Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Richie entered his house after his lunch with Bill, all he really wanted was to relax. Lounge on his couch, play with his dog, and get some Thai delivered. Maybe cuddle with his husband.

He knew this was an unattainable dream when he saw Eddie sitting at their dining room table with a mask on.

“Seriously, man?”

“I’m just being careful,” Eddie replied, his lethal disdain muffled through the KN-95.

“We sat outside, across the table from each other, and didn’t touch at all. There is no need for you to freak out, I promise,” he couldn’t help but snipe back. He wasn’t going to deal with another two weeks of wearing masks in his own goddamn home.

“It’s not freaking out to care about the transmission of a deadly infectious illness.”

Richie had to take a deep breath. “Okay, you know that that’s not what I said, right?”

“Sorry,” Eddie replied, a tiny concession that was actually hard-won from the last vestiges of couples therapy. “It’s just that we don’t know where Bill has been, not really.”

Bill was technically supposed to be part of their bubble, but Eddie hadn’t been treating him that way ever since last summer when he found out about the Covid parties Bill had been throwing. They were the ones for people who had already had the virus at least once, but still. Eddie made sure they were all well aware that getting it once did not mean immunity. When confronted about this, Bill had seemed sorry and promised not to have any more of them, but that bridge with Eddie was pretty burned. Their group Zoom calls were a little stilted even now with everyone trying to tip-toe around any questions about what precautions they were or weren’t taking, lest Eddie come down on them too. Richie isn't an angel here either; after Bill was in the Imagine video that's all Richie could talk about during their calls for weeks, leading to some extra tension.

It all made Richie madder that he felt comfortable with. He wasn’t stupid—he understood herd immunity and stopping the spread and all that shit. It was just that he didn’t think that they needed to be so fucking anal about it. He just wanted to get lunch with Bill.

“Even if Bill was having orgies where they only use spit as lube, we were outside. So even Fauci would have lunch with him,” he said as he opens the fridge to get a much-needed beer. Turning around to look across the peninsula to his husband, he opened his mouth to make his next point. He’s entirely derailed though, because when he turned around Eddie had lifted up his mask and was aggressively swabbing his nose.

“Are you serious!”

Tears were streaming down Eddie’s face from the force of his swab, but his glare remained icy. He finished returning his mask, dipping the swab in the solution, squeezing out three drops exactly, and throwing it all safely away before replying to Richie. “This is just to be safe.”

“I’ve been in here for literally two seconds! It is literally impossible for you to have gotten Covid just now.”

Eddie set his phone timer primly. “I test every week; you know this.”

Richie could see that he was talking to a stone wall who was determined to be mad. “Whatever. Just, whatever, Eddie. Do what you want. I’m not wearing a mask at home, though.” With that, he stomped past the dining room table and into the living room, dropping onto the couch with a huff that was echoed by their pomeranian, Lucy, who was not too happy at being jostled. Still, she came over and dutifully tucked herself under his arm. At least someone was easy.

Richie wished it hadn’t gotten this bad.

At the beginning it was bad in a different way; it was hard for both of them to transition into a relationship they actually wanted to be in, given all the shitty coping mechanisms they picked up along the way. Richie was often incapable of expressing his needs productively and tended to be inattentive in a way that made Eddie incredibly suspicious. Eddie on the other hand was a habitual white liar and king at silent treatments.

Right after a major trauma and a major surgery was also a very weird time to try to move in with someone, so they had their ups and downs. Therapy, both solo and couple, helped too. But, thinking back to five years ago, Richie remembered there being this constant feeling of love, this baseline of “we’re on the same side.”

Eddie backslid a lot when Covid hit.

Before that March, he’d been doing a lot of good exposure therapy. He was eating what he wanted, had stopped panicking at the first signs of a cold, and stopped taking the vast majority of his allergy medication. Hell, when the news first broke that there was something happening in China, he very purposefully didn’t worry about it too much. The two of them laughed about it being the start of World War Z.

The beginning of lockdown was rough, what with Eddie’s whole thing being proven right for once and the resulting spiral of escalating behavior. They were entirely isolated for months, no grocery store visits, no lunch with Bill. He didn’t let Mike stay with them when he needed a place to safely ride out what, at that point, everyone was sure was only a few weeks of lockdown. Richie had told their friend that he probably didn’t want to live with them anyway, as bad as Eddie was taking everything, and so Mike had joined Ben and Bev in their secluded Nebraskan home. Richie didn’t feel great about the whole situation, especially about telling Mike about Eddie’s issues, but what’s done was done. And he was right.

He had tried to make the beginning of lockdown as fun as he could, with some success. They built blanket forts and stayed whole days in bed and generally tried to make it all feel like one big sleepover. Those were probably the only times Eddie smiled until the summer, when they finally met up with Bill (outside, six feet apart, masked, no food or drink). It was so nice to just have some time together like they used to right after the summer of 2016.

Richie’s tour had been cancelled, another funny comparison to 2016, so they had treated it like a staycation, albeit a very anxious one where they couldn’t go to the grocery store. Sill, it was fun, and Richie still thought back to those first few months.

But Richie wasn’t magical, and he couldn’t keep it all together forever. What started out as the best part of this whole global mess—getting to be with together 24/7—lost its charm. As the restrictions kept changing, getting more intense then less, then more again, he couldn’t help but chafe against the arbitrariness of it all. Nothing felt like it was a real rule, just a stupid pretense of safety that wouldn’t help at all. It was honestly hard to keep it all straight, not that Eddie had much sympathy for that difficulty, as glued to the CDC website as he was.

The more Richie failed at perfectly following Dr. Fauci’s guidelines, which were functionally the Ten Commandments handed down directly from Eddie’s new god, the more their relationship strained. Richie wouldn’t disinfect the groceries; Eddie would rant. Richie would take his mask off for a second with Bill and Eddie would yell. There was so little trust between them that Eddie had taken to wearing a mask in the house to protect himself from Richie whenever he deemed Richie too much of a health risk. Which also translated to whenever he was mad at him.

The fucking passive aggressiveness. Richie burned hot in anger thinking about it, punching the remote hard to get him out Disney+ where they had left it last night.

He knows from couples therapy that the passive aggressive masking and testing and “statements of fact, look it up” were survival strategies from living with Sonia and Myra. Didn’t make it any less annoying.

Maybe he just needed to go on a walk and give them both the only space they could get. He was so goddamn tired of being annoyed, and he wanted his husband back, even if it meant ignoring problems for one more day. Once Richie got rid of his angry energy, maybe he’d put a mask on and wheedle a cuddle out of Eds.

Yeah, a walk would do it. Just as he got up to find Lucy’s leash, he heard a small clatter from the dining room.

He looked over to see Eddie looking pale. Shocked. He was looking down at the table.

Richie went to him, arm already outstretched to hold him.

When he got to the table, he glanced down quickly, following Eddie’s gaze. It took a second for the information to reach his brain and stop his hand where it was hovering over Eddie’s shoulder.

There was the faintest second line on the Covid test.

Chapter Text

Eddie looked like he’d been given a death sentence. Richie was incapable of finding it funny; the look was too familiar and was honestly triggering a similar dread inside him too. When his husband looked that scared, his fight or flight kicked him in the stomach.

“Eds,” he started.

Eddie restarted with violence, yanking his mask back on and shoving away from Richie’s still outstretched hand. The chair made a screech and the table rattled as he clambered out of Richie’s reach. Lucy startled away from him, halting her dash to the front door for her walk. Eddie backed away a lot further than six feet, but Richie could hear the start of his wheezing even through the mask and across the kitchen.

“Eds, calm down,” he tried.

“You—you—please put on a mask, Rich, please—”

“Sure, fine, just let me—” he muttered as he patted his pockets to no avail. He dashed over to the entryway to grope through his jacket, where he found a crumpled up surgical mask and slung it onto his face. He returned to his spot in the living room, looking into the kitchen at the terrified Eddie.

“Okay, let’s just take some breaths,” he tried again.

“Well, I’m breathing out poisonous air, so!” Eddie trilled thinly.

“That’s what the masks are for, babe,” Richie sighed exasperatedly.

“They only reduce the risk, and are more effective when both parties wear them which you literally were not doing until a fucking second ago, and I literally can’t stop breathing hard which is not making things better,” he trailed off with a wheeze.

“I think the problem is that you’re not breathing enough, sweetheart.” Richie tried to step closer, only for Eddie to literally jolt back from him. “Can you sit down at least?”

Eddie didn’t nod, but did sink down to the floor. Richie watched his chest heave up and down worriedly, even as he recognized the timed breathing Eddie’s therapist had long ago taught him. They existed in silence for a minute, the only sound being carefully measured breaths. Lucy trotted over to Eddie trepidatiously, stopping just short of him when he didn’t reach out for her and laying down sadly.

“How do you feel now?” Richie tried.

“You got me sick,” Eddie replied, staring blankly ahead.

Richie blinked. “Uh, what?”

“It’s the only explanation. I’m always so careful.”

“Fucking excuse me?”

“I always wear a mask and wash my hands after the grocery store, I cross the street when I see that someone is going to walk too close to me on the sidewalk, and I don’t even see Bill in person anymore. I literally do everything right. The only vulnerability I have is you.”

A sting of hurt lances through him and settles in his already rolling stomach. “A real nice way to put that, Eddie. Very intentional and compassionate.”

“You must have gotten it from Bill. Or whoever else you see when you’re out that you don’t tell me about.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Eddie? I’m not seeing anyone! You make sure of that!”

“This could have happened any time within the last two weeks. You’ll have to message everyone you saw in that timeframe, so we can narrow down the carrier.”

“You’ve literally just decided that I’m meeting up with people behind your back. You sound crazy. And I’m literally not even sick!”

“Most cases are asymptomatic.”

“Jesus,” Richie huffed. He stormed to the kitchen table, ignoring Eddie darting away from him and Lucy scrambling around in the chaos. “I’ll take a fucking test, show you how fucking stupid you’re being.”

The nose swab brought tears to his eyes, especially after he accidentally jabbed it too far up in his shaky anger.

It was a tense fifteen minutes.

One line immediately showed up. After another silent minute, and another, the second line never showed its face. Richie made a show of getting the test close to his face, shining it in the light, and twisting it this way and that.

“Would you look at that,” he sneered. “Looks like you’ll need a new conspiracy theory, Eddie my love, because I’ve been cleared of all wrong-doing.”

He tossed the test aside, looking up at his husband. Or at least where he thought his husband should have been. The kitchen was empty, a mystery that was solved when he heard a door slam down the hall.

“Running from confrontation again, I see,” he muttered to himself. He tossed the test down on the table, thinking absently that he shouldn’t throw it away yet in case Eddie wanted to look at the exonerating evidence himself. Richie would probably have to do another test anyway, knowing Eddie.

“Come here, Lucy Lu,” he cooed. Raising his voice just a little, he added, “Let’s get out of Daddy’s hair while he’s having his tantrum.”

Lucy seemed just as glad to leave the house as he was.

The walk did very little to make him feel better, but it did cool his anger down to a calmer iciness. He was going to have to have a bitch session with Sandy later to get the rest out; he’d just feel worse if he tried to vent about Eddie to the other Losers.

After circling the drain (going around the block) enough times, Richie decided to bite the bullet and go back inside.

Lucy immediately went to the guestroom door, whining and fussing to get in. Richie paused. He’d assumed that Eddie would have calmed down enough to sulk somewhere publicly in the house. He’d definitely assumed that he’d gone into their shared room, where all of his creature comforts (like his robe and Gucci slippers) were. For all of their arguments, the guest bedroom was unprecedented.

He gamely approached.

“Hey, Eds,” he started before stalling out. Silence emanated from the tightly shut door in front of him. Maybe Lucy was crazy. Maybe he wasn’t even in there.

“Eddie,” he tried again. Nothing was all he got in return. A coil of unease tightened in his stomach. “You in there?”

Feeling like a kid, he pressed his ear to the wood.

Nothing. Then the barest suggestion of breathing, maybe pacing footsteps.

“The silent treatment,” Richie sneered. “Nice one, Sonia.”

That worked. “You fucking asshole!” came Eddie’s muffled shout from behind the door. Lucy whined a little bit louder.

“Look who you’re calling an asshole, asshole! If you want to sulk in there fine, but at least let Lucy in. You’re freaking her out.”

“It’s called a self-quarantine, Richie. I’m following CDC guidelines.” Richie pictured Eddie saying this perched primly on the bed, and almost smiled to himself. He was always pretty cute, even when he was being awful.

“There’s literally no reason for you to quarantine, man. You would have given it to me by now if you were going to. You can’t use that as an excuse. If you don’t want to see me, fine. But you’re really gonna just ignore our dog until you feel better?”

“Dogs can literally get Covid. Those zoo lions got it.”

“Jesus. Fine. I still think we should act like grown-ups and talk about what you said about me earlier. About me being your ‘vulnerability.’”

Pointed silence again.

“Work with me here. You wanna do couples therapy again? Is that it? Do we need to have every goddamn discussion we have mediated by a professional?”

When he next spoke, Eddie’s voice was startling loud, like he moved right up against the door. “You need to stop making me out to be crazy, okay? I’m not overreacting here. I am self-quarantining to keep you and our dog safe, because I care about you. You’re acting like I’m doing this to punish you specifically.”

“Sue me for thinking that!” Richie growled. “After you literally said it out loud!”

“I was having a panic attack! You want me to say I’m sorry? I’m sorry I had an honest reaction to a stressful fucking situation!”

“If that was you being honest…you know what, whatever,” Richie cut himself off. “Self-quarantine, isolate, whatever. I assume you’re sleeping in there?”

“Yep.”

“Cool. Probably for the best anyway. I need some fucking space from you.”

With that, he left Lucy at the guest bedroom door. He was over it all.

He did end up facetiming Sandy, who did a great job of validating all his grievances. He ranted about Eddie’s masking, Eddie’s hand washing, Eddie’s testing. Even some of his more private opinions on the validity of the lockdown and stupid restaurant rules came out. She just laughed along with him, pointing a jeweled finger at Big Brother with her other hand around a wine glass. They talked in the living room, luxuriating in the freedom to speak his mind with Eddie locking himself away in the other room.

Later that night before bed, however, he still left a container of leftovers in the fridge and a note in front of the guest bedroom letting Eddie know there was food for him.

They slept in different beds for the first time in about five years.

Chapter Text

They communicated mostly through plates left on the floor in front of the guest bedroom door. Richie almost wanted to start putting little notes with them, like a mom packing her kid a lunch, but chickened out each time. The only proof of life he had from Eddie were the cleaned plates left for him to wash and put away and the hacking cough he could hear into the night, making his heart clench. Eddie must have gotten some symptoms.

On the one hand, Richie hated seeing his husband suffer. On the other, the mighty, healthy Eddie Kaspbrak couldn’t health-freak his way out of the same regular Covid everyone else got. No neat, clean asymptomatic Covid for Eddie.

That was mean.

As the first couple of days of Eddie’s isolation dragged on, Richie was getting less and less bitchy enjoyment from the situation. Stewing in resentment, with the whole house to himself to fill with his negativity, quickly got oppressive. He took to sitting on their back patio, chain-smoking like it was still the fucking nineties.

With his nineties smoke, vintage memories swirled around his mind. When they were in high school, and sleepovers were increasingly taboo, he used to daydream about living with Eddie as adults. Adulthood meant freedom, meant no interference from bullies, Mrs. Kaspbrak, or annoying big sisters. No bedtime, no one to look at them sideways for sitting too close on the couch. Back then Richie had no dream but that—the freedom to sit close to Eddie and have a whole room to himself to jerk off about it later. In his more daring dreams, Eddie and he still shared a bed every once in a while, for old times’ sake.

Like Eddie in that dream, the Eddie separated from him now by just a few walls felt imaginary, distant, unknowable. And just like young Richie constructing elaborate housing fantasies when lying alone in bed, Richie right now felt a gaping emptiness at his side, a sucking wound where his husband should be.

Richie was achingly lonely, but he was slowly realizing he had been for months now.

Beyond wishing to see the Losers, to touch them, he longed to have Eddie back. Slow enough to escape his notice, but so obvious now, Eddie had crept away from him like a wild animal hiding in the corner of a trap.

And Richie had drawn back too. When every thought of Eddie was increasingly riddled with anxiety he did what he did best, and repressed it. He didn’t think about Eddie when he and Bill got lunch, or when plugging away at his next special, or when brainlessly scrolling Twitter. When Eddie, being Eddie, asserted himself back into Richie’s awareness, it was usually a reminder of not only his fear of disappointing his husband but also the entire fucked state of the world, and how everything was probably ruined permanently.

His tour had been cancelled in 2020. Now, sitting and smoking like a teenager, he realized he hadn’t really sat with that, mostly because he was terrified that things like tours would never happen again.

He threw the cigarette down and ground it violently out. Filled with a jittery energy he recognized all too well, he paced in the backyard, kicking at their shitty grass as he went. He wished he could scream, but what might have flown in 2020 was back to being socially unacceptable in 2021. He wished he could kickbox.

As a compromise, he took Lucy on a very long (for them) walk.

On the third day of Eddie’s isolation, Richie heard him talking, somewhat frantically.

The words were too distant for Richie to pick out from his room, where he was once again doomscrolling (Twitter was arguing about Simone Biles quitting the Olympics for “mental health” and Richie was weighing if his joke about depression was too revealing), so he hauled himself up and shouted back, “What?”

Getting close to the guest bedroom door didn’t work, and Eddie didn’t shout back at him, still talking at a level just below what Richie could pick up. “Dude, I can’t hear you!”

What he heard in response didn’t make any sense. High-pitched and piercing enough to cut through wood, Eddie shouted, “I hope you know blood is on your hands! This is a sham of a healthcare system!”

“Uh, what?”

At that moment, his phone lit up with a FaceTime call. From Eddie.

He accepted it up warily. “Eds? I’m right outside?”

“I need you to watch me breathe and tell me if you think it counts as ‘difficulty breathing,’” Eddie said, in the manner of a captain trying to remain calm while his ship was sinking. He proceeded to fall silent and pointedly breathed in and out while Richie just stared at his phone in disbelief.

“Eds…”

“There, did you catch that? I can’t breathe in all the way. My chest feels too tight, heavy too. They have a worthless idiot answering the nurse line; she wouldn’t even listen to my breathing. Here, listen again. I’m wheezing, even with normal breathing.”

Richie cut him off in the middle of his, admittedly wheezy, inhale. “What are you saying, man? You can’t breathe?”

Eddie finished his exhale and shakily replied, “One of the symptoms of severe Covid is difficulty breathing. I think we need to go to the hospital.”

“The hospital?!”

“Yes,” he started, with a slight whistle to his words. “If I have ‘difficulty breathing’ we need to go to the hospital.” With that, Eddie started hyperventilating, clutching his chest and deeply wheezing.

Richie was suddenly twelve again, rocketed into the past by the telltale sounds of one of Eddie’s asthma attacks. His hand literally reached out, as if, even through the phone screen and the door, he was going to help Eddie find his inhaler. When his hand bumped into wood, he snapped out of it.

“Eddie, my love, can you open the door? Let me in?” When Eddie didn’t answer, he tried again, “Please sweetheart, I want to help. Let me in.”

Eddie shook his head on screen, and mouthed something Richie couldn’t make out.

“Okay, okay,” Richie relented. “Can you at least hear me? Listen to me breathing? Try to breathe along with me. Once you’re breathing again, we can figure out what to do together. I’m here.” He counted as he inhaled and exhaled, feeling, like he always did when in this situation, like a deranged yoga instructor. “In two three four, hold two three four five six seven, out two three four five six seven eight. In two three four…”

He did that a few more times, until Eddie was at least slowing down. Richie cradled the phone in his hands, feeling further away from his husband than ever before.

On his small screen, Eddie sniffed through a sob and covered his face. It was a miracle he didn’t hang up; he was always embarrassed and shy after Richie helped him with anything, let alone this.

Neither of them said anything for a while, Eddie’s crying petering out and Richie with an ache in him that ate up his words before they could form.

He wanted them to go back to therapy. He wanted Eddie to let him in. He wanted Eddie to apologize for how unlivable he’d been making everything. He wanted to give him a hug. He wanted to apologize for not ignoring everything for so long.

He wanted them both to be less lonely.

So what he said was, “I love you so much, Eds.”

From behind his hand, Eddie spoke thinly through his tears-tightened throat, “I love you too, Rich. I’m sorry. I am.”

One down. Richie smiled. “Hey, look at me.” Eddie did, peeking between his fingers like he was twelve again too. Cute cute cute.

At the sight of Richie’s smile, Eddie’s face scrunched up again and more tears slid down his cheeks. He really did hang up then, but before Richie could get sad about it, he knocked on the door between them, a slow shave and a haircut. Another apology, but also a greeting, like he really was knocking on the door to say hello, to start anew.

Richie’s answering two bits were embarrassingly tender, even after the rawness of the video call. He felt silly for feeling sappy after so little, but he tried to shake that off. They were both ridiculous people, after all.

Those two taps as the “hey there” and “love you,” his spoken-aloud parting words were actually, “You don’t need to go to the hospital, baby.”

With that, he went to go start dinner. Well, by “start dinner” he meant pick out the perfect delivery place. They both deserved a treat.

When he dropped the spicy ramen off in front of Eddie’s door, with a small knock and a hasty retreat, he didn’t go far. After he heard the door close again, he returned to sit his old, creaky knees down. With a light knock to introduce his presence, he dug into his sushi and started to talk about nothing in particular. His blank Word documents with different titles, his adventures while walking Lucy, what the neighbors were getting up to in their balcony hot tub.

Lucy herself tentatively exited her hiding place from elsewhere in the house to sit with him and beg for salmon. Eddie’s responses were muffled by the food, his phlegmy cough, and the door, but he was responding. When Lucy barked and whined, he even laughed, and talked about how healthy raw fish was for dogs according to the dog mom Youtube videos he’d been watching. Richie accused him of egging Lucy on to steal his rolls.

Laying in bed later that night, he almost felt hungover. Like he’d emptied himself out. Despite the odds, it was a good feeling.

Chapter Text

They started to talk more, sitting back to back with the door between them like kids separated by their parents for being too disruptive. Eddie hacked up a lung every time he laughed, which didn’t prevent Richie from trying to set him off at least once per conversation.

They talked, but they also argued. A lot. Richie decided, in the spirit of saving their marriage, that they needed to reevaluate how they, as a couple, treated their friends, which meant defending Bill and pointing out how distant they’d been from the other Losers during this whole messy time. He tried to take Eddie’s good points in stride (Bill was an idiot after all; he wasn’t going to entirely fall on his sword for the guy) while still keeping to his newfound principles, namely, that they couldn’t isolate themselves anymore. Ironically.

Somehow, their arguments felt more like the ones they had as kids than the one’s they’ve had for the last year. Maybe because sitting on the floor was the magical circle, making it feel like a game.

Eddie had to keep pausing to gasp for breath, which Richie was careful not to get too worried about (they had both gone through the CDC information about what counted as shortness of breath, and he was able to talk Eddie down from another hospital trip, partly by pointing out how many other sick people would be there).

They didn’t reach a consensus on whether to trust Bill enough for Eddie to see him in person again. Richie had to go on another long walk with Lucy at the end of that discussion.

Apparently Eddie had also been holding out on his husband during their silent treatment. Now that they were at least talking, Richie suddenly had all sorts of errands to run. Firstly, and most urgently, Eddie had evidently run dangerously low on Kleenex in the guest room, and even worse, the brand they kept in there wasn’t nearly as good as the stuff they kept in their actual room. When Eddie quickly ran out of that box too, Richie was forced to make an eight pm CVS run. With a pit stop at that ramen place just down the road as a way to make it worth it to himself and bring a little joy into the house, even though that now they were talking again, Eddie had confided in him that he couldn’t smell or taste jack shit and therefore couldn’t appreciate the ramen like he normally would. Whatever, some things were for Richie too.

As the days kept going, though, Eddie kept not getting any better. In fact, it seemed like he was getting worse.

Night after night, Richie had a hard time getting to sleep through Eddie’s incessant coughing, which ripped through the walls that separated them well into the morning hours. Yeah it was annoying, but more than that, Richie felt a deep pang of sympathy with every rattling hack.

And as much as he knew Eddie despised being gross, the sound of him hawking up phlegm triggered Richie’s gag reflex like no other. It was viscerally uncomfortable for both of them, so they didn’t talk about it. Richie thought that the last thing Eds needed was to feel even more self-conscious about getting the gunk out of his lungs.

All he could do was leave plenty of Kleenex and ginger shots outside the door, and pick up something hot and brothy every night during his trips to escape the oppressive aura of sickness.

Then one day, Eddie sounded further way than normal when Richie sat down for their conversation. More muffled. Quiet.

In response to him asking about it, Eddie sighed, “Just not up for leaving the bed today, Rich.”

“Oh shit, really?”

“I might not make it through a whole conversation, honestly. I’m just. So fucking tired right now. I didn’t get tons of sleep last night.”

“Yeah, I know,” Richie replied before he could think to stop himself. He only just started beating himself up about it when Eddie chuckled.

“I bet. Sorry about that.”

“No worries, compadre,” he replied, knocking his knuckles softly against the door. “Just wish I could do something to actually help.”

“If I’m too out of it to watch YouTube, I think I’m too far gone for your help, Rich.”

“Not even your YouTube crush? Eric O the mechanic-not-pornstar?”

Another laugh. “Eric O is literally the most normal name. You sound like a porn addict whenever you make that joke.”

“I can only see and speak the truth, my love.”

“That’ll be the day,” Eddie huffed through another cough. “I’m seriously going to try to nap, though.”

“Sure thing, Eds. I’ll wake you up for dinner.”

Richie wasn’t a hypochondriac by any stretch of the imagination. He couldn’t help but compare Eddie’s symptoms to Bill’s run-in with covid in the early days, right when people were first starting to put a name to their weird colds. To hear Bill tell it, that’s all it felt like—a cold. It was only when he took an antigen test that he thought back and recategorized it.

Eddie’s covid was, by contrast, so not a cold. Longer, tougher, more fatigue. That very night, Richie added nausea onto his private list of his husband’s symptoms after hearing Eddie retch in the dark.

Richie wasn’t worried. He was not the worrier in the household; Eddie would not appreciate his turf being stepped on. Hell, even Lucy was stepping up on the worry front, what with her pathetic pawing at the guest bed door and her sad little whimpers at Eddie’s coughing. Two worriers was one too many in his book.

He just wanted it all to be over, was all.

Their pseudo-marriage therapy was functionally on pause as well, since Eddie usually didn’t have the energy for more than short conversations about food and Kleenex restocking. Their last big breakthrough was quiet but important, Richie thought. He’d told Bill what was going on, and because Bill actually was good people, he immediately sent over an honest to god care package. Nestled in with organic vitamins and fancy waters was a huge bottle of something yellow and foggy. Richie immediately facetimed Bill to loudly ask why he’d sent them a bottle of what was clearly his own piss.

“You wish! You know people literally at me on social media asking for shit like that, right?” Bill laughed.

“Yeah, dude. I am famous too. We all literally get media training about the piss people. That does NOT answer my question at all, you evasive fuck!”

After his giggles, Bill explained that he’d sent along some of his homemade ginger cure-all. He started in on his list of ingredients before Richie hastily cut him off; he would not be able to recite any of that shit to the real interested party.

That’s where the breakthrough came in.

Richie hung up and immediately started a call with both Eddie and Bill, which Eddie miraculously answered. Before anything awkward could happen, Richie blustered his way through an explanation of the care package (roasting Bill lightly about the three different water brands) and prompting Bill to list off the ingredients for his special concoction.

Eddie just nodded quietly to Bill’s subsequent speech, occasionally humming. He was laying back, propped up on what looked like a huge mass of pillows behind him. His eyes were hooded, which should have made him look annoyed or disinterested but instead just made him look adorably sleepy, in Richie’s opinion.

When Bill was through explaining the magic and inner workings of the potion, Eddie said, “That sounds great, Bill. Thank you. Really.”

Bill, with the sun from the window behind him nearly shadowing him, lit up. “Any time, Eddie. It was no hassle at all for a friend.”

Later, when Eddie actually tried the cure-all, he sent himself into a giggle-slash-coughing fit.

“Are those happy, grateful sounds?” Richie asked at the door trepidatiously.

“Well,” Eddie spluttered, “You can tell Bill there’s plenty of ginger in there. Plenty of cayenne too. I can’t feel my tongue.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“Tell him I can breathe without whistling for the first time in days.”

“Right on,” Richie smiled. “I’ll ask him to bring moonshine over next.”

The nausea must have calmed down, because there was no more retching at night. The phlegmy hacking coughs slowed too, whether that was because of periodic shots of Bill’s drink or not.

Richie hoped that the peak was behind them. The worry eased only slowly, but at least he wasn't kept up at night primarily by the knots in his own stomach.

On day ten, Eddie asked for a covid test. Positive.

The next day was positive too.

So it went, with Eddie’s coughing getting quieter and his fatigue stubbornly sticking around.

On day thirteen, he got his first negative test.

In the end, it was exactly fifteen days that Eddie’s isolation lasted. Fifteen days of separation by doors, walls, and phone screens. Fifteen days of thawing and breaking and opening.

It felt real good when that guest door opened and they could touch again, in Richie’s humble-as-pie opinion. He didn’t have any desire to let his husband go for that long again.