ethereal : it oneshots

meant to be

pairing: stozier

 cw: suicide and a lot of death. no real descriptions of it though.

the first stanley uris was, of course, the original. not that richie would have known that. his ability to live did not affect the fact that he could not see the future. tragic, truly.

anyway, back to stanley. he was just a boy when richie met him. to be fair, richie was also a boy. he didn't know anything. if richie had to guess, he was probably fourteen. it was a long time ago, he couldn't remember everything perfectly.

he could remember stanley being quite tall, so maybe they were sixteen. and there was stanley's sixteenth birthday, so yes, they were sixteen. sorry. stanley was incredibly smart, and it was a miracle that he had wanted to be friends with richie. 

the two of them had been sitting in richie's bedroom, of which was decorated like any teen in the 70s, filled wall to wall with posters declaring the injustice of the time and music artists richie liked. stanley's hair was curled viciously, not to follow the trend, but simply because it had always fallen like that. they'd been airing out their darkest secrets.

casual stuff.

"i think i'm afraid that i'll never feel anything other than loneliness. i dunno why, because i have you, and beverly, but it just feels like i'm still... alone. and i will be for the rest of my life. that sounds stupid," richie said, staring up at the hendrix poster on his ceiling. 

"oh. that's... a horrible feeling." stanley had replied, turning over to look at him. stanley's hand had somehow inched towards richie's.

richie took stanley's hand in his own.

cut to a year later, and the first stanley uris, alive and well, was now also richie's first boyfriend. he was, simply put, richie's best friend. the day after stanley kissed him for the first time, they were lying together in stanley's bedroom, and stanley had muttered, "you won't be alone anymore. i promise."

he had died a year and a half later. in a way, richie thought that maybe he'd brought all this upon himself, as he'd prayed to stanley's grave, asking for him back. in a sick way, he supposed he'd gotten that.

richie stopped aging the moment stanley died. physically and, upsettingly enough, mentally. he wouldn't realize it for a very long time. i mean, if you stopped aging, would you really be able to tell? an eighteen year old and a twenty five year old looking the exact same is not that far a reach, considering the haircuts he'd received. nonetheless, later he would pin that moment as the point of no return.

the second stanley uris came when richie was about twenty four. 

i mean, technically, he was still nineteen. if richie really thinks about it, the math sorta fucks him up. but theoretically, he was twenty four, and the second stanley uris was twenty five.

the second stanley uris had jet black hair, and it was short and straight, cut neatly around his ears and neck. they'd met in a bar, when stanley commented on the book richie had been reading. of course they'd met like that.

this stanley was in grad school, pursuing psychology, and came with a few friends of his own. richie was soon acquainted with eddie, the neat freak sharing an apartment with stanley, and ben, the boy who volunteered at the library (and would for the rest of his life). 

oh, let me clarify something. if you asked richie, he'd refer to them all as the varying stanley uris'. the truth is, only the first one was named stanley uris. the second was chase coen. the third was joel burt. the fourth was jacob pyle. weirdly, the four letter last names was one of the things that cued richie into what was happening. we'll refer to them as the stanley's, for richie's sake.