Raymond Park gets an unexpected houseguest. A fugitive, at that.
"I wanna stab Harrington in the throat even more than you do, but how about you lay off of killing under my roof, huh?"
Ray has always found Hawkins creepy. He blames it on his own ima...
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(the nina project)
a/n: it's a long ass chapter lmao seatbelts on
｡･:*˚:✧｡IT'STUESDAY OR, at least, Raymond thinks it is. Being forgotten by the world apparently means you forget the world, too. It's hard to tell.
The moment he wakes up, the walkie is in his hands and he's trying to reach out to the kids again. The voice that comes through belongs to Max Mayfield herself and the tension that had built up inside him as he waited for someone to come in disappears. Her voice is quiet and he assumes she's just trying not to wake the others up. He's prepared to crack a joke, he's got a few of them ready, but the weakness with which she mumbles out her greeting forces Raymond's lips shut.
"Glad you're safe, kid," is all he manages to say before he ends the conversation and all but runs into the bathroom to take a shower.
His stomach growls for the eleventh time that morning --- yes, he's been counting --- and he spots a head of messy hair by the kitchen counter. Eddie is standing in front of the open cabinets, arms crossed over his chest. His tongue pokes out of his mouth the way it does when he tries to concentrate.
This morning, Raymond woke up to an empty space beside him. He expected it to be painfully awkward, like the previous time, yet Eddie was perfectly normal.
Well, as normal as Eddie Munson gets.
He did --- of course he did --- proceed to walk out of the shower completely naked at some point and give Raymond a heart attack.
It's rude. It's really rude when Raymond is trying to get through the whole situation smoothly, to babysit Eddie for as long as needed until they figure out a way to prove his innocence. Now his mind is going places again and he hates it.
"What are you doing?" he questions as casually as he can, leaning against the counter. His fringe still hasn't dried and water drops onto his nose, his jaw, wets the collar of his shirt.
Eddie reaches up to grab a can and Raymond's eyes fall to the sliver of skin of his hips that shows when his (actually, Raymond's) shirt rises. The sleeves cling to his biceps and make them more prominent.
Then Eddie is looking at him and Raymond is afraid he may have figured it out. His gaze is narrowed with focus on something Raymond can't pinpoint and he suddenly feels very warm in the face. "Cooking."
His laugh is too high-pitched for no reason whatsoever and he pushes himself off the counter to stand properly. "You? You, Eddie Munson, cooking? I never thought I'd see the day."
Eddie's eyes shut, as though he is forcing himself to breathe, to ignore the provocation. It seems to work until Raymond bursts into laughter again. He can't help it. It's nothing too hilarious, but just the helplessness in Munson's expression is enough to amuse him. Anything he does is enough to amuse Raymond these days, especially when he's trying not to think about something else.
