly, a question.
He rolls over, an answer. Eddie’s lips press gently to the soft skin of Richie’s wrist, settling into the feeling of Richie’s hand where it now rests cupping his face. He sits up after another peaceful moment, pushing himself into Rich’s space.
Richie’s mouth slides open as soon as Eddie makes first contact, ready for it. His other hand comes up to the side of Eddie’s head that he wasn’t already holding, steadying him.
Something nudges Eddie’s foot, startling him and forcing Richie’s hands off of him. Thor rubs her face again, this time moving up to his knee.
Richie is laughing, despite Eddie’s pink cheeks and stony expression. He swoops down to lift Thor up and into his arms, even as she scrambled in an attempt to be anywhere but, saying, “and you called her jumpy.” He shoves his face into her yellow hair unceremoniously.
Eddie rolls his eyes but settles back in next to his boyfriend, setting his chin on Richie’s shoulder and lifting a hand to scratch behind Thor’s ears where she has finally settled into Richie’s cradle.
“I’m thinking of naming the piano Loki.”
Pausing, Eddie side eyes Richie.
“Y’know. Low-key?”
Eddie shoves Richie’s shoulder and takes Thor away from him as he cackles, deemed unworthy to hold her.
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trashmouth @richietoziersings
whos cuter, eds or thor? instagram.com/p/bTgh766p/…
𝖇𝖊𝖛 @beverlymarshanscom
@richietoziersings thor obv
Bill @DrDenbroughSeattle
@richietoziersings thor
trashmouth @richietoziersings
@beverlymarshanscom @DrDenbroughSeattle he dOsnt haVe a TwITteR he ca’nt DeFEND himSeLF!!
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Eddie sits up quickly, his breathing heavy and skin slick with sweat. A deep, unsettling feeling in his stomach gives the lingering sensation of a nightmare, although Eddie doesn’t remember it, and knows that scientifically, nightmares are just a myth anyway. Still, he feels around the bed for Richie’s hand, or any part of him, really, but just feels the cold sheets of Eddie’s bed. Sighing deeply, he leans back on his elbows, listening for any sign of Richie in the apartment. The shower isn’t running, and there is no TV on in the other room, but Thor sleeps soundly at Eddie’s feet, there’s the faint outline of glasses on the bedside table, and Eddie can smell burnt food.
Slipping out of bed, starling Thor, Eddie pulls on a t-shirt. Too big— must be Richie’s, thinks Eddie, stooping to pick up Thor from where she is rolling around on the floor, then leaving the bedroom.
The light is on in the kitchen. Thor rolls out of Eddie’s embrace, landing on the floor seamlessly and running towards the light. Eddie follows, his footsteps small and unsure, unease still sitting heavily with him.
Richie has his back to the entryway, standing over the oven. The burnt smell is coming from the plate on the counter next to him, which appear to be eggs.
“Morning,” says Eddie, sitting down at the table, leaning his head against his hand.
Richie glances over his shoulder, seemingly unaffected. “Hi.” Eddie motions vaguely to the pile of burnt eggs. Richie shrugs and says, “fried eggs,” as if that answers anything.
“Would you like help?”
His curls bounce as he shakes his head no. So Eddie sits quietly at the table, watching Richie pile on failed egg after failed egg, until his eyes slip closed. When he opens them again, Richie is sitting across from him, eating a bowl of frosted flakes. Sunlight has begun to trickle in from the window and is casting the two of them in eerie light. Thor sunbathes in the stream next to Richie’s arm.
“Get tired of eggs?” Eddie asks, his voice mostly a mumble. Richie lifts an eyebrow at him and shoves another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. Eddie doesn’t know how to fill the silence, so he nudges Richie’s feet with his own. He kicks back, but doesnt go to say anything else.
They sit in silence until Eddie goes to shower and get ready for work. When he comes back out, Richie is asleep on the couch.
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Kisses are being peppered on and around Eddie’s face. He wakes slowly, feeling first the mouth at his throat, then his jaw, then the soft spot under his ear, moving to his cheek bones and eyelids. Eddie’s hand naturally moves its way to the back of Richie’s neck, his fingers slipping between the short hairs and steadying himself. Each kiss feels warmer than the last, a trail of heat snaking around Eddie’s features and leaving tingling sensations, all the way up to the corner of his mouth, until their lips finally slot together, opening pliantly against one another.
“Good morning,” says Richie into Eddie’s mouth. It sends a chill down his spine.
“Hi,” is all Eddie can muster, lifting his chin up to kiss Richie again. He seems content to kiss back, one of his hands moving down between them. “Oh,” Eddie moans, and wonders why he ever went to sleep in the first place.
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eds, eddie spaghetti, edward, my love, dear, baby—
feed thor TWICE A DAY!! once in the morning and once at night please give her more if she asks she is a growing girl who needs to protect the nine realms
please please please dont take any shifts longer than ten hours unless you absolutely have to and if you DO!! then text the number on the back of the note and have greta come take care of her while youre saving lives
give her lots of kisses and rub your face into her stomach from me
see you on the 28th
love love love love love—
Richie
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Beverly is looking at him conspicuously over her sandwich.
“What,” says Eddie, giving in to whatever she has to say.
“You’re acting weird.”
“I’m always acting weird.”
“Yeah, okay, wallflower.” Beverly gingerly sets down her food, glancing around them at the other doctors and nurses on their lunch break. No one else is paying attention to them. Eddie isn’t sure why it matters. “I mean, like,” she waves her hand around vaguely, “weird- before .”
“Before what?”
Another hand movement that isn’t very telling. She mumbles to herself for a moment, clearly working through whatever she wants to say, then, “before Richie. He comes into your life and you’re like a ray of sunshine,“ Eddie scoffs, “and then he leaves for a few weeks and you’re all mopey again.”
Eddie stares at her for a long moment, thinking over what she has just said to him. Finally, he says, “what do you expect me to say?”
“I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.” Beverly looks down at her plate, then back up at him. “I was just wondering how you felt about it.”
How did he feel?
The feelings were hard to pinpoint. It’s the first time he’s really been without Richie since they first met, and it’s not like they have Dreams to share every night. He has to rely on Richie remembering to answer his text messages and hoping he’s awake at the same odd hours that Eddie is when he feels like calling, and listening to his voice. They slept better together, even if sometimes it doesn’t feel so different than before , as Bev had put it. Now that Richie was gone, Eddie realized he had reverted back to sleeping very little.
“I miss him,” Eddie said simply, looking down at his hands. “You kind of get used to having someone around.”
Beverly nods in understanding. She doesn’t, really, not in the way that Eddie does. Ben is always a constant present in her mind.
With Richie, he isn’t. It feels like he is, sometimes. There are times where Rich is all Eddie can think about, with his dumb smile and curly hair and shitty jokes. The way he kisses Eddie like he’s the only one who ever has or will matter, and how he cradles Thor like she’s their baby, smiling a warm smile just for Eddie as if to say, we’re great at this parent thing, huh Eds?
But they don’t have any special nerve endings connecting them to each other. No red string connecting their pinkies and guaranteeing that they’ll be together forever. Eddie lies awake at night, Richie asleep beside him, and wonders why he can’t fall asleep and join Richie in a Dream, just once . Just to prove, something, anything. That they’re not made up, or a figment of his imagination.
Bev reaches over the table and holds tightly onto Eddie’s hand. Hers is smaller than Richie’s, but it’s pale and freckles and the nails are painted, so Eddie can almost pretend, for a moment, even if it’s selfish.
“You don’t have to think so hard about it, Eddie.”
Deep down, Eddie knows that he probably doesn’t.
—————————
“She’s nice,” says Richie conversationally.
“I know for a fact that she isn’t, so please spare me the niceties.” Eddie leads Richie down the cramped hallway towards the guest bedroom that probably hadn’t seen a guest in years. Eddie himself hadn’t been home in a long time either, having been too busy and too stubborn to return to his childhood home. The house was too small for ridiculously tall Richie, who kept bumping into door frames and the corners of tables. Eddie felt inclined to apologize, but kept biting his tongue.
The guest bedroom had once been Frank Kaspbrak’s office, but was converted to a bedroom after his death and when Sonia became a devout catholic. Eddie scowled looking at the several crosses and crucifixes on the wall above the bed. “I asked her to take those down.”
“It’s okay,” Richie says, tubing Eddie’s shoulder with one hand absently and sounding genuine.
Eddie isn’t so reassured. “That woman never listens to me.”
Richie tosses his bag onto the floor at the foot of the bed. “Really Eds, I understand shitty parents. I get it.”
Crossing his arms, Eddie looks wearily around the room. “I’m sorry we can’t…”
“Doesn’t matter. Show me your childhood bedroom, spaghetti.”
Eddie rolls his eyes but leaves the room and heads down the hallway anyway.
His old bedroom isn’t much better than a hospital room. The old twin bed is tightly made and pushed to the corner, and the desk is bare except for a lamp and a cup of pens and pencils. The whole room smells faintly of cleaning supplies.
“Not very you ,” says Richie from the doorway.
“No,” Eddie agrees, running his fingers along the peeling wallpaper by the window. Pulling back slightly reveals a smiley face drawn in permanent marker. EFK is written under it in careful, childish handwriting.
Richie hooks his chin on Eddie’s shoulder. “Cute.”
Knocking their heads together so their temples touch, Eddie feels something like trepidation stirring in his stomach.
—————————
Eddie is awake and his face is wet with tears when Richie slips into the bedroom, trying to be quiet but failing as he bumps his head against the frame and swears.
“I was wondering when you’d give in,” Eddie whispers, moving closer to the wall and pulling back the covers. Richie slips in, barely fitting in the twin bed, and lets Eddie slot his arms around Richie’s shoulders, as if he knows what Eddie needs to feel at that moment.
Maybe he does.
If Richie notices that Eddie was crying, is crying, he doesn’t say anything. Just rests his head against Eddie’s chest and lets Eddie have a moment, burying his face into Richie’s curls and breathing him in.
Richie leaves once the sun starts to show itself, untangling himself from a half-asleep Eddie and returning to the guest room. As Eddie drifts fully to sleep he thinks, not for the first time, that he has gotten really, really lucky.
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trashmouth @richietoziersings
pretty maine and pretty boy instagram.com/p/kLje9Hf8/…
trashmouth @richietoziersings
eddie has requested that i remind everyone on twitter that he has a phd and is very sophisticated
trashmouth @richietoziersings
and also that “maine sucks”
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trashmouth @richietoziersings
pretty boy sophisticated doctor who hates maine drinks latte with 6 shots of espresso and whip cream instagram.com/p/7hslG12/…
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The water has almost gone lukewarm. Goosebumps have formed along the skin of Eddie’s arms and the back of his neck, but maybe it’s just from the occasional brush of Richie’s fingers. They’re facing each other, which is impractical in every sense of the term, their legs crowded and bent at awkward angles to slot together. Smoke is rising between them, or maybe its steam from their warm skin; Eddie’s too far gone to really tell anymore.
Eddie leans forward to take the blunt from Richie’s nimble fingers, feeling the tingles move up his arm as he does so. Slipping back and settling so the water is about up to his shoulders and brushing the hair at the back of his neck, Eddie kicks his feet up to rest on the side of the tub and next to Richie’s head. Richie either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, his head still tipped back towards the ceiling with his feet planted on either side of Eddie’s waist.
The curtain is closed. There is music playing, from somewhere. Eddie thinks wistfully about the first time they were in this bathtub.
He takes a long drag, feeling the burn down his throat and into his lungs, allowing himself to close his eyes and relish in the feeling.
A brief but unmistakable flash of a photo being taken makes Eddie open his eyes. Richie is grinning smugly at his phone, held precariously above the murky water.
“Don’t post that anywhere,” Eddie reminds him, not too bothered by it.
“It’s too sensual. This is for my own private collection.” Richie locks his phone, leaning over and around the curtain to set it back on the counter. When he settles back into his spot, his eyes half-lidded and trained on the man across from him, Eddie nudges the side of his head gently with his foot. “What,” Richie says, voice quiet.
“I don’t know.” Richie raises his eyebrows skeptically, reaching over to take the blunt from Eddie’s slack hand. “I like your face.”
Richie laughs loudly. Thor, presumably, is startled and falls off the counter where she was lurking. “I love you too, Eddie.”
Searching for something grounding, Eddie’s hand finds Richie’s ankle under the water and holds on. He slips further under the water, until just his head is exposed to the air. Richie, meanwhile, tips his head to the side and places his mouth at the spot above Eddie’s ankle, soft and unhurried.
In the foggy cloud of Eddie’s mind, he can almost remember, for a moment, a dream he had, where Richie pressed long and lingering kisses over every inch of Eddie’s body, showering him with love and touches.
The thought is gone in the next minute, leaving behind a feeling of deja vu, which Eddie pushes away as he allows his head to go fully under water.
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Rich: can u pick up milk nd mayb my sister from the airport
I’m at work.
Rich: lizzie can wait a few hrs
Rich: shell pay fr th e cat food
I thought you needed milk.
Rich: milk, cat food, nd my loving sister and eds hom e safe frm the airprt xoxoxo
Fine.
Rich: u are PERFCT!!!! xtra kisses for u tonight i prmse
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Richie flops down onto Eddie’s lap with very little grace, grabbing Stan’s drink and downing it himself. His skin is slick with sweat and his t-shirt is sticking to his back. Somehow, this doesn’t bother Eddie.
“I’m good, aren’t I?” says Richie, drunk on happiness as all of the others praise him for the set he just played. Bill and Mike start to talk over one another to tell Richie exactly what they thought about his musical prowess. He seems intent on listening, leaning forward and nearly over Ben to hear what they have to say, the rest of the bar loud and unpausing even though the music stopped minutes ago. Eddie is content to lean back and gaze at Richie, his glasses slightly askew and legs jittery, but his hands staying put at where they rest on Eddie’s shoulders.
He is pretty good , Eddie thinks. Beverly is saying something about how much she liked the cover of Mamma Mia , but Stan butts in to comment on the new original song that Richie debuted tonight. Eddie can’t think of anything monumental to say when Richie asks, just, “it was perfect, you’re perfect.”
The smile Richie gives him is so bright, and his kiss so heated and loving, that Eddie can still feel it even after Richie has returned to his spot on the stage.
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“I never believed in Santa Claus. None of us kids did. Mom and Dad refused to let us. They couldn’t afford expensive presents and they didn’t want us to think we weren’t as good as other kids who, on Christmas morning, found all sorts of fancy toys under the tree that were supposedly left by Santa Claus.
Dad had lost his job at the gypsum, and when Christmas came that year, we had no money at all. On Christmas Eve, Dad took each one of us kids out into the desert night one by one.
“Pick out your favorite star”, Dad said.
“I like that one!” I said.
Dad grinned, “that’s Venus”, he said. He explained to me that planets glowed because reflected light was constant and stars twinkled because their light pulsed.
“I like it anyway” I said.
“What the hell,” Dad said. “It’s Christmas. You can have a planet if you want.”
And he gave me Venus.
Venus didn’t have any moons or satellites or even a magnetic field, but it did have an atmosphere sort of similar to Earth’s, except it was super hot-about 500 degrees or more. “So,” Dad said, “when the sun starts to burn out and Earth turns cold, everyone might want to move to Venus to get warm. And they’ll have to get permission from your descendants first.
We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa myth and got nothing for Christmas but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. “Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,” Dad said, “you’ll still have your stars.”
– Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle
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Richie says I Love You like here’s a song I wrote for you.
Eddie says I Love You like you are the only thing that has ever mattered.
You are my stars, says Eddie.
You hung the moon, says Richie.
Who needs Dreams, anyway.