Chapter Text
For nine weeks, Richie stayed in Maine. Only seven of those weeks he had Mike beside him.
It had been immediately clear that Mike was succumbing to the stress, unable to cope with the mounting chaos—from the tour to Richie’s mother’s health to the heart attack to the press fiasco… It was too much for him. His cold kept getting worse and worse, to the point his voice was so ragged that Richie could barely understand a word he said. Mike ended up the hospital’s ER himself one evening at Richie’s urging, fearing his partner had developed pneumonia. All Mike was given was a round of antibiotics that didn’t seem to make a damned difference.
Even after Richie was released from the hospital and was staying at an AirBnb nearby, just to be close to his mother during her recovery, Mike got no better. He had shut down, but it was in a way so different from Richie’s exes when they quit on him mid-tour. It was different from when Mike had tapped out on him before, too.
He seemed worn down to the point of resignation. Mike didn’t speak unless he was spoken to. He didn’t stare at his phone, scrolling for hours or text his friends. He just...stared. He stared like a man sleeping with his eyes open. He was so completely exhausted and Richie couldn’t bear to look at him half the time. At the AirBnb, Richie did the cooking. Richie did the tidying up. All the little domestic things that Mike typically did or their housekeeper did for them, Richie found himself doing. He didn’t mind it, but it worried him.
Mike was always so adamant about being the one to cook or clean or whatever household chore needed done. Now, he just watched Richie make food and load the dishwasher, not saying anything about it—not even to argue that he didn’t think Richie should be doing the chores so soon after his heart attack.
As he got sicker and sicker, Richie started thinking he might be the next one checked into a hospital room, even if the ER didn’t seem to take his illness that seriously.
But instead of a hospital, Mike just asked one morning if he could go home. He wanted to go back to California, back to their house and their cat. Richie didn’t care for the idea much, but Mike seemed to know what he needed better than Richie did.
Knowing he wouldn’t get anywhere by refusing, Richie let him go while trying to hide his heavy heart. Mike packed up his things and took a cab to the airport and was gone. Richie had a cold feeling settle in his chest once they’d separated, one that never really went away no matter what he did to keep himself distracted.
In a way, he felt resigned to his fate. It was almost familiar to him. The mid-tour breakup routine. Yeah, this one came a little late and with some extra flare, but it was all the same. He’d picked someone up with high hopes, only to realize way too late that they couldn’t make the cut. Somehow, he couldn’t even find the strength to feel heartbroken yet.
Maybe, he thought, that came from having space and peace of mind to handle his affairs how he saw fit without having to tiptoe around Mike and his ever-shifting moods. It was hard to mourn when he had other shit to worry about. Hell, maybe that was a blessing in and of itself. He didn’t have time to worry about Mike—clingy, needy Mike—suddenly wanting space. He was dealing with Josh, hiring outside PR since the services his network offered seriously did not fit the bill, coordinating and paying for a chairlift to be installed in his parents’ house so his mother could move back home and never risk the stairs again… He had to deal with the Chelsea situation, the Travis situation, the gossip situation, the Josh not doing his fucking job situation… He had too much to fucking deal with outside of Mike.
How could he even feel the weight of Mike’s absence when it kind of felt like a fucking blessing to have him out from underfoot? For once, Richie felt like he could just put his nose to the grindstone and get shit done—even if he had to pick up after himself at the end of the day.
It wasn’t until his mother had moved back into her home and Richie was staying there instead of the AirBnb that he began to realize how absent Mike had been since he’d left. There weren’t frequent texts blowing up his phone, there were no calls, no video-chats, nothing. Sometimes Richie got photos of their cat, Mike’s way of showing they were both still alive, Richie guessed. Otherwise, there was no conversation between them. Not even when Richie began planning his flight home…
He’d booked a flight and was about to reserve himself a car to get home from the airport when he thought to just ask Mike to pick him up before wasting the time and cash.
He was laying in his parents’ guest bedroom, staring at his phone, when he felt the bubble sort of pop. All at once, it was as if he could hear the silence around him for the first time—like he’d startled awake from a long, intricate dream.
He realized, as if for the first time, how little he’d reached out to Mike the two weeks they were apart. Had he ever texted first once Mike left?
Even then, in the newfound emptiness and silence, Richie couldn’t feel heartbreak.
Was that bad?
That was bad, wasn’t it?
It was… Right?
He should feel something. He hadn’t been apart from Mike without constant contact pretty much since they’d gotten together… Why didn’t he feel anything while being apart?
The thought became so loud that Richie did the only thing he knew to push it out—and that was call someone and hand the tangled mess off to them to sort. He called Bill first, not really sure why when Bill was the least likely to want a heart-to-heart in the middle of the night. When Bill didn’t answer, he tried Ben. Then called Ben a second time when the call went to voicemail. When calling twice changed nothing, Richie tried Bev.
Bev answered.
The conversation started with forced small-talk. He caught Beverly up on his health and his mother’s progress, and reassured her that he was eating healthier and making better choices even though that was the furthest thing from the truth. It took twenty minutes for Richie to finally blurt out his question, even though he could tell just by the way Beverly had answered the phone that she knew he wanted more than to catch up.
“So, Mike’s been at home for a couple weeks,” Richie said.
“Uh-huh.” No tone to indicate if she already knew that or not. If Mike had been talking with her, she wasn’t sharing.
“Yeah, he… We haven’t been talking much.”
“Mm-hmm.” Her lack of response had Richie blabbering about how busy he’d been, and how distracted he was with his health, his mom’s health, and work shit. He was making excuses for himself, he realized, feeling guilty all at once for...for what? For not texting Mike as much as Mike had always texted him? He just wasn’t that kind of guy. He never had been the type who needed constant contact. He answered Mike’s messages, no matter how many there were, because they were there. Now that they’d stopped, though, he didn’t feel the need to make the habit his own.
“I mean, you know, he wanted to go home because he was sick. He’s been sick pretty much since we were in Australia. Sitting around the hospital wasn’t helping him any and he was tired. I know he’s tired from getting dragged all around the planet…”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yeah...”
“Is that why you’re calling? To see if Mike’s told me he’s tired?”
“Well, no. Just… Alright, hear me out here, okay? I-I’m used to getting the shit end of the stick when I tour, right? I’m pretty used to that. I’ve been dumped on tour, fuck, probably a dozen times. I mean, I’ve dumped people while I’m touring. Tours suck. But… I-I don’t know. I don’t know. He and I haven’t been talking much, but I didn’t think we were on, like, ending shit terms. I mean, I miss him. Of course I’ve missed him! I just… I don’t know… I don’t know, Bev. I don’t know.”
“Right...”
Richie sighed, rolling over in the bed and staring up at the ceiling. She really wasn’t in the mood tonight. He was considering hanging up before she could say any more, or imply that he needed to seek an actual therapist and stop putting the weight onto her.
“Look, apart from Mike, I’m the only Loser here who hasn’t been married, okay? I don’t know how to do this shit. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just figured he wanted space and I was busy. I didn’t realize I was fuckin’ ignoring him. Now I have to figure out how to fuckin’ fix it, I guess. Or...or something. I don’t know.”
“So, then, has Mike told you that you’re ignoring him?” In the background, Richie could hear a sewing machine punching thread along a strip of fabric and he imagined Beverly all hunkered down in her sewing room, draped in different swatches of silks and linens. If anyone knew about being too busy to talk, it had to be her. Right?
“Well, no. But, I mean, he’s not texting me much. We haven’t even talked on the phone since he got home. I mean, we talked when he got in and then...it’s just an odd text here and there. I just don’t know what to do. I… Fuck, I didn’t even notice, Bev. I didn’t notice we weren’t talking until, literally, ten fuckin’ minutes ago.”
“I still don’t understand where you’re getting the ‘ignoring him’ part from. If he’s not texting you and you’re not texting him, I don’t think that counts.”
“Mike used to text me twenty-four fuckin’ seven, whether we were seeing each other in an hour or a fuckin’ week. I… I don’t know why he’s not. I mean, I figure because he’s sick and he’s probably tired. But then I feel like an asshole because I didn’t even really fuckin’ notice. Or care. Care—I didn’t care. I didn’t fuckin’ care. I was fuckin’ busy.”
The sewing machine on the other side of the phone whirred a moment, then Beverly took in a deep breath—letting it out as a long sigh.
“Richie… How do I say this? And no he hasn’t been reaching out to me. So don’t ask if he’s told me anything, because he hasn’t. From the sounds of it, he’s keeping to himself. Which makes sense. He’s sick, like you said. He’s tired. He knows you’re dealing with a lot of shit, too. Mike is very considerate of you. I can’t tell you one way or another, because I don’t know. I’m not Mike. I’m not a psychic—”
“Well, that’s not true.”
“What I’m saying is people take breaks. Couples take breaks. And I don’t mean ‘seeing other people’ kind of breaks. Just...breaks. Sometimes Ben goes out sailing and I stay home with the dogs and...it’s nice. We have time apart. He’s gone away for business and outside of checking to make sure we’re both still alive, we don’t talk much. We catch up when he gets back. I can’t say that’s what everyone does, but a lot of people do.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t some planned time apart, Bev. I mean, he just said he wanted to go home and the next day he was on a plane. And I didn’t even fuckin’ notice we weren’t even talking until tonight.”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Richie. If you want me to tell you it’s a sign of the end of things, then you’re shit out of luck. I can’t make that call for you.”
“I don’t want you to tell me that,” Richie said. Quite the opposite, he realized. He wanted to be told he didn’t fuck this up, and that he wasn’t a fuck up himself for not realizing how absent Mike had been from his thoughts since he’d left.
“I guess I don’t see what you’re worried about. Unless something happened? With his depression?”
“No. No, nothing like that. I’m not… Well, I wasn’t worried about that. Now I am.”
“I don’t think you need to go that far. Mike is good about leaning on his friends when he needs support. It sounds like you two are just taking some space.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t even fuckin’ noticed, Bev.”
“You never were the observant one in our group.”
“I’m being serious! I… I didn’t notice he wasn’t talking. I just...went on like nothing happened. Like he never existed.”
“Let me ask you this… If he texted, did you answer?”
“Yeah! Of course I did.”
“Then there you go.”
Richie let out a deep sigh and rubbed at his forehead. He wished he could see where Beverly was coming from with her apathy, but he felt like he’d just gotten her on a bad night. She was busy working on her next masterpiece, he thought, and she didn’t have time for his bullshit.
“What if it… I mean, I didn’t really even miss him all that much, Bev. What if it means I’m…I’m falling out of love with him? Like everyone else on tour.”
“Well, your ‘everyone elses’ were women. Am I wrong?”
“No. But does that—”
“So I don’t think that’s the foundation you should be looking at. I mean, you didn’t really want them sticking around enough to care when they left. Did you?”
Richie, ignoring that can of worms, switched the focus back to Mike. “I feel like I fucked up, Bev. I didn’t even fuckin’ notice it and I think I fucked up. I think I fucked it up.”
“Okay. You’re not listening...” In the background, the sewing machine cut off and there was a dull thud. Richie imagined her throwing her little tomato-shaped pin cushion at a picture of his face in her annoyance. (Though he knew he was flattering himself to imagine Beverly kept a photo of his ugly mug hanging over her sacred sewing station.) “You keep trying to put Mike in this little box with your exes, and, quite frankly, it’s insulting. You weren’t even on tour when he went home. You were taking care of your mother. You were out of the hospital, and you were taking care of your mom.”
“Right—and I didn’t fuckin’ do anything for him and he was sick. So—”
“Did he ask you to?”
“What?”
“Did he ask you?”
“Ask me to what?”
“To dote on him because he was sick? Did he say, ‘hey, Richie, I have a fever so can you please not go visit your mom today’?”
“He’d never do that,” Richie snapped, repulsed at the thought—repulsed at the idea of anyone asking him that.
“So what business did he have there with you, Richie? He couldn’t take care of you. You didn’t need him to take care of you. If I had to guess, he was exhausted. If I had to guess—and I am just guessing—he saw that you were better, he saw you were focusing on your mom, and he saw it as a good opportunity to go home and take care of himself.”
“And that’s fine—I get that. But… I-I didn’t… Bev, I didn’t notice he was pulling away.”
“Was he actually pulling away. or was he just giving you space? You’re in different time zones, he knows your mom is still recovering, he knows you’re busy with other things. I don’t know why you’re freaking out that everything is ‘fucked up’ when he’s probably just at home sleeping off his flu and playing with his cat.”
“Because we’ve never gone this long without talking. Like, talking talking. And I didn’t notice it happening. Doesn’t that… You know, doesn’t that mean something?”
“If you were sitting on the beach somewhere with you feet in the sand, I’d say it might be a problem, sure. But you’re not exactly on a vacation right now, Richie. You’ve been taking care of your mother. Have you stopped to think that maybe it’s healthy for Mike to let you have that space? If Ben had to go stay with his mother for two weeks or two months, I wouldn’t be texting him or calling him non-stop. I would let him do what he needed to do. And I wouldn’t want him worrying about staying in constant contact with me when I know he has something more important going on… Or are you thinking that you shouldn’t have anything more important than him?”
“Uh… I plead the fifth,” Richie said, cringing at the thought. How juvenile, he thought. High school shit, he thought.
“Listen, I don’t think you need to be worried about anything falling apart. Okay? And if you’re really that concerned, just call Mike and talk to him about it. He’s better about being open than he used to be. If you asked him if there was a problem, I’m sure he’d tell you. Other than that, I really can’t help. He hasn’t said anything to me. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yeah—Yeah, that’s… That makes sense. I don’t know.”
“You know what’s funny about this whole thing?”
“That I’ve made it this long without making a dick joke?”
“No. That you’re crying in my ear, in the middle of the night, worried that you fell out of love with your boyfriend because you realized you aren’t talking as much, when a person who isn’t in love wouldn’t bother to notice at all.”
“So then what if Mike doesn’t notice?”
“Trust me. Speaking from experience...he notices.”
“So I did fuck it up.”
“I said he notices! I didn’t say he gives a shit right now… You really need to call him if you’re that worried about it, because I can’t help you. And you need to watch your stress levels before you give yourself another heart attack.”
Richie couldn’t help but to laugh at that. He could tell Beverly was losing her patience with him, and in a way he preferred it over the motherly voice she’d get sometimes when he voiced his concerns to her.
“Maybe he’s just enjoying the peace and quiet,” Richie said.
“Probably.”
The call made him feel no better. Richie wanted to believe what Beverly said, that he hadn’t ruined anything and that this whole thing was just their relationship taking a step in a more mature direction than it had been going in the past. However, it was almost impossible to convince himself that there wouldn’t be hell to pay when he got back to California and face Mike. Relationships were never that easy. And if they were, Richie just didn’t have that kind of luck…
( ) ( ) ( )
It was boring at home, but Mike knew it was for the best. He kept getting sicker and sicker while with Richie in Maine, and he was frankly tired of sitting around the AirBnb all day, every day with nothing to do to even distract himself from how lousy he felt.
Richie seemed to be in stable condition, and seemed like he had enough going on without having to take care of Mike. The best thing for both of them, Mike decided, was to just take himself out of the picture for a while and rest up by himself. At least at home he could lay out by the pool or sit in the hot tub or nap in the gazebo without having to worry about anyone coming across him or pestering him or trying to make small talk.
Even so, it took two weeks for him to start feeling better. He had to stick to what was basically a force-feeding routine and lived off of fruit smoothie bowls and protein shakes, slowly adding in regular meals as the time went on.
Mike passed the time sleeping, window shopping online for cat toys and clothes, and catching up on different web series. Joker was happy to have him back and spent a lot of the time chewing on Mike’s fingers or sitting in his lap purring. It was almost peaceful.
Almost.
Once his health was mostly back, it was just lonely. He knew Richie was busy with his mom and didn’t want to come off as overbearing or clingy, so he spent most of his time talking with Dustin and Will to fill the void. He wanted to ask Richie when he thought he’d be home, but wouldn’t let himself give in. That would the clingy thing to do… The needy thing. Mike didn’t want seen that way right now.
His name was already smeared in the press as a lying, cheating, wretched excuse for a partner—more trouble to Richie than he was worth. He didn’t want to give Richie any reason to think the media was right… He also didn’t want to make Richie worry about him or worry about Mike getting up to things he wasn’t supposed to while Richie was away and lead to him having another heart attack. Mike couldn’t go through that again so soon. He just couldn’t handle any more stress.
Still, Mike would find himself sending the most pathetic of texts to Richie—desperate attempts to get attention without coming off as needy as he truly was. What’s for lunch today? Mike would text, attaching a picture of whatever he had for himself, not minding the time difference.
A few hours later, Richie would answer with a picture of a bag of chips or a can of cat food. Mike would force himself to wait thirty minutes before answering, making sure he had something relevant to add.
It was exhausting in its own way, though, trying to change himself just to be sure he didn’t stress Richie out. He worried constantly about whether or not things would ever go back to how they’d been or if he would forever be stuck trying to pretend like he didn’t want to send Richie back-to-back texts or call him in the middle of the night when he was bored and alone.
There was just so much doubt in Mike’s heart now…
Every day he found himself worrying that he’d made a bad choice, some wrong decision that he could never take back. Sometimes the fear would keep him up all night. Sometime it made him so nauseous that he couldn’t finish his food or his shakes.
Today, it made the walls of their large home feel claustrophobic. It was raining, a horrible day to feel suffocated indoors. Mike tried distracting himself with YouTube and window shopping online, but it wasn’t working. The air felt too hot, too damp, too heavy…
In the end, he found himself setting his phone on the counter and just going outside to sit in the rain. The cold drops of water gave almost immediate relief. Mike sat on the concrete patio just letting himself become drenched, listening to the pattering of the rain against the pool. Would it be absurd, he thought, to just go swimming in the rain—full clothed—like this? Maybe. Maybe… But who was here to give a shit? No one.
In the end, though, Mike just stayed on the patio until the water dripping down his scalp no longer felt scalding hot when it reached the back of his neck. After that, he slowly stood up and made his way to the gazebo—laying himself down across the wooden bench and shutting his eyes so he could just listen to the rain.
His mind picked at different spools of thoughts, unwinding some while tangling others. He thought about Hawkins, he thought about El, he thought about Indianapolis and Jordan—he thought about Richie and Maine.
At some point, though, despite how cold he was starting to feel outside now that he was lounging in his soaking wet clothes, Mike fell asleep. Apart from the bug bites and waking up stiff and freezing, it really wasn’t that bad of a nap at all. He definitely felt better about his decision not to wear shoes when he’d gone outside initially, that was for sure. His walk of shame back to the house was accompanied by the squelching sound of his feet in his wet socks as he plodded across the wet concrete and puddles.
As soon as he was under the cover of the back deck, Mike leaned down to strip off his socks, leaving them in a wet heap outside as opened the sliding glass door and went inside. Joker immediately came running for him, screaming his little head off while Mike shivered against the piercing cold of the AC inside. He hurried upstairs, stripping off clothes as he went and carrying them in a wet, soggy ball which he left on the bathroom floor. He used the restroom, fluffed his hair dry with a towel, then went back into the bedroom to find something warm to wear. Sweatpants and one of Richie’s long-sleeve sweaters did the trick, and Mike immediately felt better.
Back downstairs, Mike found his phone and checked his notifications—stomach dropping when he saw a missed call from Richie with no accompanying voicemail or text. The call had come almost an hour earlier while Mike had still been outside in the rain, and though Mike tried to call him back now, he didn’t get any answer. He quickly sent a text apologizing, saying he’d just been taking a nap and asked that Richie call him back when he got the chance.
It left him so disheartened, but he tried not to let it ruin the rest of his afternoon.
And that was easier said than done.
Before long, Mike found himself giving up on a returned call from Richie and left his phone on the kitchen counter again as he returned to the gazebo (taking his socks off this time as he trudged across the wet patio). He sat listening to the rain again, feeling more and more upset even though he knew it wasn’t that big of a deal. If it was important, Richie would’ve left a message or sent a text. Hell, it was probably a fucking pocket dial… Somehow, that thought made it even worse.
Richie hadn’t called him at all since Mike got home, except for the initial landing call to ensure his plane arrived in one piece. What made him think Richie would suddenly start calling him again now?
Unless he was planning to come home…?
Mike could only hope.
Sitting outside and listening to the rain, though, somehow made it all feel just that much further away. Like that world only existed if he was inside the house. Out here, protected by the wooden roof of the gazebo, he could pretend none of it was real—like it was all a bad fever dream and this was his real life...just sitting outside in a garden with no one else in the world but him.
It was peaceful, he assured himself, even if it was lonely.
Even as the rain started to whip against him, blowing through the spaces in the lattice walls of the gazebo, Mike knew it was better here than it would be inside.
At least until the sweater he was wearing started to feel chilly and damp.
Mike sighed and stood up from the bench, crossing his arms and ducking his head as he began his slow trek back to the house. Once he’d reached the pool side, Mike paused and looked over at the water—thinking again about how it might feel to just dive in with rain falling all around him. He bet it’d sound incredible… It would probably lull him to sleep, though. And he didn’t want to risk falling asleep on a pool float in winter clothes and waking up falling in.
He turned back to the house, trying to come up with something to do to pass the time before it was acceptable to go to bed. Maybe, he thought as he glanced up at the window that rested just above his bathtub, he could just take a long bath with the window open and listen to the rain while in the water that way. It wasn’t quite the same, but it could work…
He could light candles, he thought, really make a thing of it. He probably had a few bath bombs left.
Mike had just about decided that that sounded like the perfect thing to do when the window he was looking at suddenly lit up from inside. Mike froze, heart skipping a beat as he saw a pale shadow move across the pane of glass.
Someone was in the house.
It was too late in the day for Ana to be dropping by to clean. No one else had a key…
Had someone snuck in while he’d been outside?
Instinctively, Mike reached for his pocket—feeling around for his phone only to remember that he’d left it inside so it wouldn’t get ruined by the rain.
Jordan, Mike thought. Then he shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut. No. That was impossible. Jordan was dead. It had to be someone else. Probably Ana. She probably lost something while cleaning or...forgot something.
Still, Mike stayed still and stared at the window until he saw the shadow move past again, the light vanishing shortly.
What sort of home invader stopped to use the toilet? Mike wondered. One who was fucking insane, he decided shortly after.
Rather than sticking around to find out, Mike slowly made his way around the side of the house, keeping his eyes trained on the windows he passed looking for any more lights or shadowy figures moving around. He passed through the gate the side of the house and made his way around to the front yard, planning to check for any vehicles he recognized or begin walking to the nearest house for help. There was no way in hell he was going inside with some psychopath roaming about.
He just hoped Joker would stay hidden and stay safe… If anything happened to him, Mike would kill someone. He would. He really, really would.
Around front, Mike noticed that another light was on inside the house, lighting up the hallway leading to the back of the front room… The hallway that came in off the garage.
Mike looked down the driveway, arms tightening around his chest against the cold and the rain. He should go to the next house… He really, really should. He knew that. If someone broke in, they clearly thought the house was empty or they wouldn’t be leaving on lights as they went around. But why would that hall light be the only one lit on the first floor?
He thought of Richie’s call. Maybe he’d called to say he was on a flight home? Or on his way? Mike would look like an idiot if he called the cops on his own partner and he was sure the media would love to spin it in some awful way to make Mike look like a monster.
Mike stood in the rain for many another minute, then let out a shaky sigh.
He made his choice, and slowly Mike started walking across the lawn with his bare feet, approaching the front door. He tested the knob, finding it still locked. If anyone did break in, they had to have scaled the fence then snuck in through the sliding glass door while Mike wasn’t looking. For a regular break in, that just didn’t seem likely.
Taking one last moment to gather his courage, Mike pressed the doorbell and waited. If it was Richie or Ana, they’d come to the door. If it was anyone else, he was certain, they’d avoid it. If no one came, Mike decided, he would go to the next house and ask them to call the police. If someone answered who wasn’t Richie or Ana, Mike was preparing a story about being in need of help of some sort—though he doubted anything he said would be believable considering he wasn’t dressed for California or the rain, and he didn’t have any socks or shoes on…
His heart was still racing as he heard the door lock catch, squeaking as it was drawn back.
Mike stared at the door, muscles tense as he waited to see whose face was revealed—only to feel sick with dread when the door only opened a slight crack.
Run... But he was frozen in place.
“Oh, my...” The voice was feminine, elderly, shaky… Not at all the voice Mike expected to come from that dark gap between the door and the frame. “Are you the gigalo the agency sent me…? You’re so young!”
Immediately, the tension left Mike’s body in a breathy sigh. “Richie, just let me in...”
“Well, that’s no way to speak to your elders,” Richie said, voice back to normal as he pulled the door the rest of the way open. Mike squirmed past him to get inside, shivering against the blasting cold of the AC inside. He stripped off his wet sweater immediately, letting it fall to the floor beside the hall tree. “So you are the gigalo!”
“No, I’m just cold,” Mike said, frowning down at his soaked sweatpants that he wasn’t all that interested in stripping off in the foyer. “And I didn’t want to get you all wet,” he added, going in for a hug as soon as Richie had finished closing and locking the door, making a point not to let his soaked pants press against Richie’s dry clothes.
His heart was still racing, but he immediately felt comforted with Richie’s warm arms wrapped around him. Richie held him tight, pressing a kiss to his cheek before allowing his head to come to rest on Mike’s shoulder, his hand slowly rubbing up and down Mike’s back.
“I was gonna ask if you were a Jehovah's Witness here to teach me about the lord, but then I noticed you don’t have any shoes on. I didn’t think the Manson hippie cult did door-to-door house calls for the cause… Is there a reason you were dressed like you were about to go skiing?” To his question, Mike just shrugged. “Or that you were outside? I thought you were trying to get over your cold, not catch another one.”
“I was just sitting out in the gazebo. It wasn’t like I was laying out by the pool.” Mike was not about to explain why there was another set of soaking wet clothes upstairs if Richie were to ask about those either. “If I’d known you were coming home I would’ve just come in through the back when I saw a light turn on. I thought somebody fucking broke in.”
“So you went around front to ring the bell?” Richie asked, pulling back but keeping his arms circled around Mike’s waist. Before Mike could answer, Richie pressed a kiss to his lips, followed immediately by a second until Mike leaned into it and pulled Richie into another hug.
“Thought you might be a burglar or something,” Mike repeated
Richie chuckled at that, his arms tightening around Mike just the slightest bit more. “So, again, you came around front to ring the bell?”
“My phone’s inside.”
“I noticed.”
“I didn’t want it to get wet.”
“So...if there was a burglar, you were going to...what? Stomp him down with your bare feet?”
“No… I figured if it was some psycho they wouldn’t answer! Then I’d know to go find somebody and the cops. Why do you always act like I’m stupid?” Mike asked, pulling away and taking a few steps in the direction of the staircase, though not really all that willing to walk away from Richie after missing him for so long.
“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Richie said, tone a little defensive and a little anxious—like he didn’t know why Mike was upset.
“Would you rather I just go call the cops so it can be all over TMZ?”
“I mean...better safe than sorry?” Richie said, shrugging and grinning anxiously. Mike could tell just by the look in Richie’s eyes that he realized ringing the doorbell first probably was a better option for them, all things considered. “Well, whatever. Do you wanna get changed out of those clothes or are we watering the floors hopin’ they’ll grow?”
“Change,” Mike said, shivering a bit as he leaned down to pick up his discarded sweater. Richie followed him upstairs, mentioning how Joker had been following him around up until the bell rang. Immediately, Mike the tension leaving him, the anxiety draining away more and more as Richie’s chatter filled up every hallway and room. He’d missed this. He’d missed Richie’s voice and his presence and the warmth of his company. Even when his incessant chatter turned into put-on-voices playing out the scenario of an actual burglar answering the door, Mike just felt more and more relaxed.
Richie kept the new voice of the character he’d created all the way through the arrival of the pizza he’d apparently ordered while sitting on the toilet after getting home. Mike hassled him about how unhealthy it was and how he needed to watch the amount of grease and junk food we was consuming, but made a point to stop nagging once they’d sat down on the couch together to eat. Joker immediately reappeared to join them and try to steal bites, and Richie asked if Joker should be watching his cholesterol too while tossing tiny bits of his pizza crust onto the floor to get Joker to give him some space.
It felt just like old times. It felt like they had their own little world and place for themselves again—like nothing else existed.