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It’s midterm season, a Friday night, and Stan was surprisingly laid back for a student whose disposition could normally be described as high-strung. His notebooks, highlighters, and post-it notes were arranged tidily on his desk, he was working on his last essay for the week, and at the rate he was going he was sure he would be done by the time he and Richie went to the dining hall to grab dinner. This mentality was the only thing that kept him from completely flipping his shit when Richie slammed open the door to their shared dorm. Stan noted the bottle in his hand, and though he couldn’t tell exactly what it was, he was sure it was the reason for Richie’s excitement one way or another.
“Yeah?” Stan asked, after Richie had been standing silently in the doorway for a minute, a little out of breath. Stan guessed he had run up the stairs again - whenever they walked together Richie would bolt up the three flights and be waiting at the top, bouncing on the balls of his feet, when Stan finally made his way up. Stan had stopped questioning it months ago.
“Yeah,” Richie replied. He did his best to ignore the way his heart skipped a beat when he saw Stan in his reading glasses and one of his old baseball t-shirts. Richie swallowed and finally closed the door. “Stan the man, are you ready to get fuckin’ blasted this weekend?”
“Well, no,” Stan said as Richie set the bottle on Stan’s desk so he could see it. It was bourbon, and he didn’t know much about alcohol, but it sure looked fancy. He looked up at his roommate. “I need to finish this paper first. Then we can get blasted.”
“Oh, of course. School always comes first.” Richie said, and while Stan knew he was joking, he appreciated how Richie always waited for Stan to finish his schoolwork before they started their weekend festivities. Richie threw his backpack onto his bed and came back to Stan’s desk, resting his chin on top of Stan’s head. Stan suddenly found it very hard to focus on his paper. “Whatcha workin’ on?”
“World lit, uh.. Gilgamesh. How he views death and... stuff.” Stan stammered out. Richie laughed.
“What’s the matter, aren’t you sure?” He asked, but instead of waiting for an answer he picked up the bottle and moved to lean against Stan’s desk, facing him. “So, Bill won this fancy stuff in some writing contest or whatever, I don’t really know, and him and Mike didn’t want to keep it in their dorm - they’re totally fucking, by the way - so I said I would take it because I have the perfect movie to watch we get wasted to celebrate finishing our midterms.” Stan raised an eyebrow at Richie’s (likely unfounded) claim about their friends and shook his head.
“Rich, every time you say that we end up watching some shit like Sausage Party. Or Sharknado.”
“Well, yeah, because Sharknado is a fucking masterpiece.”
“What about Sausage Party?”
“Yeah, that was pretty shitty.” Stan laughed, and Richie felt his face heat up, but he managed to convince himself that the two were unrelated. “Do you think you’ll be done before we eat? It’s meatball sub night at the dining hall and that's something I can only experience sober.” Stan nodded, and Richie moved to his own desk to get some of his work done, but not before ruffling Stan’s hair and narrowly avoiding Stan’s hand attempting to swat him away.
They worked for a while in comfortable silence. It didn’t take long for Richie to move from his desk to his bed - to be more comfortable, definitely not so he could see Stan better, definitely not so he could watch Stan’s nimble fingers move across the keyboard and tap the edge of his desk while he thinks of what to write, what are you talking about? He watched as Stan hit submit and leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms. Stan turned towards Richie, who turned back towards his computer screen at the last second, narrowly avoiding an awkward conversation or at the very least an odd look.
“You ready?” Stan asked. Richie nodded and gave him a lopsided smile, throwing his laptop onto his bed and jumping off.
They walked the short distance to the dining hall making small talk about their classes and what the rest of the losers were doing that weekend. Richie held the door for Stan, but before he could thank him, Richie spotted Eddie and Mike across the dining hall. He gasped, grabbed Stan’s hand, and broke into a sprint, because of course he couldn’t just walk across the room, who do you think he is? Once they stumbled up to where Eddie and Mike were sitting, Stan watched as Richie somehow successfully bartered with Eddie to trade his pizza for a meatball sub that Richie didn’t even have yet.
Stan and Richie got their food and rejoined Mike and Eddie. They had a fairly uneventful dinner - Richie pestering Eddie, Stan rolling his eyes, Mike watching amusedly and occasionally sharing a look with Stan when the other boys got particularly rambunctious. Fortunately, Richie managed not to get them kicked out that night (he had a running count of six times this semester but none that week). After finishing their meal they bid Mike and Eddie goodbye and returned to their dorm. Stan could tell Richie was getting more and more excited the closer they got.
Stan had already put away all of his school supplies before dinner so all they had to do in preparation of their movie night was gather their snacks, which Stan did while Richie set up the movie on his laptop, and change into their pajamas. They got settled in on Richie’s bed - never on Stan’s, he liked to keep his made - and began passing the bottle back and forth. Richie started the movie.
“Oh, jeez,” Stan said as soon as it started. He was almost immediately confused by what was going on, but Richie was enthralled. He kept his eyes glued on the screen and Stan wasn’t sure how much of it was the alcohol and how much was Richie genuinely enjoying the movie.
As the movie progressed the two boys found themselves moving closer together, Richie leaning his head on Stan’s shoulder and Stan wrapping his arm around Richie’s shoulders to make it more comfortable for both of them. This was normal practice for their movie nights, and if you asked them they would have most likely blamed it on the alcohol - which would have been partially true, because if they hadn’t been drinking then they would have been thinking far too hard about what they were doing to actually go through with it. Neither of them complained, and both of them assumed the other was allowing it on strictly platonic terms. But that didn’t mean Richie couldn’t appreciate Stan’s warmth and the faded smell of his cologne and Stan couldn’t use his vantage point to watch Richie’s reaction to the movie instead of the movie itself.
After watching him for a majority of the movie Stan was certain Richie would have enjoyed the movie even if he was sober. He was nodding along to the music and letting out small gasps whenever something remotely interesting or plot-twisty happened, and his eyes didn’t leave the screen until he let out a particularly large gasp at a more significant plot twist towards the end of the movie, making Stan laugh. Richie sat up and turned to look at him.
“Hey!” He said, an embarrassed blush making his already-red cheeks even brighter. He thought Stan was making fun of him.
“No, no, it’s just,” Stan rambled, unsure of how to console his friend. The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them. “You’re so cute.”
His eyes widened a bit, but it was nothing compared to the way Richie’s did when he realized. Richie almost wished he was sober, because maybe if he was he would be able to stop the immediate snowballing going on in his brain. The train of thought that had been somewhat detached while watching the movie turned into something more like shit shit shit shit shit did Stan just?? call me cute?? He probably meant it in a friend way. Right? Like I used to with Eddie when we were kids? Wait I was like head over heels in love with Eddie. Is Stan in love with ME? Okay too far Richie. Does Stan even like guys? Probably not. But didn’t he hook up with Mike last year when they were drunk? So maybe? But also college is a time for questioning that kind of stuff but maybe it didn’t mean anything. But also he kept hanging out with that one really cute guy from his gender studies class and he spent a couple nights in his dorm but I assumed they were just studying?? Were they hooking up?? Oh fuck now is not the time to start imaging that oh shit oh fu-
“Dude,” Stan said, tapping the side of Richie’s face and resting his hand on his cheek to try and get his attention back. Richie made eye contact with him, eyes still wide, but now Stan looked concerned. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to, like, make you uncomfortable or anything-”
“No!” Richie cut him off a bit too loudly. “I mean, no. You didn’t. I just…” he trailed off when he realized how close they were. His eyes roamed Stan’s face, finally landing on his lips. He swallowed. Stan’s breath hitched.
“Richie,” he started quietly, drawing Richie’s attention once again. He knew it was a bad idea. He wanted to tell Richie that. But his hand was still on Richie’s face, and he could see the way Richie was looking at him, and it would be so easy… he pulled his hand away and placed it in his lap. Richie’s face fell, but Stan looked away before he could see it. He exhaled a shaky breath. “We’re uh… we’ve been drinking. This isn’t a good idea.”
Richie turned away as well, moving away from Stan and swinging his legs over the edge of a bed. “No, yeah, you’re right. I shouldn’t have- You aren’t- Yeah.” He hopped off the bed. Stan’s shoulders dropped.
“Rich, that’s not what I meant, I just-”
“Right. Uh. I’m gonna go take a shower,” he said, practically running across their small dorm to grab his towel and shower caddy. Stan furrowed his brows, wildly confused, trying to form a question.
“At midnight?” He asked, but Richie was already out the door before he was able to get it out. They hadn’t even finished the movie.
Stan tried to wait for him, then considered going after him to try to clear things up, but he didn’t think either of them were in the right headspace at the moment to hash whatever this was out. When it became clear that Richie would be gone for a while he shook his head, closed Richie’s laptop, and crossed the room to his bed. After the week he’d had, he fell asleep within minutes of his head hitting the pillow.
The next morning Stan woke up to an empty room. He started to worry as he scanned Richie’s side of their dorm, but he saw that his shower caddy was sitting on the floor and his towel was in the hamper under Richie’s pajamas from the night before. Stan remembered that Richie had made plans to have lunch with Eddie that day, but Stan hadn’t expected him to make it after the night they’d had. He got up to take Richie’s damp towel out of the hamper and hang it up to keep it from mildewing and tried not to let the creeping feeling of dread sink in. Stan was usually the early riser between the two of them, but on the rare occasions Richie woke up before him, he always woke him up before he left.
Despite his best wishes, Stan remembered the night before with almost disturbing clarity. Evidently he hadn’t been drunk enough, because he was cursed with every excruciating and awkward detail replaying in his brain. He hoped Richie had had enough alcohol to stay blissfully oblivious and they could just act like nothing ever happened.
Meanwhile, Richie sat across from Eddie in the dining hall, face-down in a bowl of Froot Loops.
“I am so fucked, spaghetti,” he said, finally lifting his pounding head. Eddie said nothing, waiting for him to elaborate. Richie had said nothing when he arrived at the booth Eddie was occupying, just slid his overflowing bowl of cereal onto the table and flopped down into the seat, making Eddie jump. He had been mostly silent save for his combination of hungover and dread-filled groans. “Stan probably hates me.”
Eddie’s eyes widened, alarmed. “Oh shit, what happened?” Richie explained the gist of how he had tried to drunkenly make a move on Stan. When he finished, Eddie thought for a moment and then shook his head. “You’re probably fine. Stan probably doesn’t even remember, and if he does, he wouldn’t hate you for it. Honestly, don’t tell anyone I told you this, but we were all convinced you two were already hooking up.” He took a sip of his tea. Richie nearly choked on his cereal.
“First of all, we are not, I don’t even know if Stan likes guys. If he did he would probably like Mike, or Big Bill, or, y’know, anyone other than me. Second of all, Stan remembers everything, Eds. One time when I got back from class there was a box of those sugar cookies - you know, the ones with the frosting - sitting on my desk and when I asked Stan about it he said that I had mentioned wanting some when we were drunk the weekend before.” Eddie stared at him.
“Dude, he totally likes you,” he said, following with a quiet he never buys me cookies under his breath. Richie threw his arms up, shrugging his shoulders.
“He does not! He’s just… like that. I don’t know,” he conceded.
“Well, if you ask any of the losers they’re going to tell you the same thing I did. He was probably just nervous. You should just clear the air and tell him you like him. Seize the day and whatnot.” Richie looked like he might have been considering that option until he narrowed his eyes at Eddie.
“You and Ben watched Newsies again, didn’t you?” He questioned. They stared at each other until Eddie finally caved.
“Yes. But that could have been a Dead Poets Society reference, too.”
“Mmm, if you had watched Dead Poets Society then you would have been crytyping in the groupchat like you always do when Neil dies.” Eddie’s jaw dropped and he started to defend himself, but Richie continued talking. “Anyways. I will not be taking the advice of some twentieth century newsboys because I am not trying to ruin things with one of my best friends in the whole world over stupid feelings.” He finished off the last of his cereal and lifted the bowl to his mouth to drain what was left of the milk.
“Right, because you’re so good at repressing your feelings,” Eddie said, raising an eyebrow. “You’re totally not completely obvious about them and you definitely weren’t making puppy dog eyes at me for eight years straight. I’m sure your plan will go swimmingly.” Richie removed one of his hands from his bowl to give Eddie the finger.
“Oh, don’t act like you weren’t completely fucking oblivious, spaghetti. Because if you’re insinuating that you noticed me pining after you since elementary school then you are even more of a bitch than I thought.” Richie said, poking Eddie in the chest. He stood up and started to bring his bowl to the dish return, getting ready to leave, but not before turning around and giving Eddie a salute. “Besides, Eddie boy, nothing I do is straight,” he called across the dining hall with a wink.
Eddie rolled his eyes with a smile. “They’re nineteenth century newsboys, by the way!”
-
Once Stan had made sure there were no other wet towels in the hamper and made his bed, he shot off a quick slightly hungover and in need of emotional guidance text to Beverly and was almost immediately met with an on my way reply. He hurried to make himself presentable and made his way to where he usually met Bev, a halfway point between his building and the building where she roomed with Kay. Bev approached at nearly the same time as he did.
Not wanting to risk running into Richie in the dining hall, Stan guided them to one of the independent restaurants on campus, which happened to have what Beverly claimed were “the greatest bagels on the face of this earth.” It was a quick walk that they filled with chatter about midterms and classes they were thinking about taking next semester. Once they arrived, ordered, and received their food, Beverly laced her fingers together and rested her chin on her hands.
“So. Spill,” she insisted. Stan sighed, and just as Richie had in his conversation with Eddie, he told her all the details about the night before. It didn’t take long, but she listened as intently as ever.
“He was gone when I woke up this morning, and he didn’t text or anything,” he said once he finished. He frowned. “He’s probably mad at me.”
Beverly tilted her head, thinking, and then took a sip of her iced coffee. “I don’t know. Richie usually forgets shit after you guys get drunk, right? So maybe he was just in a rush. Besides, he’s like, in love with you, so I think you’re fine. Might have bruised his ego a bit though.”
“Wait, what?” Stan said. He felt his face heat up. “Richie isn’t in love with me.”
Beverly stopped mid-sip, her eyebrows shooting up. “Dude, where have you been? How have you not noticed?”
“Noticed what? He doesn’t like me,” Stan replied. Beverly just looked at him. “I thought he still liked Eddie? At least enough for him to haul his hungover ass out of bed to meet up with him this morning.” He finished with a huff.
“As far as I know he’s been over Eddie for at least a year now,” Beverly said. A grin spread across her face when she noticed the badly concealed hint of bitterness at the end of Stan’s sentence. “Holy shit. Are you jealous?”
Stan’s mouth hung open as his face grew even redder. “Wha- no! He’s my best friend, that’s it! I’ve just… had to listen to him talk about Eddie for years now.” He stumbled through his sentence. His bagel sat untouched on the table, and he finally picked it up as a means of suffering through this silence in which Beverly tried to get a confession out of him with an unrelenting stare. So maybe he was jealous. That didn’t mean he had to prove her right. But, because she was Beverly, she noticed the same signs from that brief period two summers ago when Stan had had a crush on Mike.
“Oh, Stan, you’ve got it bad, huh?” She said. Stan dropped his head into his hands and nodded, and Beverly put a hand on his shoulder, laughing. “Tell you what. Why don’t you come shopping with me today so you have some time to process this new information before you see him again? I need to go to Trader Joes and Target, and probably a few other places. It should take at least a few hours.” Stan moved his fingers away from his eyes just enough to look at her.
“Thanks,” he said. They finished their meal without bringing up Richie again.
The next time Richie saw Stan, Stan didn’t see Richie. Richie had gone back to the dining hall that evening in hopes of quickly grabbing his dinner and heading back to his dorm to eat and watch something on Netflix, but he stopped in his tracks when he walked in and saw Stan eating with Bill. He could tell that Stan was laughing at something Bill had said. Richie felt a small sting of jealousy and immediately reprimanded himself for it - they’re friends, of course they’re going to eat together and laugh at each other’s jokes. Though he couldn’t help but wonder if he had been accurate in his assumption that Bill was the one Stan would like if he were to be into guys. After all, he had had a crush on Bill himself, but that was in, like, seventh grade. He knew he would most likely be welcome to join them if they knew he was there, but he opted to throw some food in a to-go box and leave without notifying them of his presence.
(Of course, what he didn’t know was that Beverly was also eating with them after she and Stan had run into Bill while they were shopping and was just away refilling her soda, and that Stan was laughing at Bill’s story about how he and Mike had gotten locked out of their dorm room because they were too preoccupied making out in the laundry room while waiting for one of the dryers to be free.)
When Stan returned to their room that evening, he still wasn't sure how to go about discussing the night before. Richie looked up from his laptop and gave Stan a small wave when Stan nodded at him. Richie paused his show.
“Hey,” he said, drawing Stan’s attention from the reusable bags he was setting on his desk. “Where’d you go today? You were gone when I got back from breakfast, and then I was bored so I just kind of wandered around campus and I didn’t see you anywhere. Also, did you know we have a duck pond here?” Stan laughed.
“Yes, I did know, Mike and I eat lunch there sometimes. Bev and I went out for some groceries and stuff. Speaking of -” he stopped and rifled through one of the bags. “They had those M&M’s you like. But you have to share.” He pulled the dark chocolate candies out and tossed the bag at Richie, who gasped when he caught them.
“Thanks Staniel,” he said, opening the bag. He grabbed a fistful and held his hand out to Stan. Stan accepted the candy and thanked him before crossing the small space between their beds to lean against the edge of his.
“How’s Eddie?” He asked, idly sorting the candies in his palm, not looking at Richie.
“Good, I guess. We’re probably going to go grab lunch tomorrow.” Richie shrugged. Stan hummed but said nothing. The more he thought about it the more he doubted Beverly’s assertion that Richie was over Eddie. He didn’t see how Richie could get over him so quickly after being in love with him for so long, and they had been spending even more time together lately, so he didn’t want to interfere if there was something going on between them again. Stan had plenty of experience suffering in silence, so what was a few more years? He was starting to get fully lost in thought when he realized Richie was trying to get his attention.
“Sorry, what?” Stan asked. Richie furrowed his brows, tilting his head.
“I asked if you and Bill were doing anything this weekend.”
It was Stan’s turn to be confused. “No. Why?” Richie shrugged and looked down at his fidgeting hands.
“I saw you guys at the dining hall, it looked like you were having fun.” He shrugged. Stan stood up and moved closer to him.
“When were you at the dining hall? Bev and I found him when we were out shopping so he came with us. You know you could have joined us, right?” Richie shrugged again.
“I don’t know, it seemed like you two were-” he was cut off by the beginning of “September” by Earth, Wind & Fire coming from his phone. Eddie’s name flashed across the screen. Richie stared at his phone for a moment, weighing in his mind how badly he wanted out of this conversation. “I should probably answer him. You know how he is,” he rationalized. Stan nodded.
Richie got up to take his call in one of the study rooms on their floor so Stan wouldn’t have to listen to his and Eddie’s bickering. He left their room, shutting the door behind him, realizing at the last second that he had forgotten his key on his desk. He turned to knock on the door, but the door opened before his fist could connect. Stan held out Richie’s lanyard.
“Thanks,” Richie said. Stan just closed the door. Richie left.
They went on like this for weeks, having awkward, stilted conversations, throwing out borderline bitter comments about their presumed romantic competition, and ignoring their friends’ insistences that their feelings were mutual. The other losers tried to help as much as they could without flat out telling them - Beverly would tell Richie that Stan had mentioned liking someone who sounded a whole lot like Richie, and Bill would do the same with Stan, saying that Richie had confided in him about liking someone in their friend group - but their attempts never struck home. Both boys were too stubborn to accept anything other than what they had already assumed. Their imagined resentment had even started creeping up on the rest of their friends; Richie’s jokes about Bill were growing increasingly hostile and Stan’s snide remarks had found a target on Eddie’s back. It all came to a head a few weeks before the end of the semester.
Stan was sitting at his desk on his laptop when Richie entered their dorm. He’d been gone for a while now and hadn’t told Stan where he was - probably with Eddie, Stan thought, before he could stop himself. Once Richie had shut the door behind him and was removing his backpack and shoes, Stan cleared his throat.
“We have to pick our rooms for next year soon,” he said. He looked at Richie, but Richie avoided his gaze.
“Yeah,” he said. They were both silent while Richie finished removing his notebooks and laptop from his backpack. “I assume you want to switch roommates, right?”
Stan looked away, opting to look down at his keyboard instead. “Well, I figured you would want to room with Eddie. So. We just have to figure that out, I guess.”
“Dude, Eddie would be having conniption fits, like, weekly if we lived together. But I figured you and Bill want to room together, so I can see if Ben will take me, or something. I dunno.” Stan’s chair nearly fell over because of how fast he whipped around.
“What? Why would I want to room with Bill?” Richie stared at him, dumbfounded and frozen with one foot in the air that he was trying to remove a sock from.
“Aren’t you guys a thing?” He asked. Stan shook his head. “Oh. Well you probably want to switch rooms anyway, right? I mean, living with someone who you know likes you when you don’t like them back is probably pretty awkward.”
Stan had thought his eyes couldn’t get any wider than they had gotten when Richie assumed he liked Bill. He was wrong.
“Richie. What are you talking about?” He asked. He stood up, but Richie turned away towards the space between their beds.
“I mean, we’ve barely been talking lately, and you’ve been hanging out with Bev a lot lately and she’s, like, one of the two people who knows how much I like you so I figured she told you because it seems like you’ve been avoiding me-”
“You’ve been avoiding me! You and Eddie are practically glued at the hip, it’s like middle school all over again!”
“- and I know you remember shit even when we get drunk so I figured you remembered what happened that night but you just didn’t want to bring it up because you don’t like me back and if we talked about it then you would have to say that, and we haven’t really gotten drunk since then and I figured it was because you didn’t want to risk it happening again? Well, nothing really happened but what almost happened, I guess, I don’t know, but if we room together again next year it will be kind of hard to ignore so-” He stopped when he realized Stan had placed his hands on either side of Richie’s face and looked about two seconds away from shaking him to get him to stop talking.
“Richie.” Stan said, looking Richie in the eyes. Richie said nothing in response and just looked at him, the way he had that night, but this time he saw Stan doing the same. He was somehow still surprised when Stan pulled him in for a kiss.
Richie was still for a moment but reciprocated almost immediately. Stan was on his tiptoes, just barely, so Richie bent down a bit and wrapped his arms around his waist. Stan moved his hands from Richie’s face into his hair. When they finally pulled apart, Richie’s face was flushed, but he looked confused.
“I thought you didn’t want…“ he struggled to find the proper words. “This. You stopped me last time.”
“Yeah, because we had been drinking. I didn’t want you to do anything you might regret,” he said softly. Richie’s expression turned to one of embarrassment.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” Stan removed one of his arms from where they had fallen to Richie’s neck to poke him in the side. “You ran off before I could explain that to you. Who the hell showers at midnight?”
Richie started laughing, which made Stan smile. He closed his arms tighter around Stan, bringing them closer together, resting his forehead on Stan’s. “You know, we never finished that movie,” he said with a grin. Stan groaned.
“You know, maybe I do want to switch roommates,” he replied, pulling Richie in for another kiss.