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i. your head will collapse
Stan’s lungs are full of smoke, cloying and hot. He’s burning from the inside out. The only reason he’s walking down the stairs and not running right out the door is because he’s still enough in his right mind to know he’d look ridiculous if he did.
“Is everything okay?” Ben asks. Stan storms past him, past all of them, ignoring words and sounds. He can’t, he just can’t face them right now. He’s out the door in seconds, suddenly on the sidewalk and blinking in confusion at the abrupt change in lighting. It’s dusk now, the world going gray and filling with crickets and fireflies. Stan’s not overly fond of bugs. He understands them, respects them, appreciates their purpose, but he gets the creeps when they get too close.
He doesn’t know where he thought he was going.
He’d been so focused on forward, away, leave, that he hadn’t stopped to consider where he was going to. He considers it now, stalled on the sidewalk.
The door opens behind him and Stan tenses. He’s braced for Ben or Bill, or maybe even Bev to come make him talk to them. Tell them what’s wrong. As if that’s something he can just say like it’s easy.
“Stan?” Mike calls. He sounds so cautious. Approaches Stan the way he’d approach a bird he wants to observe without frightening.
Stan is frightened.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mike asks when it becomes clear Stan’s not going to answer.
“No.”
“Okay.”
Mike doesn’t leave.
“I need to go,” Stan says finally, furious at how out of control his voice sounds when he’s doing everything he can to keep himself together.
“Okay,” Mike agrees. “Where should we go?”
Stan’s heart thumps. We.
“I don’t know,” he admits. They’re his least favorite words.
“Well why don’t I walk you home?” Mike suggests kindly. Stan nods, not trusting himself to speak. He waits a moment for Mike to move before remembering that they’re going to his own house, that he has to lead the way. Stan is tired of always being the one to move first.
He takes a step forward and Mike is at his side almost immediately, matching his pace while still managing to give Stan space, which is no easy feat. Stan’s always admired Mike’s ability to read a room.
Mike really snuck up on him. On his heart. He’d been attracted to guys before, sure, but in that passing sort of way the other guys have referenced liking girls. Fleeting crushes, nothing important. But Mike is important. Stan’s never felt the way he feels about Mike before. Mike is kind and good and honest, honest in a way no one around Stan ever is. He admits he doesn’t know things without putting up a front or posturing or acting like Stan is weird for knowing it to begin with. And he knows things Stan doesn’t, too. Mike is smart, and Stan wants to learn him.
They walk home mostly in silence. It’s okay. It’s not unkind.
“I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time,” Mike says at last.
Stan shrugs. “It was mostly fine.”
“Richie seemed upset,” Mike says, carefully neutral. He’s pushing Stan, just a little. It’s not that Stan minds, really, but he can’t give Mike anything resembling an answer for so many reasons.
“Richie was just being Richie,” Stan sighs, deflated. “He didn’t, he wasn’t trying to be difficult, it wasn’t anything new, just. I let him get to me this time, a bit.” He rubs at his eyes, exhausted suddenly.
Mike is quiet. When Stan looks at him, he’s frowning.
“What?” he asks.
“It’s not your fault that he hurt you,” Mike says. Sincere. Stan would like to believe him.
“It’s really not that dramatic,” he says instead. “I’ll be fine.”
“Don’t you think you should feel better than ‘fine?’” Mike asks. It’s the closest to argumentative Mike has ever gotten with him, but Stan can’t find it in himself to be upset. He’s proud of himself for not even faltering in his stride, continuing to walk alongside Mike without wavering and betraying how caught off guard he is. He just wonders why Mike even cares about splitting hairs with Stan’s word choice. Fine is fine.
“Are you better than fine?” Stan asks, not looking at him. He sees Mike shrug in the peripheral.
“I guess. I mean, I’m happy?” Mike says. Stan purses his lips, nods. “Are you?” Mike presses, and Stan’s step does falter at that. He swallows, trying to gather his thoughts. He’s acting like Richie, he realizes, barely better than throwing a tantrum in the middle of the street. Insisting he’s fine and the night was fine and everything is fucking fine.
“No,” he says finally, because he doesn’t lie to Mike if it isn’t imperative he does. He doesn’t add ‘but I will be’ (like he knows he should to put Mike’s mind at ease) for the same reason. And if he were a little more ridiculous, he’d let himself imagine Mike telling him I could make you happy. Maybe he even could. Stan won’t let himself go there.
“I’m sorry,” Mike says. Stan huffs a laugh.
“Why? It’s not your fault.” It isn’t. Stan doesn’t lie to Mike.
“Well, of course not, I—I just don’t like seeing you down.” Mike takes a deep breath, and Stan pauses in the walk altogether. Mike follows suit. “I know we aren’t that close,” Mike begins, like it isn’t a stake through Stan’s heart. “And I know whatever happened with you and Richie isn’t my business, but I want you to know that you can talk to me, okay? I’m here for you, Stan the Man,” he says, teasing just a little, bumping their shoulders together. Stan feels himself smile, his chest warm from Mike’s words.
“I appreciate that,” he says sincerely. “I don’t think anyone can really fix it, but it’s nice to know.”
“As long as you know.”
They’re quiet again after that, resuming their walk to Stan’s house. Mike gives Stan room to think, and maybe that’s a mistake, because eventually Stan can’t help but ask, “Did you like kissing Eddie?”
Mike hesitates. It makes Stan’s heart sink.
“Oh. Well it, it was alright?”
Stan doesn’t laugh outright for Eddie’s sake. For Richie’s.
“It was so wet,” Stan ventures, a little hysterical as the reality of their evening finally hits him. Mike chuckles.
“It kind of was, I wondered if it was just me.”
“I mean, I don’t think Eddie has really, I mean it’s not a bad thing but I don’t think he’s really kissed anyone before tonight. It’s not really his fault,” Stan says diplomatically.
“I hadn’t really kissed anyone before tonight either,” Mike says shyly, and Stan aches. He stops on the sidewalk again, turning to look at Mike.
“Was that your first kiss?” he asks. Mike nods, sheepish. “God. That was all so stupid, we shouldn’t have done that, I told Richie...” he trails off, runs a hand through his hair to try and refocus. “I’m sorry that that’s how your first kiss went.”
Mike laughs. “It’s fine, it’s definitely an interesting story to tell.”
“That’s true,” Stan agrees. He feels lighter than he did even minutes ago. Maybe having feelings for Mike doesn’t always have to feel like a punishment.
“You sound like that wasn’t your first kiss,” Mike probes. Stan flushes.
“Oh, no, it wasn’t,” he says, and wonders why he feels weird admitting that he’s kissed other people. He won’t examine that too closely.
“That’s cool,” Mike says, sounding like he’s telling a child what he thinks of their incomprehensible crayon drawing. It’s unconvincing.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Stan says quickly, not sure why he’s still talking, not sure why he keeps going even after that despite everything inside him yelling at him to quit while he’s ahead, not to push it. “It was just this thing last summer, it was silly.”
“A summer romance?” Mike teases, and Stan rolls his eyes.
“Don’t let the others hear you say that or they’re going to insist on watching Grease,” Stan warns.
“I haven’t seen that one yet.”
“Oh definitely don’t let them hear you say that.” Mike laughs again and Stan feels the sound pulling on his heart.
“Was it better?” Mike asks, and Stan blinks at him, trying to connect the dots of this conversation.
“Was...what?”
Mike looks embarrassed. “Was your first kiss better than this one, with Eddie?”
Oh. Stan...was not expecting that. He thinks about it for a minute, trying to compare them as best he can, even if they don’t totally line up and the context is completely different and he actually kind of liked Asher even if it was a one-off thing—
“I didn’t realize that was such a deep question,” Mike says, and Stan realizes he’d been so deep in thought that he’d furrowed his brow and everything.
“Sorry, it’s, it’s really not. I was just trying to compare them as accurately as I could.” He realizes once he says it that that’s probably a lame thing to say, but when he glances over, Mike looks fond. He looks away again quickly. “Anyway, yes, my first kiss was better. Not that it was, you know, a movie moment or anything, but it was voluntary and not because of a dumb game.”
“A dumb game with a bunch of guys that you’re friends with,” Mike agrees. And he’s right, Stan knows he’s right about how high the weirdness factor was tonight, but it’s suddenly incredibly important to Stan that Mike doesn’t think Stan thinks kissing boys is weird. Even if it’s such a small thing, even if he’s making himself look weirder for making the distinction. Even if Mike’s never going to want to kiss Stan anyway.
“Playing Spin the Bottle with a group of friends was definitely a bad call on Richie’s part,” Stan agrees carefully. “But it wasn’t terrible.”
“No?”
“No. I can think of worse groups of people to have to kiss. I’d take Eddie any day over, I don’t know, most of the other guys at our school.” He might be pushing it, or he might not be pushing it enough, but he’s doing his best to walk the line of plausible deniability. He trusts Mike. He knows Mike would never hurt him (at least not on purpose), but old habits die hard and he’d rather not scare Mike off by coming on too strong and making him figure out exactly what Stan thinks of him. Still, they did just spend the last hour or so taking turns kissing boys or watching each other kiss boys, and no one said a word about that, so Stan reasons that they’re all at least cool enough not to be weird about Stan. About Richie.
God. Richie. He’d been so distracted by his walk home with Mike that he’d almost forgotten their fight. He has a moment of regret for walking out when Richie was so clearly distraught, before the white hot memory of how angry and hurt he’d been comes back. He wouldn’t have been any help to Richie like that. It’s better for both of them that Stan left, even if he did sort of leave him to the wolves. He wonders if Richie even came back downstairs, if he said anything to Bev or Ben. Eddie. He doesn’t care. He does. He’ll have to find out later.
“Like I said, I don’t really have anything to compare it to,” Mike says, jolting Stan back into the present and away from Richie Tozier’s house and fucked up, messy feelings. “But you’re probably right, I’m sure there’s worse kisses out there. I have to believe there are better ones too, though.”
“There are,” Stan says without thinking.
Mike raises an eyebrow, looks away from Stan as he asks, “So you’re the expert on kissing now?”
“Eddie wasn’t my first kiss,” he reminds Mike, and that’s absolutely as far as he’s willing to let this conversation go suddenly. He feels like he’s going vibrate out of his skin, and now he’s got his fight with Richie back on his mind too, and they’re standing in front of Stan’s house. He’s never especially excited to get home, but never has he felt so torn between relief and disappointment that they’ve arrived there so quickly. “Well, I should go. Thanks for walking with me, I’m sorry to tear you away from the others.”
Mike smiles at him. “I wanted to. Are you feeling any better?”
Stan thinks about it. “Yeah. I think I am.” Mike seems satisfied by this answer, and he waves goodbye as Stan heads inside, not leaving until he sees Stan off through the door.
ii. but there’s nothing in it
Advanced Literature is a class usually reserved for seniors at Derry High, but Stan had received special permission from the teacher at the end of the Sophomore year, along with Bill. He’s looking forward to it, even if it means he has a stack of books to get through before September rolls around. He’s already slogged through The Grapes of Wrath which he thinks he’d have enjoyed a lot more if he hadn’t needed to write a journal entry for each chapter. Now he’s moved on to To Kill a Mockingbird, which is treating him much better. Richie’s new comics had just come in, so they’re sitting together reading in Stan’s room. Well, Stan’s reading. Richie is sometimes reading and sometimes shooting rubber bands at Stan’s face (and missing horribly) and sometimes bothering Stan about his book (“So how do you kill a Mockingbird? Wouldn’t have thought you’d approve of bird killing, Stanley.” “It’s not literally about killing Mockingbirds.” “Well then what kind of a fucking title is that? That’s false advertising.”). Richie’s been quiet for a while now, though, Stan realizes in the middle of Atticus’ cross examination. A silent Richie is never a good sign. It means he’s thinking, something he rarely does.
“It kind of sucks, you know?” Richie says, voice carefully noncommittal. It’s a practiced nonchalance and it sets Stan on edge. “That you got to finally kiss a boy, and you don’t even like him. I should get this tattooed, it looks sick,” he adds as an afterthought. Oh. So they are going to talk about this after all.
Stan turns in his chair to glance at whatever Richie’s done. A crude skull and crossbones and now inked on his arm, the lines wiggly and the face asymmetrical. “It does look sick,” Stan agrees, turning back to his book. “It looks infected.” It’s not what he wants to say, but he doesn’t know what Richie’s saying here. God. He wishes Richie would just ask him things, tell him things, instead of expecting Stan to figure out the cipher that unlocks Richie’s secret coded emotions.
“Have you?” he tries at last. It’s a start. It’s also a loaded question, and he knows it is, so he gives Richie the space he needs to actually maybe have a decently honest conversation by continuing to stare at his page. He’s not absorbing the words at all anymore, letters blurring together. He feels Richie stare at him and worries that maybe he’s already pushed him too far. Stopped the conversation before it even started.
“What? You lost me.” Stan white-knuckles the paperback he still has in his hand for some stupid reason.
“Have you ever, you know. Kissed a boy.”
“Oh.” Richie sounds so small that Stan’s immediate instinct is to apologize. Even though they’ve been talking a lot more about important things lately, that’s not saying much. He’s so trained at this point to let Richie just get away with never saying what he means, never sharing how he feels, always making allowances and excuses for him until he’s choking on it. He’s genuinely on the verge of telling Richie to just forget it like they always do when Richie says, “I mean, your dad was making eyes at me over dinner the other—”
“Stop,” Stan groans, waving a hand desperately at Richie to cut him off. “No.” He’s only kind of disappointed that even now, even when they’ve opened up so much, Richie can’t take this seriously. Ever.
“I mean, who am I gonna kiss?” Richie asks, and the whiplash makes Stan blink in surprise. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Richie just needed to process in his own way before he could get on Stan’s level. He’ll take what he can get, regardless. “Derry isn’t exactly crawling with, with guys like us.”
Guys like us. “Oh,” Stan says lamely. Guys like us. It’s a start. It’s not quite an admission, but it’s a close thing. It’s a shared experience, which is really all Stan’s ever wanted from him.
“I mean, you kissed Eddie, but that doesn’t count,” Richie continues, voice hardening, and god, Stan’s going to need him to cut that shit out real quick. Not that Richie has any control over Stan (or Eddie, for that matter) anyway, but if he really thinks Stan is any sort of threat for Eddie’s attention, then he’s an idiot.
“I’ve kissed guys that aren’t Eddie,” Stan says. Because none of this is about Eddie, or Mike, or anyone but Stan himself. He needs Richie to get that. And he wants to tell his best friend about something important like that, something he’s been sitting on for over a year now, and now he can.
“What.”
“Do you remember when I went to camp last summer?” he asks.
“Okay?”
“Well, I. There was a guy. There.” Stan feels weird suddenly. Is this bragging? Or is it super dorky? Does Richie care at all, does Richie even want to hear this story when he has his own gay drama going on?
“You had a gay summer romance and you didn’t tell me?” Richie pokes, and Stan looks at him in exasperation.
“How was I supposed to tell you about that? For all I knew you would have punched me in the face.” It’s lighthearted, but Stan hadn’t even realized until it came out how scared he had been of Richie last summer. He’s said all kinds of questionable, not-fun things in the past, and Stan gets it now but it doesn’t make it feel better. Doesn’t make his past self feel any less concerned about Richie’s dumb comments when Stan was too sensitive or too affectionate or just too close for comfort.
Richie looks sad. “I wouldn’t have.”
“Well I know that now.” Stan says with a sigh. “I’m sorry,” he says, honest this time and not just out of impulse or obligation. Richie has baggage, and it’s hard to deal with sometimes, but Stan has his own baggage too. He doesn’t need to make it a part of this conversation. Maybe someday, when Richie can actually say things out loud without bracing himself for the consequences. “I shouldn’t...I wouldn’t have said anything.”
“Don’t be a baby,” Richie tells him, sounding grumpy again. Stan shifts into panic mode, because he doesn’t know where they stand right now, suddenly. He doesn’t know what they’re talking about and he doesn’t know if he fucked this up and he sure as hell doesn’t know what Richie’s thinking right now.
“Are you mad?” Stan asks. It sounds pathetic even to his own ears. Like a child.
“No,” Richie says, clipped, still grumpy.
“You sound pretty mad.” Stan doesn’t even know why he’s continuing to push like this. He’s probably two seconds from Richie exploding at him and then they’re right back where they started.
“Well I’m not.”
“Why are you mad at me?” Stan says, and god, he’s really tired of his body’s response to every emotion he experiences these days being to cry. He fights it back as best he can, swallows hard around the broken glass in his throat.
“I’m not mad at you,” Richie says again, sounding deflated. “I just, I don’t know, I thought we were on the same playing field and we aren’t and that’s weird. It’s fine.”
And that...Stan can understand that, kind of. Richie had already been blindsided by finding someone like him and now here’s another secret, another discovery. Richie thinks he’s coming up short, Stan thinks. Doing this all wrong.
Richie’s never had the chance to be himself. The closest he’d ever come was that stupid game, and even then. Even then he’d been playing someone else.
“I could kiss you. If you wanted.” He says it on impulse, he’s not even confident he’d actually managed to voice the thought out loud. He’d made the decision to say it as soon as the idea formed, so for all he knows, it’s still floating around in his brain. Richie doesn’t respond. Richie is quiet and tense beside him, and god, what the fuck was Stan even thinking, why on earth would Richie want that, why does Stan always think he has the answers to Richie’s pop quizzes. “Never mind,” he says, just as hastily as he’d offered the first part. He turns away from Richie because he can’t look at him anymore, his cheeks heating up as he thinks about what he said. He goes to grab To Kill a Mockingbird again and knocks the desk with his knee, tipping over the pen cup and sending pencils flying. The sound of everything falling apart in his room just as physically as it feels almost sends Stan over the edge entirely, and he jams his eyes shut for a second to try to fucking breathe before whispering “shit” and reaching for the utensils that have fallen on the floor.
“No, it’s. It’s okay,” Richie says, sounding unsure and genuine like he had when he’d carefully, so so carefully said that he might like guys. Stan can’t even begin to deal with the fact that he’s the one making Richie sound as scared as he’d felt when facing his worst fear.
“I just thought maybe you’d want to get it out of the way, try it once to see...it was stupid. Don’t worry about it,” he reassures him quickly. He can still save this, maybe, they can go back to normal, be friends, read and draw on themselves and just. Just not talk about any of it. It twists Stan’s heart. But it’s for the best, if it’s what he has to do to keep Richie—
“Stanny, if you wanted to kiss me you could have just asked,” Richie says, voice dripping in sugary sweet bullshit. He smacks his lips to make a kissing sound at Stan, and Stan scowls, because what the fuck, Stan was worried about him. He turns back around to face him.
“Okay, don’t be a dick,” he starts, and Richie leans forward and kisses him.
It’s unexpected, not wholly unpleasant. Where Eddie had been messy, Richie is more unpracticed, unsure. He presses their lips together in a way that’s almost tender, totally un-Richie. It’s kind of nice.
Richie pulls away after a moment, blinking, barely even taking a moment to think before blurting out, “I like Eddie.”
And there it is. It’s been there, unspoken between them—Richie getting totally stupidly jealous of both him and Mike was practically a confession—but now Richie’s said it. Probably for the first time ever, maybe even to himself.
And he said it to Stan. He told Stan first.
“I know,” he says with a smile. He’s proud. He doesn’t even know how to handle the emotional rollercoaster Richie has put him through over the course of the afternoon, but right now, Richie might be his favorite person in the world.
“Okay.” Richie says. He takes a deep, stuttery breath, holding it before letting it out again, and Stan’s heart clenches again. It’ll be okay, I promise you’re okay he wants to say. He hopes Richie can read the reassurance in the room anyway. “Cool.”
He’s starting to wall up again, exhausted from even a small burst of vulnerability, and Stan knows he has to let him. Richie trusts him, he knows that now, and Stan’s learning to trust him too.
“That was weird, right?” Stan asks instead of pushing, because jokes and talking around the subject have a 100% success rate with the other boy.
“It wasn’t that weird,” Richie says, sounding a little indignant, and Stan rolls his eyes. Richie would take that as a criticism.
“No, I just meant...I mean it’s not going to become a regular thing.”
“Oh. No. definitely not.” Richie laughs, and Stan’s relieved. He can do this. They can navigate this together.. “I wouldn’t steal you away from your farmboy. I think he could probably bench press me.”
Richie always manages to press on Stan’s bruises, reminding him of them long after the purple and the pain of them fades. “He’s not my anything,” Stan says. He doesn’t understand why that still manages to hurt when Stan never let him imagine otherwise in the first place.
“Still. I couldn’t break your dad’s heart if anything were to happen to me—”
Snapped out of his own dumb self-pity, Stan grabs an eraser off his desk and chucks it at Richie, who laughs loudly and tosses it back.
He goes back to Scout and Atticus and Mockingbirds after that, letting Richie return to his drawing or his comic or his emotions about Eddie Kaspbrak. He tries to focus again on the story and not on the lingering ache thinking about Mike Hanlon always seems to leave in his heart these days. He’s not my anything.
“People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for,” Judge Taylor tells everyone on the page. Stan closes the book.
iii. and you’ll ask yourself
Stan is going to kill Richie, he really is. He might as well have shoved Stan and Mike into a closet and called, “Mike, Stan has a huge crush on you!” before locking the door on them, for how subtle he was. It was childish, and not quite a betrayal, but close. Stan digs his fingernails into his palms until he leaves a dotted line of indents down the road, a map of Stan’s frustration across his hands. He closes his eyes and counts to ten.
“I’m sorry about Richie—” he begins.
“I can explain,” Mike blurts out over him. They both pause, processing what the other said.
“You don’t have to say anything, I promise,” Stan says. The words come easily. It’s not like Stan had been practicing his reply to Mike letting him down easy in the mirror or anything, but he’s been ready. The words are there. They’ve been there from the moment Stan first felt his heartbeat race at Mike’s smile and realized what that meant.
“But I do,” Mike insists. Stan closes his mouth. Swallows. He’d really hoped, perhaps naively, that this wouldn’t have to be a big deal if and when it happened. But it is. Of course it is.
“Okay,” Stan says, willing his voice not to waver. Mike frowns at him.
“Why do you sound scared?” he asks. “It’s just me.”
Stan laughs at that; that’s the whole problem.
“I never wanted to make you feel weird,” Stan tells him, because he needs Mike to know that he never ever would have put him in this position on purpose.
“That’s my point! You make me feel weird, I feel so weird around you, but it’s good!” Mike looks so beautiful even when he doesn’t make any sense, it’s really not fair. “Do you, I mean. Do you feel weird too?” Mike asks.
“You know I do,” Stan says, quiet despite his pulse beating loudly in his ears.
Mike beams at him. It knocks Stan breathless every time, never gets less dazzling, to have the full force of Mike’s joy turned on him.
“I’m confused,” Stan admits. “What—what are we saying right now?”
Mike bites his lip. He glances at the door, back out at Richie and the others.
“Kissing Eddie was weird, because we were friends,” Mike says slowly. “But it wouldn’t...do you think that’s always true? Would it have been weird kissing everyone there?”
Stan’s pulse jumps forward. “No,” he says honestly. There’s something about Mike that makes Stan feel safe being scared. He thinks maybe he could even take on Poltergeist with Mike by his side.
“And not—not just Bev,” Mike clarifies. He’s being careful, he’s being so careful not to say too much in case he’s read this all wrong, in case he thinks he gets Stan but comes up short. Stan burns with the need to comfort him, hold him, reassure him. Fix it all for him. And maybe he can.
“Not Bev,” Stan agrees. “That’s not...that was never the problem.” And Mike gets it, he can see on Mike’s face that he understands, hears the things Stan isn’t saying.
“Okay, I’m just going to say this, and I’m sorry if it’s crossing a line, but I think—I think Richie knows how I feel, and I think maybe you do too, and I’m sorry if that’s making things awkward for you two. I never would have tried to come between you, I, I love you guys.” He sounds so cracked open that it hurts Stan to hear him. He also, once again, has no clue what Mike is talking about. He really thought they were on the same page at last, too.
“Between me and Richie?” he asks, doesn’t say we love you too because he really might lose it if he tries.
“That was presumptuous of me,” Mike says like he’s agreeing with a point Stan wasn’t aware he’d made. “I wasn’t trying to say you were, you know, torn between us or something. I wouldn’t think that.”
“Torn...between you and Richie? He asks. He’s really stuck on this. Objectively, he can see how Mike might have gotten here, but it’s just so strange to Stan to try and imagine a version of him that isn’t totally gone on Mike. “Mike, I’m not torn, not between Richie or anyone. We’re friends. That’s it. We’re friends.”
“Oh,” Mike says, dumbstruck. “So...”
“So you and I aren’t,” he says quickly, then smacks a hand to his forehead when he realizes how that sounds. “Or, no, okay, we are friends, but. But.”
“It’s different,” Mike offers. “We’re different.”
“Yes,” Stan agrees, doesn’t know how to create words anymore.
“I love being your friend, Stanley,” Mike says gently. “But I want more than that too, and I know that’s not fair of me to ask—”
“Ask anyway.”
“What?” All of the courage Mike had built up seems to dissipate, and in its place is just Mike. Mike, his friend, who he likes so much he can’t think.
“Ask me anyway.”
“Okay. Um. Stan, would you maybe want—”
“Yes,” he says immediately. Somehow, even though they’ve been talking around and about it the whole time, Mike still looks surprised as Stan’s answer.
“You don’t even know what I was going to ask,” Mike says. It’s a warning. An out, if Stan wants it. He doesn’t.
“Doesn’t matter,” Stan dismisses. “I want it.” He wonders when he became reckless. Thinks it’s probably Richie’s fault.
“You want...?”
“You, Mike. Yes.”
“Wow,” Mike says. He sounds as breathless as Stan feels.
“I like you,” Stan says, because it doesn’t feel real yet, doesn’t feel possible that he can really just have everything he’s wanted just like that. He needs to be sure Mike knows what he’s saying. What he’s offering. “And you don’t owe me anything for that, I never expected anything like that from you, but if, if you wanted to...” he trails off. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore.
“Richie told me to tell you what my birthday wish was. I don’t really know how he knew. I guess I wasn’t as quiet as I thought.” Mike takes a deep breath and looks at Stan so sweetly it aches. “My wish was that I could be someone that makes you happy. I really think I could.”
Stan is not going to cry, he is not, he’s going to be very calm and attractive as he pulls Mike in for a kiss at last, at last. Mike is soft and rough all at once, his lips, his hands, gentle and sure at the same time. Stan pulls away, already dizzy even from such a brief kiss.
“You do make me happy,” Stan tells him, smiling. “I want to make you happy too.”
“Kiss me again?” Mike asks, and Stan nods, leaning back in. Kissing Mike is even better the second time. Eddie was right. The thought makes him laugh now rather than feel a lead weight sinking in his chest, and he grins, breaking the kiss.
“We should probably go back out there, it’s probably movie time by now,” Stan says with regret.
“It’s my birthday,” Mike teases. “They can’t start without me.”
Stan laughs. “Okay, one more,” he agrees, kissing Mike again in a way he hopes says You can have a million more, you can have as many as you like. Mike is the one to pull away this time, looking relaxed and happy, and Stan knows Mike got the message.
“Okay. Poltergeist?” Mike asks. Stan groans. “I’ll protect you,” Mike promises, and Stan feels hot all over. He clings to Mike a little as they walk out of Bill’s room together. His eyelids feel heavy suddenly. He’d been so keyed up that he hadn’t realized how late it was, how tired he felt. He rubs his eyes with his left hand and Mike coos at him. “Falling asleep? Bored of me already, Stan the man?” Stan snorts, shaking his head.
“Not possible.” They settle back in their place on the couch together and Stan cuddles up to Mike’s side, resting his head on Mike’s shoulder. He cannot bring himself to care what any of the others might think. He really can’t imagine any of them will mind. Besides. It’s Mike’s birthday.
He’s dozing off, he knows right away that he’s going to fall asleep before they even start the movie, but that’s perfectly okay with him. Mike will tell him all the good parts in the morning.
“Where are Richie and Eddie?” he hears Bill ask, and he smiles, face still pressed against Mike’s shoulder.
Apparently he and Richie will need to have a chat in the morning, too.