Chapter Text
Apartment shopping was going great.
Richie's career grew seemingly overnight from stand-up shows and one night stand clubs (as he liked to call them) to something he actually had to care about. So his agent Debbie recommended he get a place around New York to settle down, knowing he's going to be working a lot around the place. She even called up an old friend, Grace, to help him out. How nice of her.
New York was a… nice city. Big. Apartment complexes all around him. Surely one vacancy among them, but from apparent to apartment Rich found the couch was too creaky, the hallways were too narrow, or the furniture was out of place and Richie kept bumping into shit.
It was going great.
“I'm just not quite sure what you're looking for here, Rich,” Grace trailed behind him after he walked out of another overly decorated, disappointingly underwhelming apartment. Call Richie picky but the walls were piss colored in that one. “Maybe if you communicated to me more, what you like, your family situation, your life—”
“Only my therapist has the pleasure of hearing me talk about all that shit, and that's a privilege for only her to hold,” he stopped on the sidewalk outside the building to face her.
“Here's an idea,” she started, looking at him pleadingly, and maybe Richie would give a second thought to the look she shot him if a small sheet of paper hadn't just landed on his leg. He swat it off. “Stop looking for a couple of months, and start again fresh,” the paper came back just to land on his arm, “You've gotta know where you wanna live” New York must be windy cause the next thing he knew, the paper stuck to his face.
“I know where—” He tore the paper off, fully ready to scrunch it up before he actually looked at the words printed on in neat arial. Vacancy, call xxxxxxxx, along with some details and the location. The street written down on the paper was coincidentally the one he was currently standing on.
“Richie, what? No,” Grace looked at him after he snatched the paper out of his hands to read it herself. “A place like this is long gone by now,” he raised his eyebrows at her in question, turned on his heels and started walking to the complex behind him listed on the paper. She ran after him, “Listen, there are 30 vultures and just one carcass—”
“It's fine, Grace,” he shouted back, missing the driving cars around them as he walked up to the building, "I'll just sweet-talk them into giving me the place”
“Has that ever worked out for you before?”
“How do you think I'm here today?”
“Fine,” she settled, rolling her eyes, “I'll call them”
Once they made it up to the apartment and were let in by the janitor, Richie looked around the place while Grace stood by the door on the phone, talking in that harsh voice you have to have in their field. Rich could never work in something like that, probably losing every customer with a badly timed your mom joke.
The apartment wasn't particularly nice or sleek or extravagant like the others. And it was still surrounded by fog and the streets of New York, but somehow the homeless inside made that so much more muffled. Pretty much everything was made out of wood, tidy and preserved, as if some clean freak lived in here before.
When Richie shoved open one of the jammed shelves out in the kitchen it rattled, random objects clashing into each other. Not as organised as it seemed then, like it was all just a front. He shoved the shelf close again and circled the table to the other side.
The curtains were those annoying shutters that always broke, and the floor creaked under his weight, and he did in fact catch his arm on one of the tabletop corners, but for some odd reason, he didn't want to leave. The place drew him in with some unseeable force he didn't care to name.
“No surprise it's still vacant,” Grace's heels clicked on the floor under her as she came to join him looking at the kitchen.
“Mhm?” He turned to her, eyes ripping away from observing a small scratch on the cabinet door.
“The place had a month to month lease,” she grimaced, “Not a yearly one”
“Hey, lucky me, money responsibility isn't really my forte,” Richie hummed back. It was somehow the first place that didn't give him a headache, and if he ever needed anything more stable, that would be a future him problem. “I'll take it. Giva’ me the papers, gove’na”
It was Saturday night, there was work to be done and shows to be written and an expected call from Debbie to shout down his ear till he actually wrote something, but Richie was a masterclass, A-grade procrastinator. And anyway, it was raining outside. Good material never writes itself when it's raining outside, it's one of Richie's biggest flaws. The weather controls his comedy skills.
So he did everything to push out the silence in the house, flooding it with a random history channel late at night while slumped on the sofa and drinking enough gin to forget about his surroundings. Still, nothing helped him ignore how pathetically lonely he was.
Once the infomercials started and his legs solidified into one stiff position on the coffee table, and his head slipped on the hand he was leaning on sending his glasses to fall out of place, he got up to fix himself another drink, still feeling remotely too conscious.
The room spun a little once he got up, but he chalked it up to the gin, which must have been true because everything suddenly stopped when he saw a man standing behind him.
“What the fuck?!” he dropped the empty glass in his hand, shattering it on the hardwood floor.
“There's nothing worth stealing here,” the man said, eyes wide to match Richie's. They were brown and deep and probably easy to get lost in if Richie wasn't more lost as to why this random guy was standing in his fucking living room. “There's no money, definitely no drugs—”
“I'm not stealing anything, jackass!” He threw up his hands, still in half a motion to go get another drink. He'll definitely need one now.
His voice came harsh, “Yeah, course you're not, dickwad. There is a homeless shelter down the street. I will give you money and food if you want, just don't fucking blow it on more gin”
Homeless? Richie had his own two comments about looking a little raggy here and there but he knew he was put together enough. And who's he to fucking talk? The guy had a massive scar in his left cheek and a sunken expression that made him look like he had a funeral at 6 and a heated court case at 6:30. “I am not homeless! I live here”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah fucking really”
“No. You can't live here, because I live here”
Was this guy fucking serious? “This is my apartment,” he scoffed.
“Since when, huh?” As if unconsciously, the guy stepped a foot closer to Richie. It was probably meant to be intimidating but seeing how Rich had a good couple of inches on the guy, it didn't do much but create tension.
“Since I rented it” Drawn in, he stepped closer too.
“You rented it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did” He went through the procedure, he paid the deposit, he even listened to Debbie bitch about the place for a full 30 minutes, he had every right to be here. Till the thought crossed his mind —oh shit, what if the other guy also had every right to be here? He palmed at his face, voice turning more humorous as it often did when under stress, “Oh ho, I know what this is”
“What?” His brows furrowed more— if that was even possible.
“Rent scam, big fat rent scam”
“Scam? What— what scam?” his voice rose higher. If Richie thought about it, his voice was pretty high, and he didn't help himself much by talking so fast.
“There's probably like five other people who paid for this place and got the keys for it,” he started to pace on the spot.
“And what, moved in all their shit too?”
“What are you on about?”
“This is my stuff. All of this,” he motioned around the living room. The place did come furnished, which was pretty handy for Rich but he never stopped to consider where it all came from. “That's my couch, and that's my coffee table— What the fuck. What the fuck is that?” he stepped closer with no regard to Richie standing in the way who moved back in instinct, “A ring? Seriously? Have you ever even heard of a coaster?” he looked around himself, “Or a trash can, for that matter?”
Richie wasn't one for cleaning, not since a couple of months ago at least. He didn't seem to have any will or energy to do anything at all since then. The kitchen trash was overflowing, and the empty takeout dishes remained on random tables, and the beer can piles just grew one on top of another. It was kind of embarrassing, never expecting anyone to psychoanalyse his living space. Because for all he knew he was the only one living here so he was allowed to do whatever the fuck he pleases.
Next the man turned around to point at the broken glass still on the floor, “I don't care who you are, you're cleaning this up, asshole,” then gestured to the rest of the apartment with a look of pure disgust, “You know mould can spread from all those cans? Mould!”
He started moving out of the living room and towards the hall, most likely to grab supplies and make Richie clean up the apartment.
He stood there dumbfounded, still unsure whether to follow him or not. “What?”
“I'm not having fucking mould in my apartment”
The guy was in his own fucking world apparently, his voice fading out once he made it past Richie's line of sight, so he decided to follow him.
“You... You moved in when?” But when he stepped out into the hall, there was nobody there. His arms out, looking like an idiot.
“Hello?”
What the fuck?
“Treating me to a coffee Rich, what's the occasion?” Bev said, settling down on one of the outside benches of the cafe they went to. The metal chair scraped against the concrete under her.
“Oh you know, the usual,” he sat down in his own seat opposite her, “Just trying to see if I could tear you away from Ben for 5 seconds”
She smiled at him, sun reflecting in her bright eyes, “Well you better hurry. What's up?”
He knew Bev would never judge him, or question him for that matter. They've been through thin and thinner, and yet still he hesitated, “I've been sort of… seeing someone”
And maybe that wasn't an accurate description, but it was definitely a true one. He did see someone, he just also saw them appear and disappear into seemingly thin air.
“Seeing someone? That's what I'm talkin' about, Richie,” she gleamed, polar opposite of his tone.
“You think it's a good thing?” He hid behind his coffee cup, pretending to be much more interested in the black liquid than her gleeful tone. He only bought it because Bev did too. Really, the stuff tasted like ass, how anyone could drink it was beyond him.
“Totally, man! I've been waiting for you to find someone for so long. Yeah this is amazing, you should be proud of yourself. Who are they? Do I know them?” She rapid-fired at him without giving him a second to think.
“I mean,” he explained slowly, “I'm seeing someone that's not fucking there”
She sipped from her coffee before setting it down, still smiling, “Ah, emotionally unavailable. I'm kidding, I'm kidding”
She was waiting for the punch line and Richie knew it. He's told this exact joke about a million times before, it was his ghost writer's magnum opus or something. And even if Bev knew they were all bullshit, he still couldn't blame her for waiting.
Still, after a moment that felt all too long for Richie, her smile fell. “Wait, you're being serious?”
“Yes I'm being fucking serious,” he avoided her eyes, never too good at confrontation, “Why else would I call you all the way out here?”
She gawked, coffee completely forgotten at the matter of something much more important. “You're hallucinating?”
“In my apartment. A guy. Real scruffy too, looks like he was pulled straight out of a Russian porno”
“He hot?” She teased in some sort of way to ease the tension. Which worked way too well for the situation he was in.
He met her gaze, “Don't get any ideas, he's for my eyes only, Bevvie”
“Yeah, yeah,” her tone quickly shifted into a more serious one again, fingers drumming against the rim of her cup, “So when you saw this guy, were you drunk?”
“I mean, I had a little buzz,” he shrugged. He wasn't going to elaborate, but Bev shot him that look, all condescending as if she knew more about him than he ever let on. Which she did, in many more ways than Richie liked to think about.
“Ok, fine!” he rolled his eyes, “I was wasted, fucked out of my mind. But that doesn't fucking mean I should be seeing some midget control freak running around my apartment. Why are you laughing? This is no laughing matter, save it for my stand-up”
“I'd save plenty enough for your stand up if you were actually funny,” she kept on laughing, shoulders shaking slightly around her designer blouse that fit her all too well, “So, you were drunk and you saw this random, controlling freak of nature?”
Took the words straight out of his mouth.
He slumped in his seat. He was probably over-catastrophising but he couldn't bring himself to care, it's exactly why he had Bev to mentor him by his side. “I gotta stop drinking, don't I?”
“Nah,” her face didn't change a muscle. Now there's some advice he likes to hear.
“Nah?”
“Man, invite me next time at least,” she whacked his arm, “The Gods gave us alcohol for a reason, Rich. We better put it to good use”
“What are you, a profound new shrink?” If so, he liked her psychology.
“I have the potential,” her smile flattered into something much more kind, eyes softening and hand resting out for him on the cold metal table they both leaned on, “Look around Rich, people have lives and families and friends. I know it's hard but you have to start interacting with people again. I miss my best friend”
He heard himself from a mile away. Of course it had to come back to this, it seemed like everything did at the moment. “I miss him too”
“You know what I mean, honey,” she said solemnly, hand now reaching up to his arm. “Don't avoid me, any of us anymore. We're here”
He extended his hand out to hold hers, tugged out of the shadows it felt warmer in the sunlight.
“Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Bev”
“Are you insane? What are you doing?”
The voice was as shrill as the first time Richie heard it, no regard to how it was the middle of the night and Richie was already half asleep on the bed. He shot up around the crinkled covers under him— even though he recognised the voice from the first shriek syllable. In his defence, it was a very recognisable voice. Not like he thought about it a lot or anything.
“Fucking hell, bit of a warning next time,” he yelled back, eyes scanning the man. He had the same clothes on as last time he appeared, a blank polo shirt that looked too neat and a red hoodie —maroon if you're being picky, which he had a feeling the guy would be— and casual jean pants. It was nothing fancy, and Richie wouldn't say he looked necessarily good, but the clothes fit him if he had to admit.
“I'm gonna do it,” he declared, looking at Rich like he was a madman high on adrenaline, “I'm gonna fucking do it. I'm calling the police”
He wanted to argue, prod the guy, What are they gonna do, jackass? Kick me out of my own apartment? But he also wanted to keep a semblance of normalcy in his life. Last time this happened he just had to ignore the guy and suddenly he was gone with the wind, like a bad dream. A really realistic bad dream.
He fell back onto the bed, tugging at the pillow to scrunch his head into it and screw his eyes closed. “I'm sleeping. It's a dream. It's one of those dreams where you know you're dreaming”
The guy kept going with no regard for his need to disappear out of Richie's life. “What, do you crawl through the window? How do you keep getting in here?”
“It's you who's in here, man,” he muttered, still turned away. He doesn't want to start arguing with a fucking hallucination.
“You're insane. You're actually insane”
“Go away, you don't exist,” he cursed himself for how pathetic he sounded.
It went silent for a moment, and just as he began to think the man disappeared again, he heard a small sigh. The voice was softer this time, and yet somehow not any less snappy than how he normally talked. “Listen to me and listen to me well. This is not your apartment,” he forced one eye open, awkwardly glancing at the man —whose arms now tightly crossed over his chest— through crooked glasses still smushed against the pillow. “You have experienced vivid delusions that tell you that you've rented an apartment that, in fact, belongs to me”
Before Rich had time to argue, he continued, “That pillow, the other side still has a faded blood patch on it from when I got stabbed and the bandages bled through”
He waited with expectant eyes. Richie gradually rose to sit on the bed, and flipped the pillow he was holding against his ears to see— a washed out red splotch of blood. It looked old and faint, but it was there, pronounced against the stripy bedding.
“See, exactly what I fucking said,” he carried on, subtly ignoring Richie's shock-stricken face, “And— and behind that dresser, there's a crack in the wall” He grabbed at the shelf to lean it back slightly, careful not to let anything on it slip off. There was a crack in the wall. “How else could I have known that? You are fucked up,” he pointed at him accusatively, but there wasn't so much venom behind his words anymore, “Mentally, man”
“It's really not a shocker,” he forced out, feeling kind of dumb about the whole situation now. Sure, he had some antidepressants and a good therapist but he never thought it could get this far.
He rattled on, “This is my apartment, and those are my sheets, and that's my nightstand, and that's my picture… where's my picture?” he stopped, walking over to the other side of the bed where Rich still sat cross-legged.
“What picture?” He stared at the blank space and back at the guy.
“There was a picture there of my…” he trailed off for a moment. For a second it seemed like he forgot who he was talking about, but realistically it was probably just because he didn't want to give off personal parts of his life to a random guy who —allegedly— broke into his house. Oh god, this will not look good to the press. “There was a picture right fucking there”
He shook his head, knowing full well he wouldn't touch anything like that even if it had been there, “It was empty when I moved in, man”
“It was just there, what the fuck have you done to it?” he looked to Rich, anger seeping back to his voice, “No wait, fuck it, I'm done with your bullshit, I'm calling the police”
Oh shit. This will really not be good for the press. He was too young for his comedian career to die, people like him usually only went insane after they got famous and rich enough to get addicted to cocaine, and he was only rocking out shows with a couple hundred people to watch him complain for an hour straight.
“Wait, no no no no no!”
They both launched for the house phone placed on the bedside table at the same time, and from Richie's disadvantage of being on the opposite side of the bed, the man got there first.
“Too slow dickhea—” He grabbed at the phone again. And again. Because his hand kept going through the fucking thing. Oh yeah, this was getting weirder by the second, Richie will need a lot of fucking drugs to fix whatever’s making him hallucinate this. “What the fuck?” The man moved away in caution, eyes darting to Richie's like it's his fucking fault the guy was a ghost. “You— you stay right there. I'm gonna use the one in the kitchen”
And with that, he was gone again. Richie's lips were sealed, not quite knowing what to say to himself at this point. Were hallucinations supposed to breach the confinement of their reality? What the fuck was he dealing with?
What the fuck is going on?