golden boy : stozier

forty four

stanley was on a bus to his house, his eyes focused so hard on the seat in front of him that he could subconsciously feel richie's presence still on his shoulder. he only looked away when someone sat down next to him, stan shuffling a little closer to the window.

not long after, while he let the grass outside blur into random shapes in his vision, his phone began buzzing in his pocket. he reached for it with very little urgency, knowing it wasn't richie.

his eyebrows twisted as he came to see the name "bill" lit up across his phone, calling him. sliding the phone up to his ear next to the window, craning his neck, he picked up.

"hello?"

"hi stanley, i know th-thuh-this is weird, b-buh-but, i j-juh-ju-i broke up with bev." bill's words were rushed, like he couldn't get them out fast enough.

stan blinked a couple times, his reaction time lacking. "oh. wow."

"y-yeah, i d-duh-don't know if it was the r-ruh-right move, and i d-duh-don't want to tell mike, not yet, anyway, and r-richie's not picking up his phone, and i tr-trust you not to say anything, so." bill was clearly biting his lip from the way his voice was slurring every now and then.

"are you okay? what, um, what caused this?" not the question stanley wanted to be asking, but the bus was too quiet for him to want to ask any more. either it was windy wherever bill was, or he was breathing heavily into the mic of the phone.

"i'm, i'm okay," bill didn't sound convinced, "i think? i-uh-sh-shuh-she just pisses me off, like all the t-tuh-time, and i don't w-wuh-wanna be, like, unhapp-puh-puh-fuck, unhappy all the time."

"that's a pretty solid reason, i guess," stanley's knee was now bouncing, anxious on bill's behalf. leave it to a breakup in the summer to completely decimate a friend group.

"she w-wuh-was really upset. i f-fuh-feel bad."

"right, but that's how breakups go, i think. i think you made the right choice, if it helps." stanley had to roll his head a little, relieving the weird cinch causing him pain.

"it does. y-yuh-you're smart, stanley, i truh-trust your opinion," there was a trace of a lighthearted laugh in bill's words, and it reassured stan that he was probably doing pretty okay. "s-suh-sorry to bother you."

"no, no it's not a bother," stanley shuffled in his seat again, ruminating on the idea of bill without beverly; beverly without bill. idly, he pressed the stop button on the edge of the window, the person next to him in the seat moving awkwardly for him to get to the door. "so are you guys trying to be friends, or no?" stanley asked, pressing himself thin to slide through people and stand by the edge of the door.

the door hissed open as the bus came to a stop, and he heard bill sigh as he walked off the bus. "i'm not really sure, t-truh-truthfully. i think she'll p-pruh-probably go back to s-suh-seeing greta 24/7," bill did not seem to be greta's biggest fan, but stanley thought she was alright.

"it'll be an interesting summer," stanley could see his house in the distance, "i gotta go, is that alright? we'll hang out soon, with richie and mike." he wasn't sure when richie had slithered into his veins, asking bill denbrough to hang out with him, but he let it happen. there were worse impulses to have.

"y-yuh-yeah, that sounds cool. see ya." bill hung up before stanley could really say anything back. that was alright, he didn't really have anything to say.

he put his phone in his pocket, picking up his heels from dragging on the ground. gulping, he found his throat dryer than he'd intended.

when he turned the key, somehow cold in his clammy hand, he tried to exhale, air shaking its way out of the lungs. he untied his shoes, quickly and quietly, his ears ringing in the dead silence of the house.

in a way, he told himself, it had worked. arguing with them had done what he'd wanted it to do. they didn't care about him anymore! but they didn't care about him anymore. he wasn't sure how to navigate finding himself when the people who had known him the longest didn't love him anymore. he couldn't tell richie this—richie would tell him to cut his parents off the moment he was old enough. stanley wasn't sure he was capable.

with every breath in and out, his mind flipped and switched, unsure where to take his stance. still, it made his neck feel heavy, the incessant silence from every area of the house, human presence or not. he went up to his room, pretending as though he had horse blinders, keeping him staring at his journey to his bedroom.

like a teenage girl, he felt the collar of the shirt he was wearing and smelled it—thanking god for richie's annoyingly strong cologne—the moment he shut his bedroom door. in a way that made stanley laugh at the irony, he found it relaxing.

it was stupid, no, silly, the way he loved richie. without worry, without doubt, acting only on feeling in the heart of emotion. to wake up by his side was to feel the most himself stanley ever had. richie had somehow managed to be the first person in his life to cultivate a surrounding where stan could be himself. and of course, it led to falling in love.

how beverly and bill had ever been together, stanley could not imagine. he could not fathom them feeling this way, not in the time that stan had known them. what was the point to a relationship without this? once, at bill's house, beverly had said something quite funny to a particularly drunk bill and he'd laughed so hard, kissing her all over the face. it made her go bright red, and stan had thought that maybe the two of them were quite cute. but once? to have it only once?

stanley felt like glowing that bright red when richie's fingers had lightly grasped stan's arm, or when he'd held him by the face gently. god, he missed richie so badly already. how embarrassing.