steve can't quite separate the personal and professional when it comes to his clients. the nature of art making requires this undefined closeness, relationships intimate from the offset but practically platonic. most emblematic of this is richie.
two years into their partnership: tender nightcaps, hands on backs, shows of slapping and squeezing shoulders, and eyes lidded enough to suggest, steve finds richie twitching in his bed. he let himself in this late night because richie gave him a key to his apartment the first month they met. another question left unanswered. he drifts through the doorway like some ghost. richie seems possessed, sweating and arching off the bed, contorted and pained.
steve shakes when he wakes him up, shakes when richie is still, eyes wide unfocused ahead and staring, shakes when richie wraps his big arms around his thin waist and utters, "stay" in the crook of his neck. steve is supposed to manage things richie can't. this is another one of those things.
personal and professional blurs that night when richie lays his head on steve's chest. he doesn't sleep and neither does steve. he confiscates all the alcohol in richie's apartment and makes him take a shower. brings him breakfast. kisses his head. he doesn't know why and doesn't need to. they fall asleep on the couch.
as morning settles on the opposite coast, eddie kaspbrak is off on his honeymoon. richie doesn't leave his bed for five days. steve doesn't leave his side.
