Work Text:
Richard uses Jared’s phone sometimes. Not like he does the insane thing where he goes through without Jared’s permission looking for evidence of unscrupulous activities, or reading his private text messages, or whatever else people in awful relationships do. It’s a convenience thing. Richard is an idiot sometimes and he leaves his cellphone in weird places he can’t remember sometimes. Underneath a blanket, in the fridge, in the car. Usually either dead or so close to it that it will be by the time he finds it.
So Jared lets him use his phone when he asks. They’re dating, and Jared trusts him not to snoop, and it’s not like Jared is even the type to have unscrupulous stuff on his phone, so it’s fine.
All that to say. Richard is trying to remember the name of this guy from Sliceline who was a real asshole, a real jerkoff, because he’s suddenly been reminded of him. Something in the book he’s reading in bed, because he’s been trying to read more, The Sorrows of Young Werther which when he mentioned it to Jared, Jared smiled and said Die Leiden des jungen Werther? and then frowned and said I’m not sure where that came from, but it’s wonderful you’re reading the classics!
Well anyway, something about the way Werther is acting in the story (he hasn’t gotten far), like he’s so humble or something, it reminds him of the guy from Sliceline. Joseph something, or maybe no, he was one of those guys who’s thirty-one years old and still going by Joey. Last name sounded like a drug commercial, like Joey Naloxone, Joey Naproxen, Joey Nizatidine?
“Hey Jared, do you remember that guy from Sliceline? We fired him after like five weeks of the acquisition? Joey, uh, Neosporin or something?” he asks, putting down his book and rolling over to face Jared.
“Joey Newsom?” Jared says. “Dark hair, wore a lot of Izod shirts, scar on his left eyebrow?”
“I think so, yeah.” Leave it to Jared to remember details about a dude he knew for six weeks years ago.
Jared tsks. “He would always leave his takeout leftovers in the office fridge for three or four days. Not that that alone justified firing him, but it certainly didn’t leave me clamoring for his continued employment.”
“I remembered him having a weirder last name, for some reason.”
Jared had been scrolling on his phone while Richard was reading, frowning slightly at whatever was on the screen, but now he rests it face-down against his chest, looking over at Richard. Jared looks good with his hair washed, product-free, unparted. Wearing a threadbare tech conference t-shirt, kind of sleepy, unguarded expression. It’s nice to get to think that, Richard thinks. That sleepy Jared is kind of hot and he doesn’t have to pretend otherwise.
“Weird is relative. There’s far more people in the world and even the United States named Nguyen, but I’m sure that the name Joey Nguyen would be more memorable to you.”
“I guess. I was just thinking, he was an ass, wasn’t he? Like he was always so holier-than-thou about stuff. Like. Oh, look at me, I ride a bike to work, I did Habitat for Humanity like six years ago, I turn off the light when I leave a room for fifteen seconds.”
“I thought he was okay other than the fridge issues, but now that I think about it, he did smell a bit… ripe quite often. Probably a side effect of the bike riding.”
“I bet he crashed and burned after we fired him,” Richard says, momentarily ignoring the fact that Pied Piper also technically crashed and burned and far worse than that. “I bet he doesn’t ride to work on a stupid folding bike anymore. Bet he’s living in a cardboard box right now. ”
“A cardboard box isn’t so bad,” Jared says. “It’s a step above the highway underpass, but I’ll concede below a large dog crate.”
“God, I bet he’s at some place called something dumber than Sliceline.” Richard thinks for something dumber than Sliceline, but he’s blanking. “Help, Jared. What’s dumber than Sliceline.”
“Pizza Hut,” Jared offers. “He’s making the pizzas Sliceline was losing money on.”
Richard laughs. “See, you can poke fun too. You didn’t like that guy either.”
“He’s turning tricks on the street corner,” Jared continues, grinning. “He’s addicted to methamphetamines now and he’s whoring himself out for the dust left in a baggie.”
Okay, yeah, Richard, dial this back before he goes too far, he thinks, and clears his throat. “Let me use your phone so I can look him up. I have to see now.”
“What happened to your phone?” Jared asks, which Richard knows is just to tease him.
“It’s, I dunno. On the couch. Or I put something on top of it on the kitchen table. Or it’s in the dishwasher.”
Jared frowns. “I turned the dishwasher on before I came to bed, so I sincerely hope not.”
“I was just joking. It’s probably dead in between the couch cushions, and if someone needs to call me they can just call you, and I’m comfy and you’re comfy. Sooooo, let me use your phone.”
Jared shakes his head. “Is that how you ask for something?”
“Please. Please can I use your phone. Jared. I need to see if this guy is in prison now. For olfactory crimes. Please.”
“Hmm. If you can take it from me, then perhaps.”
Jared looks too sleepy to be feisty, so Richard isn’t really surprised when he easily snatches the phone out of Jared’s hands without any play-struggling.
“That was easy,” Richard remarks, putting in Jared’s password (never really kept a secret from Richard, but Richard’s knowledge of it is now openly tolerated by Jared).
“It’s because you said please,” Jared says, and leans back against his pillow with his eyes closed.
“Okay, let’s see.” Richard opens the Safari app, which is already on a new tab. “Do you think he would actually put his name out there as Joey?”
“Mm. Maybe,” Jared mumbles. He’s definitely almost asleep. Richard would feel bad about leaving the lamp on for so long, but he has a mission. Fuck Werther, fuck Goethe, fuck Schopenhauer and all the other important European dudes he has on his list of books he should probably read. He needs to see that this asshole got karma’d into oblivion, right now.
Joey Newsom, Richard types, and Google auto-changes it to Newsome.
“He has a useless E at the end of his name?” Richard remarks. “He was a useless, um. E… imb-E-cile.”
“Creative,” Jared says drowsily. “Dinesh should steal that one.”
“Ha-ha,” Richard says. “He does go by Joey professionally, by the way.”
Unfortunately, there’s no arrest record or mugshot or obituary, just a LinkedIn page and something from the guy’s graduation (UCLA—SoCal, he could’ve guessed that much). He opens LinkedIn.
“God dammit,” Richard says. “Software engineer at Alphabet for three years. But, uh, after Sliceline he did work at something called CookLiver? For eight months?”
“Hm. That’s a dumber name than Sliceline.”
“Cookie plus deliver. Oh my god, it was the same thing as Sliceline,” Richard says, opening the company’s page. “But with cookies? Was that really such a great idea that, that they had to try it a second time?”
Nice. This find is so amazing that Richard can ignore the fact that Joey Neosporin is making two hundred thousand a year at Google now. Guy is a fucking idiot, imb-E-cile, case closed.
Richard closes the tab and then he does something he doesn’t ever do, because he’s not a fucking asshole.
The tab it goes to next is whatever Jared was looking at before he handed the phone over, he’s certain. He’d seen it out of the corner of his eye whenever he looked up from Werther’s boring-ass sorrows to sneak a peek at Jared’s attractive sleepy face. Some website with a sky-blue background, text. Very early 2000s looking.
He taps on it. He just wants to see. Richard’s reading something, Jared’s reading something. Probably a website about birding. Or chick-lit he’s too embarrassed to have hard copies of.
Richard looks at the page and sees words that instantly jump out at him. …forced his legs open…struggling and crying made his dick harder…into his sex-slave…”You think you can freeload off me, whore?”...
He feels cold all of a sudden. Jared is laying beside him, blissfully dozing. This is why you don’t go through people’s phones, dickhead , Richard’s heart helpfully supplies.
Richard taps the top of the page and it zooms up to the top, the heading in unassuming Cambria font: Nonconsensual Fiction.
“What the fuck?” Richard says, “Jared?”, and suddenly Jared is extremely awake and trying to grab the phone.
“Don’t,” Jared says, desperate. “Richard, don’t. That’s—private.” He reaches across Richard’s body, trying to snatch it kind of violently, and Richard rolls out of his reach with the phone.
“Chill out,” Richard tells him. “It’s just, you know. I mean, what the fuck? You’re into that?”
Jared is overreacting to an insane degree, Richard thinks. His eyes are wide and watery in the low lamp-light, his hand that attempted to snatch the phone is still outstretched and shaking like a leaf. Like a cornered animal.
“It’s just stories people wrote. I’m just, I’m just, can I have the phone back, Richard?”
Pleading. He’s terrified about something. It’s off, there’s something else.
Richard doesn’t give the phone back, but he does lock the screen. Symbolic gesture since they both know Richard can just open it whenever he wants, but Jared’s shoulders do slacken the smallest amount.
“Hey. Jared. Seriously. It’s not a big deal. I was just surprised.”
“I wasn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t know what it was,” Jared manages, his voice shaky and pitched high. “I was just looking at it, I wasn’t. I didn’t know.”
“Babe, that’s the lie I told my mom when I was 11 and she found a Playboy magazine under my mattress. I’m not mad at you for reading badly-written, like, rape fantasy fanfiction. It’s cool. I just didn’t know you’re into that kind of thing.”
“I wasn’t reading it,” Jared insists. “I’m, it’s not, I’m not, into something —” he hisses, then breaks off into a little sob.
Jared has fetishes. Jared has had tons of sex. Jared likes to do BDSM shit with Richard, he likes to get tied up and he likes to tie Richard up. Spanking, something weird about taking care of Richard when he’s sick that Richard is three hundred percent sure Jared gets off on, crossdressing. Other stuff Jared has just explained to Richard in a patient and educational voice about bloodplay, free use, total power exchange (Richard found the idea creepy, Jared seemed most interested in the fact that it would involve a written contract), ball crushing for God’s sake. They’ve even done weird power dynamic roleplay stuff before. Richard’s pretty sure rape fetish isn’t even that uncommon, it’s an element present in every Japanese porn video he’s ever watched. Almost vanilla compared to motherfucking ball crushing.
Richard’s mind has hooked onto this now. Bug in the system, program isn’t running like it’s supposed to, jobs failed.
Let’s figure it out, his brain tells him.
Probably should let it rest, his heart tells him, he looks like he might start crying.
Fuck you, heart, says Richard’s brain, I’m the one in charge here.
Richard makes his choice. He doesn’t give the phone back.
“So you were like, laying there reading rape porn while I was reading Goethe? Like, nonchalant, like reading the news?”
Jared furiously shakes his head no. “I was just looking at it. I was curious because, I just wanted to see—”
“First of all, come on. You should use incognito browser for all porn. It doesn’t really do much, but it does keep it away from all your other tabs about like, birding and scrum.”
“No one’s using scrum anymore,” Jared says, blinking away tears. Trying to change the subject. “It’s all about scrumban, which is—”
“Second of all,” Richard cuts him off. “Why do you think I would be, like, mad at you about having a rape fetish? I’ve literally let you piss on me before.”
“I didn’t like that,” Jared says in a small voice. “I don’t know why I thought I would like peeing on you.”
“But it’s not the point that you didn’t like it. We can try stuff out, is the thing. I love you, I trust you. You love me, you trust me. So, you know, like the pee thing, I’m, you know, open to seeing what’s fun for us to do together.”
“I love you. I trust you,” Jared says quickly. “I just, that wasn’t what I was doing. With the, with the story.”
Maybe Richard fucked up by bringing up the pee thing like four times? Jared is still shaking, his eyes are still darting between Richard’s face and the phone in his hands. He’s breathing weird.
He’s freaking out, says Richard’s heart.
But I’m very close to finding the bug, so shut up, says his brain.
“If you want, we can try it out,” Richard says. “If it gets you off to pretend to rape me. I mean, you’re like the consent king, so we can talk it all through and come up with something that eases me into it. You know.”
Jared sucks in a sudden deep gasp.
Aha! Richard thinks triumphantly, that was it, he was worried I wouldn’t want to do it.
“No,” Jared says forcefully, despite the tremor in his throat. He keeps swallowing, Richard can see his Adam’s apple moving overtime. “No. No. I would never. I don’t want to do something like that to you.”
“It would be a scene, Jared. Like when we did the teacher-student roleplay. You’re not actually raping me, I can say, like, kumquat or something whenever I want and make you stop.”
“Can I have the phone back?” Jared mumbles.
“In a minute. I’m just trying to talk to you about this, okay?” Richard tucks the phone under his thigh. Out of sight, out of mind, maybe.
“Why are you doing this?” Jared asks, putting his hands to his cheeks. He’s looking a little bit less trapped, a little more resigned to the whims of Richard Hendricks.
“It’s not that you have a rapist fetish?” Richard guesses instead of giving in to Jared’s pathetic act.
Some part of him does notice that every time he says the R-word, Jared flinches like Richard pulled a punch. He’s touching a nerve somewhere, he realizes. Like when he let Jared use the fuzzy handcuffs on him for the first time, and Jared sighed over him as he clicked the restraint into place around Richard’s wrist.
“I don’t, Richard. What—I’m serious. I would, I could never do that, even if it’s not real, it’s—”
“You want to get, like, raped?” Richard concludes. “I didn’t think that at first, because you do like when I use a tie to put your wrists behind your back, but you seem kind of, you know, dominant most of the time, but—”
“Stop,” Jared says. “Richard. Stop.”
“It’s okay,” Richard says in his best comforting voice. He’s still finding the whole situation sort of silly.
“I cannot talk to you about this. I can’t.” Jared breathes out, slowly, and his hands drop off his cheeks into his lap. His eyes are still full of tears. His face is so pale and tired. “Please give me my phone back and then we can go to sleep.”
God damn, this is irritating, Richard thinks. How nice is he to be entertaining this shit and Jared is gonna be stern with him, like he’s Richard’s dad or something?
“If you have a fetish or, like, a fantasy about getting raped, or forced into sex, or whatever you wanna call it. I don’t even think it’s that weird. Did you used to be with someone who thought it was? Weird?”
Maybe it’s all the distance between them Richard created when he ninja-rolled out of Jared’s hands? Jared likes a comforting touch. He likes being grounded, spooning, cuddling on the couch, holding hands. Maybe he doesn’t get that Richard is being for real without the contact.
Richard reaches over and his fingertips brush over the back of Jared’s hand, where it’s resting on top of his leg.
The second he feels the touch between them, three things happen. First, Jared snatches his hand back and jumps back on the bed like he got tased or something. Second, Jared says—yells, actually?—”No,” forceful and deep, not like his limp pleading before. Third, Jared bursts into tears. Deep sobs wracking his shoulders, like every tear he’d built up is getting shed at once.
Yep, he’s freaking out, Richard’s heart says, like I fucking warned you.
Oops, concedes Richard’s brain.
“Oops,” Richard says helpfully. “I’m sorry. I didn’t, uh.”
“I can’t. Fucking, talk about this. Richard. Oh my god,” Jared manages between sobs. “You need. To stop.”
“Sorry,” Richard repeats again. So usefully. He extracts the phone from under his leg and places it gingerly on the covers between them. Peace offering?
Jared doesn’t seem to notice. Probably because he’s flipping out so hard he can’t breathe, Richard thinks at himself angrily.
Too far. Jared was right because Jared is most often right. Leave it for tonight, bring it up tomorrow when Jared isn’t tired and upset about the phone and more receptive. Right?
“Here, your phone,” Richard says weakly.
Jared grabs the phone off the bed, tears still streaming down his face and gasping, and immediately goes into the bathroom and shuts the door. Richard hears the medicine cabinet open and shut, the sink running for a few seconds.
Jared comes out after five minutes, eyes still teary and red-rimmed but not actively sobbing anymore. Which is probably good, Richard thinks.
Jared doesn’t really look at Richard as he gets into bed and turns away from him. It makes Richard feel small and useless, which he kind of is, but also annoyed because how is Richard the fucking bad guy for trying to make him feel better about his weird fetish that most people would have probably instantly shut down?
No, stop feeling sorry for yourself, asshole, Richard thinks.
“You okay, babe?” Richard says, hoping the pet name will be a little comforting.
“I took a Valium and a Benadryl,” Jared says. “So I might sleep late tomorrow. Sorry.”
Richard assumes those are okay to take together because Jared is good at safely abusing medications. He would use Jared’s phone to google it, but that seems… like not the right thing to ask right now.
“No. That’s okay. Um. I’m sorry I went too far. And made you upset.”
“It’s okay,” Jared says listlessly. “If you don’t mind, please stay over there on your side of the bed at least until I fall asleep. If you do mind, I can go sleep on the pull-out bed.”
“What?” Richard blinks, staring at the back of Jared’s head, his shoulders where they peek out above the covers. “I’ll, yeah, I’ll stay over here. Don’t go sleep in the living room.”
“Good night, Richard. I love you,” Jared says. Monotone.
“Love you,” Richard replies.
He turns the lamp off and stares up into the darkness of the room, at the ceiling as his eyes adjust to the small amount of light leaking in through the curtains. Popcorn ceiling. It’s Jared’s condo, Jared’s popcorn ceiling. He came into Jared’s condo and ate dinner Jared cooked for him at Jared’s kitchen table and slept in Jared’s bed and for the hospitality, he tortured Jared over some stupid meaningless bullshit, because he had a hunch he wanted to be right about. He’s an awesome boyfriend. He’s maybe the best boyfriend. Jesus fucking christ, Richard hates himself sometimes.
“What did you see?” Jared asks suddenly, his voice muffled by the pillow.
“Hmm?”
“What did you see,” Jared repeats, speaking away from the pillow now. His voice is flat and emotionless. “In the story, what did you see before I tried to take the phone.”
“I dunno. Not much. Like, some guy raping another guy, I guess. Empty sex-slavery threat. Dirty talk about freeloading. Wait, was that a pun? Free loading?”
“Okay. Good night, Richard. Please stay on your side of the bed tonight.”
“Good night,” Richard repeats, staring up at nothing.
He feels very cold. Why did he do that? Why did he even look at Jared’s personal shit? He could have just asked. He didn’t need to push, but that’s what he feels like he always has to do with Jared. Push to get him to talk about his actual life beyond random gruesome details. Push him to talk about the people he’s been in actual relationships with, push him to explain how they abused and mistreated and hurt him instead of hiding behind a banal “he/she was okay.” Richard thought he was getting better at that. He thought he was getting one over on Jared’s fears of abandonment, his fear that Richard would stop loving him if he really understood things about his past. The sex work, the BDSM, the theft, the fights, the times Jared did desperate things out of desperation.
He told me he’s into crushing people’s fucking balls, Richard thinks in despair. How is reading dirty fetish stories any worse?
They should be more open, Richard thinks. He tries. He let Jared pee on him, god dammit, and it turned out they both hated it and Jared got moderately upset and Richard comforted him and then they moved on with their lives. He doesn’t necessarily think he would be into… what he’s now pretty sure (based on the reactions) is that he would be play-acting forcible sexual assault on Jared, or something, but it’s not repulsive to him. It’s just pretend. He wasn’t really a student fellating his teacher for good grades when they did that roleplay, and it’s basically the same thing.
There are some things he’s still confused about. Familial relations Jared has mentioned that don’t seem to add up. Aunt, uncle, stepmom, biological parents, adoptive father, adoptive parents with a plural. He does think any mention of siblings refers to foster siblings, though. Jared went to high school, he got good grades, he got a full ride to Vassar, but he was also doing hard drugs, he was homeless at multiple points, and Richard thinks some of the sex work had to have been when Jared was underage, which he doesn’t like to think about because it’s too sad.
How the fuck is he supposed to know if he doesn’t ask too many questions, ignore Jared’s sad-sack act that’s supposed to deter him from further inquiries, and tell Jared “you can do this if you want to”, “you can bother me with things that bother you,” and so on?
Ideally he would like to be with Jared as long as the Earth hasn’t exploded. He should know these things. Secrets should be as obsolete as webrings and Flash plugins.
Richard can’t sleep. He can’t even close his eyes. Jared’s breathing has slowed and become rhythmic and familiar, the sign Richard has learned through nights of mild insomnia that Jared is actually completely asleep. And the Benadryl and Valium, Jesus, hardcore. It’s probably lights out.
Lights out can also be a euphemism for dying, Richard’s evil and traitorous brain supplies with glee. Two things that make you drowsy at the same time, oh man. Hopefully either Jared knows what he’s doing or doesn’t know what he’s doing, if you catch my drift.
Jared’s not going to purposely overdose on medication after one thirty-minute fight, Richard’s heart argues. That’s a last resort reserved for something really bad, like if you went back to Hooli or something.
Still could have been an accident, his brain says. Too bad your phone is in the dishwasher, but Jared’s out like a light and his phone is on his nightstand, huh?
Richard gives in to fear. Slowly, he slides out of bed and tiptoes around to Jared’s nightstand. He takes a look now that Jared’s face is towards him: yeah, he’s in deep sleep. Over time, Richard has realized, he can recognize that in Jared’s face. When he’s sleeping lightly and when he’s dead asleep.
Dead asleep, jesus christ. Don’t think that.
He picks up Jared’s phone and unlocks it, trying to move quickly. New tab in Safari: benadryl valium reddit . The first link is someone on a benzos subreddit trying to figure out how to commit suicide, but alcohol is involved as well and Jared doesn’t drink, so he clicks off that one and onto the next.
General consensus seems to be just don’t drive a car afterward, and he thinks Jared probably has built up a good tolerance to benzos, so relief surges through him.
He closes the tab to hide the evidence and sees the rape story still open.
No, he can’t.
But why did Jared ask me what I saw in the story?
Really, that would kind of be evil for him to look, though.
But why did he seem, not relieved, but not more worried when I said what I’d seen?
Richard sucks. He clicks on the tab with the rape story. Sorry, nonconsensual fiction.
It’s still scrolled to the top of the page now. He can see the keywords. Rape, noncon (he feels those are redundant), gay, mm, indentured servitude (weird), violent, incest. Ah, fuck, was that it? That’s more common of a fetish than rape elements these days, he thinks, if porn video titles are anything to go by. Maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s something else.
He chances a look. Jared still seems asleep. He can just look through it for a couple of minutes. Just to satisfy his curiosity. Just so he can bridge the gap between them tomorrow, when he stubbornly brings it up again.
He skims. Blah, blah, blah. Grammatically it’s not awful, but would it have killed leatherdaddy556 to go through it with spell check once before posting? It seems rather standard for a literotica thing. God, Jared must be desperate if he’s reading this trash. Main character is somehow both eighteen years old and therefore legal, yet being sent to live with his uncle after his parents passed away offscreen. First night he’s there, the uncle comes into main character’s room and forces himself on him for the crime of, coming to live with him, Richard guesses.
First night, Richard thinks disinterestedly. Couldn’t even let the tension simmer.
He gets to the part he saw before. “You think you can freeload off me, whore?” It actually seems to be an unintentional pun. Author uses the word molestation for the first time, then reminds us again this is a legal adult, so don’t report his story please.
Richard pauses. Uncle. Rape. Molestation. Freeloading.
Something is happening in his brain. Puzzle pieces he didn’t know were puzzle pieces are revealing themselves, coalescing. It’s scary. The phone in his hand is Pandora’s box. The key is the puzzle pieces, fragments of shit Jared has said and done.
Uncle Jerry’s game, Jared said blankly, looking past Richard. I don’t think you understand what you’re saying.
I lived with my uncle and aunt for three years, and it was the longest I ever lived anywhere until I was in my twenties, Jared mentioned once.
My aunt called me glasshole, he said. I was very fragile.
I’m sorry, Jared cried across the couch from him one night. I just can’t bear for anyone to touch me sometimes. It just happens all of a sudden.
I cannot talk to you about this. I can’t. Panicking. Afraid Richard saw enough that he’d understand.
Fuck. Richard goes to Jared’s other tabs. His veins are ice, his brain is buzzing with white noise, he feels horribly nauseous.
There’s a few of the same website. The stories are different when he clicks on them, but there are common features. One commonality stands out. He doesn’t want to think which one.
He’d looked over at Jared while he was reading them. Tonight and other nights before, for a long time, when he assumed Jared was looking at the fucking news or NPR or reading a PDF of a book. Jared never really looked happy or interested, or even upset or angry. Frowning slightly, reading blankly. Then he would put his phone away, say goodnight Richard I love you, and go to sleep.
Why? Richard thinks. Why would he do that?
Apparently, it’s easy to accidentally open Pandora’s box. He puts the phone back on the nightstand and goes to the bathroom and throws up for fifteen minutes. Goodbye, nice dinner Jared made me. Goodbye, stomach acid, until he’s dry heaving and sobbing into the toilet bowl.
Richard sits there with his cheek against the cold porcelain. Jared, fuck. He’s trying to remember things and forget things at the same time. When did Jared say he lived with his uncle—what did I do that time he freaked out and told me don’t touch me again motherfucker , is he hurting himself reading that shit or maybe it helps him not have nightmares—
It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t know that Jared didn’t want him to know. Now he’s wondering, does Jared even understand, himself? Jared doesn’t remember things. Filters, filters, filters removing impurities from his memory, Jared once sent him an article about avoiding concussions and said the brain is a resilient organ isn’t it? but the brain isn’t a fucking Brita filter and things linger, like those shadows imprinted into the earth after a nuclear blast, and then there’s still something wrong but you just don’t know and can’t know why, and Richard dry heaves again.
He washes his mouth out, steals one of Jared’s Valiums, and goes to sleep.
When he wakes up, Jared’s still asleep and breathing, thank god. Richard’s still squarely on his side of the bed, but Jared’s legs are longer than his and they’ve migrated across the middle, and his feet are touching Richard’s calves, and they’re warm under the covers.
Richard gets up and notices his hands are shaking. He washes his face off with some cold water, and brushes his teeth, and goes into the kitchen. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t even know if he can make it one word into talking to Jared without hurling out of guilt and anxiety. God damn did he tell Jared you want to get raped? What the fuck. What the fuck.
At least he can be nice for a little bit, until one of them opens their mouths. Richard makes some coffee, weak for Jared’s tastes, and he’ll cook the sausages Jared has in the fridge, and toast some sourdough English muffins that are easier for Jared to digest. Richard tries not to think about it. His evil brain and limp-dick heart are silent and useless.
Your evil brain and limp-dick heart are you, stupid, Richard thinks to himself.
He turns around with the pack of sausages, the English muffins, and sets them down on the counter. The pack of sausages lands on something small. He moves them to the side. Oh. There it is.
Well. If nothing else, if he sucks and he’s traumatized his boyfriend and is emotionally incapable of handling the trauma of the shit life Richard knew Jared had when they got into this relationship, and even if he burns-and-undercooks the sausages and the English muffins get cold and soggy before Jared gets up from his benzo coma, there is one thing Richard can take solace in.
He knows where his stupid fucking cellphone is.