Archive of Our Own ^beta

“in a world
full of
temporary things

you are
a perpetual
feeling.”
—Sanober Khan

There’s a storm coming.

The TV is turned to the news, a short and fat man currently displayed on the tiny screen, waving his hand around the red that is brewing right next to Seattle. Eddie is tired of hearing about the damn thing.

“Supposed to be the worst storm Seattle has seen in a few years,” Eddie’s patient says offhandedly.

All the other nurses and doctors won’t shut up about it. People are placing bets about how long it’ll last, or how many days they’ll go before the hospital inevitably loses power. Even Stanley has started to join in on the conversation, leaving Eddie alone with his general pessimism. Eddie’s head is starting to hurt from the constant talk of storms and rain and flooding; he can almost feel the water in his ears, sloshing around and just itching to infect and spread bacteria. Eddie’s patient has a very similar problem.

Eddie shuts off the TV, cutting off the news woman’s cheesy remark about moving to somewhere dryer. “You have hydrocephalus. It’s a condition usually caused when your spinal column doesn’t close so fluid builds up in your brain.”

The guy, Roosevelt-comma-John, doesn’t seem all that bothered as Eddie starts to list off all of the procedures that he could undergo, and doesn’t seem to care that much once Eddie gets to the risks of any potential surgeries. “If there are complications with the shunt, you could develop a tumor-”

“Oh, wow.” Mr. Roosevelt doesn’t sound wowed at all, actually. Eddie needs to get out of here before he smacks his patient over the head with his charts and causes that tumor himself. “Could you get my girlfriend in here?”

Rain drums against the window on the wall in time to the heart monitor. The storm hasn’t picked up just yet, only a little of the normal rain that Seattle usually gets. Taptaptaptaptaptap. Beep . Taptaptaptaptaptap. Beep . Taptaptapta-

“Yes, I’ll let her know.”

Eddie does not roll his eyes as he leaves the little room, because he’s a well respected doctor, and well respected doctors don’t roll their eyes at their stupid patients, no matter how stupid they are.

Marsh is waiting outside of the room, but Eddie doesn't stop to chat. Beverly keeps up with him easily, putting a warm cup of coffee into Eddie’s hand when he extends his arm, then another once he chugs it in just a few steps.

“That can’t be good for you.” Eddie shrugs, making a satisfied ‘ah’ sound as he finishes the first. He tosses the empty cup into a trash can as they pass, then finally looks over at Beverly. “Seriously. You’re going to crash in the OR.”

“Hasn’t happened yet.”

“How long have you been here? Maybe you should go home.”

Eddie brings his wrist up to his face and looks down at the watch strapped there. 3:17 am changes to 3:18 am after a few seconds. “I’m here until six. Maybe you should go home. Don’t you have a boyfriend, or a husband to get to?”

“Ben and I both work regular night shifts. We don’t work forty hour shifts.”

Eddie stops in his tracks, Marsh a few moments behind, stopping seconds later. “Since when have you and Hanscom been soulmates?”

Beverly looks thoroughly pissed off. Most nurses in Eddie’s presence look like that.

“Since always .” Beverly looks like she wants to say something else, something mean, but doesn't. People always get like that. Eddie could make a list of all the soulmate related comebacks he had heard through the years.

Eddie Kaspbrak doesn’t sleep! Eddie Kaspbrak doesn’t have dreams! Old classmates’ teasing words echo through his brain where the nerve endings that hold dreams should be.

Eddie Kaspbrak, frankly, is tired of all the shit he’s heard. Tired of hearing about soulmates and dreams and rain. “Well, congratulations, I guess.”

Beverly rolls her eyes and pats Eddie’s shoulder. “Better late than never. Thanks, or whatever.” She waits until Eddie is walking again to continue. “Just looking out for you, you know. Denbrough will have your head on a platter the second you show signs of fatigue.”

“Oh please, Bill doesn’t have the guts. I’m the best brain surgeon in Washington. He’s lucky to have me.”

“When you're conscious, maybe.”

The nurse and doctor duo stop at the circular desk once the hallway turns into the fairly large room, their colleagues filing in and out of different, yet practically identical, hallways. Eddie knows the structure of this place better than his lonely apartment.

The nurse behind the desk doesn’t look up as she starts to hand over binders. “I can’t believe you’re still here.”

Eddie’s lips spread into his most charming smile as he flips open the top binder, the fatigue disappearing from his face for a brief few moments.  “Only because you’re still here, Miss Keene.”

Beverly snorts and elbows Eddie in the ribs. Greta rolls her eyes and sets down the last binder, a little more aggressively than she needs to. “Finish these cases and then go home, for God’s sake.”

The black coffee is already settling into Eddie’s stomach and making him buzz. Even when he does eventually go home, he won’t be sleeping.

Still, Eddie smiles behind his almost-empty cup at Greta. “Yes, ma’am.”

Beverly stays behind to make small talk with Greta when Eddie leaves, which is just fine. There’s no such thing as peace and quiet in a hospital, but walking by himself so early in the morning through nearly empty hallways is about as close as Eddie figures you can get. No surgeries are scheduled for the next ten hours and there are are no signs of a mass virus making its way into the hospital. For the time being, Eddie just has routine checkups. Then he’ll go home and lie awake until he eventually just passes out with fatigue, a dark and dreamless sleep overcoming him.

Time passes by relatively quickly, Eddie popping in and out of rooms in just a few minutes. He barely talks to any of the nurses or residents, names and faces starting to blur together as his coffee wears away. Eddie walks into his next patient’s room, glancing at his watch, 5:38 am , then back down at the last binder in his hands.

His chart says Tozier, Richard Wentworth , states that his birthday is March 7th, he is twenty five years old, and that he is married to a Tozier, Elizabeth, who is also his emergency contact. The glaring problem is that underneath ‘diagnosis’ is soulmate death , which means surgery, and that irregular heartbeat that rings through Eddie’s ears tells a whole other story.

Tozier-comma-Richard is wide awake, a pamphlet in the hand that is not attached to a heart monitor. Eddie knows those pamphlets well, the ones that tell you ‘how to deal with the loss of your soulmate’ or ‘the ten simple steps to recovery’ and show depressed-looking people who probably haven’t really lost their soulmate at all. They don’t really help, anyway, but Eddie can still recite some of the passages from memory. He operates on people like Tozier-comma-Richard for a living, picking apart their brains and finding the little nerves that make the pons and the amygdala flare up while asleep, rewiring them and taking away the dead nerves to rid the patient of any damage. Then Eddie’s job is done, the patient is whisked away to heart surgery and then extensive therapy, and Eddie never sees them again.

The man in the bed has black, curly hair that hangs into his eyes as he holds the pamphlet close to his face. Eddie notices the glasses that sit on the blanket on his lap, taped in several places, matching the bruises and bandaids on Richard’s skin. Eddie can’t make out many of his features, just a sharp nose that is almost touching the paper, and long spindly fingers with chipped black paint on the nails.

The sound of Eddie flipping through the binder makes Mr. Tozier look up. He wears an expression that Eddie has seen thousands of times. A mixture of fatigue, sadness, and pain. He can see now that the man is handsome, in a rugged sort of way, with his crooked nose that looks like it has been broken a few times and brown eyes that speak a thousand words.

Eddie waits a second, then another, and another, but Mr. Tozier doesn’t give into the awkward silence that is passing between them.

Eddie clears his throat. “Good morning, Mr. Tozier. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Richard doesn’t say anything, but turns back to his pamphlet. Eddie considers the possibility that he suffered worse damage than they had initially picked up in the scan from when he first came in a few hours ago. Eddie continues, taking a few cautious steps forward, “I’m Doctor Kaspbrak, I’ll be performing the brain surgery tomorrow evening. I’m afraid that I have tonight off, so we’ll up your dose of tramadol just a bit to get you by until then.” Eddie sets the binder on the side table, then places his hands on his hips, brushing his pristine lab coat back. Richard remains quiet in his bed, looking small, despite his long legs that almost go over the foot of the bed.

The man in front of Eddie looks both younger and older than twenty-four, his face thin and mischievous and his hair curly and wild, yet his eyes are heavy and tired. Eddie does a double take and realizes that one of his eyes is circled by a light purple with flecks of yellow, like the bruise has been there for a few days and has started to fade. His whole body shakes as he holds the pamphlet close to his face.

“Mr. Tozier, has a nurse spoken to you about the recovery process? Many are not familiar with how it works-”

“Yeah, yeah.” Eddie blinks, not expecting Richard to answer him. There is a strain behind his words that is common in most patients suffering the same fate as the man in front of him, their brain not used to the missing pieces yet. “Brain surgery to repair the nerves that controlled the dreams, heart surgery to sever the bonds that connected me to Betty, mandatory five weeks of therapy, monthly checkups.” Richard looks back at Eddie, who is wearing an expression that could be read as impressed or annoyed. “It’s all in the pamphlets. It’s clearly written by someone who has no idea what it feels like to lose your soulmate.”

Interested, Eddie sits down on the chair that sits next to the bed. “What do you think it feels like, then?”

Silence. The sound of rain falls heavy between them. Eddie opens his mouth to start discussing the specifics of the surgery when Richard starts talking again. “It’s like, I had another body part that I didn’t know I used, and now it’s cut off, and now that I can’t use it, there’s just a huge, empty, painful space.”

Eddie would describe it a little differently. For Eddie, it’s more like a ball and chain attached to the nothingness in his brain, pulling him further and further behind. That’s all he’s ever known, anyway. They’re not really the same, the two of them.

“Maybe you should be the one writing them,” Eddie says, crossing one leg over the other. Richard lets out a soft laugh, but there isn’t much emotion behind it. His body shudders with the effort.

Richard sets the closed tri fold onto the bed next to him so Eddie is able to read the title for the first time. SO YOU’VE LOST YOUR SOULMATE: WHAT DO YOU DO NOW?

Despite himself, Eddie snickers. Richard stares at him, as if to say, what the hell is wrong with this guy?

The giggling erupts into actual laughs, which make Richard smile, then giggle, and he is finally laughing along with his doctor, neither of them really knowing why they are laughing at the stupid title of a pamphlet, or perhaps the situation entirely. To any outsiders, it would seem insensitive.

If anyone has the right to laugh at their situation, though, its them.

When the laughter subsides to soft giggles, Eddie is leaning on the side of the bed, holding the pamphlet up. “The name is ridiculous, isn’t it? They’re not lost, they died. ”

Richard nods, covering his mouth with the trembling hand attached to the heart monitor. “And the ‘what do you do now’ part! Well, I kind of want to go punch some people, for starters.” Eddie glances at the bruise around his patient’s eye. “And eat some actual food.”

“Hospital food is shit, isn’t it?” Eddie thinks back to the salad that tasted like plastic that he ate in his office during lunch, and the coffee that’s too watery. “That’s why all the doctors here are so thin. We eat nothing but the god awful things we can buy in the cafeteria.”

“They force you guys to eat that stuff?”

Eddie shrugs his shoulders. Both of them go quiet. Eddie flushes, thinking about how unprofessional he has been in the past few minutes. He stands up quickly. “Sorry, Mr. Tozier, but my shift is almost over and I do have to turn in a few more things to the front desk, if you have any questions you can ask-”

“Yep. Got it.”

Eddie picks up the binder, holding it to his chest. For some reason, he doesn’t want to leave the room, doesn’t want to leave the hospital and return to his apartment where no soulmate waits for him. Eddie opens his mouth, closes it, opens again, then closes it once more, finally starting to back out of the room. He doesn’t close the door behind him (all victims of soulmate-death are on suicide watch and cannot have the door left open), and smiles when he hears Tozier-comma-Richard yell after him, “You can call me Richie!”

—————————

Soulmates have always been around, as far as scientists can tell. Stories that date back to the cavemen, who drew art on cave walls of two sleeping bodies connected by the head. Ancient Greek and Roman myths weave tales of lovers traveling across seas and fighting monsters just to meet the person who visits them in their dreams. Poets and storytellers have been writing all about the love that transcends consciousness since the beginning of time, stories and epics of something beautiful and, strangely, common.

Shakespeare wrote plays and sonnets. Fitzgerald and Hemingway wrote novels. By the twentieth century, scientists were writing medical journals.

The Dreams- as most people simply refer to them- are just that. Dreams. Dreams shared with your soulmate, the person you are destined to fall in love with and inevitably spend the rest of your life with. You are not born with these dreams, as when you are young it is said that the part of your brain that control the dreams have not yet fully formed. But The Dreams can begin as early as elementary school, the earliest reported case being in a seven year old girl, who complained to her teacher one day about an older girl who spoke another language appearing in her dreams.

While you are metaphorically and literally connected to this person, through certain nerves in the brain stem and a special type of cell that runs through the heart, some religions have even come to reject the “Soulmate Propaganda”, believing the people who come and visit during the night is Satan taking one of his many forms, tempting young children and pre-teens to join his evil army. These types of people, the non-believers, often undergo surgeries to sever the bonds willingly, suffering excruciating pain and often damaging their mental states.

Those who go unwillingly under Eddie’s knife, the ones whose soulmate suffered a terrible and unimaginable fate, are in danger of a similar fate if not operated on immediately. In short: severing The Dream bonds willingly, seen as an act of God or whomever, is never a good idea. The unfortunate ones, who must trudge on without The Dreams that were their comfort, risk insanity, seizures, and must face a world full of love, without it.

Sonia Kaspbrak’s husband died shortly after their son was born, dooming Eddie to the fate of a mentally unstable mother, the surgeries she underwent after the death done poorly and without much regard to the sensitive parts of her brain. That is partially why Eddie does what he does, wanting the procedures to be done safely and well , too afraid to see more people suffer the same fate his mother did. And while he isn’t so proud to operate on the uber-religious more often than not, once in a while, tragedy finds its way into the hospital.

Growing up, Eddie had found the idea of soulmates comforting, as anyone who had a mother like his would agree, although he thought this in secret. With her botched procedure, Sonia had become withdrawn and cruel, dismissing the idea of soulmates and spitting on the metaphorical grave of poor Frank Kaspbrak. She often told Eddie how proud she was that Eddie was “suppressing his urges”, because by the time he was thirteen he had not had a single Dream. She boasted to her church friends, to the man who bagged her groceries, and even to Eddie’s doctor, who was growing just as worried as Eddie was that he was showing no signs of The Dreams.

By the time Eddie was seventeen and the only person in his class who didn’t have The Dreams, and very nearly the only person at Derry High School, his brain started to reject the idea of sleep altogether. He didn’t have friends, so he spent his time at school walking through the halls in a daze and his afternoons and nights studying. He often overheard girls at school telling all about The Dream they had had the night before, little snippets like He said he’d come visit soon, he finally got his own car, or even Eleanor’s english is starting to get so good! She can finally pronounce my name!

He had once, after growing tired of hearing the constant chatter of what The Dreams are like, looked it up. The jist is that The Dream is like waking up again, except you are in a room with your soulmate. Thinking about it made his brain and his heart hurt, as if they knew they were missing some vital pieces.

It’s not that Eddie has was particularly jealous. He never found himself wishing he had a soulmate or thinning about what they would be like if he did have one. It had just felt like he was missing the punchline of some kind of fucked up joke.

Every book they read in high school was some kind of political commentary on soulmates, every other news story was a more heartwarming and inspiring soulmate story than the last, and by the time he was in medical school studying the wonders of the brain, Eddie had just embraced that he was going to be branded as “soulless” for the rest of his life.

————————

“I hate the rain. This is why I lived in California.”

Eddie has a headache. He slept for a little more than two hours, but the sleep was restless and unfulfilling. He feels worse than he did when he left the hospital that morning, and doesn’t look forward to returning home later for another night of little sleep. Meeting with his friends and coworkers isn’t ideal, but it’s better than doing nothing in his apartment. Stanley, in front of him, won’t stop complaining about the rain. Bill, next to Stan, doesn’t seem bothered by him. Maybe it’s because they’re soulmates and he’s used to it by now. Or perhaps Bill is just nicer than Eddie is.

“Why’d you move here, then?” Says Ben, who is apparently Beverly Marsh’s soulmate.

Bill pokes Stanley’s cheek that isn’t resting against the palm of his hand. “Besides m-me, of course.”

“Best job opportunities, obviously. You can’t find better hospitals anywhere else.” Stan gazes out the window, as if he is trying to will away the rainy street. Mike, who is directly next to Eddie, throws a straw at him, causing Stan to snap out of his trance and scramble to catch it before it falls onto the floor. The others laugh at him, but Eddie finds himself looking out the window, too, resting his forehead against the cool glass and listening to the rain tapping against it. The street is uncharacteristically empty, once in awhile a taxi dropping off or picking someone up. A homeless woman is trying hard to shield herself from the rain underneath the awning in front of a restaurant, but someone who must be the owner comes out and shoos her away.

Mike launches into a story about a patient he had the other day, something crazy and probably entertaining, if Eddie could find it in himself to listen. Only sleeping for two hours after working for forty is shitty enough, now he has to go back and work eight more. Give or take. Maybe he can convince Bill to let him take a few more.

Eddie specializes in night shifts and ungodly amounts of hours, always willing to come in if someone needs him to. He’s not doing much else with his time, anyway. He’d rather be operating on a patient or roaming the halls of the hospital than sitting at home and thinking about how he needs to call his mother or the lack of dreams in his head.

The cool window feels nice on his forehead, and the ambient sound of rain drumming against the glass is like music to his ears. Maybe he could just close his eyes for a second…

Someone hits the side of Eddie’s face with a piece of bread. He stirs, sitting up straighter and glaring at Ben. “What the fuck was that for?”

“Maybe you should just go home, Eddie. You’re not looking too good.”

“I feel fine, okay? Tired. I worked a lot yesterday.”

Bill, with his piercing blue eyes, shoot Eddie a look . “You don’t have to c-come in tomorrow, you know. If s-s-something important happ-pens we can call y-you.” His stutter doesn’t deter him at all, Bill’s stern, boss-like voice overpowering it. Eddie is reminded that he is his boss first, his friend second.

“No way, I’ve got an important surgery tomorrow! Soulmate Death , you know how risky that op can be if not completed right away-“

“S-someone else c-can do it. You’re n-n-not the only b-brain sur-rgeon.”

Stan, Mike, and Ben glance back and forth between Eddie and Bill, who are both looking at each other with icy eyes.

Eddie throws his hands up, exasperated. “ Fine . I’m going to do that surgery though- then I’ll go home after.”

Bill leans back in his seat, bringing his drink up to his lips without another word. Stan looks to his soulmate, then to Eddie, waving a hand. “You two done? Because I want to hear the end of Mike’s story.”

Mike brightens, tossing a napkin into his plate. “Oh yeah! So she hands me the scalpel…”

Inhale, exhale. Eddie breaths in and out, rubbing his face as he shuts out the voices of his friends and the other people eating around them. He thinks about Richie Tozier, who will be undergoing surgery the next day. The man is unlike any of Eddie’s other patients, strangely alluring and inviting, with his fading black eye and hands that shake.

Even after the group have left the restaurant and are returning to work, Eddie thinks of him, and wonders how it feels to lose another part of yourself, rather than never having had the part at all.

—————————

“-sure you can’t sneak in anything? A cheeseburger? Cigarettes? Headphones? The guy next door is what kept me up all night, I swear- “

Eddie can hear Richie’s voice from down the hallway, chatting away to someone.

“-don’t know why he’s not in a psych ward or something, keeps yellin’ about a dude named Ralph-“ Richie cuts himself off when Eddie enters the room, his mouth comically clamping shut. Beverly Marsh sits in the chair next to his bed, scribbling something down on a clipboard. “Heya, Doctor K. Ms. Marsh was just tellin’ me all about the party I’m invited to.”

Chuckling, Eddie takes the clipboard from Beverly, who is moving to stand. “Mr. Tozier’s vitals are all as they should be. Blood pressure is a little high.”

“That’s normal,” says Eddie glancing through her notes, then back up at Richie, who is forcing a wide smile. He is wearing his glasses, his brown eyes comically large and doe-y. The bruise is nearly completely gone, just barely yellow and purple around it. His other eye, the one untouched by a fist, is hooded with purple bags, the fatigue clear in his eyes.

“And he didn’t sleep at all,” Beverly chimes in.

The smile Richie wears twitches, the corners dipping down slightly. “The fucker in the room over needs some sleeping pills. Couldn’t sleep a wink.”

Eddie knows that Richie is bullshitting. Insomnia is the most common symptom after soulmate death, the nothingness that greets them once they finally fall asleep a scary and unwelcome feeling. Once the therapy and medication come into play, Eddie is sure that Richie Tozier will find sleeping easy, once he no longer as a roommate who screams about the soulmate they lost long ago. Eddie is due to operate on him within the next few days, although there is very little he can do.

“You’ll be out of here before you know it,” Eddie comments, handing the clipboard back to the nurse. “Within the week depending on how your recovery goes.”

Richie looks down at his hands, fiddling with the heart monitor on his middle finger. The rhyming beeping of his heart starts to fill Eddie’s ears, the song with the rain beginning again. It’s upbeat, this time, the rain hammering down fast and hard and Richie’s heart rate steadier than John Roosevelt’s. Thunder fumbles low outside, like the beat of a bass drum, and lightning far away outside, a quick flash like a strobe light. Beverly is saying something, her eyes trained on the window, but Richie has looked back up and locked eyes with Eddie, as if he hears the symphony too.

“-now before we start getting calls about people getting in trouble in this hurricane,” Beverly is saying. Eddie tears his eyes away from Richie, running a hand through his hair. Richie’s eyes, on the other hand, do not leave Eddie’s face.

“Right,” says Eddie, moving to leave the room. “See you in a few hours, Mr. Tozier, the party’s at seven.” Stopping in the doorway, he adds, for good measure, “don’t show up late.”

And even as he leaves the room, he can still hear Richie say, “for you Doctor Kaspbrak, I would never.”

—————————

The surgery goes well, because Eddie is good at what he does. He does not pass out because he drank three cups of coffee before going into the OR, and when he returns home, he drinks one more, because he has nothing better to do.

Richie Tozier arrived to the operating room with the bottom part of his head shaved, an undercut that didn’t really suit him, and an unreadable look on his face. He goes under quickly, the surgery only taking a few hours before Eddie is stitching his head back together, any traces that Richard Tozier ever had The Dreams removed from his brain.

Eddie left the OR feeling like he usually did, tired and hands aching, but also changed, somehow. He felt on edge, anticipation bubbling up under his skin, and even as he walks outside of the hospital, his watch reading 10:34 pm , rain hammering against his raincoat, he can feel his heart beating quickly and his fingers twitching. It’s excitement, he realizes, once he is sitting in his almost quiet car, listening to the concert the storm gives him.

Eddie Kaspbrak is excited . He thinks of Richie Tozier, sad and alone and just starting to come-to after the surgery, smiling just a little when he and Eddie lock eyes, then wincing in pain at the movement.

His stomach churns, his fingers twitch. His lips twist into a smile so wide that Eddie has to cover his mouth with his hand as he laughs softly into it.

A loud crack of thunder pulls Eddie out of his thoughts, lightning illuminating his face for a moment. Eddie smiles long after he has started the car, and doesn’t stop until he is fast asleep on his couch many hours later, head resting on the arm rest, a dreamless sleep overcoming him.

—————————

A week after the storm, after Eddie’s apartment loses power twice and the basement of the hospital floods up to his ankles, Richie Tozier is entering the hospital at the same time Eddie is leaving it.

“Doctor Kaspbrak!” Says Richie excitedly, abandoning the door he was opening to catch up to Eddie, which is hardly a feat, as the man is nearly a foot taller.

Eddie stops in his tracks, retracting from his thoughts to face his former patient. He hadn’t gotten a good look at Richie’s stature while he was admitted to the hospital, the few times they interacted with Richie being in bed or on the operating table. Now Eddie notices that he must be 6’2, even nearing 6’3, with long twitchy fingers at the end of a long and fidgeting arm, paired with legs that go on for miles and shoes that may have been white, once upon a time. His hair is still unruly, a few curls looming over the area that Eddie had to shave just the week prior, as if looking over a cliff. It gives Richie a hipster type vibe, with his big glasses and odd sense of fashion, which consists of a flannel, a hoodie, and a leather jacket.

Richie notices Eddie giving him a once over, his cheeks turning pink. “Not the hospital gown you’re used to, eh?

“You’ve got that right.”

Awkward silence befalls them, Eddie glancing at his watch and Richie behind himself, where the hospital stands over them.

Eddie continues, deciding that Ben can wait a few minutes, “how are you recovering?”

“Good! Great!” Richie says, after a beat. It is clearly far from the truth, of the bags under his eyes and the slightly hollowed out cheeks have anything to say. “Just, uh, headaches and heartburn, you know,” Eddie nods to confirm that, yes, he does know, “and the antidepressants seem alright so far, the sleeping meds could be better-“

“Have you talked to someone about that?” Eddie motions to the hospital. Richie bobs his head a few times, grimacing at the pain.

“Yeah. Starting new ones today.” Another silence that seems to last an eternity.

“Therapy?”

Eddie watches as Richie’s shoulders visibly droop. He runs a hand through his dark hair and stops at the shaved part, confusion flashing his face for a moment before he remembers why he doesn’t have hair there. “Shitty. Listening to other people talk about their experiences… Some people have even moved on, you know?”

Eddie does not know.

Continuing, Richie looks down at his shoes, avoiding eye contact. “There are people who go to these meetings who lost their soulmates years ago. They say they don’t even remember what The Dreams are like. They can’t remember what their voice sounded like, or how they looked in the morning after you spent all night writing your grocery list. And I know her eyes were blue, but I can’t remember if they were sky blue, or if they were like the sea? Her perfume still sits on our dresser, but now when I go to sleep I can’t smell it anymore. I’m forgetting . I don’t want to forget.”

Richie sucks in a shaky breath, and Eddie does not know what to do. He cannot relate, not in the way Eddie wishes he could, can’t recite a passage from a medical journal or one of the pamphlets that he knows Richie must be tired of already.

Instead, Eddie reaches out and places a hand on Richie’s shoulder, praying that Richie can read his mind. You will be okay.

Their eyes connect for a long moment. Eddie wonders if Richie is seeing his soulmates’ blue eyes in Eddie’s brown.

Richie sniffs and looks up at the sky overhead, grey clouds warning of more rain to come.

Eddie drops his hand. He wants to ask Richie to get a drink with him, or perhaps coffee, and they can stay up all night talking about the Dreams that they don’t have.

But they bid their goodbyes instead, empty promises to see each other around, Richie heading inside to a therapy group that he loathes and Eddie to dinner with one of his friends, instead of home to a soulmate to wrap up into his arms and kiss.

—————————

Eddie does not use social media very much- has no friends from high school to keep up with on Facebook and no pictures to post on Instagram, which is why the notification that pops up on his phone at precisely 4:02 am surprises him.

He’s at home, busying himself with cleaning the floor of his kitchen, when he hears the distant ping from the dining table a few feet away. It’s a different sound from the usual text tone, which is why it bothers him at first, setting down the scrubber and pulling off the rubber gloves with piqued interest. When he finally makes it over to the table, shoved up against the wall with just two chairs underneath it, and turns on his phone, he nearly throws up at what awaits him on the screen.

Richie Tozier sent you a friend request.

His first instinct is to click on the name, and sure enough, it is him, from the few pictures Eddie can see on the private profile. The cover photo doesn’t make much sense; a blurry photo of some plants and a hand sticking into the frame, throwing up a peace sign. His profile picture is of himself and a woman, a selfie taken from somewhere with lots of snow. Their faces are scrunched up and silly, with pale faces and pink noses. Eddie realizes all at once that this must be Elizabeth Tozier, Richie’s soulmate and wife. He zooms in on Richie so he won’t have to look at her, feeling guilty.

Richie looks much the same, like the photo wasn’t taken too long ago. His hair is a little shorter and his glasses are not taped, and he wears a wide and genuine smile, his tongue poking out between his slightly crooked teeth. Eddie feels himself starting to smile, swiping to the left to look at Richie’s other profile photos.

There are only four more, the next being a dorky selfie of Richie hanging upside down, his hair giving into gravity and hanging limply, and the one before that a photo of him on what appears to be a stage, holding a ukulele that looks way too small in is hands with his eyes closed and mouth open, like he is in the middle of singing. The first is just of an old looking dog, staring up at the camera with its tongue hanging out.

Eddie can barely look at the fourth one, of Richie and Elizabeth at their wedding. He is dressed in a simple black tux with a blue bow tie, his bride in an elegant white gown. She is holding him bridal style while he holds her bouquet of lilies. They are both laughing and looking at each other like they are very deeply in love.

Quickly exiting his page and returning to the friend request screen, it only takes a few seconds for Eddie to make up his mind.

After Eddie hits accept Richie sends him a message nearly ten seconds later, quickly followed by many more.

Richie Tozier: took u long enough

Richie Tozier: u kno how many edward kaspbraks there r in seattle?

Richie Tozier: not many

Richie Tozier: 0 actually

Richie Tozier: miss marsh forgot to mention u go by eddie

Richie Tozier: anyway

Richie Tozier: new sleep meds clrly not workin too great

Eddie stares at the screen, aghast. He goes back to Richie’s profile, scrolling to see his most recent posts. The last one was from almost a month ago, an article he shared about plastic waste, and the one before that a short post about some movie he just saw, tagging Betty Tozier . Eddie clicks back to messenger before he can see anymore.

Stalker , is all Eddie types back.

Richie is quick to respond.

Richie Tozier: u flatter me dr k

Richie Tozier: is it weird that im texting my dr

Richie Tozier: i didnt find dr uris

Richie Tozier: (who has my < 3)

Richie Tozier: besides

Richie Tozier: u seem like more of a conversationalist

I heard that social media makes insomnia worse.

Richie Tozier: what r u, my dr?!

Richie Tozier: dnt answr tht

Eddie doesn’t, setting his phone face down and returning to his kitchen, sitting on his floor but not picking up the sponge or the gloves. Instead, he runs both of his hands down his face, groaning.

“What did I do to deserve this?” He asks to the empty kitchen, a few more pings coming from his phone, lining up like bells to the distant sound of rain starting up outside.

—————————

They run into each other again, a few weeks after Richie first messaged Eddie. He feels a bit bad about never responding to the last message, but Richie makes no effort to send anything else either, so Eddie calls it even.

Eddie is walking down a particularly long hallway towards the waiting area, holding a clipboard close to his face, his eyes worn and too tired to read from further away. The only warning he gets before he walks right into someone is a vaguely familiar voice muttering to themselves. It isn’t enough to notice him, Eddie’s face colliding with the charts and his chest slamming into someone else’s. “Shit- I’m so-“

Richie cuts himself off when Eddie steps back, gingerly touching his nose. It is bleeding, but doesn’t feel broken. Richie stares at him, his mouth comically falling open and his arms out, like he means to catch Eddie if he falls.

“Good evening, Mr. Tozier,” says Eddie, digging through his pockets for a handkerchief and coming up empty. Richie scrambles for a moment, his hands digging through his own pockets before pulling a wad of tissues from the breast pocket of his flannel and holding them out to his doctor.

Trying not to think about what Richie could’ve possibly been using them for, Eddie takes them and holds them up to his nose.

“Didn’t I tell you to call me Richie?”

Eddie hums absently. “Where are you off to, Richie?”

The man in question turns a light shade of pink, glancing over Eddie’s shoulder. “Wanted to visit my very favorite nurse Miss Marsh, and maybe pay a quick visit to Doctor Uris and ask why he hasn’t responded to my friend request. It’s really quite rude, the least he could do is block me-“ There is a lie in his voice, but Eddie chooses to ignore it. Richie cuts himself off and swallows hard. “Please, Doc, let him know my heart misses his tender grasp.”

Richie throws his hand dramatically over his chest, tossing his head back with a mock pained expression on his face. Eddie laughs, genuine and full, feeling something in his stomach stirring with trepidation. “I’ll tell him next time I see him.”

Someone brushes by the two of them in a hurry.

Both men ground themselves in that moment, Eddie looking awkwardly down at his charts and Richie clearing his throat. “So I was wondering-“

“Sorry, Mr. To- Richie,” Eddie corrects himself after a look, “I need to get back to work.”

“Oh.” Richie sounds hurt. “Bye, then.”

Eddie lifts a hand in goodbye and starts to continue in the direction he was heading. His stomach continues to churn in his first few steps, as if it knows what he’s just done. He can feel Richie’s eyes on the back of his head. Stupid Eddie, stupid Eddie, stupid Eddie-

Not knowing what comes over him, Eddi spins around, walking backwards and holding his clipboard close to his chest. Richie is still standing a few feet away. “I’ll see you around, okay?” Eddie says, loud enough for Richie to hear over the hustle and bustle. Hopefully he can not hear the nervousness in Eddie’s voice.

Immediately Richie is smiling, his whole stance changing. “Yeah! Yes! You will!” His hands move around awkwardly at his sides, like they have a mind of their own. “-See me around,” Richie adds.

Eddie rolls his eyes, unable to contain the smile on his face, turning back around and entering the waiting room, imagining himself in one of those shitty rom-cons, as if pumping his fist in the air and jumping for joy would really capture the way his heart pounds with excitement.

——————————

Richie Tozier: can i buy u a drink sumtime

What kind of drink?

Richie Tozier: considering its currently 312am would it would be a fair assumption to assume u like coffee

Maybe.

Don’t think that just because I’m a Doctor I don’t drink.

Richie Tozier: i could nvr take a guy as cute as u to a shitty bra

Richie Tozier: bar

Richie Tozier: cafes seem much more ur style dr k,, vry mellow, vry hipstery

Richie Tozier: not that i get that vibe from u

Richie Tozier: im digging myself a hole here

Richie Tozier: is ur lack of response a yes to tht coffee?

I’m thinking about it.

I’m off tomorrow at 5:00pm, I can meet you at the hospital?

Richie Tozier: eddiekaspbrak u r a man w a plan

—————————

Richie Tozier drinks his coffee with a considerable amount of milk and sugar over ice, and grimaces when Eddie orders his black. “Black coffee is for people who work on Wall Street and sleep with a hooker every other Saturday.”

Shrugging, Eddie takes his first blissful sip of coffee since they entered the Starbucks, warmth spreading down to his toes. “You don’t know how I spend my weekends.”

The two men walk to a table next to the window, sitting across from each other. Richie is quick to remove his jacket and hat, twisting to the side to lay the coat over his chair. Eddie gets a good look at his hair, which, a little over a month after the surgery, has almost completely grown back to what it once was. The only cue that he ever had brain surgery is the long scar in the shape of a horizontal parentheses, where hair refuses to grow. Richie’s black hair nearly covers it anyway, the curls folding over it and concealing it.

Eddie takes another long sip of his coffee and averts his eyes when Richie turns back around, a small smile on his face. “I can’t wait until this rain turns into snow.” He gestures to the light sprinkling of rain hitting the window.

“Snow in Seattle isn’t nearly as nice as it is anywhere else. It’s just ice. More car accidents and injuries-“

“You’re so negative .” Richie crosses one leg over the other. Eddie pretends not to feel Richie’s foot briefly tap against his knee. “Snow means Christmas!”

Eddie scoffs. “Christmas is three months away.”

Richie lifts his hand that is holding his coffee, as if he is proposing a toast. “I’m always ready for Christmas, Doctor K!”

“You can call me Eddie, dumbass.”

The look on Richie’s face makes Eddie want to take a picture. He smiles and wiggles his eyebrows, leaning an elbow on the table and resting his chin on his hand. “Okay, Eds.”

“You can call me anything but that.”

“Eddie-Spaghetti-“

“Maybe we should stick to doctor.”

Richie wiggles the pointer finger that holds his cup across the table at Eddie. “No way, no take-backs. You are now blessed with my wonderful nicknames.”

They stare at each other for a few long, quiet moments, before Eddie huffs a laugh. “Whatever.”

Richie leans back and pulls the straw of his drink into his mouth, a satisfied smirk pulling at the edges of his lips.

“So,” says Eddie, “I don’t know what you do for a living.”

“What, you wondering how I’ll provide for our family during the hard winter?” Richie lays a hand over his chest and puts on a poor southern-belle accent. “However will we survive without daddy to support us?!”

Eddie gives Richie his best death glare.

“Fine, fine. I play music down at the Bastille Bar. Ukulele and piano mostly. Sometimes guitar.”

That explains one of his profile pictures. The beautiful one of him with the ukulele mid song, the stage lights casting him in a halo.

“You any good?” asks Eddie.

“The very best,” jokes Richie. Then, “well. They  pay me. So.” He shrugs off-handedly.

After a pause, Eddie gets a bout of courage and says, “I’d like to see you play sometime.”

There is the thump of Richie’s knee hitting the bottom of the table, followed by his help of surprise. “Really?” Richie is leaning back forward, setting his cup to the side and placing both hands on the table.

Eddie’s eyes look up to the ceiling, out the window, then back at Richie. He is very close, brown eyes glittering with excitement, magnified by the glasses. His freckles look like stars- like Eddie could pick out constellations if he got closer and started to trace them with his fingers. If he wanted to.

He desperately wants to.

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.”  Eddie tries not to focus too much on how Richie is looking at him, like he hung the stars and the sun and the moon. “If you give me a schedule or something I can come when I’m not at work…”

Richie scrambles to pull his phone out, looking through it for a few seconds. A moment later, Eddie hears the distant ping of his own phone.

He chuckles, ignoring it. “Good one.”

Leaning back once more, Richie lifts his coffee up to his mouth. “Hey, I’ll even buy you a drink if you show up.”

“Oh, I’m holding you to that.”

—————————

There is, even if most parts of the world dispute the very idea, evidence to suggest that the ‘soulmate’ who appears in The Dreams may not always be of the romantic kind. There have been 4,677 reported cases in the last twenty years of people believing they harbor no romantic attraction to their ‘soulmate’, rather, a very deep bond and connection to the other party that goes nowhere beyond simple affection or fondness. These rare cases of what some doctors are calling ‘platonic soulmates’ are becoming more common in some religious circles, an estimated 4/10 Christians believing their ‘soulmate’ to be platonic, rather than the consensus a decade ago, which was only 1/10.

This overwhelming evidence against the existence of ‘soulmates’ could also be the result of evolution, as medical professionals such as Doctor Audra Phillips and Doctor Zack Denbrough have proposed. Those born as early as 1975 have experienced the ‘platonic soulmate’ phenomenon. There is no physical evidence to back up this theory; scans of two separate people, one claiming to have a ‘platonic soulmate’ and the other having a ‘romantic soulmate’, showing little to no difference in their brains or hearts, shown to the right.

‘Platonic soulmates’ often raise another question among the disbelievers, though:

Where are their ‘romantic soulmates’ ?

Wise, P. (2007) What Souls Are Made Of . (page 134-135, chapter 7) Journal of Neurorestoratology, 2008.

—————————

The bar is relatively packed for a Thursday night, enough people that Eddie brushes shoulders with people as he makes his way towards the bar, muttering sorry and excuse me as he pushes past. It’s barely even midnight, yet he still waits ten minutes for his drink. Eddie just hopes that it is worth it.

After buying a glass of rum and coke, Eddie heads in the direction of music, pushing through the crowd once more.

The ‘stage’ is barely big enough to be considered a stage, just slightly raised flooring with a sleek brick backdrop and two overhead lights casting the stage in low light. Richie is in the middle, sitting on a stool with a ukulele, mid song. It’s not exactly the kind of music anyone would dance to in a club, and no one is, something soft and plucky that Eddie doesn’t recognize.

“ I watched you deal in a dying day, and throw a living past away , so you can be sure that you're in control, ” Richie leans to the side a little, closing his eyes and getting close to the mic, “ You're just somebody that I used to know .”

Eddie weaves his way through the tables full of people, holding back a smile. Richie sounds good. Better than good. Great .

His voice is low and a little raspy, like before he went on he went out to the back and smoked. Richie’s nails are painted black and move along the instrument with expertise, as if he was born to play it. He’s a little like Apollo, in Eddie’s mind, the god of the sun with his black hair framed with light and his freckles like splatters of paint.

The song ends with one final strum as Eddie sits down at a table as close to the stage as he can get, a few people clapping unenthusiastically. One girl near the back whoop s drunkenly.

“Right back at ya,” says Richie into the microphone, pointing towards the voice. “I’ll be here all night.”

He launches into another song, something more upbeat this time. Eddie leans on his hand, pleasantly watching as Richie gets the crowd wrapped around his finger, his charisma and musical skills lifting the spirits of everyone in the building.

Around the third song he finally notices Eddie, stumbling over his words before picking himself back up. Richie smiles through the rest of the song, glancing back at Eddie every few seconds, like he is making sure he is still watching.

“Thank you, thank you very much,” Richie leans in close to mic after finishing the song, considerably more applause this time, “I will be back in a few.”

Richie puts his ukulele onto a stand and hops off the stage, approaching Eddie happily. The flannel he wears is too large for him, the sleeves rolled up around his wrists. They fall down his arms and rest against his biceps as he lifts them up over his head excitedly. “Eddie-Spaghetti! You made it!”

“Of course I did.”

“Didn’t I tell you I was going to buy your drink?”

Eddie looks down at his glass, which is now just ice. “You can get me another one.”

“Ooh Eds, you’re great at flirting.” Richie picks up the glass. “Whatcha drinkin’?”

Pretending not to hear the first part, Eddie taps his fingers against his chin. “Rum and coke.”

Richie winks and disappears.

How is it that this man that Eddie has only known for a month and a half has affected him so much? Watching Richie flirt effortlessly (jokingly?) makes Eddie’s stomach writhe and pull in on itself; but it’s not just that. Talking to him makes Eddie’s brain fire up. Being near Richie causes his heart to pound against his rib cage. It’s infuriating, almost. Some part of himself, perhaps the one that has always wondered what having a soulmate is like, is desperately scratching at his insides. The rational part of himself is kicking and screaming.

Richie returns with two glasses and plops down in the chair next to Eddie. “So, you enjoying it so far?”

“You’re really good.” Eddie tentatively takes a drink. “You ever played with a band?”

“Shitty garage band in high school.” Richie taps his black nails against the table, looking Eddie up and down. “It’s weird not seeing you dressed up and in a lab coat. Or scrubs.”

Self consciously, Eddie looks down at himself. A button up and jeans is barely dressing down by anyone else’s standards, but Richie seems pleased. Eddie folds his arms on the table and leans on them, biting on his bottom lip. “This is about as casual as I get.”

“One day, Eddie Kaspbrak, I will see you in a t-shirt.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and watches as Richie takes a long drink from his glass. He doesn’t say, I hope you will, too .

After a few minutes, Richie finishes his drink and returns to the stage, sitting behind the keyboard for the next song.

“Welcome back ladies, gents, and anyone in between, hope you’ve refilled your drinks and are ready for some more of my lovely tunes.”

The piano is a nice, refreshing tune as opposed to the ukulele. The song goes over Eddie’s head, something about cigarettes and chocolate milk, but the way he plays, and how Richie looks as he sings, doesn’t.

At what Eddie’s watch tells him is 1:47 am , a man walks into stage and whispers into Richie’s ear.

“Well folks, I’ve just been informed it’s time for last call. I’m gonna play one more song.” Richie plays a string of chords, crossing his hands over each other as they travel up higher. “And remember, ya don’t gotta go home, but ya can’t stay here.”

He begins the song unceremoniously, just a quick glance back at Eddie. Eddie wonders if it’s wrong to feel so drawn to someone who recently lost their soulmate.

“I've been out walking. I don't do too much talking, these days. These days,” Richie draws out the word these, and sounds so sad as he does so that Eddie has to look away, as if he had just walked in on something private. “These days I seem to think a lot, about the things that I forgot to do, and all the times I had the chance to.”

Eddie pulls out his phone and takes a picture of Richie in the moment, his head cocked to the side and the microphone close to his lips. The glare on his glasses make his eyes look white. One of his hands is up off the keys, the picture of poise and elegance.

He shows Richie the picture once he hops off the stage, his ukulele in a case that is hanging off his shoulder. “Wow, this is great!” Richie continues to walk with the phone, forcing Eddie to follow. “Look at that hand! I look so serious...” Richie pulls up the corner of his mouth with his pointer finger in a cruel smile. “Why so serious, Eds?” He leans down, close to Eddie’s face, doing a half-decent impression of The Joker.

“Real funny.” Eddie snatches his phone back. They walk to the bar, where the bartender hands Richie a check, then continue to door. “Well, Richie-“

Richie throws a lanky arm over Eddie’s shoulders. “No way, you’re not getting rid of me yet. There’s a park near Salmon Bay that’s real purdy this time at night.”

Warily, Eddie looks up at Richie. It doesn’t seem like a good idea to go to a park with a man who used to be your patient at two am, and an even worse idea to go with the person you’re kind of attracted to, even though they’re not your soulmate.

“Okay,” He says, despite his better judgement.

Off they go, down the street and around corners in relative silence. Eddie’s never been to the Salmon Bay, nor the park that is supposedly near it, but trusts Richie’s sense of direction. Eddie’s just glad that it isn’t raining.

“I’ve been coming here a lot recently. After everything,” says Richie as they approach the tiny park, which is barely anything more than two swings and a slide. He doesn’t approach either of them, but instead lays in the grass, his ukulele next to him and his hair splayed out. Eddie stands still for a second, unsure what to do. “Come on Eds, I don’t bite.”

Eddie lays down, after dismissing all the thoughts about how how gross the ground must be. Rather than laying down directly next to Richie, Eddie lays opposite him, their heads next to each other. Not exactly close enough to touch- but Eddie is still reminded of a cheesy romance movie poster. If he were to turn his head to the right he’d get a perfect view of Richie from upside down.

“So Eddie,” he says after many beats of silence. Eddie can hear Richie pulling at grass. “Tell me something.”

Eddie scoffs. “What do you want to know?”

“Anything.”

He thinks about the parts of his life that are interesting. He doesn’t have The Dreams, for starters. He hasn’t slept more than four hours since was a teenager. His mother went crazy after his father died. Sometimes, when he’s so tired and it’s so late, Eddie browses forums of people who say that they don’t have soulmates either.

“When I was a kid I had a pet rock.”

Richie rolls over onto his side. Eddie half expects Richie to tell him that’s not very interesting , but instead he gets, “did it have a name?”

Following suit, Eddie faces his companion. In the low light it is hard to see, but he realizes for the first time that Richie has discarded his glasses.

“You’ll laugh.”

“Only if it’s something cheesy, like Rocky . Or even better, Dwayne. ”

“Geodude.”

Richie reaches up and shoves at Eddie’s shoulder playfully. “That’s the best name for a rock, holy shit!”

Once again on his back, Eddie stares up at the sky. There are barely any stars visible, just a few here and there, and possibly a satellite. Not nearly as many as the galaxies on Richie’s face. Which reminds him-

“I think you look like Apollo while you perform.” A beat. “Like a weird, hipster Apollo.”

“Apollo?”

“Like, the god of art and music.”

A few more seconds of silence.

Eddie takes it as a bad sign. “Forget it-“

“ Oh Eddie-Spaghetti!” Richie coos, rolling onto his stomach and looming over Eddie, replacing the stars in the sky with the ones on his face. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

What about your wife? Your soulmate?

“You’re such a dumbass,” says Eddie when Richie flops away.

Richie laughs for a moment, before getting quiet again. Eddie thinks that maybe it’s his turn to ask a question, but isn’t sure what to say. How can Richie be so blunt and straightforward all the time?

“I don’t really believe in soulmates,” whispers Richie, so quiet that Eddie barely hears it. Eddie didn’t even have to ask .

“Why… why not?” Is all Eddie manages.

“Maybe I phrased that wrong.” It doesn’t seem like a particularly sore subject for Richie, his voice calm and steady as he answers. “I fell in love with Betty because I loved who she was and everything she did. It always felt like we didn’t have to share Dreams to love each other. If anyone else had been in the dream, I don’t think I would’ve fallen in love.”

Eddie ignores the pang in his chest and looks over at Richie, who is looking solemnly up at the sky as he continues. “I’ve read about platonic soulmates and I’ve read about people who don’t have Dreams,” Eddie’s breath hitches, “and it all makes more sense to me than the idea that you have to fall in love with the person in your head. Your soulmate could be your best friend. Or the homeless person you always give money to on the street. Your doctor. Your great grandfather. Anyone who is supposed to come into your life and mean something.”

Your doctor .

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Yeah,” Eddie mutters, wondering if he believes it too. “Hey, Richie?”

“Mhm?”

“How did she die?”

Richie doesn’t take an uncomfortably long time to respond like Eddie thinks he will. “Killed herself,” he says, and leaves it at that.

—————————

Richie Tozier updated his profile picture.

Apollo.

—————————

“ I think you’re thinking about this in the wrong way .”

When Eddie gave Richie his phone number that night, he had not been expecting regular phone calls from the other man.

“In what way should I be thinking about it, Richie?” Eddie holds his phone between his cheek and shoulder, shrugging off his coat and hanging it on the rack by the door, then kicking off his shoes. “Really. Enlighten me.”

He stands in his front hallway and waits for Richie’s response, which comes slowly.

“... we could both use the company? ”

Eddie wonders what Richie knows about him. He doesn’t exactly go around broadcasting to the entire world that he doesn’t have a soulmate- but apparently Richie has also become relatively close with Beverly, who is probably the one behind this whole thing. Still, that doesn’t mean Richie has the right to know the one detail that Eddie keeps closest to his chest.

Looking up at the ceiling and breathing a long, slow exhale, Eddie shifts his phone to the other ear.

“I have to clean my bathroom tonight,” he leads with, part of him hoping that it will drive Richie away. “And I don’t have any food.”

“ Lucky for you, I’m great at cleaning bathrooms. ” Eddie can hear faint sounds of Richie moving around. “ And my apartment is down the street from a 24-hour grocery store .”

Eddie slumps against the wall, sliding down it and onto the carpeted floor. The part of himself, the one that Eddie is growing tired of, is jumping for joy, high off the very idea of being in the same cramped space as Richie Tozier.

“You’re going to be the death of me,” says Eddie, hoping it comes off as mean.

It doesn’t, because Richie laughs gently over the line. “ That’s what I’m counting on. ”

—————————

Sitting in his bathtub and smoking wasn’t how Eddie thought the night would go, but as his watch nears three am, it certainly feels like the rest of their time together will continue on this way.

The curtain is shut and casting them in shadow, separating the two men from the outside world. In the bathtub, they exist in a world where soulmates do not come in your dreams and The Killers play on repeat.

Richie is pressed next to him, pleasantly loose and warm against Eddie’s side in the cramped space. He gets quieter when he’s high, Eddie has noticed. Not talking less, per se, but instead speaking in whispers and gentle murmurs. Richie waves his hands around as he whispers into Eddie’s hair, something about the music he has playing on his phone, which sits on the counter in the world beyond the curtain. Eddie can’t stop looking at them, the way they blur if Richie moves spontaneously, or the chipping pink paint on the nails. Some distant part of Eddie’s brain wonders if Richie would ever paint his.

“My island album,” Richie is saying, exhaling smoke and passing Eddie the one-hitter and the lighter. “ Hot Fuss .”

“That’s what’s playing?” asks Eddie, looking over at Richie. His glasses are sitting atop his head and pushing away the curls that normally frame his forehead.

“Yeah.” Richie sounds breathless, his eyes trained on Eddie as he brings the little blue tube to his mouth. “Yeah,” he repeats.

There are a few moments of silence as Eddie holds in the smoke for as long as possible. He had never smoked before tonight- tried an edible once in college, but he didn’t have a very good time. (Richie had laughed at him when Eddie told the story.) but he liked to think he was doing okay, getting better every time he took a hit. He was barely coughing anymore.

Eddie exhales, watching the smoke pool out of his mouth with avid interest. “What’s an island album?”

Richie shifts so he can get a better look at Eddie, pushing his glasses back over his eyes. His legs are so long that they’ve been hanging over the edge of the tub, but from his new position they rest over Eddie’s lap. Eddie can feel his absence, the warmth Richie kept at his side no longer there, even if he is still just a few inches away, close enough to touch. Eddie so badly wants to touch.

“Eddie-Spaghetti, if you were stranded on a desert island, and could only listen to one album for the duration of your stay there, what would it be?”

“This hypothetical situation is very dumb.”

“Just answer it,” whispers Richie, taking the one-hitter as Eddie hands it over.

“I don’t really listen to music.”

“That’s such bullshit.”

Eddie wracks his brain for anything with significance. He remembers his father’s record collection, which Sonia could never bear the thought of throwing away, even after her surgery. “Sargent Pepper,” he finally says.

Richie is just finishing his hit. “Ah, the lonely hearts club band. Classic.” Richie reaches over the ledge of the tub for the glass they’ve been discarding ashes in, tapping the tube twice against the rim, then blowing into it to get the ashes out. He repeats the process of getting more weed from his jacket, which is hung over the ledge, then grinding it and packing it. He’s done this a few times since they’ve been in the tub, yet Eddie never tires of watching him.

I got soul, but I'm not a soldier , sings Brandon Flowers from the other world.

When Richie first walked into the apartment, he had made a pleased comment about Eddie’s t-shirt. Eddie’s heart had been pounding so hard that he was sure Richie would be able to hear it. Even now, a few hours later, he can feel his pulse quicken with every look, every touch.

Eddie truly feels like he is dying. This must be the end.

“You can have the first hit,” Richie is saying, handing it over. Eddie stares at him, contemplating his options, but before he can do anything, Richie is reaching up and pinching his cheeks. “Your face gets all red when you’re high. Cute, cute, cute!” It’s the loudest thing Richie has said all night.

Batting at his hands, Eddie huffs. “Oh, shut up. I’m not cute.”

Richie scootches back to his previous spot, leaning in so close that Eddie can smell his breath. Or maybe that’s his clothes. Or maybe they’re filling up Eddie’s bathroom with the skunky smell, anyway.

Trying to ignore Richie’s overpowering presence, Eddie takes a hit, holds it in, then blows it in Richie’s face.

Richie laughs through the coughs, leaning away. Eddie continues to stare solemnly at him, taking another hit before it burns up. “I don’t feel any remorse for you right now.”

Waving a hand in front of his face, Richie continues to laugh quietly. “If you wanted to shotgun, you could’ve just asked.”

More terminology Eddie doesn’t know. Under normal circumstances Eddie probably wouldn’t have asked- just moved on with the conversation in hopes that it doesn’t turn up again, but because Eddie is high and pliant, he questions Richie about what shotgunning is.

It’s Richie’s turn to stare for a few long, uncomfortable moments, squinting. Then, timidly, he takes the one-hitter from between Eddie’s fingers. “We can try it. I think you’ll like it.”

Richie shifts into a different sitting position, motioning for Eddie to do the same. They’re facing each other, Eddie on his ass with his legs spread apart while Richie is kneeling between them, looming over. Eddie’s feet are flat against the other side of the tub, Richie’s resting directly underneath them. Briefly, Eddie wonders if this is really such a good idea after all.

“I don’t-“

“Don’t think about it too much.”

That shuts Eddie up.

Trying to relax, Eddie runs his hands down the sides of his face, suddenly very nervous.

“Calm down,” Richie mutters around the one-hitter, perfectly balanced on his lips, pushing his glasses up and fiddling with the lighter. “Okay. So you’re going to breath in what I blow out, okay?”

Eddie swallows nervously, nodding. He wants to close his eyes, but is too afraid to.

Jesus Christ, I sound like a fucking sixteen year old , Eddie thinks, glancing up at the ceiling, then to Richie’s face, which has gotten closer than he remembers it being when he looked up. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

There is the click of the lighter, warm near Eddie’s face. Then, the tell-tale crackling sound as Richie breathes in the smoke. Eddie watches pensively as Richie takes the tube out of his mouth, setting it and the lighter on the ledge. They sound far away, like Richie set them down in a different room, or like Eddie has noise cancelling headphones on. He suddenly feels very, very tired.

Finally, Richie leans in, closer than he ever has before, placing his mouth so close to Eddie’s that he instinctively pulls away, but a hand reaching up and into his hair stops Eddie from getting too far. All at once Richie’s mouth is forming a tight o and Eddie’s mouth is falling open, inhaling the smoke that Richie blows out. He holds it for as long as he can, afraid of Richie moving away as soon as he does, but eventually the smoke forces its way out, his upper lip unintentionally brushing with Richie’s bottom, leaving it numb and aching for more .

Richie leans back onto his calves, exhaling the bit of smoke left in his system through his nose. “Not so bad-“

Eddie reaches up, pressing his hands to either side of Richie’s face, pulling him back down with such force that the two of them slide down, Eddie on his back with Richie on top of him. Eddie’s eyes are jammed shut and his brain isn’t functioning properly, so the kiss is planted on the corner of Richie’s mouth instead of his lips, the slight stubble there rubbing roughly against Eddie’s lips and Richie’s glasses bumping painfully against the top of his head. When did he put those back on?

Rolling onto his side and away from Richie is the next logical course of action, sleep sounding better and better every second.

“Eds-“ Richie starts to say, his voice tight and muffled by the cotton in Eddie’s ears.

Eddie waves a hand at the man he cannot see, pressing his hot face into the cool floor of the tub. “Sleep,” he mutters, his brain already shutting down. “Thank you.”

In the few moments before Eddie falls asleep, he can feel Richie reaching forward, pressing a steady hand into his hair, like it was meant to be there. “No problem, Doctor K.”

—————————

Eddie wakes up at 6:21 am , his back and neck sore from the bathtub, with the curtain pulled back and Richie gone.

—————————

“Edward fucking Kaspbrak, you did not !”

Eddie doesn’t mind working on Halloween, but isn’t so fond of Beverly giving him her piece of mind when he has a headache. He’s in the middle of something- pushing a gurney hurriedly down to the ICU- not in the mood to listen. The hospital is always busy on holidays. That’s why everyone works them. Drunk people falling off rooftops, street fights, kids breaking their arms trying out new toys. It’s mostly drunk people the entire night, the girl in the bed that Eddie is pushing no different from the rest.

Eddie pointedly avoids looking down at her, her slutty nurse costume covered in bright pink vomit.

“What did I not do, Beverly?” asks Eddie through gritted teeth, shouting a few things to the two other nurses on either side of the gurney, checking her wrists, putting a mask over her mouth. Beverly isn’t one of them, still dressed in her normal clothes like she just showed up to work.

Beverly looks over Eddie’s shoulder and gags. “You know what you did. This conversation isn’t over!” She turns on her heel in the other direction, probably to change.

They leave the girl at the ICU, where Mike takes her with the nurses and leave Eddie by himself to go find someone else to diagnose and take care of.

It doesn’t last long, Beverly coming out of the locker room as he passes by. She takes a few long strides to catch up, then falls into his steady walk beside him. “I got off the phone with Richie before I came in, what the fuck?”

“You’re a little late to the party. Last time I talked to him was last week.”

“Yeah, when you got high and tried to kiss him ?”

Eddie spins to face her and makes a face. “Would you quiet down? There are other people here, you know.” Eddie glances at the other doctors and nurses who pass by, not giving them the time of day.

“So you’re not denying it.”

Rolling his eyes, Eddie keeps moving forward, not looking at Beverly.

She clicks her tongue. “I knew it. You like him!”

“No I don’t.”

Eddie turns a corner. It’s not that he hadn’t tried talking to Richie. He texted, he called. E-mailed. If he had his address he probably would’ve tried a carrier pigeon.

Beverly sighs, grabbing Eddie by the arm and tugging him into a nearby elevator. She jam her finger on three, then steps back and folds her arms. He stares at her for the twenty seconds it takes to get to the third floor, frowning. Her vibrant, curly red hair is tied low on the back of her head, and her scrubs are pink. Her lips are a dark color that Eddie is pretty sure is lipstick. Ben isn’t working tonight- must be home handing out candy to trick-or-treaters. Or perhaps making dinner, leftovers for Beverly to be put in the fridge until she gets home early in the morning. Maybe he’ll wait up for her. Ben seems like the type.

Something hits Eddie hard in the chest at that moment. He isn’t sure what it is.

She’s shockingly beautiful. If Eddie had a soulmate, he thinks they might look something like Beverly. Curly hair, sharp nose covered in freckles, and eyes that squint at Eddie with annoyance, but also with something like fondness.

The elevator dings as it opens, Beverly rushing out before Eddie can even say anything. He follows, figuring his pager isn’t going crazy so he has time.

The on-call room is where she leads him, shutting the door behind them loudly. Eddie glances at the bed, then back at Beverly.

“Look, Bev, love you and all but Ben’s my friend-“

“Oh, shut up.” Beverly crosses her arms again. “You don’t have a soulmate, he doesn’t have a soulmate, it’s a match made in heaven.”

Eddie scoffs. “She died . Killed herself. Being born without one and losing one are totally different.”

Beverly looks somewhere over his shoulder, reaching up and biting on her thumbnail. Eddie notices the green paint on her nails. “Look, you don’t gotta romance him, but. You two are good for each other.”

“What, you a Richie-expert?”

“Puh-lease.” She waves the hand she just had near her mouth. “None exist.” Beverly kicks at Eddie’s leg.

She continues, “You give a guy one cigarette and suddenly you’re best friends.”

Sounds like him , Eddie thinks. He opens his mouth to respond when both of their pagers ping .

“Hey,” Eddie says as they leave the room. “Do you have Richie’s address?”

—————————

At precisely 3:57am Eddie is knocking on the door. The apartment building isn’t exactly nice, but not falling apart either. Cobwebs sit in the corners of hallways and water has stained the ceiling brown in many places. The numbers on the doors are either close to falling off or are completely gone in some cases, as is such with Richie’s. Eddie only knows it’s his because the doors on either side say 316 and 318 . That, and the voice of Bob Dylan coming from inside.

The door opens after two more timid knocks, sounds of several locks unclicking alerting Eddie.

The door swings open to reveal Richie. His hair is tousled as if he just woke up, although Eddie knows he didn’t, and he is dressed in boxers and a white t-shirt with mismatched socks on his feet. As cool and calm as he can, Richie nods his head aggressively so he glasses fall from the top of his head to rest on his nose where they belong. A cigarette is between his middle and ring finger, lit and smoldering.

Eddie coughs lightly, looking between the cig and Richie’s confused face.

“Oh,” says Richie, glancing around before stubbing the cigarette on the doorframe and tossing the stub into the hallway. “Sorry.”

Eddie shrugs.

They look at each other for a few more seconds, like they are taking each other in.

“So-“ Richie begins at the same time Eddie starts to say, “I brought-“

Silence again. Eddie can’t handle how awkward this is. Richie looks like he’s thinking the same thing, awkwardly shuffling on his feet.

Trying again, Eddie lifts the plastic bag. “I bought discount Halloween candy. And beef jerky because you mentioned that you like to eat that when you’re high.”

A smile creeps onto Richie’s face. “It’s like you’ve been inside my brain or something.” He steps to the side to let Eddie in.

Richie takes the bag as he shuts the door, letting Eddie have a look around the place. It’s one big room, the kitchen directly to the left and a bed to the right, a small living space straight ahead. There’s very little furniture, a nightstand next to the bed with a record player on the floor beside it. The nightstand has a lamp with no lampshade and an ashtray filled with cigarette butts. There is a couch in the living area, but the rest of the space that the studio provides is taken up by boxes. Boxes labeled dishes and towels and other words Eddie can’t read, either because the handwriting is so bad or the letters have been smudged or faded. An open one sits at the foot of the bed, labeled PICTURES .

The place has clearly been moved into hastily, yet no effort has been made to unpack except for the bare necessities.

Richie senses Eddie’s unease. “No place like home, eh?” He flops onto the bed and pulls out the drawer on the nightstand, digging through it for a few moments before pulling out the coke can, dugout, and lighter. Kicking off his shoes on the way, Eddie follows suit, sitting on the bed beside Richie and leaning up against the wall. He is still in his work clothes, somewhat uncomfortable as he pulls his legs up. Richie seems to notice this and says, “do whatever makes ya comfortable. Mi casa, es su casa .”

He gets to work without another word, prying open the lid of the can with his teeth.

Steadily, his hands only shaking a little, Eddie undoes his belt and tugs it off, setting it next to his knee. He unbuttons his shirt to reveal his own white undershirt, but doesn’t take off the button up further than that. Eddie spends the next few minutes watching Richie at work, focusing in on his hands. They are musician’s hands without a doubt, calloused and spindly, picking apart the weed and putting it into the grinder with practiced precision. His nails are green, much like Beverly’s. He isn’t wearing a wedding ring. A scar runs up the side of his right hand, from his wrist to the knuckle of his thumb. Details, details .

Eddie’s eyes move from his hands to the man himself, his shoulders hunched over and his hair falling into his face. His glasses are slipping down his nose. A chain rests around his neck, hidden by most of the shirt. The white t-shirt is too big for him, revealing part of a freckled shoulder, as well as the beginnings of a scar in the center of his chest, which Eddie knows continues down a ways.

“How is that healing?” Eddie asks, tipping his head towards Richie’s chest.

Richie shrugs once. He glances up at Eddie before looking back down again. “About as good as it can be, I think. It only hurts when I sleep now.”

Eddie longs to touch.

Instead, his shrugs his cuffs down over his palms and holds them up to his mouth. Richie looks up once more, and squints. A small smile graces his mouth. “Edward Spaghedward Kaspbrak, how dare you be so cute in my presence.”

Eddie feels his cheeks turning pink. He goes to hide it with his palms, but refuses to give into Richie’s fucked up flirting, instead setting his hands in his lap. Richie’s eyes flick around Eddie’s face, definitely noticing the blush, before looking back down to finish packing the one-hitter.

He could be imagining it, but Richie’s cheeks look pink, too.

Richie passes over the one-hitter. “You can have the first hit, my good fellow.”

Eddie scrunches up his nose at the terrible British accent, taking the tube and grabbing the lighter from between the sheets. He lifts it to his mouth, breathing in until his throat burns.

They pass back and forth, Eddie’s nerves dwindling down until he barely remembers why he was tense in the first place.

Somehow they both end up on their backs, surrounded by candy wrappers, staring at the watermarked ceiling until the record player crackles with silence, their fingers brushing between drags. Eddie cannot tell if the silence is uncomfortable.

Richie rolls onto the floor unceremoniously, a thump followed by a muffled “oof.”

“Why did you do that?” Smoke pools out of Eddie’s mouth and nose as he rolls onto his side near the edge of the bed, looking down at Richie. He takes another drag, since Richie certainly isn’t going to.

“Vinyl,” he mutters, moving onto his knees and towards the record player, removing the Bob Dylan record and gingerly placing it back into the sleeve. Richie reaches under the bed and pulls out a crate, digging through it for a few moments before pulling out a new album, slipping out the new record and putting it in its place.

A few seconds of silence pass after Richie places the needle on. Then, an accordion fiddles and a band warms up while a crowd chatters. A moment later, guitar.

“ Sergeant Pepper ,” Eddie breathes, releasing the smoke that had been trapped in his throat. His head rolls to hit his arm where it hangs off the bed. “My island album.” As if Richie didn’t know.

Richie slides across the floor until his side is pressed against his mattress. He makes no move to get back onto the bed. Instead, he presses his face into Eddie’s elbow. He is a warm and familiar presence, his hair splaying out over Eddie’s bicep and his nose along the edge of his forearm.

Shifting onto his other side, Eddie faces Richie. “I’m sorry.” His arm doesn’t move. Richie places his mouth onto the soft skin on the inside of his elbow. When did he lose his shirt? Eddie can feel electricity shooting through his veins from the spot where Richie’s lips connect. “I’m so sorry,” he repeats.

“For what?” Richie’s breath is hot and wet and sends something down Eddie’s spine.

“Everything.” Eddie discards the one-hitter on the nightstand beside an ashtray. “Your wife’s death. Cutting your head open. Trying to kiss you.”

Richie’s mouth moves away and is replaced by his forehead. His hair tickles. The silence drags on and on and on. John Lennon sings about LSD.

“Please say something,” Eddie pleads.

When he looks up, Richie has an odd smile on his face. Eddie is terrified to look at his own reflection in his glasses. “I think you’re my favorite person.”

Eddie would cock his head to the side of it wasn't already laying against his own bicep. “That’s all you have to say?”

“Pass the beef jerky.”

“I fucking hate you.”

—————————

In mine dreams Juliet cometh to me,

like an angel she appears, awakened by the morning light.

But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!

—Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,That thou her maid art far more fair than she.

At which hour I wend to sleep chamber, the lady wilt returneth to me.

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Act 2, Scene 2)

—————————

“If I were a color I’d be… orange.”

“Why.”

“Why not?”

“Fair point.”

“You’d be pink.”

“I don’t want to know why.”

“You’re just so adorable ! Cute, cute, cute!”

“What does that have to do with pink?”

“Lots of cute things are pink. Pigs. Flamingos. Pussy-“

“I knew you were going to say that and yet I still let you-“

“-but you are the cutest of them all.”

—————————

November means Eddie is another year older. It’s never been something he particularly liked celebrating; what with a negligent mother, a dead father, and no soulmate to speak of, but as the clock strikes midnight and it is officially November twenty-sixth, barely a minute later his phone was ringing and Richie was yelling into his year, “why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday!?”

Richie’s first proposal was wild and crazy party , which Eddie shot down immediately, then get stoned and walk around Walmart.

Eddie isn’t high, but Richie is, sitting in the shopping cart like he’s a child. He’s too big anyway, letting his legs hang over the side like he did in Eddie’s bathtub, a bag of beef jerky in his lap. Eddie has been pushing him around for the last hour, aimlessly making his way up and down the aisles.

They haven’t really been talking. Every once in a while Richie will hum along to whatever is playing over the speakers or Eddie will comment on something the person who just passed them is wearing. It’s a comfortable sort of silence, one that Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever experienced with another person.

“Eds?”

“Hm?” Eddie hums, resting his cheek on his palm as he turns a corner. They’re in an isle that appears to be mostly fishing equipment, nothing that would interest either of them.

“Why don’t you have a soulmate?”

If it were anyone else, he probably would’ve been offended, or mad. But with Richie, Eddie’s chest tightens as the cart skids to a stop.

It’s a sad reminder, like, oh yeah, you’re not my soulmate.

“I don’t know,” Eddie confesses. “I’ve just never had The Dreams.”

Richie taps his fingers against the edge of the cart. “Do you remember what I said about how I don’t believe in soulmates?”

Eddie’s breath hitches. “Yes.”

Richie puts his legs back inside the cart and shifts so he’s on his knees facing Eddie. “People who are destined to meet, meet outside the dreams, those are soulmates. And yeah Betty was my wife and I loved her and I miss her every fucking day, but… we were supposed to meet too, Eddie.”

Every part of Eddie’s body feels like it’s buzzing. His ears are ringing. It feels like if he opens his mouth he’ll vomit. “I think…” he manages, “people can have more than one soulmate.”

Looking contemplative, Richie sits with his back against the front of the cart and his knees up to his chest. It feels strange with him facing Eddie, now. “Maybe,” he whispers, and doesn’t say anything else.

Eddie becomes more baffled by Richie Tozier every day.

—————————

They walk back to their apartments, sharing a muffin that Richie bought for Eddie because it was only ninety cents. He had sung happy birthday at the top of his lungs as they started their journey, surely waking up anyone in a five mile radius, despite Eddie’s insistent shushing. He quieted down easily when Eddie shoved a piece of the muffin into his mouth.

It’s cold, nearing the end of November, yet there is no snow on the ground, much to Richie’s disappointment. Still, they’re wrapped up in several layers, Richie forcing a hat over his curls and the collar of his coat up and around his mouth. Eddie has a scarf wrapped several times around his neck and his hood up and over his head. Richie tells him once again that he is cute, cute, cute!

At some point Eddie had jokingly reached over and shoved the wrapper for the muffin into Richie’s coat pocket, but hadn’t taken it out. Then Richie put his own hand in, lacing his cold fingers with Eddie’s. After a few minutes that got too warm, so Eddie took their hands out, keeping them together. They stayed connected like that all the way to Eddie’s apartment, until Richie reluctantly pried his fingers away and journeyed back to his apartment by himself.

Eddie wonders what Richie’s mouth would have tasted like if he had kissed him goodbye.

—————————

It’s storming when Eddie gets home from a fifteen hour shift, and there is a Richie sitting on his couch.

“Your power went out twenty minutes ago.”

“Of course it did,” Eddie groans, tossing his bag and coat on the kitchen table as he passes, then throwing himself onto the couch beside Richie. “Didn’t I tell you to use that key for emergencies?”

“The power in my apartment went out two hours ago.”

Eddie pats Richie’s cheek affectionately, then leans down to untie his laces and kick off his shoes. He starts to ramble on about his work day, once in a while pausing for the loud rumble of thunder from outside. The flashes of lightning every few minutes are the only source of light in the apartment, casting the two men in light for just a moment.

“So she’s going on and on about how her husband cheated on her-“ a crack of lightning, then thunder, “-and she wants to have the surgery, but we can’t do it unless we have the consent from the other person, which he won’t give-“ Eddie is interrupted, but not by the storm outside, but with a yawn. He frowns, looking at the dark silhouette of Richie, whose mouth is open wide and his arms stretch over his head. “Tired?”

“Yeah, for once.”

Eddie looks down at his watch, trying to ignore the way Richie’s voice sounds and the way his own heart constricts. 5:38am . “You can go sleep in the bed, if you want.” Eddie barely uses it, anyway.

Richie stands up without another word, into the bedroom and out of the storm. Eddie stays where he is, unsure of what to do, listening to the rain and the very distant sound of his heartbeat.

Returning, now shirtless and in a pair of sweatpants that are too small for him, Richie stands expectantly at the doorway. “You gonna come?”

Eddie sputters, blinking quickly and averting his eyes from the scar between Richie’s ribs and the chain that holds two rings. Every part of him says no no no stay awake do not go in that room , but his heart forces him to stand up, run an unsteady hand through his hair, and nod.

In the bedroom, Richie crawls into the bed immediately, whispering something like always sleep better with you, Eds .

“I haven’t slept here in forever,” Eddie comments awkwardly, sliding into the space next to Richie after he changes into a t-shirt and boxers, since Richie stole his sweatpants. Richie is on his stomach with his head facing Eddie, his eyes closed and his mouth open. Eddie lays on his side, keeping his eyes on the hazy form in front of him, their arms touching in the space between.

The rain hammers against the single window tirelessly.

“Sounds like… music,” Richie whispers.

His fingers twitch and move until they find Eddie’s, like they found each other the morning of Eddie’s birthday. Eddie knows he should, but he cannot find it in himself to tug his hand away. Rather. He leans in closer, telling himself that he needs to hear Richie better over the rain. The music.

“I’ve always thought that too.” Their faces are so close now that Eddie can feel Richie’s breath on his own mouth. Their noses brush lightly; Richie’s curls tickle Eddie’s forehead. Every touch and every breath feels heightened, like a thousand strikes of lightning on the part of Eddie’s skin that Richie touches.

“Rich,” Eddie breathes as they move in closer. He can barely tell who is moving first anymore. “Richie,” he repeats.

“What?” Richie’s hand moves, the one not holding Eddie’s, up and up and up until it is caressing Eddie’s face. It’s warm, almost hot on his face. It’s too much. Too much .

His hand engulfs Eddie’s cheek, pinky and ring finger hooking around his jaw and under his ear, the tips dipping into his hair where it starts to curl. “What are we?” Eddie breathes, his lips practically touching Richie’s. The thumb runs along his cheekbone smoothly, not deterred by Eddie’s words.

It’s hard to tell in the dark and when he’s so close, but Eddie thinks that Richie may have opened his eyes, a watchful and heavy gaze over him.

“We can be whatever we want,” says Richie, no longer a whisper. It’s music to Eddie’s ears, like the songs he plays and the records on his floor and the rain outside.

Whatever we want .

It may be cliche to say that Eddie doesn’t know who moves first, but he doesn’t. All he knows is that they’re kissing, lips moving against each other to the beat of the rain, hot and wet and warm and real , like a Dream but so, so much better than Eddie ever could have conjured up in his head. Richie kisses like he talks, sly and inviting, with his hand moving along the side of Eddie’s face and up into his hair, then back down his neck. He can’t keep still.

Eddie is reeling .

They sleep, eventually, their kisses becoming slow and intimate until neither man can find it in themselves to do anything else other than rest their foreheads together and breath each other in.

And though no Dreams come, Eddie sleeps soundly for the first time in his life, knowing that his soulmate is beside him.