no one else but you

this one's for the fans

He burned the dinner. Of course he did. Except how do you burn a frozen dinner? Ralph Malph would find a way. What an ingenious guy, he was.

Potsie was staring at him. Not eating, because how could you eat that? The styrofoam was singed. And he was making that puppy-dog face like his whole night had been ruined. It had been, of course. Guy's in college and he's running around campus all day, doing everything he can to do well in his classes so his father won't get upset with him, even from back home, and then he comes home, their new home where everything should be safe and calm and nice, and Ralph's burned the dinner. Of course.

"What?"

Potsie's forehead gave a jerk, both externally as his head jumped, and internally as the frowned-up wrinkles shifted. "I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to say anything," Ralph shot back, own forehead already making its way into his hands. His hair was puffed pathetically up from the smoke and steam resultant of his frantic attempts to lessen the stench, which meant it wasn't much to pull on to ground himself. What a waste.

"Well, yeah." Why was Potsie always so patient? "I know I don't have to say anything. Maybe I did want to, though." Always so patient.

"What!?" Ralph stamped out again, and Potsie started back. "What!! Are you happy? Okay, Potsie, I burned the dinner, I messed everything up, it's me for once, I'm the screw-up, are you happy?!"

Potsie was silent for a moment. Then, he gave an absolutely confounding reply. "Yeah..."

Ralph couldn't even find it in himself to blow up again. "Oh, great. My own boyfriend is wallowing victory in the throes of my failure." He threw his hands up, anyway, and they slapped unsatisfyingly back down on the laminated formica. Orange. To him, the same orange of his own annoying presence. Why couldn't this place be blue, and calm?

Like Potsie?

Opposite his pity party, Potsie cocked his head, again seeming like the supplicating animal. Don't think like that, Ralph, he's a person. Enough with the jokes. "Ralphie, I'm not..."

"You're not what? And don't call me Ralphie, we're not in high school anymore."

As the imperative left his lips, Ralph felt immediate, stabbing regret.

There wasn't much leaving of friend groups to be done in a town like this- in the suburbs, anyway. You met the same circles on and off and on again, and it was hard to become an outcast unless you'd never been let in. College or high school or otherwise.

The relevance of this, of course, was that he was suddenly arrested by the not-so-irrational fear that he really never would hear the silly diminutive again, for all how easily sincere Potsie always insisted on being. He didn't know how to break back in, after that. Didn't know how or what to do...much of anything, after that.

He looked up, chewing on his bottom lip, and Potsie was still staring with brow furrowed.

"I just meant I'm happy that I'm here with you. I don't care about the food, or the smell, or...or what nicknames I can call you." His voice cracked on the "what"; a lie. "I just want you to be happy, too."

It wasn't like anyone expected Ralph Malph to be the one who always did everything right. The class clown, the jokester, the one you could count on to make you laugh - but not much else.

Not Potsie either. Not anymore. Come to think of it, it was probably around when they'd started dating that people had begun to look on him as just as dumb and wooby as his nickname sounded. Potsie. Don't be such a Potsie. But if everyone was more like a Potsie...well, then maybe Ralph's world would be a happier place.

Not that the one he already had wasn't enough. More than enough. Plenty. Everything. Oh, get out of English class, Malph, we're not in high school anymore.

"Pots...I'm sorry." The addressed perked at his own beloved personal epithet, and shuffled his elbows on the table, sweater scratching against the irregular pocks in the composite wood (what the heck was this table even made out of, anyway? decrepit old dump they lived in, but it was home).

"It's okay, Ralph."

"Ralphie," he corrected softly.

Potsie nodded, slowly at first and then more firm, more enthusiastic, more confident. "It's okay, Ralphie," he repeated, and Ralph let himself smile.

Well, but it wasn't, not yet. That was the "it's okay" of knowing that you're not doing great, and you need to apologize, even atone, but you haven't done it yet, not really, and they're not exactly waiting on you, but of course they are, because everything gets put into suspended motion until you bring it back down to earth again. Letting the sun set on your anger, and all that.

"I-I am happy," Ralph started, stuttering for no particular reason. Part of his bit, his routine, his façade, his character. Maybe he hid his own confidence so Potsie wouldn't feel overshadowed. They both had a lot to work through.

"I'm always happy, with you. Except when we fight, but, y'know..." He huffed a laugh. "That's always my fault. So I guess I should think more before I speak, huh?"

"Nah," Potsie retorted with an uncharacteristically brash wave of his hand in front of his face. "I like hearing everything you have to say."

Even the stupid things, he was implying, perhaps without intending to do so. Implicitly, yeah okay, the fighting is all your fault. Maybe Potsie should think before he spoke, too. But it was okay. Ralph wanted to nudge his shoulder, but the table, vaporized victuals and all, was in the way.

He got up, wordless, and moved to sit not on the couch but on their singular ratty old armchair. Potsie watched the empty kitchen chair for several soft seconds before getting up just as silently and joining him.

"Come on, you can't mean everything, Pots."

"No, I meant it," Potsie insisted, chin tucked on top of Ralph's head, veritably lost among the bird's nest of reddish beige. "Whatever goes through your pretty little head, I wanna hear it. Y'know, especially because other people don't. Don't wanna listen to either of us."

"Hey!" The chin came unsettled from its resting place. "People wanna listen to me. Do you know how many ATO events I emcee?"

"None, Ralphie. It's fall rush." He had a point. Back went the chin.

By and by they got up, cleared the mess, and pulled out their textbooks for studying. Very pat, very cliché, but they did it. Are you complaining? No, you're not, because they traced idle patterns on each other's pages and let their fingers casually intertwine if they happened to accidentally (not) choose to do so at the same time.

By and by turned into eventually, and they crawled into bed, pajamas securely on, with heads simultaneously full and empty.

"Would you sing to me tonight, Pots?"

"Sure thing, Ralphie. But you can't hold me too tight, it obstructs my breathing."

"Does not, liar," Ralph preened as he proceeded to latch on as tight as he could.

"Hey! Why don't you find someone else to bully into singing you lullabies? Oh, that's right, you couldn't, because you'd be too embarrassed."

In between all the harrumphing, Ralph could sense the sneering presence of Potsie's tongue being stuck out, and he just smiled and pressed a kiss to the dip in between his collarbones.

Potsie's hand wrapped gingerly around his shoulder, fingertips nestled into the folds of his flannel shirt right between his arm and the side of his ribcage, and in that moment Ralph thought, gosh, I'm so attracted to Warren Weber it hurts. So in love with him, even. But it couldn't hurt too much, because he was there cuddled against Potsie's chest. Everything was right.

"No one else but you, Pots," he murmured, and Potsie just hummed his acknowledgement as he began to choose a tune and key. Even barring the embarrassment, it was the baritone that he would miss. "No one else but you."

(you know who you are)