I'm, Above All Else, A Tangentgirl. Always Saying Shit Like "sidenote," "oh Also," "by The Way,"

i swear to god maslow's hierarchy of needs does Not apply to me when i'm sick with a hyperfixation. like memes aside i actually need to think of this fictional bitch more than i need food or sleep. basic need is Talking About The Fictional Bitch actually

UNTITLED.JPG BY FOUR CHAMBERS

The Bear – 1.01: System

I think that falling asleep in a cute girl’s cozy hoodie (bonus points if I’m also in her arms) would fix me on a cellular level

staring at the blank page before you open up the dirty window let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find reaching for something in the distance so close you can almost taste it release your inhibitions feel the rain on your skin no one else can feel it for you only you can let it in no one else no one else can speak the words on your lips drench yourself in words unspoken live your life with arms wide open today is where your book begins the rest is still unwritten

I have a few but take your time on these!

Tony Stark x Female Reader // The reader gets injured on a mission and tony freaks out which causes the team to have to calm him down, but you end up being okay.

Newt x Reader (TMR) // The reader gets the flare but so does her brother minho and newt panics

Eric Coulter x Reader // Christina talks about the reader in a bad way to Eric challenges her

this was fun! btw i already wrote the tony stark one and the newt one, which are linked in my masterlist!

masterlist

It’s empty in Dauntless this time of night, so late (or perhaps so early) that even the most tenured partygoers have all retreated to their rooms to wait until morning. The only person Eric can see is himself, his only company the vague shape of his shadow keeping pace next to him.

Then again, maybe he’s not the only one up. As Eric walks, he sees a silhouette through an open door somewhere to his left. There’s a figure outside, staring out at the city as it sleeps.

Eric is inclined to pay this person no mind and continue on heading home, but as he draws closer he realizes he recognizes the figure as one of his initiates. Well, that settles it- initiates aren’t supposed to be out of bed at this hour, and if someone else catches them, it’ll be on Eric’s head for sure because he didn’t train them right or something.

Holding back a sigh, he walks over to the door and slips outside. The night air is cool even compared to the usual brisk chill of the Dauntless corridors, making Eric shiver in spite of himself. red to the chilled halls of Dauntless, and Eric shivers in spite of himself. He raises his voice, calling out to the girl leaning over a haphazard iron balcony.

“Initiates have a curfew, you know.”

The girl laughs, he can tell from the shake of her shoulders, although the sound of it is ripped away by the wind.

“Are you going to knock me down in the rankings if I stay?”

The girl turns at last, and Eric fights back a curse, because he finally recognizes her and it’s Y/N of all people. Y/N, the one person who keeps making him doubt himself, the girl who laughs like nothing he’s ever heard before, who makes Eric want to be better than he already is. If he was smart, Eric would have kept walking and never stopped by this door, because he’s been looking for an excuse to pretend he doesn’t have feelings for a while now and this just blew all that away.

It’s just- well, Eric’s not the type to have picture-perfect moments, except for maybe when he wins yet another round in the ring and looks up to see his knuckles splashed with red, the whole world gone black and white except for those dots of scarlet. Yet when Y/N looks at him, her eyes almost glowing from the stars, the wind lightly twisting around her hair and skin in ways that Eric wishes he could, he realizes that he can’t run, not from this. Not from her.

Y/N cocks her head to the side, and Eric realizes belatedly that she’d asked him a question. He doesn’t know how long he’s been staring, but he needs to stop now. It’s a shame that’s far harder to do than he’d originally thought.

He clears his throat sharply, hoping his infatuation isn’t as obvious to Y/N as it is to him.

“Maybe I will. The rules are here for a reason, you know.”

It’s a stupid response, but Eric can’t convince the receptors in his brain to focus long enough to form a better thought. They’re just stuck in the same loops of Y/N’s smile, the curve of her skin under the dark night sky, the way it’s just the two of them out here. He couldn’t look away if he tried.

Y/N just shrugs, though. “I’ve followed the other rules. Besides, no one needs to know if you don’t tell them.”

Secrets. Eric can’t help but wish they could break one more. “What’s out here that would be so interesting, anyway? I thought initiation was hard enough for everybody that you’d be asleep with the rest.”

Y/N turns back to the landscape unrolling before her. “I couldn’t sleep, who knows why. Besides, I like seeing the city from this angle. For some reason, it’s totally different from how it was back in my old faction.”

This makes Eric curious. He’s grown used to the city, used to knowing which buildings are full of light and which are just crumbling wrecks, long since abandoned by everyone except the factionless. He wishes he could look at the world in the same way Y/N does, like everything is new and worth loving. He wishes she would look at him like that, too.

Y/N smiles, considering the tiny pinpricks of light making up the city they call home. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Eric nods slowly. “Yes, it is.” He isn’t looking at the city, though. He hasn’t once been able to take his eyes off of her.

At last, Y/N sighs reluctantly, pushing away from the balcony until she’s facing him again. “Alright, I got the message. Heading back to the initiate bunks now.”

Some part of Eric is vaguely disappointed by this, like he would have loved to spend hours out here lost in thought with her, but he can’t exactly vocalize that now, so he just follows her back into the Dauntless complex.

“I can walk you back, if you like.”

Y/N arches a brow at the statement, although she doesn’t seem put off by it. “What, worried about me getting lost?”

Eric shakes his head. “I’ve seen enough initiates get taken out while they were walking around at night. It wouldn’t be the first time to happen, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

Y/N shivers slightly at the thought, tucking her arms around her chest. Eric wishes he could pull her closer to him, erase all fear until the world began and ended with her.

Instead, he keeps walking, and they reach the initiates’ sleeping quarters soon enough. Eric manages a quick goodbye before he leaves, although he doesn’t go until he sees Y/N slip inside the door. He doesn’t want to think about her being attacked any more than she does. Maybe that’s a sign that he’s lost his edge, or maybe that he cares about her far more than he should. Then again, by now that’s a given.

Looking back on it, that night was the last sign Eric needed to realize that he liked Y/N a lot. During training the next day, Eric can’t stop thinking about the way she looked under the moonlight, instinctively drawing close to him against the chill of the wind. He wishes he could go back, but he doesn’t see her out on that balcony again. A shame, to be sure.

However, during the first day of actual fights instead of just practicing with the punching bags, Eric finally gets a chance to talk to her again, outside of the prying eyes of the other initiates. Y/N’s friend Tris has to fight against Molly, one of the tallest and toughest girls there. Tris falls almost instantly, more stunned by the fact that they won’t be able to tap out than anything else.

Y/N offers to help get a mostly unconscious Tris to the medical wing, and Eric jumps at the chance. He does his best to seem casual as he directs Four to take over teaching the initiates, and, tossing one of Tris’ arms over his shoulder, helps Y/N start to carry the other girl out and through the halls.

Y/N glances at Eric over Tris’ head. “You know, I didn’t think you would be the type to help initiates get help if you didn’t have to.”

Eric looks between Tris and Y/N, surprised, before realizing that the Stiff can’t actually focus on a single word they’re saying due to a particularly strong hit to the head.

“Maybe I wanted to prove that I’m better than you think.” No need to think about the reason for that.

Y/N smirks. “And you do that by dragging Tris to the med wing?”

Eric gives her a look. “If you like, I can leave now and let you carry her the rest of the way.”

It’s a bluff, of course. He’s already proved that he’d never leave her if there was an option where he could stay, and Y/N knows it.

“But then you’d be robbed of my fantastic company. We all know that I'm far better than any of the other initiates.”

She’s joking, but Eric thinks that she’s actually closer to the truth than he cares to admit.

“It’s better than having to watch some of the other trainees fight. Seeing how bad their form is might be making me worse.”

Y/N laughs. “That’s a valid excuse to leave. I have to ask, though- why did you really come? I mean, you had no real reason to help Tris with me. We all know Four would have jumped at the chance.”

Eric looks over at her again, pleasantly surprised to note that she’s already looking at him. “Maybe I wanted to prove that I’m better than you think,” he repeats. This time, Y/N’s eyes clear as if she finally gets what he’s trying to say.

He shouldn’t be getting this close to her, and Eric knows it. Still, he can’t exactly stay away. He sees her every day in initiation, and she’s got too deep a hold on his heart for anything else to last. Eric does try his best to hide his true feelings from the rest of the trainees, though. He can’t have them thinking that Y/N’s only high in the rankings because one of the initiation leaders is crushing on her. She’s better than that.

Apparently, Eric is doing a little too good of a job in seeming unbiased, because scarcely a day or two later, Christina starts complaining to him about Y/N, and it takes everything Eric has to not kill her on the spot.

Christina was on thin ice as it was. She lost her first fight, everybody could see it, but she wouldn’t commit to the loss. Instead, just before her opponent could keep going, Christina had flung up her hand, crying out around a bloodied nose that she was done, that she couldn’t take any more of it.

Eric had sensed weakness, and more than that, a chance to make an example of the former Candor. Initiates only respect the rules for so long; it takes a public display for them to realize the consequences of breaking the rules. The rule about not tapping out of fights, especially, is an irritant to many of the trainees. Christina is the perfect reason for a little motivation to the rest.

So, Eric allows the fight to stop, much to the surprise of the other initiates. Only Four looks unaffected, likely because he knows what’s about to go down.

Eric stands by the fighting ring, helping Christina out. “You had too much, yeah? What happened?”

Christina’s voice is low and quiet. “I think she broke my nose, and I needed to stop.”

Although she was willing to tap out of the fight, Christina is apparently still too brash to keep the blame firmly on herself. “It wasn’t my fault, though. I didn’t think I would be fighting her. Y/N was supposed to be lower in the rankings, it would have changed the order of fighters around. Honestly, I don’t even know why she’s ranked as highly as she is, she’s not even that good. She’s kind of useless.”

All of a sudden, Eric’s humor for a display of power suddenly disappears, replaced by a cold hatred. “What did you say?”

Christina somehow regains the ability for critical thought, and wisely keeps her mouth shut. It doesn’t matter, though, because Eric has heard enough. He starts to guide Christina towards the exit, one hand on her back to keep her going.

As he walks, he whispers something in her ear, so quietly only Christina can hear. “Don’t you dare talk badly about your fellow initiates. You want to know why Y/N is so high in the rankings? It’s because she doesn’t tap out of fights. She isn’t weak.”

Christina flinches, not like the reaction will do her any good. Eric’s mind is made up, and the other trainees must be able to sense his anger, because they follow Eric and Christina out to the bridge.

Eric stops, and lifts Christina easily over the railing until his hands are the only thing keeping her from falling into the Pit. “Grab the rail.”

His voice is cold, colder than it usually is. Eric can hear shocked gasps coming from the other initiates, but he doesn’t turn to face them. Instead, he presents Christina with the options to hang from the bridge spanning the chasm, fall and die, or become one of the factionless. Unsurprisingly, Christina chooses to keep holding on to the rail.

Eric counts slowly, as painfully slowly as he can, treasuring every agonized cry from the girl hanging from the rail. It’s revenge, in a way, revenge for the fact that he cannot do anything to protect Y/N except for this. He can blame this act on Christina’s cowardice, and it is due to that in part, but mostly it’s because she tried to put down Y/N, and Eric won’t have anyone talking that way about his girl.

His girl. Eric likes that.

Eventually, he calls for time, and Tris immediately springs into action, helping Christina off of the rail. Y/N, however, does not go to her friend, but instead silently slips away and follows Eric into a quieter room, as if she can tell that something wasn’t right.

Her arms are folded, but Eric doesn’t think she believes him to be a monster. Not yet, at least. Eric can’t decide whether she would be right to believe it or not. “What was that about?”

Eric keeps his gaze firmly trained on the wall. “She tapped out of the fight. You can’t do that.”

Y/N shakes her head. “I saw your expression change when she was talking to you. What did she say?”

At last, Eric can’t keep his eyes from finding her any longer. “She insulted you. I couldn’t have that.”

Eric doesn’t know how he expects Y/N to react. Shock, maybe, or disgust. Fear has always been an option. Instead, she laughs.

“So, what, you were protecting my honor or something? I’m touched. That’s very sweet of you.”

Eric rolls his eyes. “I’m not sure I like your tone, initiate.”

Y/N’s smile just broadens. Eric belatedly realizes that he’s given her enough ammunition to last a lifetime, the realization that he’d do just about anything for her. He’s not sure that it’s a bad thing, though.

“For what it’s worth, I appreciate it. Good to know that you have my back.”

Eric shrugs. “She deserved it.”

Y/N smiles again. “Thanks anyway.”

She steps forward to kiss his cheek, then turns and leaves the room. Eric watches her go, his mind suddenly plunged into a daze. Shit, she likes him. This might be the best twist of fate he’s ever seen. Eric smiles to himself, and follows her out.

divergent tag list: @dindjarinneedsahug, @rogueanschel, @with-inked-solace

The Show Live on Tour | Saratoga Springs

Winner Takes All

(Richie Jerimovich x F!Reader)

CW:  Slight angst; idiots falling in love; drunken near-encounters but nothing explicit; vulgar language because let us be honest - it's Richie.

Word Count:  2730

AN:  This was requested by the lovely @winchestershiresauce for the April Showers event!

Maybe Richie wouldn’t have said anything if you had just shut your mouth.

Maybe he would have gritted his teeth, manned the register, and dealt with the customers while you chattered away with Tina and Marcus in the back of the house.  Out front, in the bustle of the lunch hour, he could have ignored you, let your voice fade into the background.

But you don’t shut the fuck up.

You’re talking a mile a minute because you’ve met a new guy.  Some fancy asshole who works at the Merc, and Richie starts to get a headache as you talk this guy up.

“He sells weather derivatives!” he hears you say.  There’s a clatter of pots, a whosh of flames lighting on the stove.   

“What’s that mean?”  Marcus’s voice, now.

“It has something to do with insurance and risk,” you explain, and Richie can’t help but half-listen, judging how fucking stupid it sounds.  This new guy of yours deals in weather, and he makes a shit-ton of money doing it:  a condo with a lakeside view, a fancy car in the garage…

“He sounds like an asshole,” Richie scoffs from the pass-through window.

“You’d know.”  The retort is paired with you narrowing your eyes at him.

“He sounds…nice,” Tina tells you, but she pauses enough on the nice, glances at Richie long enough for him to know that she’s thinking the exact same thing he is, deep down.

This guy is going to break your heart.  Just like the last one, the tenure-track professor at Loyola.  And the one before, the electrician.  And all the others before—the bartender, the dermatologist, the trust fund laze, the NGO founder.  At some point, Mr. Weather Asshole is going to hurt you terribly, and you’ll come into the Beef in pieces that they’ll have to put back together.

Maybe Richie wouldn’t have said anything, but he fucking hates that he can see your future and you cannot.

“It’s never gonna work out,” he says.  “Guy’s gonna break up with you.”

You glare at him again.  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Bet you he will.  It always happens, and you’re too stupid to see it.”

“Bet you he won’t.”  You pause, stir the sauce you have simmering on the stove.  “He’s different than the others.”

Richie sighs because he also knows that Mr. Weather Asshole isn’t different.  He’s probably exactly the same as the others, a user who will cut loose the moment he’s done having fun with you.  It happens every time, and you have some goddamned amnesia about your own terrible love life—

“I wanna take that bet,” he tells you.  He leans back against the counter and crosses his arms, stares at you.  “Easy win for me.”

You turn and face him, mirror his body language by crossing your arms too.  “Alright.  What are we betting?  Fifty?  A hundred?”

Richie could take your money.  He knows it’s a sure thing.  Some mean part of him, though, wants to make it hurt.  He wants some awareness to finally sink into your thick skull.  He wants you to be more careful, to guard your heart closer, to stop leaving yourself open to such hurt from such awful men.

“Make it interesting.  Mr. Weather Asshole dumps you within the month, I get your Def Leppard shirt.”

Your eyes narrow to slits.  “Which one?”

“You know which one.”

The angry set of your frown tells him you know exactly which one he means.  He has no idea how it came into your possession, but you have a cherry vintage concert t-shirt from Def Leppard’s 1983 Pyromania tour.  Richie isn’t that big a guy, not much bigger than you, really, and the one time he saw you wear it, it was just a shade too big.

It will fit him perfectly.

He watches the little twitch in your jaw—you’re clenching it, your teeth grinding.  “Fine.  What do I get?”

“What do you want?”

Your face opens up, softens.  You smile and say, “okay, I want your Bruce album.”

“Which one?”

“You know which one,” you reply, mimicking his voice, which makes Tina snort and shake her head.

Richie has a rare vinyl of the Japanese pressing of Bruce Springsteen’s “Tunnel of Love.”  He can’t even remember how you found out about it, but you’ve pestered him in the past about how much it would cost you for him to part with it—

It’s a sure thing.  There’s no way Richie is going to lose this bet, so he nods.  He uncrosses his arms and holds his hand out to shake. 

It’s your hand in his, your eyes crinkled as you smile at him…it makes him feel sad all of a sudden.  You’re going to be hurt; he can see it as clearly as anything, and you can’t see it at all.

-----

Two weeks, nearly.  Twelve days, to be exact:  you march into the Beef, and Richie barely has enough time to realize it’s your day off before you toss a plastic grocery bag down on the counter in front of him.

“Here,” you spit out.  You’re already turning on your heel and leaving, and you add over your shoulder as you wrench open the door, “I don’t want to hear a word about it, asshole.”

He doesn’t need to, but he opens the bag anyway.  Inside is the concert t-shirt, neatly folded.  The spoils from him winning the bet that hinged on your broken heart.

“Ah, fuck,” he mutters.

-----

Richie knows where to find you that evening.  He helps Carmy close up, and then he makes his way to Kelly’s.

The dive bar is below street level, dark and musty.  The beer is cheap, and the jukebox is stocked with a very specific slice of alternative rock beloved by Kelly’s owner.  The vibe is grimy but safe, the perfect place for someone like you to drink away her sorrows and stumble out without too much risk.

Still…Richie likes to keep an eye on you.  Just to be safe.

Kelly’s is too small for him to hide from you, and he doesn’t bother to try.  He finds you belly up at the bar, slouched, and he takes the empty stool beside yours.

You glance at him out of the corner of your eye before you turn back to your drink.

“Come to gloat? You ask.

“Nah.”

“Say ‘I told you so’?”

Richie shakes his head.  “I’m not a complete asshole.”

You sigh.  “What, then?”

He holds up a hand to flag down the bartender, and he orders another for you and one for himself.  Then he turns in his stool at looks at you.

“Wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he replies, and he hopes it rings earnest to your ears because it’s the truth.  He’s not a complete asshole but he is at least partially so, and he struggles with his delivery almost every time he tries to be nice to you…but he cares, and he wants to make sure you know it.

Whether you believe him or not, you don’t say.  You only tip him a nod in thanks for the drink, and the two of you fall into an evening together of mostly silent companionship and more than a little drinking.

-----

He wakes up fast and rough because he thinks he’s about to puke.

He sits up quick, manages to calm his roiling, sour stomach with deep breaths through his nose.  Once the danger of vomiting has passed, he looks around at the strange room.

It’s not his room:  not the one in his apartment, and not the one he shared with Tiff when they were still married.  It’s a softer space; the sheets underneath him are silkier, nicer than his own.  The room smells different too, warm and spicy like something baked with cinnamon, and it takes his hungover brain a beat to realize where he knows that smell…

…it’s your smell.  It bothers him every time he has to work with you at the Beef; it seems to seep into his clothes under the smell of the sandwiches and fry grease.  He glances down at the figure stretched out in the bed beside him and sees you.  You’re fast asleep, your face smushed into your pillow, lips parted as you breathe deep and even.

It takes his hungover brain two beats to realize that he’s naked.  No, scratch that—he’s in his boxers only, he’s shirtless, and when he studies you closer, he sees part of the reason why:  you’re in his t-shirt, the one with the typo that reads “The Berf.”

Richie scrubs a shaky hand over his stubbled face.  The evening comes back to him a little at a time.  The drinks that flowed too easily, the realization that you live only a few blocks from him.  The stumbling out together at last call, his arm around your waist as much to steady himself as to steady you.  Him walking you home, the booze hitting you hard and making you turn pathetic. 

Him turning to give you hell and seeing the pitiful way your lower lip trembled as your eyes filled with tears over Mr. Weather Asshole.  Richie getting pissed at that, wanting to say something meaningful that would lance through your alcohol-fog to make you understand that Mr. Weather Asshole wasn’t someone worth crying over—

Him failing to find the words and kissing you instead.  You kissing him back.  You kissing him back with an eagerness that surprised him, and he remembers going upstairs to your apartment with you. 

He remembers each of you stripping down to nearly nothing before it occurred to him that you weren’t in any shape to make any decisions, and he wasn’t much better off.  He remembers stopping you, taking your hands in his, slurring his words as he told you it was a bad idea.  He remembers you tearing up at that, misunderstanding him, feeling the rejection too personally. 

Maybe in some respects the alcohol was a boon, because Richie Bad News always fucks it up.  Richie Bad News always says all the wrong things.  Richie Bad News always manages to mistranslate the feelings in his heart with his stupid fucking mouth.

But Drunk Richie?  Drunk-but-Noble Richie who was able to gently turn down the opportunity to fuck you because you were too wasted to make good decisions?  That guy seemed to get it right.

He remembers telling you that you shouldn’t cry over him or Mr. Weather Asshole or any other loser who manages to disappoint and hurt you.  He remembers telling you what a catch you are, how lucky a guy would be to snag you.  He remembers telling you to be choosier, to be more wary of men, to trust them a little less and yourself a little more.

Mostly, he remembers telling you that you have the biggest heart of anyone he knows, and then he remembers saying he wishes you’d guard it closer.

He remembers how you looked at him then, how you seemed to see him through the alcohol haze.  You seemed to figure him out in that moment, seemed to piece together all your time together at the Beef, all the frustration he had with his own terrible love life that he vented over Family meals as you listened.  You seemed to understand his own hurt, how he came in each day after his own awful dates the night before, how he looked at you on the sly as if he were measuring you against those women while he also measured himself against all those terrible men you dated.

Most of all, he remembers how you reached up and laid a gentle palm against the side of his face, and how he nuzzled into your touch.  You had looked him dead in the eyes, murmured his full name like you wanted him to know you really saw him.

“Richard Jerimovich,” you had said.  “You might be an asshole, but you’re a good man.”

He remembers how you turned shy then, how you dropped your hand and your gaze, like you were suddenly aware that you were basically naked in front of him.  At your words—that he maybe he wasn’t Richie Bad News but just an asshole and a good man both—he felt surer of himself.  More certain.  He had bent down and snagged his discarded t-shirt, and he had helped you pull it over your head.

“C’mon,” he told you.  “Let’s go to sleep.”

And that was all the two of you did.  Drunk as you each were, he had kept it as above-board as he could, and you had fallen asleep snuggled against him. 

-----

Now he’s awake and nauseous.  It’s still dark outside.  A quick glance at his phone says that it’s only three in the morning, hours from dawn.  He hears what he thinks is a delivery truck rumbling past your building, but the sound is paired with a flash of blue-white lightning, and he realizes that there’s a storm rolling in.

He climbs out of your bed carefully, and he makes his way to your kitchen.  He pours a glass of water from the pitcher in your refrigerator, and he drains it in one go.  He feels his stomach calm.

Richie stands at your kitchen sink for long moments:  it’s dark outside the window there, but each bolt of lightning illuminates the view—the brick wall of the building next door, the street below.  It looks lonely outside; the sky spits rain in fits and starts.

He could leave.  Maybe he should leave now, while you’re still asleep.  He has no idea how you’ll wake up:  what if you’re angry at him, or embarrassed?  What if you wake up and remember him gently rejecting you and misunderstand it?  Because he’d happily, gratefully take you to bed under any other circumstances, but not as your rebound and not with you as drunk as you’d been…but you may not realize that.

He probably should leave, but it looks miserable outside.  The storm makes him want to return to your warm bed, so that’s what he does.

You’re still asleep.  He stands over you and looks his fill for a moment.  The flashes of lightning gild your face in its stark white light, but he thinks you look adorable.  Even with your makeup from last night smeared under your eyes and lines from your pillow etched across your cheek, Richie thinks you might be the cutest fucking thing he’s ever seen.

He crawls back under the covers and rejoins you.  He tries to be careful about it, but the shifting of the mattress makes you stir.  You grumble beside him, and a moment later you open your eyes and fix him with a bleary look.

“Richie?  What—”

“It’s fine.”  He whispers in reply.  “Still too early to get up.”

“Mmm.” 

“Go back to sleep.”

You hum again, and maybe you aren’t completely sober yet or completely awake—but he’s glad he decided to stay, because you bridge the slight distance between you and snuggle up against him again.  You press your head against his shoulder, gently headbutting him until he huffs out a laugh and lifts his arm for you to cuddle in close.  He wraps his arm around your shoulders, and you nuzzle against his bare chest before you settle.

It doesn’t take long for you to fall back asleep despite the storm picking up in intensity outside.  Richie doesn’t fall back asleep at all, but he’s comfortable, relaxed.  The rain lashes at the window of your bedroom, and thunder rumbles in the distance, but he feels cozy.

More than that, he feels hopeful.  He’s had such a shitty run of it.  The loss of Mikey, the loss of his marriage.  His ex-wife may consider him Richie Bad News, but he’s been the on the receiving end of plenty of shit too.  He’s at the lowest he’s ever been in his life, but for the first time since everything went to hell, he finally feels a bit of hope.

It started with a bet that he won, and now he’s in your bed with you snoring lightly in his arms while you wear his stupid fucking “Berf” t-shirt.

What comes next?  He has no idea, but he finally has hope that it might be something good.