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It’s his own fucking fault, really.
He’d known it was a bad idea when the new guy handed the cup to him at the start of their shift, saying something about not knowing what he liked. He’d really known it was a bad idea when the mocha-chocolate-whatever hit his tongue and he felt the zap of caffeine for the first time in a long-ass time. But, of course, it hadn’t stopped him. He’d always had a sweet tooth, and he didn’t want to be rude.
“What is it?” he’d asked, fiddling with the little green straw.
The guy shrugged. “Some special order shit. The guys said you didn’t do coffee, but my girlfriend doesn’t either and it’s what she gets.”
“Does it have coffee in it?”
“Espresso I think, but you can’t taste it.”
“Mm. Thanks, man.”
He shouldn’t have kept drinking it, really, but it was good, the ice cooling him down in the heat of the shop, and before he knew it he’d finished it. Whatever. You’re fine, he’d told himself firmly, mentally swatting away his thoughts like particularly annoying flies. A little coffee wouldn’t kill him.
And it didn’t. He was a little more jittery than normal, walked a little faster, maybe, but fine.
Until fucking Jason misplaced the paperwork for the car he was working on, and the new guy knocked over a tool kit and put everything back wrong, and he stumbled and got oil all over himself.
He’d been in the middle of washing his hands for the fourth time when the shop head had marched over to him, narrowing her eyes. “Go home, Kaspbrak.”
“I just need to get this done,” he’d said irritably, drying his hands. He hadn’t realized he’d been washing them for so long.
“We called the customer and he said it’s fine,” she’d said, jabbing her own little green straw at him. “I know how you are. Go home. Chill out.”
“I’ve worked here too damn long,” he’d grumbled, grabbing his stuff. He’ll be grateful later, he knows, but in the moment it’d just been annoying.
So, yeah, he’s a little anxious, but it’s fine. He’s an adult, and it’s not like it’s anything new. He knows how to handle it by now.
He’s curled up on the couch, skin pink from the shower and damp hair curling around his ears, in a big comfy shirt and an old pair of shorts, flicking through Netflix.
His hand tingles where he’s holding the remote, itching uncomfortably. Germs germs germs germs germs, his brain says, ticking like a clock.
The only people that touch this remote are me and Richie, he tells it. Shut up.
He turns on the Great British Baking Show, trying to occupy himself until Richie gets home. He’ll try to see if he can drag him out on a walk, get rid of some of this excess en-
Stove stove stove stove stove, his brain says, and he turns off the baking show. Shut up, he thinks again, putting on a history documentary Mike had recommended.
Mike, his brain asks, and he sighs. Talked to him yesterday. He’s fine.
Mike, it says again.
It’s been a while since it’s been this bad. It’s more an annoyance than anything, now, but he remembers laying in his bed as a teenager, trying force air into his lungs as his chest refused to expand. Remembers washing his hands until the skin cracked and bled, staying in the shower until he turned red. Checking in on the other Losers until they started asking him if he was okay.
He takes a deep breath, splaying his hands out on his thighs to keep from scratching at the itchy, tingly patches on his skin. Everyone is fine. Everything is fine. It’s just the caffeine.
He’d stopped drinking coffee a long time ago, when he realized how easily the excess energy could tip him over the edge from managing to spiraling. It still happens without it, of course, but nowhere near as often or as intensely. He’d been doing good.
Still doing good, he thinks forcefully, fighting back the little voice that tells him otherwise. Still okay. Still trying. This is just for a little while.
Mike, his brain says again. Ben. Bev. Stan. Bill.
He squeezes his eyes shut. Images flash in his mind, searing in their intensity. Totaled cars, burnt houses, stab wounds, empty pill bottles. Bev’s delicate fingers shaking, then going still.
They’re fine, he thinks. They’re fine.
Richie, it whispers. Moving boxes, shouting. A ring glinting on the kitchen table. A lonely headstone.
Fuck you, he thinks, drawing in a deep breath. This is bullshit. He’s fine. They’re fine. Everything is fine.
He’s just gotten himself calmed back down, fingers slowly untwisting themselves from the soft fabric of his shirt, when the door bangs open.
Robber, his brain says, and he could fucking scream.
“Rich,” he calls instead, shoulders sagging in relief.
There’s a muffled response from the kitchen, and Richie stumbles in a second later.
“I got some pasta stuff for dinner,” he says, shrugging off his jacket. He turns towards Eddie and pauses, head cocked, mouth half open like he’d forgotten what he was going to say.
“What?”
“When’d you get that shirt?”
He shrugs, looking down at it. There’s a little spot on his collarbone he’d rubbed raw in the shower before he could stop himself, and he mentally curses. “I dunno. Last week, I think.”
Richie hums, striding over. His hair is a mess, curls tousled, and Eddie’s fingers twitch with the need to comb through them. Richie stops right in front of him, bending down to put his hands on Eddie’s knees, and leans in for a kiss. “Color looks good on you,” he mumbles, sliding his hands up bare thighs.
Richie Richie Richie Richie, his brain says, the repetition fading into white noise as one of Richie’s hands moves up to toy with the hem of the shirt, knuckles brushing his stomach.
“Soft,” Richie says, close enough that Eddie feels it more than hears it.
“Mhm. ‘s why I bought it.”
Richie hums a response, kissing his cheek and down his neck. Eddie arches slightly, breath caught in his throat. He’s strung so tight already that every brush of skin feels like a little jolt of electricity.
“What’s with you?”
Richie pauses, lips pressed against a tendon at the side of his throat. “I come home and you’re here, all pretty and wet and half naked.” He mouths at the spot between Eddie’s shoulder and his neck, and Eddie can feel his smile. “You’re a walking wet dream, Kaspbrak.”
“Oh beep beep, y-“
“Eds,” he says, pulling back slightly to look at him. “What’s this?” He brushes a finger over the raw spot on his collarbone, skin angry and red, and Eddie half shrugs.
“You been scratching again?”
“Rough day,” he says, and Richie pulls back further to give him a concerned look, eyes narrowed behind his thick glasses.
“What happened?”
Angry angry angry angry angry, his brain warns, and he sighs. “I had some coffee so I was already a little hyped up, and then the guys fucked up a bunch of shit and I got dirty and they sent me home.” Pathetic.
Richie plops next to him on the couch, brow furrowed. “I thought you weren’t doing caffeine anymore?”
“I wasn’t, but I fucked up, an-“
“You didn’t fuck up, baby. You just had some coffee.”
“Yeah, and look what happened,” he says, gesturing at himself miserably. Disappointment. “I can’t stop fucking thinking. I’m doing everything I’m supposed to do, goddamnit, and then I go and fuck it up, and here I am again.”
“Eds-“
“And now I’m whining to you, like some fucking kid,” he continues, and god he’s so fucking annoying, and his entire body feels like it’s covered in hives, itchy and exposed, heart pounding loud in his ears, and he was just calm five minutes ago, why can’t he just fucking calm down and be a normal fucking person and his head thrums with failure, failure, failure, failure. Richie takes him by the shoulders.
“Eddie,” he says. “We’re gonna do breaths. Okay?”
He nods. God, it’s been so long.
“One,” Richie says, and they inhale deeply together. They breathe out on two and repeat it a few times, chests rising and falling in sync, until Eddie feels like he can manage again.
“Sorry,” he says, and Richie gives him a look.
“You okay?”
He nods, feeling like he can breathe again. His brain is still going, pulsing with useless useless useless, but it’s slightly quieter now, a buzz instead of a siren.
“You wanna go for a walk or something?”
It’s what they normally do when his OCD acts up. The air helps, and the movement helps get his brain unstuck. But it’s also normally not this bad. Being outside seems like too much, for now. Germs, his brain supplies helpfully, and he wants to punch himself in the head. “Not right now.”
Richie, for once in his life, doesn’t question it. “Okay. What do you want to do?”
He shrugs. “Dunno.” He knows he’s not being helpful, but he can’t think past needy needy needy needy. He’d forgotten how frustrating it was to try to communicate like this. The image of the ring on the table flashes at him again, and he reaches up to cover Richie’s hand with his own. “Can I...” he trails off, squeezing his hand gently.
“Whatever you need,” Richie says, leaning back against the couch with open arms. Eddie tucks himself against his chest, forehead pressed against his neck, and takes a deep breath. He smells like smoke and their laundry detergent.
“It just takes so much effort to fucking fight it off,” he says, and Richie nods.
“I know, baby,” he says soothingly, rubbing a hand up the length of Eddie’s back. He feels it like a brand. “I remember.”
He remembers, too. Richie climbing into his window at night, finding him curled up in his bed taking shaky breaths with his inhaler clutched in a white-knuckle grip. Breathing together, foreheads pressed close, Richie’s hair tickling his skin. Explaining, slowly, how it felt like he would be afraid of everything forever and never get to live. How when he tried it just made it worse, stole his breath and twisted his thoughts. Even when he’d learned that he didn’t have asthma, that his mother had been lying, he’d kept the inhaler for months because he couldn’t stop thinking about reaching for it, finding its empty spot, and feeling his throat close up like a shutter door.
“It’s been so long. I was doing so much better,” he says pitifully, and Richie kisses the top of his head.
“You are doing better. Progress isn’t linear, or whatever the quacks say.”
Eddie rolls his eyes, fondness cutting through his thoughts for a split second. “You’re an idiot,” he whispers, sitting up to look at Richie.
“Your idiot,” he says, grin toothy and stupid and just as oversized as it was when they were kids, and Eddie can’t help but kiss him.
Richie kisses back softly, cupping his cheek, and Eddie can feel every single place where their bodies touch, every atom of his being on hyper alert. He presses closer, swiping his tongue over Richie’s bottom lip, and this time he can’t help the little desperate noise he makes when Richie pulls away.
“Don’t kidglove me, Rich,” he says, tugging on the hem of his shirt.
“I wouldn’t have jumped you when I came in if I knew you were so upset, Eds. I didn’t mean t-“
“Since when have you ever meant to do anything?” he asks, and Richie rolls his eyes.
“You never decided what you wanted to do.”
“I want you to kiss me,” he says. “If you want to.”
“I always want to kiss you, you dick,” he says, affronted. “But right now I want to help.”
“It does help.”
A raised eyebrow.
“It does! It’s overwhelming, but in a good way. Like all I can think about is you, instead of the bad stuff.”
Richie fixes him with a look that’s impossibly soft. “Really?”
“Don’t get a big head about it.”
Richie puts a hand on the back of his neck, pulling him closer. “I’ll show you a big head,” he says, eyebrows waggling suggestively, and Eddie huffs a laugh against his lips.
They make out on the couch like teenagers, Eddie’s hands tangled in messy curls and his worries fading with each kiss. He knows he’s making little noises, embarrassingly sensitive, but the shameful thoughts recede into the corner, replaced by a chant of Richie Richie Richie Richie. He’s half hard already, skin on fire, and when Richie slides his hand under his shirt he feels like he’s going to die.
“Bed,” he begs, and Richie nods, pulling him up and practically dragging him into their room. He shuts the door behind them and crowds Eddie up against the bed until the backs of his knees hit the mattress and he goes down, shirt rucked up around his waist and shorts almost painfully tight.
“This okay?” Richie asks, kneeling on the bed, and he nods vigorously. It probably looks stupid, but he’s too far gone to care.
“I’m gonna take care of you, babydoll,” he croons, and Eddie might as well be burning alive. He presses his lips to his forehead, the tip of his nose, his ears, and both his cheeks, sweet little pecks that have no business jolting the way they do. He kisses his lips briefly, making a little shushing noise when Eddie tries to keep him there. A peck on his chin, and then he’s making his way down his jaw, laving the sensitive spot under his ear, sucking down his throat. He pulls his shirt collar down to pepper kisses across his collarbones and sternum, pushes it up around his neck to suck a nipple into his mouth. He flicks the other with his tongue, biting it gently, and Eddie shouts hoarsely. He feels like he’s buzzing, every touch just this side too much. He can’t tell how long it’s been but it feels like ages, like he’s never known anything but Richie’s mouth.
He’s kissing down his chest, now, at an unhurried pace, lazily sucking a red spot into his sternum and pressing gentle lips into his stomach. Eddie groans, bucking his hips, and Richie looks up at him. His hair is a disaster, curls skewed every which way, and his eyes look huge and black behind his crooked glasses. The image sears itself into his brain. “I almost forgot your arms,” he says mournfully, moving back up his body, and Eddie could cry. He’s whimpering, almost shaking, and when Richie bites into the meat of his bicep he howls like he’s been shocked, body arching up and hand bunching into his shirt.
“Touch drunk,” Richie diagnoses, and that sears into his brain too, a flurry of touch touch touch please please please.
He makes his way down his arm, kissing the delicate skin of his wrist before moving onto the other arm. “Where was I?” he asks, kissing the back of Eddie’s hand like a gentleman, and Eddie loses it.
“Rich Rich Rich please, please, I need you, I can’t, I-“
Richie hushes him, moving up to press their foreheads together. “It’s okay, sweetness, I’ve got you. Okay?”
Eddie sucks in a breath, nodding. “Okay.”
“What do you need?”
“You,” he says, no hesitation. “Need you here, with me, please, just- just stay right here.”
“I’m not going anywhere, love.”
He takes a shuddering breath, nodding slightly. “Okay.”
“Can I touch you?” Richie asks, fingers dragging across his stomach, and he whines.
“Please,” he says, and Richie dips his hand into his shorts for the first time, pulling him out.
“Oh, baby,” he says, a reverent whine, “you’re so wet. ”
And he is, dripping precum like a goddamned virgin. He’s so hard it hurts, has been for what feels like forever. “Rich,” he groans, “Rich, please please please please please.”
“Please what, sugar?” His fingers ghost over the head of Eddie’s cock, and he can’t hold back a moan.
“Please, I need-“
“You need to come, sweet thing?” Richie says, all innocent like he hasn’t been torturing him for what seems like days, and Eddie nods.
“I’ll take care of you,” he says again, softly, closing his hand around Eddie and finally finally finally stroking slowly. He keens, bucking into it, and a handjob has no business feeling this good, but it does. He can’t think, just pulls Richie close and gasps into his mouth as they kiss messily. He can feel himself shaking, getting close already. “Rich, I-“
“Can I move for just a second, darlin?” Richie asks. Eddie nods jerkily, and suddenly Richie is closing his mouth around his cock, swallowing deeply and looking up at him with twinkly eyes, and he’s coming down his throat with an honest to god scream.
His brain blanks, anxiety overtaken by the rush of feeling and the steady weight of Richie on top of him. He feels like he’s floating, like his skin is vibrating, white noise crashing over him in a wave.
When he opens his eyes again, his hands are knotted deeply in Richie’s hair as he mouths at his softening cock, making him whimper. “C’mere, Rich, please please please.”
The kiss is sloppy, Eddie too far gone to have any sort of finesse, and Richie moans quietly into his mouth. He’s still fully clothed, skin hidden away, but when Eddie pushes his shirt up to get to the button of his pants, he grabs his wrist.
“Wanna do you,” he whines, voice hoarse and cracked from making so much noise, and Richie smiles.
“I’m okay, baby,” he says, but Eddie can hear the tremble, just barely.
“Please,” he says, looking up through his lashes and okay, maybe he’s milking it a little bit at this point, but who can blame him?
Richie relents, allowing him to undo his pants. The little noise he makes when Eddie’s hand closes around him might as well be a fucking angelic choir.
“You know I can’t say no to you,” Richie says sweet and low in his ear as he pulls him out, and Eddie shivers. “Never could, not even when you were just a little punk with a cast.”
Eddie huffs a laugh, chest filling with something warm, and Richie’s hips stutter where they’re fucking into his grip. “Wanna suck you,” he says, and Richie groans again.
“Baby,” he says warningly, undoubtedly about to chide him for overexerting himself or some bullshit, but Eddie slides down the bed under him before can say anything. He take the head into his mouth, suckling gently. “Fuck, Eds,” Richie groans, reaching down to cup his cheek softly. Eddie bobs his head, taking more in, and Richie makes a low noise in the back of his throat. “So good, sugar,” he pants, the praise settling a blush high on Eddie’s cheeks. “God, your fucking mouth. I don’t know why I let you do anything else.”
He swallows, taking him deeper, and Richie groans again. “You’re so pretty, baby, Christ. Look at you,” he says, and when Eddie looks up his eyes are wide, pupils blown. “Such a doll,” he says, the words making Eddie’s ears red. He pulls off with a pop, about to retort, to tell Richie to shut the fuck up, but the words die on his tongue when Richie’s grip on his jaw tightens incrementally.
“Where dyou think you’re going, sugar?” Richie asks, eyes dark, like maybe he’d really push him back down, and that’s it.
“God, Rich,” he says, sliding back up the bed, and it almost sounds angry. He pulls his shorts off, finally, pulls Richie down on top of him hard enough that their teeth clack together. “Don’t you know when to shut the fuck up?”
“Beep beep?” Richie asks, meaning too much? and the old joke, the reminder of their history, just makes Eddie redder.
“Shut up and fuck me.” He tries to sound mean, commanding, but it comes out shaky, and Richie smiles like the cat with the fucking canary.
“Aw look, darlin, you’re blushing.” He’s looking at his face but thumbing the head of Eddie’s cock, almost completely hard again from Richie running his stupid fucking mouth, and the double meaning has blood rushing to his cheeks even faster.
“Shut up, I said,” he grouses, but he means keep talking and don’t stop and distract me, please and I love you.
Richie knows. He has since they were fucking pre-teens, sneaking into Eddie’s room after school and holding his hands so that he couldn’t pick pick pick pick pick. “Lay back for me, sweetness,” he says, getting up to rifle around in one of the nightstands.
He does, and when Richie comes back he’s blessedly naked. He kneels in the v of Eddie’s legs, skin meeting skin when he leans down to kiss him, and Eddie’s brain fuzzes out with yes yes yes yes yes.
He’s not really sure what happens after that, adrift in the slide of their chests and their lips and Richie talking low in his ear, whispering baby and sugar and doll and I love you so much, Eds, I’m gonna take care of you, and then suddenly there’s fingers inside him and he moans pitifully, fingers scrabbling for purchase against Richie’s pale back as he stretches him.
“You’re so beautiful, angel,” Richie says, sitting up a little to look at him as he slips another finger in. “Gorgeous. Can’t wait to have you around my cock.”
“Do it,” Eddie says, breath hitching, and Richie fixes him with a look that’s about as close as he gets to serious.
“You sure?”
He nods, and Richie kisses him sweetly before pulling back to slide on a condom and line up. Eddie can feel the tip of his cock brushing against him, head a chorus of need need need need need. Richie pushes in slowly, giving him time to adjust, and it feels like the air has been punched out of his lungs.
“So tight, love, God. Like you were fuckin’ made for me,” Richie grits out, fully seated, and Eddie sobs.
“Move,” he chokes, and Richie pulls out languidly, pushing back in just as slowly. He whines, pushing at Richie’s shoulder, but he doesn’t speed up.
“Wanna take you apart, sweetness, please?” Richie asks, and Eddie relents, groaning as Richie’s cock drags across his prostate.
“Thank you,” he says politely, and Eddie huffs a garbled laugh. “I love you, baby, you know that?”
His eyes flutter shut with a gasp as Richie presses in a little deeper, the feeling of full full full full full settling into his bones.
“So much,” he continues, picking up the pace marginally. “You’ve got me wrapped around your little finger, Eds. I’d do anything for you.” The words paint a flush all down Eddie’s chest. “Just wanna make you happy.”
Eddie whimpers, overwhelmed, and Richie barks out a laugh. “You’re red, baby, am I embarrassing you?”
“Shut up,” he says, breath hitching as Richie speeds up a little more, brain going faster faster faster faster.
“But I want you to know, sugar. Wanna show you what you do to me,” he says, and Eddie can just barely hear how his voice strains. “You’re so perfect, love, it’s unbelievable.
“Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up,” he begs, but Richie just keeps going, snapping his hips faster. Eddie feels like he’s going to explode, like his skin is melting away.
“Gotta stop myself from jumping you all the time or we’d never get anything done,” Richie grits out, grip tight on Eddie’s hips, fingerprints pressing little bruises into the skin. “Prancin’ around the house all pretty in your stupid fucking short shorts. Just wanna pull you into my lap, take you right on the fucking couch.” Eddie chokes, filthy image flashing in his head. “And being so goddamned smart all the time, talking about your carburetors and shit. I know how good you are with your hands, baby, it just makes me want them on me.” He slides a hand to Eddie’s cock, stroking in time with his thrusts, and Eddie shouts. “Making dinner with me, buying a house with me. Wearing my fucking ring,” he says, and Eddie is suddenly aware of the feel of cool metal against his hipbone where Richie grips him. He makes a hoarse sound, writhing, entire body a live wire, and Richie snaps him like a rubber band. “Just wanna worship you, Eds, love, my fucking husband ,” he growls, and Eddie loses it, body arching tensely as he comes all over his stomach with a sob. It’s overwhelming, knocking the air out him out like a prize-winning punch. He feels taken apart, picked clean, fused back together. He’s too tired to think, sensory overload having knocked out his last few brain cells, and he breaths a sigh of relief.
Distantly he hears Richie moaning, low and broken. He opens his eyes just in time to see him come, glasses askew and teeth sunk deep into his bottom lip. “C’mere,” he mumbles, pulling him close with shaky arms, and the last thing he registers before falling asleep is Richie’s weight settling comfortingly over him.
~
“Sorry, baby,” Richie whispers. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
He blinks. They’re in bed, blanket thrown over them both where he’s curled against Richie’s chest. He’s not covered in come anymore, though he still feels sticky with sweat and lube. Late afternoon sunlight streams in the window, painting the room in an orange glow.
“You looked uncomfy,” Richie explains. “Figured I’d move you around a little.” His hair is pulled back in a little ponytail, glasses set on the night stand.
”You’re fuckin’ whipped, Tozier,” he teases, words muffled where his face is mushed into Richie’s shoulder.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Spagheds,” he says back, earnest in a way that makes Eddie’s chest ache. He tightens his arms around his waist, nuzzling the top of his head like an over-large cat. “Okay?” he asks, meaning tell me if you need anything and I love you and let me in, Eds, let me help. Eddie knows, because he’s always known too, since they were pre-teens: Richie is it, for him.
He smiles, heart warm. OCD is annoying, but it’s no match for Trashmouth Tozier. Soon, he‘s sure, his mind will whir back to life, clicking with sticky sticky sticky sticky and interrupting their post-sex haze to force him into the shower. But he’s through the worst of it for now, over the hump, with Richie by his side as always. “Yeah, I’m okay,” he says, reveling in the truth of it.