ethereal : it oneshots

you didn't get new glasses, you taped them back together

pairing: stozier
stan pov

you met me a very strange time in my life, richie.

i was fresh out of high school, a little shy, a little spiteful, spending all my time in the library cramming my head with information that had not even a glance towards my major. pushing away people and feelings to choose nothing but burning a candle by both ends until it melted into one pool in the middle. no fun.

then your glasses broke. you were sitting across from me, completely silent at the table in the library, and i looked up at you, because you had just opened your book and it had made a large noise. i might have been glaring when i'd looked up, but my intentions fell away when i saw you.

you caught my eye with yours, and gave me a weak attempt at a smile, quick and fleeting before you looked back down. then, i watched as the frame of your glasses magically broke; the arm resting behind your ear fell off and the lenses came flying down onto the book in front of you. my face must have hardly changed from my original awe.

you looked back up at me, now in confusion. almost as if to ask, "did you do that?" and then you laughed. the library had been dead silent, but your laugh filled the air the way organs fill churches. the noise reverberated in my ears, and i nearly smiled at how dumb you looked with a real smile on your face.

you asked me if that had really just happened, your glasses falling apart on their own. i shrugged, not really sure that my voice could ever match yours in its complexity. you laughed again, quieter this time, and the other people at the table seemed to fade away. i was still looking at you.

strange, the things a beautiful person will do to you. you can completely forget that you ever had to learn about the innermost crust of the earth, or the ways that the water eroded the rock. it doesn't matter anymore, not when you've just seen the most gorgeous eyes, calling your name like both a hello and a goodbye at once.

you asked me aloud this time if i somehow magically broke your glasses. i shrugged again, this time more personality built within it, and you shook your head, telling me "how rude!" in a perfect impression of stephanie tanner. i smiled, probably the first smile on my face in months, and you let your eyes glance up and down my face.

"no use studying now," you told me. and i think, mainly because you wanted a friend, and also because you liked me, you asked me to lunch. for the first time, i spoke. i said yes.

after lunch, when we'd finally introduced each other, i was headed back to my apartment, to get an early start on the essay i had next week (that i had been doing prior to meeting you).  you'd circled me in the parking lot, as i stood near—but not against—my car. 

"who are you? what are you really about, stan uris?" you asked me. you were joking, but i didn't know. i asked myself the same question internally, head spinning as i tried to keep up with you. soon you laughed it off. i smiled weakly.

i don't think i'd ever really wanted to have a friend until then. i'd lived eighteen long years without any, and they didn't particularly interest me. i didn't hear good things about high school drama, so i kept out of it. finally, though, i got it. i wanted to know the kid whose glasses suddenly, mysteriously broke.

and, well, i wanted more than that, too.

it took two months of being friends to know you wanted the same thing. i'd always sorta guessed you might, but you could have been the type to wrap people around your finger for fun if you'd wanted to be. but you weren't. of course you weren't.

we'd gone to the drive-in in the city, some stupid movie that i can't quite remember now. i'd been in your passenger seat and as we'd driven into the parking lot, i was staring out the window, at the moon visible in the daytime. you asked me what i was looking at, and i told you. you hummed some kind of affirmation. once we parked, you put the car in accessory and shifted in your seat, rolling it back and looking over at me.

i kinda just figured you were getting comfortable.

you told me, "stop me if you don't want this."

and then you kissed me. it was slow, and it took time, but it was breathless. i felt suddenly disconnected from the seat i was sitting in, living the best moment of my life so far from outside the car, looking in. it took me a long time to kiss you presently, richie. i don't know if you ever knew that.

but suddenly, i wasn't doing nothing but working on school anymore. i felt parts of me unlock, like a stupid video game, and i wanted to swear at you for taking so long to come into my life, but instead i just kept kissing you.

maybe that's why i don't remember what movie it was.

i'm a little convinced you brought me to life. you and your shitty, cracked, always blurry, never clean, glasses. i wouldn't have had it any other way.

i was not nice enough as a child to consider the possibility that we could've known each other before we did. it does not keep me from hoping, though. maybe in another universe i've known you all my life. maybe in this one we'll know each other for so long that it's indistinguishable to the rest of the world. maybe in this one we'll make up lies about how we've been together since the seventh grade. i don't know yet.

all i know is i can't wait for it to happen.

i want to marry you, richie.