closeness : stozier

3. set a tradition

when the class ends, a partner project is assigned and richie is looking at stanley hopefully. stanley is genuinely considering it. this is a surprise to himself as much as it is to richie. richie, while loud and the reason he was late, seems pretty nice, and from his contribution during the lecture, he's smart, too. 

"okay, okay, hear me out... please?" richie asks stanley, who has a rather smug smile on his face. stanley nods, telling richie to go on, "that's my reasoning. please. i don't wanna ask anyone else."

stanley thinks about it for a second. "sure, why not. if you let me down, i'll kill you," stanley is joking, but he can see it in his head. maybe he won't think that. it makes him shudder. he tries to blink the thought away, regardless of whether it works or not. richie nods excitedly.

"yes! thank you so much stan, we are going to be the most incredible partnership the world has ever seen," richie says, leaning back in his chair and sticking his feet up on the desk. stanley shakes his head in disbelief. 

this is weird for stanley. in most classes, when partner projects are assigned, he would ask the teacher if he could work alone. he wasn't a people person. never really has been. he doesn't like working with other people, but he's always promised himself that if he was asked, he would accept. a lot of the time, there just isn't anyone willing to ask. but richie is. for some reason, richie is.

"sure we are, when are we working on it?" stanley asks, standing up and grabbing his bag. richie kicks his feet down and jumps up, his hand reaching for stanley's shoulder. stanley instinctively backs away, but richie doesn't take it personally. 

"uh, tomorrow i have a dinner with my roommate, and after that, there's th-i think today works best for me." richie explains, pushing his (and stanley's) chair in. stanley looks at the chair suspiciously, but leaves it alone. "i think mike--my roommate--isn't in our dorm tonight, we could work there, or your dorm, if you want," richie suggests, leaving the choice to stanley.

"i don't live on campus. i live out... so your dorm will probably be better." stanley replies, richie omitting a little, "oh." stanley looks around nervously. 

"yeah! for sure, do you wanna go now?" richie asks, and stanley thinks about the implications of being in another boy's room (working on a project or not). a new environment, new opportunities for--no, no he isn't going to ruin this for himself. richie is trying to be nice. stanley is going to let him be nice. 

"uh, sure, yeah," stanley says, shoving his hands in his pockets to stop himself from succumbing to the itch that's returned. the two of them then make their way to the door of the lecture room, where there's a bunch of people trying to rush out. richie goes to join them, but stanley stays back for a moment, waiting for the crowd to disperse. richie turns around and notices stanley standing there, so he goes to join him and wait.

"not a fan of germs?" richie says, leaning up against a desk. stanley looks over at him and for the first time in richie's presence, he laughs. it's a mocking laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

"yeah. you could say that." stanley has a complicated relationship with germs. he has a complicated relationship with a lot of things. his nails especially have a complicated relationship with his skin. that one is evident, though, with the bumps and the bleeding.

"huh. alright. i think you'd get along with my friend, eddie. he's a complete germaphobe." richie says, and stan nods, though he has no intent on really meeting any of richie's friends. he doesn't really intend on being richie's friend, either. not that he's going to tell richie that, when he's being so nice.

"yeah, for sure," stanley replies, very aware of how dry he's being. the train of people leaving the room lessens enough for stanley to feel safe, and they decide to go to richie's dorm straight away. 

"so you have dinner with your roommate tomorrow? is that, like, a tradition?" stanley asks, making polite small talk with richie as they walk down the hallway. in the past few minutes, stanley has observed that richie is very extroverted indeed, complimenting several people in the hall as well as seeing one of his friends (her name was bevvie, apparently) and doing the most unsanitary handshake stanley has ever seen. really, it made stanley want to wash richie's hands for him.

"oh yeah, me and mike do it every week, it's the only day we're both free. he's visiting home for most of this week except tomorrow, he comes back for our dinner. very sweet of him. he's a doll, stan, a real doll." richie answers softly, waving to another boy across the campus. on such a big campus, stanley wonders how richie knows so many people. does he know them? or is he just friendly?

"oh, that's sweet." stanley muses, placing his hands forcibly in his pockets. 

"you got any traditions?" richie asks, not really wanting to ask if stanley has any friends. stanley dry swallows the air in his mouth and suppresses the need to scratch his head.

"i guess so. shabbat every saturday, um... i guess i see some friends from back home every now and then. not really, otherwise," stanley says, although there's much more he has to say. to be honest, almost everything he does has turned into a tradition. the way he fidgets is a tradition, the way he wakes up only to lie back down--just to get back up again--is a tradition. the way he washes his hands is a tradition. everything he does is a tradition. they aren't traditions he enjoys. he hates them with a passion.

"oh, you're jewish?" richie asks, and stanley nods shyly. richie grins brighter, "my parents raised me a little jewish, though i don't really partake in a lot of shit anymore. we never really did growing up either i guess. we'd go to shabbat every now and then, and we used to eat latkes and other fried shit in december. otherwise, it was pretty weak. that's cool, though. i respect it," richie says, somehow validating something within stanley.

stanley had grown up the only jewish person in his hometown before they moved out to where they currently were. it had isolated him in a way he couldn't have expected. richie might have been the first person he'd met who kinda got it. there had been kids at the local temple, but they weren't ever really intent on being stanley's friend, because they lived in different towns. he wasn't intent on being their friend either.

"thanks," stanley mumbles, and the two make it to the door of richie's dorm. 

richie trifles through his bag to find his key, pulling it out on an excessively long lanyard that gets caught on one of the pins of his bag. after a moment of struggle, richie yanks it off the pin and puts the key into his door, stanley watching with a little bit of disdain. the way richie grips the doorknob makes stanley a little sick, and stanley decides he needs to wash his hands. 

they get into the room, and stanley excuses himself to the bathroom, richie looking at him a little weird, but leaving him to it. in the bathroom, stanley refuses to look at himself in the mirror, instead scrubbing his hands with the shitty hand soap supplied. he takes in the small bottles of some kind of hair gel and the shitty combs scattered amongst the sink, balancing precariously. he decides not to fix it, no matter how badly he wants to. he goes to dry his hands, and he has to keep his hands off of his face. he isn't going to freak out richie. not yet, anyway. do the project first.

stanley comes out of the bathroom and finds the room a little tidier than it had been before. very observant richie, very observant! richie is sitting in the middle of the floor on the carpet, with a couple papers scattered around him. he pulls out a binder, and picks up a pencil from the floor right next to him.

hesitantly, stanley sits down across from him, and looks to richie as to what to do. he picks at his skin a little. richie notices.

"so... any ideas?"