#anyway thanks for being an actual angel cait nothing i write could ever compare to you but ily anyway<3

[rchtoziers]

3 from those new prompts for reddie? 🥺

3. “I’m not jealous.”

cait… as a treat…. i lowkey…… wrote this in the lmntsfy universe i hope thats ok xoxo

*

Their move to Houston is a quiet one.

Richie had gotten the job offer on an otherwise uneventful Sunday afternoon, while he and Eddie were curled up on their couch alternating between lazily dozing off and channel surfing. It was a dream Richie hadn’t even realized he had until they offered it to him.

So they packed up quietly and sold their house quietly and took trips back and forth from Chicago to Houston until they finally found a place they both liked and put down an offer. They rented a moving fan to take their things across country and they accepted NASA’s offer for a private jet to transport them on the day of the move, and when all is said and ton it only takes them a week at most to feel settled into their new home.

Richie has one month before his teaching job starts up.

One of the perks with Richie being offered a job to teach the new cadets is that, by extension, they offered Eddie a job at the hospital as well. His own department, actually, complete with an office and people who work for him and budget meetings and the whole deal. Richie had expressed that Eddie had interest in updating medical procedures for NASA flights, and in turn, they had given him a fully-staffed research facility, too.

It’s a bit overwhelming, if Eddie is being honest, in a way he has yet to get used to.

“You know, I keep thinking things are gonna settle down for us,” Eddie comments. He straightens the name plaque on Richie’s desk in his classroom. Because Richie has a classroom now. “Like, eventually the novelty will wear off, right? People will stop just offering us things?”

“Baby, you’re engaged to the guy who famously survived alone on a different planet for two years,” Richie tells him. His arms wrap around Eddie’s middle from behind. “People better never stop offering us things.”

Eddie smacks his arm. “It was only eighteen months, stop exaggerating.”

“Felt like a billion years.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because you were pining desperately for me,” Eddie says back. “Wondering if you’d ever get the chance to tell me you were head over heels in love with me. Carving our initials into the Hab canvas and writing RIchie Kaspbrak in your logs every other day.”

Richie presses a kiss to the space behind Eddie’s ear. “It’s not a funny joke when it’s true,” he teases.

“Oh, shut up. I’ve seen your logs. I know what you were doing that whole time.”

There’s a long-suffering sigh from Richie that almost makes Eddie smile. “Yes, and the fact that you continue to love me after watching me sing horribly off-tune to your god awful playlist is a miracle I thank god for every day.”

Eddie laughs and turns in Richie’s embrace so that he can wrap his own arms around Richie’s neck, pulling him down those infuriating four inches so he can press a soft kiss to Richie’s mouth. “I’m truly the hero, here,” he says seriously. “Not you. They should make a movie about me.”

A startled laugh bursts out of Richie. “Sweetheart, you know that you’ll be in that movie too, right? Like they just announced the casting choice for your character? They are making a movie about you.”

“It’s about you, Richie! The rest of us just happen to be there!”

Richie tilts Eddie’s chin up. There’s an obnoxious, terrible, beautiful smug look in his eyes. Eddie is so in love with him, so desperately, even after all this time. “I knew you were jealous about the movie.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“Eddie baby.”

Eddie sighs. “I hate you.”

“How many times do we have to go over this? I know you don’t. You know you don’t. The whole world knows you don’t. Hell, even NASA knows, which is why they gave you an entire hospital for you to play around in.”

“It’s not playing, asshole, there’s life-saving work that goes on in hospitals every day, plus the research I’m conducting is going to help prepare future astronauts for worst-case scenarios prior to mission takeoff, which could statistically prevent situations like the one that lead to you being stranded on Mars for eighteen months—”

Richie kisses him to shut him up. Eddie would probably be more put out by it, if it wasn’t a tactic he himself has used multiple times in the past. Eddie twines his fingers through Richie’s curls at lets himself be kissed thoroughly, lazily, sweetly. He wonders if he’ll ever grow tired of kissing Richie Tozier.

If he’s being honest, he already knows the answer to that.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re very impressive,” Richie says finally, pressing a kiss to Eddie’s nose as he says it. “Dr. Kaspbrak is gonna save the American astronaut. Everyone is very impressed with you, you’re loved by the whole world.”

Eddie smirks. “Now who’s jealous?”

“Still you.”

Unable to stop it, Eddie lets out a surprised peal of laughter. He tightens his grip around Richie’s neck. “You’re insufferable,” he says, but they both know he doesn’t mean it.

“Oh, baby, you call me the sexiest names,” Richie deadpans.

Eddie presses up on his toes to kiss Richie once again. Richie smiles into it, but they’ve had lots of practice by now. Eddie knows how to kiss him around smiles and laughter and tears and everything in between.

“Hey,” he murmurs, when they finally break apart. “We just had a bunch of big changes. How you feeling?”

Still intertwined in Eddie’s embrace, Richie shrugs. “Like we just moved a thousand miles to live in Texas. But. Good? I love our new place. I’m mostly excited about this job. I’ve got you. I’m good.”

“You’re gonna be everyone’s favorite professor,” Eddie tells him honestly. Richie rolls his eyes. “No, don’t do that. I’m serious, Rich. These cadets, they’re gonna adore you. And not just because you’re gonna be the only professor who isn’t afraid to swear in class.”

Richie laughs.

“I’m really proud of you, you know that?” Eddie continues. He brushes his thumb along Richie’s jawline. “Taking this leap. Caring about it so much. There’s gonna be a bunch of baby-faced astronauts in this room that look up to you, and then they’re gonna learn from you and they’re gonna realize they were admiring you for the wrong reasons.”

“Yeah, yeah, hot for teacher,” Richie says. He laughs again when Eddie smacks his arm. “I’m kidding. Doesn’t matter, anyway. Teacher’s only hot for doctor anyway.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “You’d think that you would get less sappy over time. Or make less inappropriate jokes.”

“First of all, I never make the mistake of thinking anything, ever.”

“Oh my god,” Eddie groans. “Where’s Teddy? Is it too late to warn him to fire you? He’s so going to regret this. Who’s idea was this?”

Richie kisses Eddie again, even though he’s laughing, and it doesn’t take long for Eddie to be smiling into it, too. Sometimes he can’t believe how happy they get to be, now. That this is their life. That he gets to wake up each morning with Richie next to him, even on the mornings that Richie wakes up gasping for breath and even on the mornings where Eddie wakes up screaming and even on the mornings where their coffee machine breaks. They get every morning, and they get every night, and they get all of it in between.

“I love you,” Richie says. It never gets old. Eddie presses a soft kiss to Richie’s collarbone. “Thanks for moving out here with me.”

“You said it yourself, I’m engaged to the guy who survived on Mars. Perks come with it.”

Richie grins. “You know, you really do sound jealous. I can get you a teaching job, too, babe. They wouldn’t even bat an eyelid. I can ask for whatever I want. Hey, NASA, can we get a teaching job for the neurotic doctor? Maybe he can show them how to avoid getting infections when you get stabbed with an antenna.”

Eddie sighs. “For the last time, I’m not jealous of your teaching job, or of the movie they’re making about you, or of Bill’s book about you,” Eddie insists. “I don’t want a teaching job. I don’t want a movie. I don’t want a book.”

“Then what do you want?” Richie asks. “Cause I can get you anything in the world, Eddie my love.”

“Dumbass,” Eddie says gently. “I have everything I want. I moved to Texas to make sure I could keep it.”

It takes Richie a second, but when he gets it his cheeks go pink and he grins obnoxiously from ear to ear and Eddie’s heart is swooping in his chest just at the sight of it. It’s incredible, how much stronger he’s felt about Richie since they started dating. How it just gets stronger every day.

“Now who’s the sappy one?” Richie asks, but he’s crying just a little so his teasing comes up short.

“Still you,” Eddie insists. Richie gives him an unimpressed look. “Okay, both of us. But I’m not jealous.”

Richie laughs wetly. “Sounds like something a jealous man would say.”

“Oh, for god’s sake—” Eddie groans, but Richie just pulls him back in when he tries to break away, and when he’s pressed against Richie’s chest again Eddie can’t help but kiss him.