❝and when i say i'm in love with you,❞ a long pause lays between his words, so much emotion lacing throughout his eyes, ❝i fucking mean it.❞
-⚘ in which i had a smut book with 400k reads and it got deleted. now, i'm writing new, original chapters (l...
51: POOR CIRCULATION (EXCEPT FOR WHERE IT COUNTS!) by: gaypasta (ao3) r+s
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Stan and Richie hadn't been living together for long. A couple of months, give or take. Stan made a steady enough income with his internship at a fairly prestigious accounting firm in West Chicago. Sure, the job offer (a real offer, not just an internship) he had gotten from the firm in Atlanta, Georgia had been a lot heavier. An extra naught on the end of his paycheck but Richie was in Chicago and he was so sure that his next big break was coming. The entertainment industry was ruthless and Stan wondered how Richie could go to comedy clubs and tell jokes and make laughs when it had all been shadowed with shouts of frustration and many late nights at his laptop, looking for gig after gig and getting turned down for each and every one.
Stan worked long hours and Richie worked part-time at a store a few blocks from their apartment. He hated it and the manager hated him too but between them, they paid the bills. Barely. Money was tight and by the time Friday rolled around they usually were pulling dimes and quarters out of their pockets to gather enough for dish soap, or milk, or toilet paper, or whatever groceries they suddenly and urgently needed. Richie had taken to sneaking into the bar at the end of the street and clearing out their toilet paper. No security camera, no crimes. Their apartment was...lacking to say the least. Despite the two being some years out of college - Stan had just celebrated his twenty-second birthday - the apartment looked like the poor excuse of accommodation they had lived with only worse; the accommodation in College came with furniture. They had the bare minimum, picked up second hand off of Craigslist or generous donations from their friends; after Ben and Beverly had moved in together Beverly had given them her bedframe, Stan had almost cried in joy at not having to sleep on a mattress on the floor any longer, (it had been three days).
It hadn't mattered, though. Being broke and counting pennies and having to work themselves flat to be able to afford at least one proper meal a day had been stressful, yes but it hadn't mattered one bit because they were doing it together. Stan would make Richie coffee in the morning and they would sit on their shitty floral-patterned sofa and eat their sad, flavorless oatmeal. Richie would scroll through his phone, looking for gigs and Stan would do the crosswords from yesterday's paper that their apartment-neighbor would leave on their doorstep every morning in exchange for Stan pushing all the fast-food vouchers they got delivered to their door to the neighbor's door and under the crack. It was a good system. Richie would use too much shampoo in the shower and Stan would berate him from the bathroom sink as he brushed his teeth. Stan would bring home a spare donut or pastry from the staff room in a little brown paper bag and toe off his shoes at the door and make Richie a coffee and deliver them with a kiss to his temple. Richie would cook dinner and burn it and they'd laugh at the blackness of the chicken and eat it anyway.
Despite the stress, the long hours and the financial burdens, Stan never looked back at Georgia. Never thought twice about it from the moment he turned the key to his apartment - no, their apartment - and opened the door to be swamped by the mass of his boyfriend which only escalated to tickling and both of them somehow losing, he knew there was nothing that could make him happier than being where he was now.
