Hi! So, I'm dying to read a "Why do we keep pretending we don't want to kiss each other?" With my beautiful babygirl Stan Rosado.
Something similar to Stokes x Stan, with different social groups but they still end up around each other all the time!
(It took so long to decide which one of your prompts to ask, I just want Stan Rosado fics bc I love him so much! Anyways tysm and I love your Jack Abbott fics a lot!!)
Stan Rosado (The Faculty) x fem!reader
"Why do we keep pretending we don't want to kiss each other?"
By senior year of university, everyone had an opinion about you and Stan Rosado.
Mostly because neither of you were subtle.
Not intentionally.
That was the frustrating part.
You weren’t dating.
You weren’t even officially flirting half the time.
And yet somehow every room the two of you occupied together felt charged enough to start electrical fires.
People noticed.
Especially because Stan Rosado—golden-boy ex-football captain turned surprisingly decent human being—looked at you like you were simultaneously the best and worst thing that had ever happened to him.
And you?
You looked back exactly the same way.
It had started two years earlier in the campus gym.
You’d been trying to fix a jammed vending machine.
Stan had walked in sweaty from practice, watched you violently shake the machine for a solid thirty seconds, and said:
“You know that’s technically assault.”
Without missing a beat, you replied:
“It stole my dollar.”
He’d laughed immediately.
Big.
Warm.
Unfairly attractive.
Then he bought you a replacement candy bar from another machine.
That should’ve been the end of it.
Instead, somehow, Stan started showing up everywhere afterward.
At the library.
Outside lectures.
At parties neither of you actually wanted to attend.
Like gravity kept pulling him toward you against his will.
You understood the feeling unfortunately well.
Stan Rosado was irritatingly easy to love.
Not because he was perfect.
He wasn’t.
He could be stubborn to the point of stupidity. Reckless occasionally. Overprotective when emotional. And he had a habit of acting before thinking whenever someone he cared about got hurt.
But he was good.
Genuinely good.
Which somehow mattered more.
Stan carried kindness around naturally now, like surviving high school and everything afterward had softened him in the best ways possible.
He still played sports recreationally, still worked out obsessively, still looked devastatingly handsome in tank tops—which honestly felt targeted at this point—but he’d lost the arrogance he carried as a teenager.
Now he listened more.
Thought deeper.
Cared harder.
You noticed all of it.
Probably too much.
The problem was the chemistry.
God.
The chemistry.
Every interaction between you somehow spiraled into tension.
It didn’t matter what you were doing.
Studying together turned into staring contests.
Movie nights became accidental cuddling disasters.
One time he helped you cook dinner and you nearly kissed him because he rolled his sleeves up while washing dishes.
It was getting ridiculous.
And everyone knew it.
“You two are painful,” Delilah informed you one afternoon while stealing fries from your tray.
You frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means watching you and Stan interact feels like witnessing foreplay.”
You choked immediately.
“Oh my god.”
“I’m serious.”
“We’re friends.”
Delilah stared at you blankly.
Then:
“Sure.”
Stan wasn’t helping matters.
At all.
Because once he got comfortable around someone, he touched constantly.
Your shoulder while laughing.
Your waist guiding you through crowds.
Your knee under tables absentmindedly.
It wasn’t even flirtatious half the time.
That was the dangerous part.
Physical affection came naturally to him.
Which meant every tiny touch felt genuine.
Real.
And your poor heart never stood a chance.
Especially because Stan looked at you differently than everyone else.
Softer.
Like he was always slightly distracted by your existence.
You caught him staring constantly.
Once during a study session you finally snapped:
“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
Stan blinked.
“Like what?”
“Like you forgot what I was saying halfway through.”
His ears turned slightly pink.
“I know what you’re saying.”
“You absolutely don’t.”
“…Maybe a little.”
You laughed despite yourself.
Stan’s expression immediately softened at the sound.
There it was again.
That look.
That impossible, unbearable fondness.
Your stomach flipped violently.
Dangerous.
Very dangerous.
Things got worse after Halloween.
A stupid party.
Too much alcohol.
Bad early-2000s music.
You’d gone dressed as Padmé Amidala because you were committed to the bit.
Stan nearly walked into a wall when he saw you.
“You okay there?” you teased.
He stared openly.
“…No.”
Your heart betrayed you immediately.
“You’re dressed as Natalie Portman.”
“Technically Padmé.”
“That somehow makes it worse.”
You laughed.
Stan looked genuinely dazed hearing it.
Then he spent the entire night orbiting around you like a man deeply committed to pretending he wasn’t jealous every time someone else talked to you.
At one point a guy from your literature class flirted with you near the drinks table.
Stan appeared beside you within thirty seconds.
Coincidence.
Obviously.
“Hey,” Stan said casually, despite looking ready to commit homicide.
The other guy glanced between you.
Then visibly gave up.
Smart man.
Afterward you grabbed Stan’s arm while trying not to smile.
“You scared him off.”
Stan looked offended.
“I was bein’ friendly.”
“You looked like you wanted to eat him.”
“Maybe I did.”
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Silence.
Your pulse jumped instantly.
Stan realized what he’d said.
His jaw tightened slightly.
Then he looked away.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
You nearly kissed him for the first time during finals week.
Which felt deeply stereotypical.
The library was mostly empty.
Rain battered against the windows.
You sat across from Stan surrounded by textbooks while both running entirely on caffeine and sleep deprivation.
Stan groaned dramatically, dropping his head onto the table.
“If I fail statistics, tell my mother I loved her.”
“You’re not failing.”
“I just looked at an equation and briefly forgot how numbers work.”
“That’s normal.”
“No, I think I had an out-of-body experience.”
You laughed quietly.
Stan lifted his head slightly to look at you.
And froze.
“What?”
“You’re pretty.”
The exhaustion apparently dissolved his filter entirely.
Your breath caught.
“Stan—”
“No, seriously.”
His voice had gone softer now.
Sleepy.
Honest.
“You’re always pretty, but right now you’re…” He shook his head slightly. “Distracting.”
Your chest tightened painfully.
The library suddenly felt too small.
Too warm.
Stan stared at your mouth for one dangerous second.
Then another.
Your heart pounded.
He noticed.
You saw it happen.
That tiny realization crossing his face.
You wanted this too.
And suddenly the air between you felt electric.
Neither of you moved.
Then someone dropped a book loudly nearby and both of you jerked apart instantly.
Stan scrubbed a hand down his face.
“Jesus Christ.”
You looked down at your notes immediately.
“Yep.”
Cowards.
Both of you.
After that, pretending became impossible.
The tension turned unbearable.
You started noticing every glance.
Every almost-touch.
Every loaded silence.
And Stan?
Stan looked permanently one step away from kissing you at all times.
It was driving him insane.
You could tell.
Especially because Stan was not naturally patient.
One evening he showed up at your apartment carrying takeout and looking exhausted.
“Bad practice?” you asked.
“Coach is trying to kill us.”
You smiled sympathetically and let him inside.
Within ten minutes, the two of you were sprawled across your couch arguing about movies while sharing fries.
Comfortable.
Easy.
Dangerous.
Stan kept looking at you.
Again.
Finally you sighed dramatically.
“There it is.”
“There what is?”
“The staring.”
“I’m not staring.”
“You absolutely are.”
Stan smirked slightly.
“Maybe I like lookin’ at you.”
Your stomach flipped.
“That’s a dangerous answer.”
“So’s that shirt.”
You looked down at your tank top incredulously.
“This is literally just a shirt.”
“Yeah, well.” Stan leaned back against the couch cushions slowly. “You’re in it.”
Your face grew warm immediately.
Stan noticed.
And smiled.
That smug, soft smile specifically reserved for you.
God, you were in trouble.
The breaking point came on a random Tuesday night.
No dramatic setup.
No life-threatening situation.
Just frustration finally boiling over.
You and Stan sat on the hood of his car outside your apartment building after grabbing milkshakes from a diner off campus.
Music drifted softly from the radio.
Summer air wrapped warm around both of you.
Stan looked relaxed beside you.
One arm draped behind your back.
Close enough that your knees brushed occasionally.
Every single touch sent your pulse skittering.
You were tired of it.
Tired of pretending.
Tired of almosts.
Apparently Stan was too.
Because suddenly he sighed heavily and muttered:
“Why do we keep pretending we don’t want to kiss each other?”
Silence.
Your entire body went still.
Stan looked horrified with himself immediately afterward.
Like he hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
But it was too late now.
Because the truth sat there between you finally.
Open.
Honest.
Terrifying.
You swallowed hard.
“You wanna kiss me?”
Stan stared at you like you’d asked the dumbest question imaginable.
“Yes.”
The sheer certainty in his voice made your heart stutter.
“For how long?”
He laughed once softly.
“Honestly?”
You nodded.
“Since the vending machine.”
Your mouth fell open.
“Stan.”
“What?”
“That was two years ago!”
“I know!”
“Why didn’t you do anything?”
“You’re intimidating!”
You burst out laughing.
Stan looked deeply offended.
“No, seriously. You look at people like you can see through them.”
“You played varsity football.”
“Yeah, and you make me nervous.”
The honesty of it melted you instantly.
You looked at him quietly for a moment.
Then asked softly:
“So why haven’t you kissed me?”
Stan’s eyes dropped briefly to your mouth.
Then back to your eyes.
“Because if I started,” he admitted roughly, “I didn’t think I’d wanna stop.”
Your breath caught painfully.
God.
There it was.
All of it.
The wanting.
The restraint.
The affection stretching between you for years.
You reached for his hand slowly.
Stan immediately intertwined your fingers.
Like instinct.
Like relief.
“You know what I think?” you whispered.
“What?”
“I think we’re both idiots.”
Stan laughed softly.
“Probably.”
Then you kissed him.
Finally.
And it felt exactly like it was supposed to.
Warm.
Certain.
Long overdue.
Stan made a quiet sound against your mouth like he’d been starving.
His hand cupped your jaw instantly while the other tightened around yours.
He kissed you deeply but carefully.
Like he’d imagined this too many times to ruin it now.
When you finally pulled back, both of you were breathing unevenly.
Stan rested his forehead against yours.
“Holy shit.”
You laughed breathlessly.
“Worth the wait?”
He looked at you with so much affection it nearly hurt.
“Baby, I would’ve waited ten years.”
Your heart absolutely collapsed.
“Good thing you didn’t.”
Stan grinned.
Then kissed you again immediately because apparently now that he’d started, he genuinely had no intention of stopping.
And honestly?
Neither did you.
