Reddie For You [On Hiatus]

| Chapter 5 |

Richie woke up to the sound of clattering pots and pans. He would've been worried if the sounds weren't immediately followed by a loud are you fucking kidding me!

He grinned to himself, sitting up carefully and rubbing his aching head. As predicted, he didn't get much sleep the previous night, but he did manage to knock out for a few minutes at a time after a long shower. He flung his legs over the side of the bed and put on his glasses so he was no longer blind. He quietly padded his way to the kitchen and peeked around the corner before making his presence known.

Eddie was still in the clothes he slept in, a loose fitting shirt and shorts a little too short for Richie's sanity. He was bent over the stove, cooking something, with a line formed on his forehead from frustration. "Stupid... fucking dumb..." He was mumbling to himself, tossing stuff across the kitchen.

"Woah Eds, careful throwing things." He was amused at Eddie's little jump and stifled a laugh at the glare he received.

"Don't do that, you scared me." He hunched over the stove again, shutting it off and groaning in defeat. "You messed me up."

"I messed you up?" Richie raised a brow, making his way over to stand next to him. "What are you trying to do?"

"I was trying to make breakfast, but your eggs were expired. And so was pretty much everything else in the fridge so I thought I'd try grilled cheese. Your bacon was still good so I tried to put some on it but you don't have a press so it just kept cooking unevenly. I had to throw out the first one, and now they just keep burning. I don't understand why LA stoves are so complicated- why the fuck are you staring at me like that??"

Richie had propped himself against the fridge and just smiled softly at Eddie as he rambled on. "You're just cute."

"Stop." The smaller man's face was already heating up. "Now you're just making fun of me."

"I'm not." Richie promised. "Making breakfast is pretty cute. A press, Eds? Dude, I haven't cooked in here for a long time." He gripped the pan from the stove and moved it to the sink. "I appreciate the effort, A plus. Sorry everything expired, it's been a while."

"Don't apologize..." Eddie already looked like he felt guilty. "This is your house, I'm sorry-"

"Hey, let's go out and eat. Or we can just order in again. You down?"

"Uh sure."

"Which one?" Richie watched Eddie shuffle around anxiously, rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding Richie's eyes.

"If we could just stay here that would be nice. I-" He quickly looked to Richie for a sign of something before continuing. "I don't want to go out until I'm better."

"I get it man, that's totally fine."

It was almost a replay of the day before, except they ignored the whole nightmare fiasco. The both of them were spread out on the couch, watching some dumb reality tv show and eating their cares away. "Fuck." Richie nearly choked on his food when he checked his phone after it had been buzzing in his pocket, his manager calling him for the fifteen hundredth time. Eddie looked up from his laptop, which had pretty much replaced his phone for the time being.

"Sorry, I just need to take this." He quickly got up from the couch, sucking in frantic breaths as he held the phone up to his ear. "This is Richie Tozi-"

"WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN RICH?"

Richie hissed at the high volume yelling funneling into his ear. "First you walk off stage at a show and disappear for weeks? Are you begging to have your career destroyed. Megan and Anthony are so pissed, you don't even know what you're in for. God, how could you be so stupid?"

"I needed to leave, it was an emergency."