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Richie knows next to zero details about Eddie’s line of work. He knows that Eddie is a detective and that he investigates homicides and arsons, but that’s about it. Eddie never comes home and talks about his job -not taking into consideration coworker gossip, Richie is all too aware of how annoying his boss Bryan is-, and he never gives out any details even when he vents the day's frustrations.
Sometimes, Richie worries that it will cause a mental breakdown, at some point, for Eddie. It can’t be healthy to keep the horrific details of events bottled up, but every time Richie tries to get him to open up about it, Eddie shuts him down.
Richie is, in part, thankful for that. He respects Eddie and is immensely proud of him for bringing the family of the victims closure, but he would never be able to do the same. A simple news article about such a thing can cause the tears to spring to his eyes, and he’s fairly certain Eddie has caught him doing so. If it were up to him, Eddie would be seeing a therapist, but Eddie has firmly said no to that suggestion, and Richie would never want to force him into something he doesn’t want to do. When the topic is discussed, all Eddie says is that he’s fine, and that he enjoys the workload.
And there is plenty of workload to choose from.
Eddie’s work doesn’t operate by the normal 9 to five hours most other job wields. Fortunately, neither does Richie’s job, but that doesn’t mean that the work hours don’t cause the occasional rift between them.
It’s not even truly about how long Eddie is expected to hustle, which is still a whopping seven hours in one day all things considered, it’s how much he chooses too. Richie has caught him more than once sitting at their dinner table at 4 am, rereading and evaluating case reports that he didn’t get the hang of during the day. It’s not good for him, and it’s not exactly pleasant for Richie, who longs for more time with his husband.
They do go on date nights, mostly per Eddie’s insistence of going out into the masses and socializing – or as Richie calls it, showing off their relationship-, but Richie would like a little added cuddle time to make up for all the times he has had to wake up to a cold, and empty bed with the bed sheets hastily tucked around him so he doesn’t get chilly.
Richie is never neglected, always granted with some sort of Eddie’s attention materialized, like flowers that get sent to his door, or a sweet text message to sound out how deep his love for Richie runs. Not a lot of people would associate Eddie with sweet pet names and paragraphs of memories that he rehashes when he needs something to uplift his spirits, but that’s who Eddie is, fundamentally as a person.
He is calculated and level headed while he aids to bring a criminal to justice, a hotspur in traffic and when someone he cares about gets offended - twitter is often on the short end of the stick for that part of Eddie’s personality-, and a deeply affectionate and fierce lover to those who deserves his endearment.
Eddie is loving and doting, but he isn’t a person you describe as sappy either, and that’s why, every time Richie receives a message that is just on the side of cliché, he savvies that Eddie's particular case of the day has gotten rough. It’s the one gift for Richie that is in his experience both charming and poisonous.
It’s Richie that always pushes for a longer vacation, for a prolonged weekend during which Eddie would finally be able to relax, and it’s always Eddie who deflects with the excuse that crime doesn’t take the weekend off either. They stick to evening and/or mornings in which they dedicate all their time to each other, rather than dumping their belongings in the back of their car and driving off to have an adventure outside of the country.
That’s why, on a Wednesday afternoon, as Richie is arriving back home from shopping for groceries, it’s a shock to see Eddie at their dinner table, bouncing his knee so hard against the table it bangs every time the two collide. His head is leaning on one of his hands, with fingers digging deep in his cheek and leaving red marks on his face.
Richie’s first response is to think that something bad happened to their friends. Eddie is in front of him, fine and well taken care of, but pent up with energy, and racing eyes that don’t linger on any surface from their home for too long.
He’s acting like he’s about to tell a family member that their loved one has deceased, and Richie fractures with trepidation.
‘Eddie?’ he inquires, dumping the bags of non-important produce on their couch as he sprints over to crouch in front of Eddie. Not thinking twice about the state of his old man's knees and joints, Richie sits on his knees, eyes ducking under Eddie’s chin so he has no other option to look straight at him.
Eddie’s eyes aren’t red, not with tears or irritation, but Richie has never witnessed Eddie on work duty, so he can’t for sure categorize that as a good thing. ‘Tell me.’ No beating around the bush or softening the blow, he has to get to the truth straight from the core.
Their friends were mostly Eddie’s friends in the beginning. The only person acquainted with Richie before everyone else joined their group, was Ben.
Richie and Ben met in college, and despite their vastly different personalities, clicked on a level Richie didn’t click with anyone until he met Eddie, and the rest of the self-acclaimed ‘losers.’
Ben saw past Richie’s attempt to create an image so unlike him it might as well have been a character for a tv show, - as in Richie drunk and got wasted up to six days a week-, and guided him to establish himself as the person he truly was and is. Without Ben, Richie shudders to think what would have happened to him.
Hanging out with Ben became hanging out with Ben and Beverly, his new girlfriend - Richie always jokingly referred to her as Ben’s future wife, because the two were always perfect for each other-, and Eddie’s coworker. Another thing Ben gifted Richie; the connection to meet the love of his life.
Their other friends, Bill, Mike and Stan are all people that have been in Eddie’s life since he was in kindergarten. Essentially, most of the losers are Eddie’s friends, but Richie is just as welcome to vent about anything, including relationship troubles, to Stan for examples, as Eddie is with Ben.
If something bad had happened to them, Richie wouldn’t know how to cope with that.
‘What?’ Eddie asks confused, eyes tilting upwards in confusion. He is caught off guard by Richie’s question, and that alone settles something fierce in Richie’s chest. Even without elaboration, Eddie is quick to connect the dots, and to understand what Richie was really asking off him.
‘No, sweetheart,’ Eddie assures, smiling reticent. ‘Nothing happened to anyone.’ He cradles Richie’s face in his hands, squashing his cheeks tighter until Richie can’t help but smile with him.
‘Can’t I take some time off work every once in a while without worrying my husband?’
He can, but Richie has become so normalized with Eddie working overtime and veering away from any free time, that it’s bizarre nonetheless. The only time he’s done this was the day he proposed to Richie, to decorate the house and to defer from his jittery nerves. As if there was ever a different answer but yes Richie could give.
Richie presses a kiss to Eddie’s palm, letting his lips linger around the scar between his finger webs that he acquired after fighting with an unsub. Eddie had told him all about what happened in that case, but Richie had been too frantic to recall the details. The cut wasn’t dangerous, but was in a spot that produced so much blood it appeared to have cut a major artery. When Richie saw it, he felt all his blood leave his body. Eddie maintains that it was nothing to agonize about, but Richie begged to differ.
He walks back towards their couch, grateful that none of the produce stained anything when he dropped the bag.
‘Sure, bud’, but you never have before, so spill the beans. Was it my rocking bod that you missed so much you just had to take the day off?’
‘Not a day, two weeks’, Eddie corrects casually, as if that’s somehow a regular occurrence.
Richie looks up with a bewildered look, just shy of dropping the bag of groceries again.
‘Two weeks?’ he shrills, glancing worriedly at Eddie.
Eddie doesn’t ‘like’ his job, it would be weird when he sees destruction on the daily, but he takes great pride in it. His profession offers him a way to pour all his focus onto something without fearing it may collapse under his scrutiny. It’s one of Eddie’s greatest fears, to become so overbearing he’ll resemble his mother, and he suffers under it every day. His only relief is during his work hours, when he can never give enough attention to a particular case. He has never taken off two weeks at a time.
Eddie begs Richie over with his finger, then skims his arm around Richie’s waist. Because Eddie is still sitting down, Richie absolutely towers over Eddie, but bafflement stops a joke from devising.
‘I thought you’d be more happy about my long vacation. You’re always persuading me to relax more.’
‘Yeah, but you also always reject my ideas.’ Richie gasps obnoxiously, trapping Eddie in a web of incoming retaliation. ‘Are you admitting that I’m right? Eds, the day of salvation is finally here.’
With rolling eyes, Eddie takes his arm back and moves towards the counter to tidy up the produce still scattered there.
‘If it makes you feel any better, then sure.’
‘But why so sudden? If you would have told me I would have taken some time off too.’
Eddie sighs resided. ‘I was hoping you’d somehow manage to anyway?’
‘Edward, are you asking me to play hokey? How unbecoming of you.’
‘No, I’m asking you to use your charm to sway Steve into letting you off the hook. You’re not playing honey, that’s illegal and not to mention bad for your career.’
‘Eh’, Richie dismisses, ’same thing.’
He leaves Eddie to finish the tidying, while he rushes to his phone to text Steve. He knows that with a bit of sucking up to his manager, he’ll be allowed to miss a few days of writing. Theoretically, Richie controls his own work hours, so there’s nothing Steve can do about it.
‘Done,’ Richie exclaims when he sends the message, in huge part more informative than questioning. Eddie has since finished, and slides over the couch Richie has taken residence in.
As always, as soon as Eddie is seated Richie cozies up to him, taking his woolen knit blanket that Ben once gave him, and allowing the tv to play filling background noises. Eddie strokes his hand along Richie’s back, and he breathes in and out deeply. They sit in comfortable silence for a while, the both of them enjoying each other’s company.
‘Pack your bags’, Eddie says suddenly and bewildering. He doesn’t explain or offers more explanation, like he just expects Richie to jump up and do it without questioning it. To be fair, Richie is the impulsive one between them.
‘What?’ Richie asks confused, and retracts his body so fast that he nearly headbutts Eddie in the chin as a devastating explanation to why Eddie has been acting so weird comes to mind.
Eddie was home sooner than he had been in months, was scatterbrained unlike Richie had ever seen him before, and accumulated more than enough days to be serenely cleaning out a house without . ‘Are you breaking up with me?’
Breaking up with me is so juvenile, like Eddie and Richie hadn’t been married for the last five years and dating for even more. It’s too juvenile for the weight this relationship carries in Richie’s heart.
‘What?’ Is Eddie’s turn to inquire. ‘Fuck no Richie. Never sweetheart.’
‘Well good, I’m not made for the single life,’ Richie waves off as he resumes his place plastered to Eddie’s side. ‘Can you imagine me being on Grindr? All the man ’
‘Please’, Eddie snickers, twisting so he can get Richie bundled up in his arms. ‘Every man would be lucky to even be graced with your presence. Luckily you won’t ever have to worry about that sweetheart.’
‘So if that’s not the reason, then why did you ask me to pack my bag?’
‘I want to go on a holiday, that’s why I was suggesting for the both of us to pack our bags asshole.’
‘Like a resort type of thing? Eds we haven’t planned anything. What country do you wanna go to, what flight? Have you looked at hotels yet? What about our activities? We can’t just pick up our shit and go.’
Eddie laughs, and Richie can’t even pretend not to know why. ‘Shut up’, he grumbles, but Eddie’s laugh chain starts his own smile nonetheless.
‘I’ve rubbed off on you.’
‘Yeah you fucking have, and so have I.’ At Eddie’s unimpressed resting bitch face, Richie grins.
‘It’s all been sorted out rich. I was going to have it be a surprise but seeing you so anxious just from me asking to pack your bag, the better option was to tell you.’
‘Why couldn’t I also pick where we were going. I love looking at all kinds of hotels and deciding this stuff with you.’ Richie barely refrains from pouting, and accepts the apology kiss Eddie offers.
‘I know you do you big baby, but I was hoping to do something special for you. You’re always so understanding and patient when I’m busy working, and I felt it was my time to show you how much I love you in return.’
‘And I’m the baby?’
‘So’, Eddie ignores, ‘Can I pick our suitcases and can we go and treasure our time together? Or are you going to be suspicious of me for the entire two weeks?’
‘Our suitcases? Granted I cry easily and I wouldn’t get through the day without telling you how much I love you, and I clean enough for your standards, but’, Richie hurries to add as Eddie looks more and more smug with each word. ‘I’m adult enough to pick my own stuff, Eds spagheds. I cooked my own dinner for years before we met.’
‘Was that dinner ramen and take away that you took out of containers and plated? Because that is not adequate food Richard.’
‘Okay, point taken.’
‘Besides, you don’t know where we’re going so you can’t select which clothes you need to bring. Let me do this for you.’
Eddie stands up from the couch, staring Richie down with his hands on his hips like he’s expected there to be a disagreement. The glow of the tv shines as an extra light behind Eddie, and for a moment Richie feels slightly intimidated. No wonder Eddie is so good at capturing bad guys, if the roles were reversed and Richie would be the victim of Eddie’s staid aura, he’d confess too.
‘Stay here.’ Eddie orders firmly, and waits till Richie’s eyes soften and he nods earnestly. There’s a million question roaming in Richie’s brain, namely when Eddie had the time and energy to plan this whole thing by himself -planning stresses Eddie out, and it’s a little insulting to Richie that Eddie assumes Richie wouldn’t be able to notice his tells, but he apparently didn’t cause he had no idea this was all happening behind his back-, but Eddie won’t give him one clear answer, so Richie let’s the issue stew.
As Eddie shuffles to their bedroom to collect their stuff, Richie can’t detain himself from saying; ‘is this how you talk to the scum you have to face every day? Cause If so I don’t know how they keep it in their pants.’
A faint, ‘fuck off’, can be heard before Eddie closes their bedroom, and Richie’s booms with laughter. Richie has the foreboding that something bad is accumulating, just outside his line of sight, but until it all comes crashing down, he’s going to treasure the one-on-one activities with his husband.
-----
Eddie loathes airplanes, and by default Richie does. Before Eddie he didn’t mind them all that much, the roundabout bustling of people provided great inspiration for his material, but because Eddie locks up completely within meters of the airport, Richie does too. He understands it, Eddie is a germaphobe and though he progressed a lot in recent years, a hotbed of viruses and dirt is a good way to trigger his old reflexes.
Still, he has never witnessed Eddie this tense in an airport before. If Richie so much as lingers behind to gaze at a magazine he considers buying to entertain himself, Eddie is right by his side, inching him forward towards their gate.
Once they arrive at their gate, Eddie dumps his luggage to the side like it’s secretly a piece of dirt, and seats Richie between him and a wall. ‘You can charge your phone here’, Eddie clarifies, but no amount of charging could ever persuade Eddie into sitting near a contaminated solid surface. The same goes for his table in the airplane itself, he never touches it, would rather spill the food on his pants then touch it.
When Richie gets up to pee, Eddie follows him, come two teenage girls who are about to share some hot gossip they just found out about. Richie’s okay with it, but he knows that some people might think Eddie’s suffocating him.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Bathroom quickly?’ He inquires, wrangling any bit of information as he can.
‘We’ll have plenty of time for that in the hotel you horn dog.’ Eddie replies, and the blush that paints Richie’s face and neck red is enough to dismantle his mouth until they land in their destination.
----
Richie swirls his mimosa, fishing for the one piece of orange clinging to the bottom of the glass. He sticks out his tongue in concentration, attempting everything short of actually sticking his finger down the drink because, according to Eddie, that’s filthy and gives him the resemblance of an animal.
The orange doesn’t move position once so ever, but Richie is craving the tangy flavored fruit, and calculates the risk of reaching with his fingers, despite Eddie’s protest.
Eddie’s been on the phone with Beverly for the last hour, and there’s a risk that he’ll walk back into their bedroom any second now. Eddie booked a presidential suit in a four star Turkish hotel in Bodrum, which means that Eddie can hold a conversation perfectly without Richie being able to overhear.
It’s a little strange that Richie wasn’t invited to join their call, as he usually does, but he’s not going to insert himself. It may be official police business, or it could be a private conversation that Richie isn’t a part of. Whatever the reason, Richie respects it.
It doesn’t diminish his boredom however. Eddie and him have plans to hit the beach for the rest of the day, but if Eddie doesn’t round off his conversation soon, it might be too late to go.
To pass the time, he’s sipping on glass number two of a self-poured mimosa, because a presidential suite includes a free liquor bar, and he’s falling into tipsy territory. He’s going to cap it off at two, because unlike in the past, Richie does not enjoy getting black out drunk. Three drinks a day is his limit, but he’s holding out hope for a dive in the ocean later, so he caps it off at two today.
Another petit shake so the liquid doesn’t spill, but the orange doesn’t budge. Frustrated, Richie downs the remaining drink in one sip, clutching the glass upside down so the orange can slide into his mouth, but nothing happens.
‘Motherfucker, you’re more stubborn than Eds’, he grids out as he gives in and grabs the orange slice between his fingers. He cheers victory, then devours the slice he’s been hankering for since he first dropped it in with the drink. Of course, as Richie’s luck would have it, he then takes notice of the loud tutting.
Eddie walks in the room with the phone still clutched in his hand. He’s rolling his eyes in annoyance, but his presence is weakened by the slightly pale appearance he emits.
Richie thought some time away from home would do him some good, but the bags under his eyes have only enlarged, it emphasizes the fatigue Eddie has to endure day in and day out.
‘Eds,’ Richie gleams, spitting the orange peel back in his glass and withdrawing the glass behind his back. ‘Back from war at last, I was beginning to think you’d leave me here to run off with your mistress.’
‘Smartass’, Eddie jets, but he allows Richie to pull him into a kiss. ‘Let’s go to the beach before you spontaneously combust huh?’
He doesn’t offer any explanation as to why his phone call lasted so long.
----
Richie’s got a raging suspicion that the ‘vacation’ Eddie so thoughtfully took them on, has a double implication.
They do go on vacation, every year around their wedding anniversary, but those travels are always well thought out and organized beforehand. Eddie would never pack up all their stuff, not consult with Richie, and leave for three whole weeks with supposedly no contact from his work -unless he was using it as an excuse to cover something up-.
And, should the surprise trip not be enough to tip off Richie, then the numerus red flags that appeared on the journey itself would.
Firstly, Richie found it odd Eddie negated all offers to go on excursions outside the hotel. During their honeymoon, Eddie would drag Richie to each and every outing that seemed somewhat interesting, like they were on some sort of school outing. Richie would have liked it just as much if they lazied away their days hanging by the pool, but as long as he was with Eddie, he was cool with anything.
Empathizes supposedly, because although Eddie tried very hard to cover up the fact that he brought his laptop with him, he’s not very good at hiding it in a covert spot. Richie found it within their second day at the resort.
He would bet on his life that Eddie worked on a case, even when saying he didn’t, but he’s not sure why Eddie would keep it a secret. As far as Richie’s concerned, he’s never intervened in whatever Eddie was tasked to do. He rescheduled dinners and group dates, accepted it when his plans were tossed out the window last minute and never once let his anger control his reaction to cancelation.
His phone call to Bev and the insistence that nothing was wrong with him also raised a red flag, but nothing as big as the one Eddie emitted when he tried to persuade Richie into staying another week. ‘I can request more time off,’ he’d assured, but the desperate manner in which he posed the question ensued that Richie adamantly said goodbye to the hotel and the delicious buffet and went home.
He’d been patient and hadn’t forced a confession out of Eddie, but his limit was breached. Richie had to go home, and face the music of the problems that accumulated behind his back.
If Eddie was distraught over their decision, he didn’t say anything to Richie about it. In the airport, he wasted a lot of time with his nose barely an inch away from his screen, typing long and hard to decode messages that were impossible to understand without a familiar detective lingo.
It stung, that Eddie had a lot to convey, just not to Richie, but Richie bit his tongue. The last two weeks -suspicion and all-, was choked up with serenity and love, and he wasn’t going to let a brawl ruin their last day.
When they arrived back in New York, Eddie rushed to the driver's seat, like he always did - Eddie didn’t qualify as a good driver, but he’s level headed whilst wielding through the maze of New York traffic. Richie was anxiety ridden any time he had to try- but not after opening Richie’s door and holding it open in a true gentleman style. The issues were clearly extremely amiss, if Eddie felt the need to appease Richie more after everything he kindled prior.
‘So’, Richie began when Eddie turned the car and drove on the highway. It was a long stretch of road that required the least amount of attention, and Richie saw it as the safest option to light up the conversation. ‘Spit it out Spagheddie, my seriousness only shows itself every two years so we’re on borrowed time here.’
Their radio is turned up to the highest setting Eddie ever allows it to go- ’60 decibels I high enough you slob, and if it’s too quiet for you should book an appointment with an otolaryngologist-, the song narrowly unfamiliar enough that Richie can’t devise its title. The melody is composed of theatrical gloom, and it’s weirdly fitting.
Eddie stays silent, but because they're almost at their exit, Richie allows it to stretch. He figures he’ll ask as soon as they have passed the bend, but Eddie drives steady ahead.
‘Bill asked us to come over,’ Eddie explains, ignoring the question at hand.
‘Okay… can’t we go home first? I’m in desperate need of a shower after that plane ride Eds. Aren’t you?’
Eddie merely shrugs, keeping his focus on the road. That’s what does it, Eddie’s refusal to answer him is annoying, but not entirely uncommon -Richie takes jokes too far sometimes- but Eddie brushing off the opportunity to shower? That’s unheard of.
‘Pull over.’
‘What?’
‘I said pull over Eddie, as fast as you can.’
‘I can’t halt now Rich, I promised Bill we’d be at his house around eight.’
‘Eddie’, Richie raises his voice, then quiets in defeat. He’s so tired of pretending nothing is going on. ‘Please pull over and tell me what’s happening.’
Eddie follows his direction, and drives them safely to an abandoned spot on the side of the road. He says nothing, staring out of his window tedious. The veins in his neck are throbbing, in rage Richie presumes, and he should give Eddie time to calm down, but patience is a virtue Richie doesn’t possess.
‘Eds –‘
‘Fucking fine Richie, it’s that important for you to know? I’ll fucking tell you.’ Eddie yells out in pure anger, more worked up then when his mother passed and his hurt got hold of him again for a few months, it’s staggering. ‘I’ll tell you all about the horrors I see every day, and I’ll make you never able to rest your head on your pillow at night ever again.’
‘Eddie-‘
‘No, there’s a guy after us Richie, he threatened you and that’s why we had to leave for a while. He broke into our house, ransacked our bedroom and left because the anticipation of him stalking us is worse than him attacking me on the job. I made you a target and I’m terrified Rich’, Eddie, who so far resorted back to his old ways by yelling out his feelings and lashing out, deflated, body sagging back against his car seat.
‘He’s been evading police custody for years now and I got to close. Bev did her best to stop me from interfering but I was stubborn and now I’ve put you at risk. I’m so fucking sorry Richie.’
The melody of the song purled on in the background. It was, oddly enough, the only thing that remained the same as two minutes before, untouched by the sensitive nature of the topic. Nothing more but an indication that for most others, nothing altered, but for Richie, everything had.
‘Fuck’, Eddie cried out, slamming his fists against the dashboard. The car shuddered at it’s firmness. ‘I’m sorry, Rich’, Eddie apologized meekly, but he left it at that, leaning his head against the steering wheel.
Richie, in his own right, also reclined in his seat, body slightly turned towards Eddie, but his gaze was prone to the road ahead. It had gotten dark since they got back, so the only thing visible are the headlights from passerby cars. Someone broke into their house, trespassed on their property with the sole intent of it being a warning, and that someone could be approaching their car now, trailing with the darkness on his side, ready to pounce and leave them for death.
Like a child that’s convinced a murderer is lurking in the shadows, Richie attributes random sounds to those of their stalker. His feet tapping becomes those of their haunter outside the car, Eddie’s rapping fingers on the steering wheel can only mean that he’s rapping on the car door, waiting to get in. Richie’s paranoid, and he’s only known about the threat for five minutes. Eddie has to deal with this every day.
Eddie’s head remains positioned down, unable or more credibly, too ashamed to face Richie head on. The threat looms around Richie, but this is an area he’s familiar with. He knows Eddie like the back of his hands, savvies that if it’s Eddie’s full responsiveness he’s after, he’ll have to lure it out of him.
‘That’s cool. We always aspired to be comic book hero’s didn’t we? Can’t be a hero without an arch nemesis. What do you think your superhero nickname is going to be? Captain Edward? Eds superspagheds? We’ll have to workshop that one.’
‘Richie, please not now. I love you, and I love how you can always turn a situation lighter with jokes, but please refrain for once, I need you to be honest with me.’
‘Like you were honest with me?’ Richie strikes, not realizing that his intent with them is to strike Eddie, but feeling bad when it does nonetheless.
‘I’m sorry Richie, but I assumed you’d be scared out of your mind and I hoped I could shelter you from it.’
‘I’m not a child Eddie. I act like one a lot, but I’m not. Why was I not kept in the loop? I bet you told Bev about it?’
‘Sweetheart, I know you aren’t, it wasn’t about that. And that’s not fair, I work with Bev, she’s been helping me with the case.’ Eddie sighs resigned, and his eyes glisten with tears that he tries to knuckle hard to ignore. It’s not successful, Richie is too tuned in to not intercept it.
‘Eddie’, Richie says, the tenor of his voice wavering. Suddenly, all the extra energy he gained from the trip drops away, and they take all of his other energy with them. He’s terrified and confused, and he can’t stand fights with Eddie.
He leans over the console, plopping his head down on Eddie’s shoulder. The later instantly slides his arm around his shoulder, pulling him even closer. The console digs sharply in Richie’s side, but it’s a cheap price to pay for getting as close to Eddie as his. Richie’s Instantly more settled, and his breaths don't shock on the way out anymore. He feels safer with Eddie so close to him.
‘Didn’t Bill have that wooden cabin up in Vermont? Maybe we can go there. We haven’t slept in any of the beds yet so you know what that means.’ Richie wiggles his eyebrows in the rearview mirror where his eyes connect to Eddie’s. All Eddie does is give a lopsided grin.
‘Christening the beds?’ He asks knowing full well that’s the answer.
‘Yup’, Richie pops, his smile demolishing when a cat jumps on top of their car. Richie flinches, and bites his lip to stop a yelp from escaping. He’s tempted to ask Eddie to start the car now, but he also doesn’t want to break their contact.
‘It wasn’t about me keeping this from you because I thought you couldn’t handle it sweetheart,’ Eddie exclaims after they sit in silence for a while. ‘I was afraid that you would choose to stay here with me, and that would make you an even bigger target. I didn’t think about being deceitful, I only focused on keeping you safe.’
‘It’s okay Eds’, Richie says, because he does understand it. He still feels like there’s weight on him, like a pair of eyes are praying on him, and Eddie is right, there’s no way Richie would ever leave Eddie alone if he heard about the threats.
‘On the bright side, this is the perfect opportunity to go house shopping.’ Richie glances up between his eyes to send a cheeky look - or what he aims for- Eddie’s way. The discussion about buying a new house has plagued a lot of recent months discussions, but so far Eddie has won out, by saying that leaving the house where the two of them made their first memories would be painful. Now, Richie has more vigor on moving. The knowledge that someone was in there without him knowing about it, that the house is not equipped enough to deal with that, has Richie swayed that he’ll never be at peace in that house again.
‘Yeah,’ Eddie agrees surprisingly. He kisses Richie’s forehead and strokes his hand through his hair. ‘We never have to go back in there.’
‘Good,’ Richie replies, for once serious instead of playful. ‘So off to Bill’s house then? Wait- did that fucker actually invite us or was he willing to let us die without batting an eye. Because that would honestly make for a good book and I can see him letting this happen just for that.’
‘Give Bill some credit’, Eddie chides, but the deepening dimples betrays his mirth. ‘If anything writing a book about the survivors of a murder attempt would make just as much money.’
Richie laughs, and all is well for a slight moment of normalcy. Like they’re only going to visit their friend out of free will instead of necessity.
‘But yeah, if you’re okay with that?’
‘I am, but out of curiosity and nothing more,’ Richie guffaws nervously, ‘this guy isn’t following us right?’
‘Sweetheart, I’m a detective-‘
‘I know, but what if he comes after us at Bill's? What if the others are collateral damage?’
‘Hey,’ Eddie says, his fingers gripping Richie’s chin tightly. He forces the eye contact to extend, gives a pause so his words can take effect. ‘He’ll have to kill me to get to you.’
Richie’s quizinnes uprears, and he has to swallow rapidity to force the blob of bile advancing in his throat at the mere idea back. ‘Please don’t say that Eds.’
‘Right, sorry.’ Eddie offers a kiss as an apology, explanation and safety. Their lips touch, gently and imploring, with a hint of the memory of when they had done this the first time. They’re both hesitant, as if awaiting if the other is holding on the grudges of their heated argument.
They respond by deepening the kiss, a forgiveness; of course not, they adore each other as much as the earth needs the sun to keep existing, a heated argument isn’t deterring in the slightest. When Eddie detaches from Richie, he exhales shakily, and never has Richie paid so much attention to that as now. Eddie has been a detective ever since Richie met him, and he’s still here on this earth. He’s here to love Richie through everything, to live the life he’s always wanted. This guy was a fool to think he could ever stand in the way of that.
‘I’ll keep you safe’, Eddie murmurs, close enough that their lips skim.
‘Me too’, Richie responds in kind, heart overflowing with the need to protect and preserve what they have. He might not be trained in combat, but he’ll put up defenses of any kind so high their stalker will run off when he lays eyes on it.
The car’s headlights turn back on, and Eddie drives them away to a safe location, in their wake nothing but loitering danger.