caffeine deficiency

A small illustration of @iamtheremin Like Water fic.

My favorite part of being married is getting to have a sleepover like, every night. Sharing stories and secrets in the dark, in your soft sleep clothes, tucked under blankets - it’s such a unique, intimate form of connection with another person. Because sleepovers are tied to my youth, I also associate them so strongly with my hometown, and that’s kind of the feeling I wanted to capture here. I hope you’re all staying safe out there, friends, staying healthy. Come talk to me about your favorite sleepover memories, or your thoughts and feelings about Tulsa fic. Catch up on previous entries here, and be kind to each other out there.

***

It’s after midnight when Jared finally says his goodnights, his eyes heavy and his face aching from smiling. He turns the knob to Richard’s bedroom as quietly as he can, so as to avoid waking him, but to Jared’s surprise, Richard is still up, poring over a ragged spiral-bound notebook in the small pool of light from the cheap plastic desk lamp on his nightstand. He’s changed into a threadbare t-shirt that’s slightly too tight - it’s a faded crimson with cracked white screenprinted letters emblazoned across the chest spelling out BOOMER SOONER - and his boxers. There’s a strip of skin just visible over his hip, pale and soft, and the desire to run his fingertips over it is so strong it makes Jared slightly nauseated. Instead he takes a deep breath and darts his eyes away from Richard in his too-small bed, in his too-small sleep clothes. The entire tableau makes Richard look exposed and vulnerable, a scene that feels too intimate for Jared to just barge into the middle of uninvited, but sharing spaces like this - sharing himself like this - is one of the few ways in which Richard always seems to be remarkably unselfconscious. Jared gets the queer sense of time doubling back on itself as he can see the teenager Richard once was sitting in this bed right before him, so brilliant and alone and desperate to escape this place. If only they had known each other then, how different things could have been for them both. 

“Hey,” Richard says, but doesn’t look up from his notebook which seems to be full of equations from what Jared can see of it upside-down. 

“Richard, I thought you’d be asleep by now! Are you feeling any better?”

“Hm?” Richard looks up, confused, then shakes his head, frowning. “Oh - oh yeah, I’m fine. I just couldn’t deal anymore, y’know? Best to uh, cut out early.”

A wrinkle of confusion appears between Jared’s eyes as Richard goes back to reading. He considers his words carefully as he undoes his watch and places it gently on the desk, unbuttons his cuffs, and picks up his formerly folded sleep clothes from the floor where Richard had shoved them off the bed. There are two rolled-up sleeping bags on the floor, and Jared sets to work making a little palette for himself with neat and efficient precision. When he finally slips into the zipped-together pocket he’s created beneath the smiling faces of the Ninja Turtles, he asks the question that’s been niggling at the back of his brain all evening.

“Richard…may I ask you a personal question?”

Richard’s head snaps up, and he gulps, looking a little guilty. “Um. I guess, yeah.” 

Jared has shifted to his side, his head propped up against his hand, and he takes a deep breath. “Why did you come to visit your family if you don’t want to spend any time with them?”

Richard sighs, shuts his notebook. Scoots down to roll on his side, mirroring Jared’s position. “It’s not…like that. Like, I love my family or whatever, and I know they love me.” He says it the way one would describe the color of a car or the texture of a sweater. Matter-of-fact and disinterested. Certainly nothing he’s ever lost a night of sleep over, nothing carved out of blood and fear and determination to be someone worth loving. 

“Well, yes, exactly. Your mother loves you, she’s here and she’s alive and she loves you so much. Why do you push her away?”

Richard flushes, scowls. “So you’re calling me an asshole now? Is that it?”

“No, no, not at all. I just want to understand, Richard. She’s so kind–”

“Yeah, to YOU. Look, I know I should have more patience with them, but you’ve seen what she’s like, it’s, I mean…right?”

Perplexed, Jared lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I think she wants to know about you, about your life, because she cares about you. Why wouldn’t you - that is to say, all your parents want to do is spend time with you, get to know you better. Is that so awful?”

“But that’s NOT,” Richard starts, then catches the look of earnest bewilderment on Jared’s face, and his tone softens. “That’s not all they want to do, though, Jared. It’s - there’s a price, ok? They want me to - to be normal, not some fucking code goblin that they can’t understand. Like with the wife and kids and picket fence normal, and that’s just not…I, I tried and I can’t…”

“Oh but Richard, I just don’t think that’s true,” Jared rushes on breathlessly. “The way they talk about you, they’re so proud of all you’ve accomplished, forging your own path, building a company with your own two hands!” Why can’t Richard see how rare and precious that is?

Richard laughs, sharp and bitter. “Yeah and I’m gonna lose it with my own two hands too. No offense, Jared, but you just - you won’t see it. They’re never gonna be disappointed in you because you’re this fucking nice, perfect, handsome, smart, polite all-American Jimmy Stewart like, adult. You’re the kind of son they always wanted.” He looks taken aback that he said that last part aloud, and Jared can suddenly hear the rush of his blood in his ears, thundering with the beat of his heart. Richard rolls onto his back; the room is quiet and still, and after a moment, Richard reaches out and switches off the desk lamp, plunging them into darkness. 

With the night pulled over him like a blanket, Jared finds the boldness within himself to say what he’s been thinking all evening: “My whole life, all I wanted to was to find a place that I belonged, where I was wanted. A family. I urge you to reconsider turning your back on that when you already have it, Richard, that’s all.”

“But you made your own place. You belong at Pied Piper, with me - and the other guys,” Richard tacks on hastily. 

“And if we lose Pied Piper?”

It was Sunday, and when Richard woke up he had a long, guilty shower, tried collecting his thoughts. The fair thing would probably be to like, end this, like stupid Dinesh and stupid Gilfoyle wanted. How the hell had it gone this far? He sighed, wrapped a robe around himself and walked into his room, checked his phone on autopilot. A message from Jared.

“Guess it’s time to wrap it up for today,” Jared said. “see you tomorrow, gentlemen.”

“I’ll uh, I’ll walk you to your car,” Richard mumbled, followed him out.

My best friend was a public school teacher in Oklahoma for 10 years until this past Monday when she quit her job. It wasn’t even due to the complete lack of a plan the district had for Covid stuff, it was just the relentless messaging over and over and over again that our state doesn’t care about her or her colleagues or her students. I’m proud of her for advocating for herself while also being so sad for her students, who are losing an incredible teacher and role model. Those competing feelings are at the root of so much of what I feel about my home state and my hometown. I want to believe it can be better than it is, and maybe that’s what Tulsa fic is about more than anything. As always, I’d love to hear from you - your thoughts on the fic, on your own hometowns or the places that shaped you, the places that disappoint you and make you long for better, the people you know who are trying to make the world a better place, ironically or not. Catch up on previous entries here, and stay safe out there, my friends.

***

The rest of dinner passes without incident, although Diane asks Richard if he’s feeling alright seven times until he finally snaps, “Jesus Christ, Mom, I’m fine, will you just drop it?” 

Steven scowls and points a forkful of mashed potatoes at Richard. “Don’t talk to your mother that way.” Richard mumbles a hurried apology, and Caitlyn pipes up in a voice filled with false cheerfulness, “Hey! Did I tell you guys we’re thinking about getting a puppy?”

On the car ride home, Richard asks Jared to sit in the front seat alongside Steven so he can take the back; he looks pale and far away, his fingers fidgeting and eyes darting to and fro. It’s the look he gets during 4 A.M. code sprints, or after his fifth Red Bull when he’s trying to debug a particularly hairy bit of code. “Of course, Richard,” Jared demurs, and on the brief ride back to Richard’s parents’ house he fills the silence by telling Steven the details of their sightseeing. Steven hums or grunts to indicate he’s heard, but otherwise he seems a million miles away too as he navigates past street after street of chain restaurants and squat, lifeless office buildings. He must get it from his father, Jared thinks, and there’s a brief squeeze behind his ribs. What that must be like, to know where the parts of you come from! 

Once they get inside, Diane and Caitlyn chattering about possible names for the new puppy, Richard immediately says, “I’m still feeling kinda queasy so I’m just gonna um. Head to bed early. Sorry, uh…sorry.” 

“Oh! Well, okay honey, do you want me to get you–” Diane starts, but Richard cuts her off, “I just need some sleep. Jet lag, I guess.” He nods at Steven and kisses Diane on the cheek quickly, then hurries down the hallway. 

“Don’t forget Caitlyn’s in the guest room tonight!” Steven calls after him and Jared watches as Richard huffs and does an about-face to a small linen closet where he pulls out a set of blankets in lurid green and blue then stalks back down the hall. The door to Richard’s bedroom thwacks loudly against the wall. Seconds later, Richard strides into the guest room and brings out his suitcase, hanging open and shedding balled up clothes behind him like leaves coming off a tree in a sudden summer thunderstorm. Diane and Steven are in the kitchen, filling glasses with cold lemonade and chopping up fruit for a light summer dessert. Jared stands rooted in place, looking after Richard, hands clasped in front of him - caught between wanting to follow, to ask how this wonderful day could have ended so poorly, but dreading causing offense to Richard’s family. The door to Richard’s bedroom shuts with a hollow finality; Jared’s fingers flex involuntarily at the noise, wanting to reach out, not knowing how to proceed.

Caitlyn takes pity on him and comes over to loop her arm through his. “He’ll be okay, he just needs a bit to cool off,” she says to him sotto voce, and a swell of affection spreads through him at her reassurance. Of course, he thinks, who could know what Richard needs better than his own family? He looks at her, surprised and abashed that his concern has drawn attention to himself, but she nods in understanding before Jared can open his mouth. “It’s okay, really. He told me about how much you’re helping with the company stuff, all the stress. But he’s always been this way with family stuff. Why don’t you have some dessert with us while he unclenches, hm? I’m pretty sure that’s a fresh Rush Springs watermelon,” she adds in a conspiratorial whisper. He doesn’t know what it means, but it seems as if they are now in on a wonderful secret together. 

“You a hearts man, Jared?” Steven asks, carrying a bowl piled high with strawberries, honeydew, and watermelon to the kitchen table while Diane sets out small plates and spoons - four place settings, as if Jared were automatically part of the family. Disoriented, Jared blinks at him, uncomprehending.

“The card game,” Caitlyn supplies, and leads him towards the kitchen table. Her eyes are so kind, and Jared allows himself to be led. 

“I - I don’t know,” Jared replies, sitting at the table. Diane presses a tall glass of lemonade into his hand and smiles at him before she sits down and begins shuffling a worn deck of cards. 

This has a title now, thanks to @ladollyvitam and Bruce Lee

Since we can pin posts, apparently, I thought I’d make things easier for anyone interested in looking up my writing with this post. Most of my writing is archived on Ao3. These are works that are only on tumblr, all Silicon Valley-related.