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When Richard got fired he crawled into bed and didn't leave for three days. He wasn't even allowed to stay on as CTO. Within a week, Pied Piper was picked up and moved lock, stock, and servers, into an office building. The guys assured him the new CEO was a dick, and that was nice of them, but Richard didn't care about his replacement. The fuse in his caring circuit had blown out. If Big Head and Jared hadn't brought him food he probably wouldn't have eaten.
Erlich let him stay- Richard didn't even have to ask. He let Jared stay too, first in a tent in the yard, then in the garage, then in Dinesh's room after he and Gilfoyle moved out. Once Jared started drawing a salary Erlich made him pay rent.
***
The wall between their rooms was too thin - Richard could still hear Jared speaking German in the night. Shouting sometimes, weeping.
One night Richard finally went over and gently shook Jared's arm. "Jared. You're having a nightmare."
Jared wiped the tears from his face. "I'm sorry for waking you."
Richard hadn't been sleeping. He rarely slept the night anymore.
Jared drifted back off almost immediately, and seeing him sleeping peacefully made Richard feel so very calm. He didn't want to leave, so he didn't. He laid down on the edge of Jared's bed and in the morning woke up with Jared's arm around him. It was the best sleep either of them had had in months.
***
A few nights later Richard went back. Then again, the night after that.
They slept deeply and soundly together. Richard didn't care if Erlich noticed, or what he thought about it if he did.
***
When Richard started feeling like a person again, he decided to go home. Tulsa. His parents' basement. Accept his ignominious defeat like the man-child he was. Jared quit his job and drove him there in his Volt. Richard didn't question why. He wasn't sure if he knew how to sleep anymore without Jared's arm around him and the warmth of his chest at his back.
***
"We can share my old room," he told his parents, and they assumed this was his way of coming out. He let them assume whatever they wanted. They treated Jared like the daughter-in-law they thought they would never get. Jared loved that, and Richard was happy for him.
When they started referring to Richard and Jared as boyfriends, neither one bothered to correct them. Functionally, it might as well be true, even if they'd never done anything in bed except sleep.
Jared sometimes rested his hand on Richard's stomach and sometimes called him 'liebchen' in his sleep. Richard sometimes woke up with morning wood.
That was all.
***
Jared got a job at the corporate office of a car rental company. It was quite a pivot, but he proved worthy of the challenge. They moved into a one-bedroom apartment together. After a few months of searching, Richard got a job as a drug store cashier, where he rang through a lot of old friends and classmates. He thought it would be humiliating, but it turned out that he really had zero shits left to give.
The favourite part of his day was the part where Jared held the covers up so he could crawl into bed beside him, and they settled up against each other for the night.
When everything finally caught up to him, Richard started missing work to stay home and sleep. Jared called Big Head, who took vacation days for an extended visit. It was like the time Richard dropped out of Stanford. Big Head helped him with the basics and helped him find a good therapist. Richard came out of it faster this time.
***
Big Head noticed the bed.
"Are you and Jared gay?" he asked without conveying any judgement at all, and for once Richard didn't deflect or mislead. He explained as best he could.
"What happens if you get a girlfriend?" Big Head, ever the optimist.
"I guess we'll have to buy a bigger bed."
Big Head didn't seem to think it was a joke.
"Do you think - this might be going somewhere? I mean, do you want it to? Does he? "
Richard shook his head. "I know it's weird, but I really have no clue."
All he knew was that he'd been lonely for a long time, and now he wasn't, and he didn't want anything to come along and screw it up.
Big Head didn't press him further. He was a damn good friend that way.
***
Richard and Jared never talked about it, except for the one time that they did.
"Do you mind that everyone thinks we're boyfriends?" Richard asked at night while they were in bed.
Behind him, Jared shook his head. "I don't mind. Does it bother you?"
"No. People can think whatever they want."
"I'm used to it. Everyone at Vassar used to think I was gay. And I'm sure, before and after that too."
Are you? Richard very much wanted to ask. He turned around to look at Jared.
Jared looked like he saw the question coming. He looked scared of it. Richard took his hand and didn't ask. He was sure that if Jared wanted to tell him, he would. Maybe Richard didn't want to know. Maybe it was better not to draw any lines.
" I ..." Jared said. He swallowed hard. "I really like sleeping with you. But if you... want... we could buy another bed. Tell everyone we're roommates. Like normal people."
"No." Richard shook his head. "That would be awful."
The relief was so plain on Jared's face. He butted his head up against Richard's collar.
"Thank you," Jared said, his voice barely above a whisper.
***
They did talk about Jared's childhood. It came up occasionally. Jared liked to talk about the good parts, and he sometimes let slip some of the bad. Richard knew that his favourite foster dad used to bring him camping, where he first learned to love watching for birds. Richard found out that one of Jared's foster dads used to bring him to bed when his wife was out of town. And he wasn't the worst one.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have told you about that. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," Jared said with downcast eyes.
"It's... I mean, don't - don't apologize. You can talk about it if you want to."
But Jared shook his head and never did after that, for which Richard was terribly grateful.
If there was anything good to say to someone about something like that, Richard didn't know it and probably never would.
***
Richard found out Jared had never dated anyone, ever. He found out Jared had his own therapist whom he saw regularly. He found out Jared was a good cook and an even better karaoke singer. He felt himself becoming as proud and protective of Jared as he was sure that Jared was of him.
They held hands sometimes. Richard couldn't recall when that started. It just did. It wasn't something they did in public. Just when they were sitting together at home.
Once, back at Pied Piper, Jared had offered Richard a stress-relieving head rub. Richard, at the time, had declined, thinking it was way too weird. He still thought it was weird, but when Jared offered one again after a long day at work, Richard accepted, because why the hell not? Turned out to be amazing. For a week it was Richard's new favourite thing, until Jared offered him a backrub and that became Richard's new favourite thing.
At night, Jared's hands roamed a little further than they used to. A little further up his abdomen, and down his arms. They settled on Richard's waist sometimes. Moved down to his hips once or twice. Sometimes he nuzzled the back of Richard's neck. Richard couldn't tell if Jared was sleeping or not when he did it. Nor did he care. Jared liked to touch him. Richard liked it when he did.
So there was that.
***
It was their second Christmas at Richard's big family to-do. His mom and his aunts had outdone themselves. Gorgeous place settings, beautiful food. It was like eating at Downton Abbey, in the upstairs.
After supper, Jared helped with the dishes and the cleaning up. Then there was eggnog and light dancing. Jared taught him some kind of jitterbug, and when begged proceeded to teach some of his younger cousins.
"This one looked like a keeper," Aunt Margo teased.
"Is it too soon to start angling for some grandkids?" his mother wondered aloud.
Richard thought he should be embarrassed. It felt very strange not to be.
There was mistletoe. They didn't notice, but the cousins did. Everyone hooted. Glasses were clinked. Jared looked bashful, but he was smiling. Richard reached up to Jared's face and Jared took him by the waist and they pressed their lips together. One soft kiss. Two soft kisses. A third kiss that lasted longer, until the hooting of Richard's family reached a crescendo. When they parted and opened their eyes Jared looked a little scared, and then a lot happy, and Richard felt exactly the same.
***
That night when they climbed into bed, Jared asked very shyly if he could kiss him again.
Richard turned onto his back. Jared loomed over him on hands and knees. They kissed and kissed some more. Soft and gentle became hot and sticky and demanding. Richard let his hands roam up and down Jared's back under his t-shirt. They pressed themselves against each other - Richard was hard and Jared was hard and nothing had ever been so intoxicating. He asked Jared if he could touch him. Jared whimpered yes, yes please .
When Jared came all over him Richard thought it was the sweetest, dirtiest, hottest thing he'd ever seen in his life. That was only until he saw Jared, flushed and still panting, reach down into Richard's underwear and stroke him off the rest of the way, which wasn't very far.
Jared fetched a wet cloth to clean Richard up, smiling as if in wonder at the fact that they'd done it, they'd actually finally done it. They went to sleep and in the morning they did it again.
***
And so on it went.
Life was good and gentle with them for awhile because they needed it to be.
Then one day Richard was checking out cough syrup and condoms and thinking about a piece of code Big Head had sent him to get his opinion.
And Richard got another big idea.
***
Epilogue
"There he is."
Yes, there he was. Sitting in the corner, already halfway through his drink. Feet dangling above the floor below his too-tall bar stool. Nervously checking his phone.
Five long years. Same old Richard.
"Richard!" Erlich bellowed. Dinesh and Gilfoyle followed him over and waited patiently for the bear hugs to be over, or for Richard to pass out, whichever came first.
"Hey guys," Richard said, doing his meekest mouse impression once again. His nerves still looked shot to shit, but not as bad as when he'd left. "Jared had a meeting, but he's on his way."
They all sat down. Gilfoyle and Dinesh caught Richard up on local goings-on while Erlich tried to flag down a waitress. She'd obviously decided to ignore his whistling, which was maybe for the best anyways. Richard had picked one of the divy-est dive bars in Palo Alto, and their selection went from bad to undrinkable. Either he was flat broke or he really didn't want to run into anyone he used to know. No Gavin Belsons or Russ Hannemans here. After he cashed in his share of Pied Piper, they all assumed they'd never see Richard back in this town again.
"So what's Jared doing in a meeting here? I thought he was in car insurance or something." Erlich dove into the conversation after he carried a pitcher of beer back from the bar.
"Car rentals. Yeah, ah, he was. Now he's doing something else. That's kinda why I wanted to meet up with you guys." Richard swirled his cocktail and took a glug. "We're um, maybe, tentatively, thinking about opening up an office here." He took a shuddery breath and polished off his drink.
"An office for what?" asked Dinesh.
"For... our company?" Richard sounded more than a little unsure about it.
"Sign me the fuck up!" said Erlich. "Whatever you need, Richard. Do you need space? If you liked my old house you're gonna love my new one!"
That brought a smile to Richard's face. "Thanks, Erlich. I honestly don't know what we need yet. We're still working things out between the other offices. I just thought that if we were going to be here at all, I wanted you guys to be the first to know. At the very least I want you to meet Caitlyn, she'll be the regional VP -"
"Wait, wait, wait, back the fuck up," interrupted Gilfoyle. "What other offices? You have a regional VP?"
Richard nodded like a duck bobbing on water. "Yeah, Caitlyn. She's great. She was just a student when we hired her at our first office in Oklahoma City, but she really knows her stuff. She could use some introduction here though."
"And the other offices?" Dinesh was intrigued now too.
"Ah yeah, we opened up in Austin a couple of years back. Cheaper there," Richard clarified to Erlich's Austin? Texas? look. Running on student labour and cheap real estate. Definitely sounded like a Richard Hendricks joint. "But things kind of went okay. So, last year we opened another office in Salt Lake City. Jared wants to check out Boston, but I don't know," Richard shook his head, looking a little queasy at the thought. "I told him one coast at a time, you know?"
"What company are we talking about here?" Gilfoyle asked.
"Ah, Squidrig? It's called Squidrig. I know, another crazy name. I'm really bad at picking company names, okay?"
" You run Squidrig? "
Richard nodded. "Yep."
They all leaned back. Erlich nearly fell off his chair. There'd been another article written about Squidrig just this morning. It was supposed to be the New Big Thing. How Richard had kept his name out it was a mystery.
Erlich regained his composure first. "I always knew you had it in you, Richard." He clapped Richard on the back. "Holy shit, the look on Gavin Belson's face when you strut into town swinging that big bad boy."
"Well, it'll be Caitlyn strutting into town... so I don't know if that metaphor really works. But yeah, it should be good. So. Like I said, I wanted you guys to know. We might need people, if you guys are interested...?"
Dinesh and Gilfoyle both nodded, lost in thought. Yes, this was definitely something to think about.
"Oh yeah. Another thing. Jared and I... we're getting married in September. In Tulsa. You guys are invited." He looked so sheepish about it.
Erlich busted out laughing. It took him a minute to realize that Richard wasn't joking. Gilfoyle had no comment, and Dinesh just goggled. There was only so much strangeness they could take in one day.
"Married? To each other? Like gay married married?"
"Yep." Richard nodded.
"Well... congratulations," Erlich told him.
"Thanks."
"Yeah. Totally. That's awesome," Dinesh finally came around to saying.
"Congrats," said Gilfoyle.
And there was Jared, coming into the bar to make everything just that much weirder. But other than the fact that his suit jacket was nicer than what they were used to seeing him wearing, he too was the same old Jared. Same milk-mild voice, same lanky gait and awkward wave. He smiled at Richard like he was his sun, moon, and stars, but they were used to that. Richard must've finally noticed.
For a little while they were the old gang back together again. They all stood up for handshakes and back slaps and more congratulations.