High School Never Ends [AU][C]

Fleck chuckled again at the embarrassed dismissal.

Cute.

He returned to his sketchbook happily, eager to get this sketch finished up.

Richard's face cooled down as he finished organising his side of the room.

Rather then leather, he favoured wood and lightly coloured fabric boxes to store his stuff in. More wooden pots were set out on his desk for the few pens and brushes he had on hand, alongside an expensive aftershave, and a few organisers and books. Tentatively, he placed a MacBook and an IPad in the centre of the desk, stacked on top of each other.

There were no posters on his side of the wall.

"There should be enough room for everything else..." he muttered to himself. In fact, his side looked surprisingly sparse. The bed was lonely without all the pillows he planned to have.

Once the other couple of boxes arrived, it would be more homely.

With the suitcase shoved under the bed, he turned to Fleck.

"You won't mind showing me where the nearest cafe is?"

He nodded towards the coffee cup.

Fleck continued to sketch in his comfortable silence as Richard continued to pack what little he had with him away.

He was almost done with darkening Chai's left eye when his new roommate addressed him. His eyes flickered up and his pencil paused just over the paper.

"Yeah sure. Could do one better and show you the better caf. It's a little further away, but worth the few minutes extra walk."

His lips twitched up a tiny bit.

"That will be brilliant, thanks. I'm more than willing to walk a few extra minutes for better coffee."

He gathered his stuff, pulling his shoes on again and putting what he needed in a small messenger bag.

Fleck followed Richard's lead, packing away his sketchbook and pulling his shoes on from their place on his rack.

He took a deep swig of his coffee, the last dregs, and tossed it into the leather waste basket at the foot of his bed. It landed right in the centre of the bin. Point.

He opened up their door and stepped out, holding it open for Richard.

Chatter was light on the way to the coffee shop.

When they got to the coffeeshop, he held the door open for Richard again.

The coffeeshop was a quaint little place, clearly not a chain. There were two older woman behind the counter, and a young man working the floor with a smile on his face.

It was the young man that greeted them when he entered. His lips curled upwards into a crooked smile, and bright green eyes twinkled. "Did you miss me a lot in the past twenty minutes, then?"

Fleck laughed, and the two men hugged. "Too much. I could barely function," Fleck teased right back. "Darryl, this is my roommate, Richard. Richard, This is Darryl. He's-"

"The best damn thing that's happened to your fine ass since you moved it over here to Cali," Darryl interrupted, swooping down the few inches he had to press a kiss to Fleck's cheek. "What can we get you two?"

Richard watched the two men interact, hugging and exchanging a kiss on the cheek.

Ah.

Well, the upside was that Fleck wasn't as heterosexual as he assumed. The downside was that he was taken. So he will just have to continue pretending he hadn't formed a tiny crush within the first two seconds of meeting.

Even if he was single, it was apparent he was not Fleck's type. Darryl was tall, tanned and charismatic. Richard was short, pasty and had as much charisma as a brick wall.

He barely managed an awkward smile in resentful politeness.

"Large black coffee, with two shots of caramel."

He had to tilt his head a little. Ironically, this man also fell into his type category.

"I'll have my usual."

Fleck gave Darryl a little smile and led Richard over to the corner table by the big window. This was his favourite table.

"This place is owned by Darryl's aunt. Between the family, they do everything. It's a great place. Cheap, too. They make a killing off uni life, Darryl tells me."

He sat down opposite Fleck and glanced around. It was nice and airy - thanks to the sweet, sweet aircon.

"It's cute," he said. "But I'll judge it myself once I tasted the coffee."

He toyed with the rings on his fingers.

"Did you stumble upon it? Or was it through word and mouth if it was so popular."

"Actually Darryl dragged me here the morning after we first met. We were both hanging and coffee is my fix-all when I'm hungover."

Fleck didn't function before his fourth cup of coffee on a good day. It took at least six to get him moving when he was hungover.

"Been coming here ever since. Found out later that it's a good haunt. Lots of students come here."

The morning after.

Didn't take a genius to work out exactly what had happened between the two the night before.

"Coffee is my daily fix. Or hourly fix."

It was probably an unhealthy amount.

"How did you two meet then?" He asked, tilting his head towards Darryl.

He was being nosey and wanted to know exactly how far they were in the assumed relationship.

"You wait a whole hour between cups?" Flecks brows raised.

"Well, I moved down here as soon as I graduated high school. Spent the whole summer here. There are so many summer parties here its crazy. The frat parties are going to be insane."

Fleck huffed a quick laugh at the idea. There are going to be so many parties. So many.

"I went to one, and Darryl was there. Hard cider was consumed. Vodka was consumed. I'm pretty sure there was a game of spin the bottle... Don't think many people expected the kiss we shared to get quite so heated."

"And the rest was history. He was walking funny from severe beard burn for days," Darryl laughed, kissing Fleck's temple and setting down their drinks.

Richard understood the implications of the morning after. He didn't understand how you could walk funny from beard burn. Was it some kind of euphoria?

He murmured a small, polite thank you to Darrly as he processed the information, frowning.

"Wait."

Blue eyes widened accusingly as Fleck.

"Just out of high school? You're not in your twenties?!"

Fleck blinked at the accusing stare.

"Huh? No? I'm eighteen." Had he done something to suggest otherwise? He didn't think he had...

"Hah, fuckin' told you," Darryl crowed. "He doesn't look eighteen , does he? Just about shat my heart out when I found out. Fucking someone five years younger than me..." Darryl shook his head.

"Eighteen..." He repeated, looking over Fleck again.

It wasn't a disaster, but he most definitely thought he was in his early twenties. It was the beard. It must be.

Richard couldn't help but touch his own cheek self-consciously.

"I'm a couple years old than you."

Fleck shrugged. "Yeah, eighteen."

He still didn't get why people always seemed shocked over it.

Some people just aged faster than others. Why did people get so distracted over it? He didn't understand.

"It's just not fair, is it? I'm blaming his good looks on being an Italian stud." Darryl tugged on Fleck's bun, and Fleck batted him away.

"No, it isn't," he agreed to the first part, and internally agreed to the second.

Fleck was a stud. The Italian part also explained that not-exactly-American twang to his accent.

"Bet you don't get IDed anywhere," he said, wistfully.

It wasn't that Richard looked younger, it was just that everywhere was overly cautious.

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Couldn't tell you. I don't go out, and I don't buy myself. Just go to parties."

He went out to parties, but he wasn't one for pushing the boat out too much. He didn't g out to clubs and he didn't buy any drink for himself anywhere. To some he could be considered a veritable angel.

Fleck took a sip of his coffee.

"Ah, right, I forgot it's different here."

He wasn't one for clubbing or parties, but that didn't mean he ruled them out altogether. Although, he did prefer the smaller parties with a tight-knit group of friends over a massive house party. He wasn't sure he was going to get that here in California.

"That's going to be a pain."

At least his roommate seemed to know enough people to be invited to parties, so he could tag along. Richard wasn't expecting any invites to himself.

"Nothing like Europe," Fleck confirmed. "Huh, actually, I don't get IDed when I'm over there. Does that count?"

He wasn't sure if it did, considering he was legal over there. He didn't think that counted.

"I'm needed. See you later, gorgeous. Nice to meet you, Richie." Darryl patted Fleck's shoulder, then was off again.

Rickard watched Darryl walk off. His first impression was right; charismatic and friendly. He went from being jealous of him to begrudgingly liking him. The pit of jealousy was still there though.

That should go once this tiny crush passes over, right?

"So, are you like... together together?"

"We're heading towards it."

He shrugged one broad shoulder. "We're just testing the waters. Been on a few dates. We're getting closer. He remembers how wild college was for him and how he experimented through it. He doesn't want me to be saddled with a relationship holding me back from going wild."

He huffed and shook his head. "So we're just... I don't know what we're doing."

Damn Darryl for being charismatic, friendly and sweet.

"I see."

Richard was expecting a solid yes or no. Not a long about way of saying complicated.

"I guess you just have to do what you feel is right at the time?" He offered.

"I want to. He's putting off the relationship."

He shrugged. then pulled a funny expression.

"And that was a lot of shit to dump on you. Hi, I'm Fleck, your new roommate. I like ceramics, heavy metal, and oversharing," he joked, holding out his hand to shake.

His lips drew up into a smile and a huff of a laugh passed them.

"Richard. I hate all three of those things."

Going along with the joke, he took Fleck's hand. Then paused.

"I mean, not that I dislike you for oversharing. It's fine! I just hate it when I do it myself. Sometimes. I don't do it all the time."

Fleck snorted a light laugh.

"We're a pair. This is gonna be an interesting year."

He gave Dick's hand a little squeeze then let go of it, returning to his mug of lifeblood. He took a long, satisfying sip. God he fucking loved the coffee here.