Chapter Text
It's unorthodox for Gavin Belson to be kind to Richard Hendricks. Like, incredibly. It's nearly uncomfortable when he is nice; kind notions from Gavin Belson make Richard feel like something dreadful is creeping around the corner that he’s yet to identify. It's been a catalog of disappointment: Richard's interactions with Gavin - filled with disdain and vitriol for reasons Richard has yet to completely understand. Maybe Gavin is just evil. Maybe Gavin is a sadist. Richard doesn't know. He does have sociopathic tendencies, according to many, but the extent he'll go to screw people over still kind of baffles Richard.
That’s why he feels pretty intensely weird about Gavin inviting him to a Hooli party. There is no explanation for Gavin wanting Richard at something Hooli-related that does not involve him being extremely hurt and/or being screwed over. Richard has screwed up enough recently to have half a mind to say no to this invitation. However, Richard also has half a mind that is a stranger to self-preservation of any sort. It’s gotten out of hand recently, he thinks; the last time Richard has slept more than 4 hours consecutively is so long ago he can’t conjure up a time frame. He’s - at a minimum - thirty pounds underweight at this point and his body is rejecting itself in its entirety, he fears. Standing up feels sort of like being spun around until he vomits, eating feels like a chore, and all his limbs feel so heavy all the time that doing anything aside from laying on his back and coding on his laptop makes him so physically exhausted he’s ill. He might as well go to Gavin Belson’s house.
Jared’s worried about Richard more than he’s worried about himself. He noticed Richard lost weight before he even did. He brings him various soups at ungodly hours of the night just because he knows he’ll be up; when Richard finally sleeps he tucks his feet back into bed and prays he’ll stay asleep, calm and uninterrupted by his wicked head. Richard gets in moods, and Jared is very familiar with this. He documents his good and bad days in a journal so he can notice the signs and provide the best help possible when he’s in some sort of episode.
This one is pretty bad, though. Worse than Jared is used to.
Richard hasn’t left his bed for anything other than using the bathroom or getting more Red Bull to stay up and code in over a week. Jared has been getting his meals. He gets Richard a cup of water every single time he gets a Red Bull in hopes he’ll drink more water than he does caffeine. His attempts to help start to feel futile sometimes, but Jared knows deep down he’d rather provide aid to Richard in every single bad moment than let him struggle on his own, unseen and unheard, for even one second. He knows Richard won’t tell Jared when he's in the dumps, so he just has to catch it early enough to be useful to him. Richard got his anxiety and depression diagnosis when he was 15, but he didn’t tell Jared until they’d known each other for a year. He hid his Zoloft in his pillowcase so nobody could find it and ask. He’s felt this deep, innate shame in his illness that’s been grappling in between the gaps in his ribcage, pulling at everything in him it could reach since he was 13. He feels sick when he thinks about being mentally ill. It’s shameful.
Of course, realistically, Richard knows there is nothing innately morally wrong with him for having mental illnesses that he can't control. He wouldn’t look down upon anyone else with the same illnesses he has, so he’s not quite sure why he sees himself differently. But, letting someone know is much like baring his fangs; it feels almost animalistic to let someone be that greatly entwined with what makes him who he is. He’d rather just be weird than broken. He feels like more trouble than he’s worth. Small things: debates over tabs or spaces, nano or milliseconds, what hardware he works with - those aren't so personal and intrinsic. His psychological misfortunes are especially personal and he would rather not be peeled open and dissected like a ninth-grade science project. He doesn't want to be part of the damn science fair.
He knows Jared doesn’t feel that way, and it almost makes him sick. It’s horrible that someone cares about him that deeply, that someone feels a need to care for him and watch over his self-destructive tendencies. Jared's love is something he feels very profoundly undeserving of. He doesn’t quite comprehend why Jared loves him. In fact, his eyes start to unfocus when Jared tells Richard that he loves him; it makes it easier for him to detach and therefore not process the baggage that comes with being cared for. It is so much easier to stare off than beg someone not to love you. He knows this first-hand. The first time Jared said he loved Richard, Richard said “Please don’t," and they didn’t talk for three days.
Richard ends up deciding to go to the party. He decides this the day before the party, hoping that Jared will be willing to go despite only being told about it the day prior. Jared will go along with nearly anything if Richard asks, more like a blind follower than a friend, so he does. He irons Richard's clothes and tries to ask about his decision to go in a way that won't come off as overly intrusive and helicopter mom-esque.
"I do not fully understand why you want to go, if I'm honest," Jared looks behind his shoulder to make eye contact with Richard, "I just don't see anything beneficial coming out of an interaction with him. He does not act altruistically toward you often, if at all. Why accept a back-handed invitation?" There's no anger in his voice, not that Jared is quite capable of that with his beloved Richard, just worry and curiosity.
"He's evil, yeah," Richard looks away and presses his lips firmly together as he thinks, "I don't know, I just, I guess it seemed like an opportunity for me."
"Not a good opportunity. There are no good opportunities with Gavin Belson. Once, I saw him shoot a bear. He had no reason to. He just did," Jared delivers that with his normal flat tone like it is nothing of note, and Richard blinks and his head twitches forward in that way Jared has noticed it does when he is shocked or distressed by something he's told. He's not quite sure how to respond to that, so he chooses not to. Jared continues talking, "If you're going, I'm assuming I'm on the invite list as well."
"I'll bring you, Jared," Richard bites the inside of his mouth and watches Jared look back again to smile at Richard in appreciation, "I'm taking the Aviato car, by the way. I tried taking Jian-Yang's car last time I went out and he, uh, he didn't really like that. He tried to put out his cigarette on me, actually." Richard's car gave up on itself entirely months ago and he's not had time to think about how to navigate thousands of dollars worth of repairs. He should have given up on his car long ago; it has a door that just won't open, it's made this horrible chuffing sound every time he's turned it on since about January, and he's kind of too scared of whatever issue he'd had with the transmission to even think about driving it. He can't help but be reminded of himself when he thinks about his car in a way that makes him feel like an edgy middle schooler. Both are unfixable.
"Why don't you just let me give you a ride? You know that I'm always willing, Richard," Jared hums, earnest as always.
"No, no, man, I don't wanna make you do that. I want to be able to get home myself even with a fucked car," Richard bites down on the skin around his fingernails, nails chewed down too far to even be biteable, "You're not my mom, you don't have to worry about all that kind of stuff."
"But I do, Richard. It's my own choice. I have more autonomy than it seems," Jared hands Richard his ironed tuxedo. Jared was wearing a wrinkled suit he'd found at a Goodwill hours before the Hooli event. It's a strange physical manifestation of Jared's selflessness, Richard thinks, even in the way they dress. Jared is rarely less than perfectly put together, but he's sacrificing that just to make sure Richard has what he needs. Gross.
Erlich comes in upon earlier mention of Aviato, peering over a doorframe with his large figure. He, undoubtedly, expected an invite to the Hooli event. Richard only got a single plus-one, though. Not a plus-two.
"So, you're going to a Hooli party, Richard," Erlich walks in, "because Gavin fucking Belson has always decided to not fuck you in your public use little asshole," Erlich grumbles in the boastful tone his voice defaults to even without bragging. He's got a hand on his hip in a stance Richard assumes Erlich feels exudes power. He really wishes that Jared would have never compared Erlich to a king upon first meeting him, because now Erlich feels this strange need to exert dominance over Jared every time he sees him. There is little he hates more in the world than interacting with Erlich in a room Jared is also in. Especially when he's trying to talk to Jared. There is no space for anyone else in any conversation Erlich Bachman is in.
Richard just nods and hopes Erlich gets the message he's trying to send.
"You aren't using my fucking car to go to a Hooli event you aren't even bringing me to. You live in my incubator, Richard. Don't forget it," Erlich looks directly at Richard in a way he just hates. Eye contact is so uncomfortable with Erlich. He's got evil eyes, somehow. He didn't ever think that was a thing before he met both Erlich and Gavin.
"I'm using the Aviato car. That's a company car, which makes it not your car. Public use. I'm using it. Like it or not," Richard's voice rarely reaches the intonation it does when he's trying to be assertive, but he about manages it in what comes off as more of a plead than a statement. He intended it to be a statement. An assertion. He just isn't sure if he's got the confidence to declare to Erlich that he's going to do something. He can say the words, but not in a confident enough manner to convince.
"Be fucking careful." Erlich goes off, seemingly to eat another expired yogurt Dinesh had helped Jian-Yang put near the front of the smart fridge. He's been shitting his guts out for weeks and they find it equally funny. Gilfoyle does not find it funny at all. He probably would if Dinesh wasn't involved.
It's way too late when they finally get there. They end up about half an hour late, both Richard and Jared. This is very uncharacteristic of Jared, and he feels horrible about it. Upon second thought, he doesn't exactly feel all too guilty about being late or disrespectful to anything Gavin Belson is involved in. He shot a bear once. He "accidentally" killed a snake during a board meeting. There is nothing he can do that is quite deserving of the respect Jared harbors toward most people. They do, however, both feel like they've missed out on something when they see how excited people look. Richard wants to be excited about this, he wants to be excited about anything, if he's honest, but he just isn't feeling up to it.
Jared follows Richard closely behind when they enter, eyeing down people to find people he knew or maybe even people he liked, but they were quite scarce. The party seemed to be sparsely populated with likable people. Agreeable individuals were far outnumbered by ones who had terrorized both Richard and Jared when they worked at Hooli; evidently, dickheads rise the ranks quite smoothly. Maybe the good people were hiding behind counters, hid behind poles, somewhere undetectable at your first entrance. They didn't know and didn't, in all honestly, quite care to.
Gavin ostensibly noticed Richard's presence immediately as they'd both arrived because his attempts at mingling with him were immediate and relentless.
"Glad to see you showed, Hendricks. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity." Gavin puts a firm hand on Richard's shoulder. Richard tries to slither away from the touch and looks at Jared with eyes screaming panic, "It's not every day you get invited to these events."
"It, uh, actually is every day, if you're wondering. We - we being Jared and I - your Jared, now my Jared, I took him, heh - get invited to events like this all the time. I don't go because I'm saying no. I'm the one saying no. I say no to things. People, too." Richard looked down and his eyebrows jerked up in pride. He felt pretty good about himself, saying this to Gavin Belson. How cool is he now? He has a three-foot-long dick covered in Elvis dust that glows like gold in the sunlight and he wants to smack Gavin in his stupid face with it.
Okay, uh, maybe not that. Yeah, definitely not that.
Either way, he's better than Gavin, he doesn't like Gavin's attitude, and he isn't lashing out at him because he's been upset with himself recently. He's not projecting out of insecurity. He's not even insecure. He wants to drink now, he suddenly decides. He juts out an arm to guide Jared and show him where he'd like to go, and Jared heeds intently like he's a dog with a stick in his mouth waiting to give it to Richard. He will always wait until he is ready for his input. Richard is the ultimate factor in his decision-making. He is the decider, he is the dice, and he is the game itself that Jared is trying to play.
Richard makes for the alcohol immediately following talking to Gavin. Richard doesn't drink. Jared notices this.
"Richard, please, don't," Jared puts a hand, far more comforting than Gavin's, on his back, subtly rubbing to soothe in hopes Richard will put the damn shot glass down.
"When have I ever drank too much?" Richard asks and Jared visibly winces.
That is about all Richard vividly remembers of the Hooli party.
He's tried to recollect that night. He really has.
Here is what he does know.
Richard did not stop drinking once he started. He drank more than he usually does - and he's lost about 20 pounds in the past 6 months - so his tolerance of alcohol is considerably worse than it’s probably ever been. He was stuck in some sort of out-of-body experience. At some point, he left Jared's side, which was probably the biggest mistake he could have made. Much like being a child lost alone in a mall without his mother, a real experience Richard once had, he was unsupervised and unruly without authority by his side. He doesn't remember what decisions he made before he found Jared again, but he presumes they were likely not smart decisions. Who's a great decision-maker when they're drunk? Richard definitely isn't, and he presumes nobody is. He might be considerably dumber than most other people when he's drunk, but everyone is down. He's just down the furthest.
He did, unfortunately, find Jared again.
Jared had attempted to hover over Richard every chance he got all night. Seeing Richard drink worried him. He wouldn't have been as worried as he was if Richard hadn't been in such an intense episode for the past few weeks. He lets Richard self-destruct on the occasion. It's one of his moral principles - everyone has the right to fuck themselves over a little on the occasion. But, when Richard has been acting like a zombie on autopilot and SOS mode simultaneously and then proceeds to down shot after shot of Gavin Belson's drinks, Jared has his right to be worried, and damn, is he worried. He knows he hovers over Richard most of the time. It's one of his favorite things to do. But, he hovered over him a little more than he's ever dared to the entirety of the night.
Richard did not like this, apparently, because he started what was an attempt at a drunken fight.
"Will you just, like, leave me alone, Jared?" Richard was sitting on the floor, knees curled up to his chest. He was rocking back and forth just enough for Jared to notice, and so Jared sat next to him. In what was - in Jared’s mind - an attempt to comfort, he put a hand on Richard’s knee. Not his thigh, nothing crazy, just a comforting touch. “I just told you to go, oh my God, Jared.”
He didn’t move. Richard thrashed out of his grasp, obnoxious and over-the-top. and Jared swallowed down the sinking feeling in his stomach. They only had arguments when Richard was in some sort of episode. Most of their issues, notably usually trust-related, come from Richard’s wild instability, his chronic psychological need to not make a decision ever, a number of things Richard should probably address that Jared tries his damn hardest to cater to. He caters because he loves Richard. It’s hard not to love the face of your salvation. He just wishes Richard could see himself that way.
Richard doesn’t like being loved. He understands this on some level, but he’s yet to fully realize it. He knows he’s not a deeply unlovable person, he had to do that work in therapy - so why is it so goddamn hard to look at Jared when he has these eyes that tell him he’ll never have to worry again?
Why does he run away?
After several minutes spent going back and forth, an argument of which none of the details neither Richard nor Jared care to remind each other of, Richard is somehow curled up on the floor, alone. Jared doesn’t leave. He is watching Richard, excreting spit and tears and probably snot, looking at him like he is this precious beam of light. Richard doesn’t want to have this visceral reaction of disgust towards being cared for on such a deep level, but it happens. It happens and it keeps happening and he tells a joke in the black light to ease the tension he’s created with himself.
”What if I just, like, heh, killed myself? You could take Pied Piper, I mean, you know more about us than I do,” Richard laughs. It was not a joke. He was trying to make a joke, but his mind has pivoted to the topic of suicide so often for the past couple of months that it’s all he can really bring up. That and various types of soup that Jared has brought him.
“Oh, Richard,” Jared sighs like a siren’s song, begging Richard to do anything else, think of anything else, just fucking pivot all in two words. Richard feels the weight of it and crumbles further into his spot on the floor. He doesn’t respond. He just lays there and silently accepts Jared’s hand on his side, comfortingly rubbing up and down, feeling the spaces between his ribcage. His hands move like they’re trying to memorize, scrambling for something to latch onto before it disappears. He fears Richard will disappear, he puts two and two together, and he feels a tear drop into his hair.
They sit there for far longer than they argued, silent but together in a closed-off hallway. Jared kicked a leg to knock over a shot that hadn’t been drunk.
That is as far as either of them remember.
At a point, Richard got up. He does not remember this. He went out and decided he wanted to go home. He does not remember this either, but he knows that his footprints must have been left in the snow. He lost the scarf he was wearing that day, so his scarf is somewhere near the house. The memories are not completely lost, they just do not come up easily in Richard’s mind.
Jared feels awful for leaving Richard alone. He wishes he would have followed him as soon as he was on his own. He was unstable, he was incredibly drunk, and he was sick. He is sick and Jared did not help him and Jared is the worst person alive.
Richard decided to drive himself home. That is his first mistake.
A chronological list of the mistakes Richard Hendricks makes on his way home is as follows:
He decided against getting an Uber.
He has more than enough money in his account to get an Uber back home. The Aviato car could have been retrieved even if left in the vicinity, so he had no real reason to try and take himself home. The car is invaluable. Much more invaluable than any of the rich, meaningful lives of those on the roads Richard drove down.
He started the car.
He should have decided at the point he put the keys in that he was making a terrible mistake, he could kill someone, he could kill himself. This is the way people go to prison. This is the way he loses everything he has. But that, in a sense, is what he wants, isn’t it? He reasoned that at least if he died in some sort of horrifically tragic way on the way home, they’d have the respect to posthumously talk about him honorably. He hates how, even in the prospects of his possible death, his focus remains on the perception of others. True chronic anxiety, he figures.
He backed up.
As soon as the car started moving, his nerves were shot. It should be enough adrenaline to kill somebody, he thinks, and he promises himself he won’t kill anybody. He will be as safe as he can be. He just wants to get home, he just has to get back to his bed; he will be safe, he will be okay, he will repeat this mantra until he’s made his way home or until he’s lying on his deathbed. At least if he dies on the way home, the last memory that will flash before his lifeless eyes will be being held by Jared Dunn. Anyone dying is the last thing on Richard’s mind, actually, and the only thing he wants to think about is his fantasy of Jared chasing after him and begging him to stay.
He started driving.
He was anxious. His hands were wobbly and uncertain, his breathing was uneven and shallow, and he might have thrown up. He doesn’t remember if he did or if he just dry-heaved. He pulled out into a road and the road never seemed to fucking end, twists and turns his brain couldn’t wrap his head around continuing and continuing until he just couldn’t anymore. He slowed down at a point, no other cars on the road - thank God - and stopped fully. He made a quick decision, intrinsically deciding he’d die tonight, and hoped there were no cops or Jared nearby.
He sped up and passed the speed limit by an egregious number.
This is the blurriest part of the entire night. He doesn’t know why he did it. He definitely threw up at this point. Thankfully, no other cars were on the road. He blinked, and in that moment, his car had slammed into a tree and the whiplash from the crash made his body contort in ways he’d never seen it move. His arms reached out to protect him and were left pinned beside him, unable to move. He was covered in vomit, snot, and tears with a dizzy head. He passed out in the Aviato car.
Richard, fortunately, wakes up in a hospital bed, not dead. Unfortunately, he’s not sure how close he is to being alive. He does not know how he got there, but Jared tried to fill in the gaps. Apparently, Jared took the same route home and saw the Aviato car wrecked into a tree. Jared told him the officer on the line of his 911 call said he was the most distressed caller he’d ever heard. That worked in Richard’s favor, seeing how quickly they came.
Jared did not have the time to tell the other guys in the hostel what had happened. He guessed they’d find out somehow; his biggest priority was - in this moment and always - Richard. He stayed by Richard’s side through his unconsciousness and into his wake, and the joy that beamed through his eyes once he saw Richard come back to him was near palpable. He held his hand once he could, thumbing over his nails - the nails he takes care of - just praying, wishing with everything in him that he'd be lucky enough to see Richard open his eyes again. Once he did, Jared's tears spilled and spilled to seemingly no end.
"Oh, Richard, you're here," Jared chokes out, smiling wide and proud, "my little soldier, Richard, I'm so glad you're okay," Jared whispers, voice breaking continually, his voice low and calm enough not to disturb Richard.
"I am. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, God," Richard looks up at the ceiling, wincing at the pain all over. He can't locate the source of the pain. He knows he hurts, he knows he feels stupid, and he knows he regrets what he did. He's covered in dried vomit and that's all he can smell. His eyes are red and puffy; he's so pathetic and he doesn't want anyone to see him this way. Jared doesn't seem to mind. Jared is so overwhelmingly filled with joy and relief in Richard's presence that no level of mess or disarray could off-put him from loving Richard at that moment. That makes Richard feel even worse, now, because he's never felt more undeserving of anything in his life. He just endangered the lives of anyone who could have been on the same road as him, destroyed the Aviato car, and ruined Jared's night, yet Jared's looking at him like he's covered in gold and is his path to biblically accurate salvation.
They decide amongst themselves without even sharing a glance that they should hold off on telling the guys at the hostel about this. They'll notice, inevitably.