Work Text:
In the two weeks since he'd been fired as CEO, Richard had clocked over 100 hours in Skyrim, watched three and a half seasons of The X-Files on Netflix, stopped shaving, ate his weight in instant noodles, and played so much Tetris he could see blocks falling behind his eyelids when he tried to sleep at night. One evening it suddenly occured to him, with the kind of clarity that only comes when taking a shower and letting your mind drift, that his life basically was a game of Tetris. Shit had just been piling up, and while he'd thought he'd been doing just fine sorting it out and clearing it away at first, eventually, inevitably, there'd just been too much too fast. Game Over.
It wasn't the first time it had happened. After he'd left college, after Raviga pulled the Pied Piper funding, after the disaster with the deleted Intersite files – those had all been Game Over moments. But the lethargy and helplessness had worn off after a little while and he'd bounced back. Started a new game. The problem this time was that it just wasn't happening, and he had no idea how to force it.
Jared had been hovering around constantly, offering him snacks and tea and B12 vitamins and re-energizing New Age music playlists, but he could tell the others were starting to worry too. Even Gilfoyle had asked him if he was okay one morning.
Bighead had texted him more than once, too, and Richard had turned down all his invitations to hang out. He knew he was being petty, and he was happy for his friend, he really was. But seeing Bighead get promotions handed to him for no reason while he was hitting rock bottom was just not particularly appealing.
His phone buzzed with yet another text from Bighead as he toweled off his hair. Trivia night at Scotty's, 8pm. You in? I'll buy you a beer.
That one was actually tempting. Richard had always liked pub trivia. He was good at it, for one, but it was pretty low-pressure. All the answers went onto an answer sheet; there wasn't any danger of saying something stupid in front of a crowd. And even though there was a part of him that wanted to just stay inside forever and never talk to another human being again, he also thought that maybe forcing himself out might actually help. Just change things up a little bit, and maybe he'd be able to start over again.
Sure, see you there he sent back. Maybe he'd ask Jared if he could borrow the Volt, so he could bail early if he wanted.
Jared's jacket was hanging on the hook next to the front door, but Richard didn't see him anywhere. "Hey, guys, do you know where Jared is?" Richard asked.
Dinesh and Gilfoyle looked up from their computers, blinking as though they didn't recognize him.
"Wow, you're still alive," Gilfoyle said. "Congratulations."
"I think Jared's talking to Erlich about something," Dinesh said, more helpfully. "They've been doing that a lot, actually. Kind of weird."
"Wait, like, in Erlich's room?" Richard said. "Huh." Erlich very rarely let anyone into his bedroom. He had, in fact, referred to it as his "sanctum" more than once.
"Maybe they're fucking."
"Agh! Jesus!" Dinesh sputtered. "That's disgusting, Gilfoyle. I really did not want that mental image."
"I know. That's why I said it."
Richard hesitated in the hall outside Erlich's closed door, though. What could Erlich and Jared possibly be talking about, in private, if it wasn't him? Jared had promised Richard that he'd pass on any information about the state of Pied Piper and the new CEO's identity as soon as he had any, but what if he'd been pressured to keep something to himself, or just thought Richard wouldn't be able to handle it? His heart suddenly in his throat, Richard gave the door a series of quick raps.
Erlich yanked it opened, looking irritated, but his expression changed to one of surprise when he saw who it was. Richard wondered how long it would take before people stopped having that reaction.
"Is Jared in here?" Richard said before Erlich could ask him what he needed or how he was doing. "I want to borrow his car."
"You going somewhere?" Erlich asked. He shifted to the side as Jared appeared in the doorway beside him, his eyes bright.
"Of course you can," he said. He didn't ask where Richard was going, or when, or for how long. "The keys are in my jacket, it's hanging by the door."
Richard stared at him for several full seconds, because there was something pinging as just a little bit off. "I'm going out," he said, shoving aside his discomfort. "Bighead invited me to pub trivia."
"Great," Erlich said. "About fucking time. Get out of here and get some socialization. Get wasted. Get laid."
"Uh, I'm probably not going to do that. I was thinking just one beer, and the trivia thing. Thanks, though. Um. What... what are you guys doing in there, anyway?"
"Watching Ghost in the Shell," Jared said. "Erlich said I had to see it."
"Really? You're just, like, hanging out?"
"Yeah, so?" Erlich sounded a touch defensive.
"No, that's... that's great. I just didn't know you guys were, like... actual... friends." It sounded strange, when he said it out loud. Suspicious, even. And even though he knew logically that he should probably just let it go, instead he blurted, "You're not hiding anything from me? About Pied Piper? I mean, you guys wouldn't have secret meetings and not tell me, right?"
"Never!" Jared exclaimed. "I promised I would pass along any information. I would never go back on that."
Erlich rolled his eyes. "Come on, Richard. You really think I'm that dishonest?"
Richard had a sudden flash of Erlich, not all that long ago, fervently urging him to commit perjury, and frowned.
"Okay, fine," Erlich said with a sigh. "Maybe Jared and I have been acting kind of weird for the past, what, week. But it's got nothing to do with you."
"Well, what's it about, then?"
"We're fucking."
Richard let out a bark of laughter. "Really? Really? That's what you're going with? Jesus, Erlich. If you guys had to sign an NDA or something just tell me that, don't make up some ridiculous bullshit-" He trailed off, because it suddenly hit him what was different about Jared: his shirt was untucked. Kind of rumpled, even. He didn't seem to want to meet Richard's eyes, but the corners of his mouth were turned up, and his cheeks looked slightly flushed. "Oh my God," Richard said. His voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "You're not bullshitting me, are you."
"Nope." Erlich didn't seem even a little self-conscious about it.
"We didn't really mean to hide it," Jared said. "I just thought it might make things a little awkward, and it's not really pertinent to the running of the company--"
"No," Richard said. "No, yeah, that's, I mean, it's private, not any of my business really, and... you... you weren't having sex just now, were you? I didn't interrupt..." He wasn't sure he actually wanted to know.
"Nah," Erlich said. "We were really watching a movie. And then making out a little bit. I wouldn't have opened the door otherwise."
"Okay. Good. Sorry. Uh, I'd better go," Richard said. "Thanks for the car. Have, uh, have fun."
-----
Richard wasn't sure why he'd said that. He felt like he had to say something, and it might as well be something supportive, even though mostly he just felt confused. In the car on the way to the bar he found himself stuck wondering if they possibly had been lying after all, because he couldn't really wrap his head around what had just happened. Maybe he'd somehow slipped into some kind of warped alternate universe. If Erlich had randomly had a one-night stand with some strange guy, Richard would have been slightly surprised. But he'd always thought Erlich was just barely tolerating Jared. And he'd thought Jared--
He didn't want to let himself follow that thought.
In his rush to get out of the house, he'd beaten Bighead to the bar. He snagged a table, near enough to where the quiz host was setting up that they'd be able to hear easily, and grabbed an answer sheet. He was fiddling with the pencil, trying to think up a good team name, when Bighead arrived.
"Hey, man!" he said, sliding into the chair across from Richard. "Holy shit, that beard is amazing. You look like a lumberjack. How did you grow that in two weeks? I don't think I could scrape up that much facial hair in two years. I'm going to be getting carded until I'm eighty."
Richard grinned back at him, and just like that everything seemed normal again.
-----
They came in third place, even with just the two of them. Bighead gushed about how smart Richard was, and even though he knew that remembering random useless facts and being smart were two different things, he came out of it feeling better than he had in a long time. They stayed for a couple of hours after trivia was over, nursing beers and sharing a plate of potato skins and shooting the breeze, and it amazed Richard how easy it was, how he and Bighead could just hang out like nothing had ever happened. He felt, tentatively, that it might always be that way, that maybe this friendship could be the one thing in his life that would stay constant.
They didn't talk about the arbitration or about Pied Piper. Not until the end, when Bighead paid the bill and Richard tried to stop him. "Hey, man," Bighead said. "You can pay me back when you get your job back."
"That might not happen," Richard said.
"Yeah, it will," Bighead laughed. "I know you can do it."
"Maybe," Richard said, but for the first time it felt like a real possibility. He almost told Bighead, then, about Jared and Erlich. But he didn't feel like it was really his place, and he wasn't sure how he even felt about it himself, yet, so he kept quiet.
-----
The living room was empty when he walked in at quarter to one. But Jared's jacket was still hanging by the door, and he slipped the keys back into the pocket. He went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water, and sat at the table sipping it and listening to the stillness of the house. Someone was listening to music in another room, a muffled bassline barely audible.
So Jared was still there. Richard wondered if he was staying the night, and if he'd done it before. Somewhere under the shock and disbelief there was a little kernel of something else, something unpleasant, and Richard made himself examine it. It was something like anger, and something like--
No, it was definitely jealousy. And that just made him angry again, at himself, because he had no right to be jealous. He had kissed Jared once, weeks ago, while buzzed on Tres Commas and reeling from the hopeless certainty that Pied Piper was completely fucked. They'd never brought it up again, but he'd known Jared had kind of a thing for him. And it was weird, and he hadn't really wanted to act on it at all, in fact he'd felt sort of guilty about it, because Jared deserved better, deserved someone who could actually reciprocate.
And yet. And yet it had been kind of nice, to have someone look at him the way Jared had looked at him. Like he could do no wrong. Like he was invincible. Sometimes it almost made Richard believe it was true.
"Oh, you're back," came a voice from behind him. "How did it go?"
Richard turned, and promptly choked on his water, because Jared was standing there wearing one of Erlich's silk kimono.
"Great," he managed. "Third place. We won a pint glass, but I let Bighead have it. He was a lot more excited about it than I was." He kept babbling as Jared crossed the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. "Oh, and there was this one question where they listed some stars and asked what constellation was in, and then claimed the answer was the Big Dipper, and I got a little pissed off..."
"The Big Dipper isn't a constellation," Jared said, frowning as he pulled out the chair across from Richard and sat down.
"I know, right? They still gave us credit for writing Ursa Major. Bighead didn't think it was that big a deal."
"Well, it's incorrect. An asterism isn't a constellation. I don't blame you for being irritated." He twisted the cap off the bottle in his hands and took a drink.
"...is that Erlich's coconut water?" Richard asked.
"He said I could have some. I really needed to rehydrate."
"So you guys, uh... you guys are pretty serious?"
"I don't know if I'd say that," Jared said thoughtfully. "We get along. We're actually quite compatible, sexually."
"Gah," Richard said.
"But it's fairly casual, really. And, Richard, I'm really sorry if it makes you uncomfortable."
"No, I was just caught off guard. I'll get used to it. When Dinesh finds out his head might explode, though." Richard watched Jared drink Erlich's coconut water while wearing Erlich's robe, and wondered if Jared really believed that it was completely casual. There was a red spot on his neck that looked suspiciously like a bite mark, and Richard forced himself to stare at the embroidered chrysanthemum on Jared's shoulder to keep his eyes off it. He had a question he wanted to ask, and he could feel it twisting up in his gut and knew that if he didn't just let it out it was going to eat him alive.
"Did you give up on me?"
Jared lowered the bottle, his eyes wide, forehead wrinkling. "Oh, Richard, of course not," he said. "I'm sorry if it seemed that way. I just didn't know the best way to keep you from giving up on yourself. But I know you can be CEO again, if you decide that's what you want. We've all got your back. And I understand that you're angry at Monica, but she supports you, too."
"Thanks," Richard said. He didn't have the heart to tell Jared that wasn't what he'd meant at all. "I'm going to. I don't know how, but – we'll figure it out."
"I'm glad to hear it," Jared said. "Starting tomorrow. We'll draw up the battle plans."
Richard stood up to put his glass by the sink, and Jared surprised him by puling him into a hug. He smelled like Erlich (which basically meant he smelled like weed), but it made Richard smile. Maybe he wasn't in some kind of warped alternate dimension. Maybe the real world was just the kind of place where anything could happen, no matter how unbelievable. Like a fired CEO reclaiming his company.
He headed for the bathroom, and looked at his scruffy beard in the mirror. If he was going to do this he was going to have to pull himself together and look professional. He reached for the shaving cream and muttered softly, "Game reset."