10:54pm, the attic, olliewicks please ! (i'm predictable i know)
@zimms you are predictable, but its delightful so lean into it! enjoy this little moment at the beginning of year 4!
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haus attic, 10:54pm
Ollie brings the last box up the stairs, puts it with the others, and flops on their bed like a … thing that flops a lot. Jell-O maybe. Or Flubber. Whatever his brain and body are both mush. He knows it was his idea to move in on the literal last day before preseason starts, and also his idea to sleep late and not actually leave until the last possible minute, but holy fuck is he tired. He hears the door of the attic close with a quiet snick and speaks without opening his eyes.
“Never let me bully us into waiting for the last moment to move ever again.”
The mattress next to him dips under the weight of his boyfriend and a warm hand brushes his hair off his forehead. “I did try to warn you, babe – you were just determined.”
“We’re seniors,” Ollie pouts. “The world should rearrange itself to be as convenient as possible for us to get maximum summer without any consequences for our choices.”
Pace flops down next to him and slings an arm over his waist. Ollie knows without looking that he’s got the sappiest look on his face.
“I’ll be sure to send the universe a memo for the Frogs next year,” Pace teases. “If it’s any consolation, at least the next time we move, we’ll be carrying boxes down the stairs instead of up.”
Ollie definitely isn’t proud of the noise he lets out at the idea of graduation, but Pace’s quiet amusement goes a long way to soothe his disgruntlement. His amusement, and the kiss he drops on Ollie’s neck.
“We did get everything, didn’t we? The only thing we have left to do tonight is unpack the toiletries and gear for pracky?”
“We did,” Pacer confirms. “I even did you a solid and put our stuff in the bathroom already so you just need to brush your teeth.”
“I fucking love you. Even if the bathroom is down a flight of stairs.”
Ollie’s trying to gather the will to live, er, stand up again, so he doesn’t immediately clock the silence, but when he realizes the chirp he was expecting isn’t coming, he opens his eyes. Pace’s eyes are wide, and, to Ollie’s horror, tears are forming at the corners of them. Ollie’s tiredness is pushed aside by the fear that rolls over him at the sight.
“Babe, what—”
“You love me?” Pace’s voice is watery as fuck, but Ollie doesn’t miss the trembling hope in his boyfriend’s voice. Apparently Ollie hadn’t actually said those words out loud yet – just in his dreams. Ollie pushes himself up enough so he can lean over Pace and cup his cheek with one hand.
“Yeah. I love you. I’ve been in love with you. You don’t need to say it back or—”
“I love you, too.”
“Oh.” Ollie’s a little breathless, actually. He’d known that Pace loves him, had soaked up every scrap of it present in his texts, in his teasing, in the reverent way he cups the back of Ollie’s neck with his free hand when they fist bump. But. Actually hearing those words makes a lump rise in his throat, makes him grin helplessly down at Pace.
“C’mere,” Pace says, pulling Ollie down by his shoulders so that Ollie becomes his own personal weighted blanket, and Ollie goes more than willingly. They just sort of cling to each other for a few long moments, basking in the fucking love they have for each other.
“Wanna know a secret?” Ollie asks eventually.
“Hmm?”
“I actually forgot I hadn’t said ‘I love you out loud.’ I’ve been picturing it for months, I thought I already had.”
“You meatball,” Pace snorts.
“Your meatball.”
“Yeah. Roll yourself to the bathroom, meatball. I’ll be right behind you.”
Number 64 is Gives You Hell by The All-American Rejects
You never seemed so tense, love
I've never seen you fall so hard
Do you know where you are?
Dex feels his foot miss the second to last step of the porch stairs and has about three seconds to brace himself before he hits the ground.
He doesn’t quite get his arms up in time, so his head collides with the pavement. With a groan, he flops over onto his back, but doesn’t get up. His palms sting when he presses them into his eyes, and he’s pretty sure he’s managed to scrape at least one knee. Not to mention the splitting pain in his head.
“Holy shit, Dex,” he hears Nursey call, followed by footsteps that sound like he’s jogging across the Haus lawn to where Dex is still lying miserably. God, he hopes no Lax bros are outside. “I’ve never seen you wipe out like that. Are you okay?”
Today is just the most embarrassing day of Dex’s life.
“I’m fine,” Dex grits out and forces his eyes open.
“Do you know where you are?” Nursey asks, his brows furrowed in concern.
Well, in his own personal hell apparently. Because leaning over him is Nursey without a shirt on. Dex spotted him lounging on the lawn in front of the Haus, soaking up the Aúgust heat in nothing but shorts, when he stepped out to check their mailbox and promptly missed the step.
“At the Haus,” Dex replies and sits up. His knees are scraped up, as he suspected, but it’s nothing a little band-aid can’t fix.
“Holy shit,” Nursey says again, a little more frantically this time, “you’re bleeding.”
“What? No, I’m not—” He reaches up to touch his forehead and sure enough, his fingers come back red. It’s not gushing out or anything, but it is bleeding. “Oh.”
“C’mon,” Nursey urges immediately, “we should go clean that up.”
Dex doesn’t get another word in before Nursey’s warm hand circles his wrist and carefully pulls him up and inside into the downstairs bathroom.
Nursey makes him sit on the counter of the drawer as he wets a washcloth, then cradles Dex’s face with the gentlest touch anyone’s ever used on him.
“This might sting,” Nursey warns quietly, frowning at Dex’s forehead.
“I’ve had way worse at games, Nurse,” Dex reminds him as he carefully cleans the blood and dirt off. Dex doesn’t hiss, but he does grip the counter a little tighter.
When Nursey deems it clean enough, he gingerly dabs the cut dry again, then turns around and drops the washcloth into the sink. He crouches down to rummage through the drawer underneath and it takes all of Dex’s willpower not to stare at the curve of Nursey’s shoulders, or the tattoo that he expanded on over the summer, or the shifting muscles of his back. He really wishes Nursey would’ve put a shirt on at least. If he had, they wouldn’t even be here.
“Do you want dinosaurs or trucks?” Nursey asks the sink.
“Don’t we have any plain ones left?”
“Nope,” Nursey says, popping the p. Dex could’ve sworn he’s seen some, like, yesterday.
“Fine, trucks.” Thank God the new freshmen don’t arrive for a few days. They do not need to see their future captain with a band-aid like this on the first day.
Nursey gets back up, peels off the back of the band-aid and steps in between Dex’s legs. He’s a lot closer than is really necessary, and Dex’s traitorous breath hitches when his fingers graze his forehead.
Nursey doesn’t step back at all before he looks Dex in the eyes and smiles. “Good as new,” he reports, and his breath ghosts across Dex’s face.
The only response Dex can get out of himself is a little embarrassing laugh as he tenses up. Today is not his day. Fuck the sun for doing this to him.
“Woah, what’s up? Why’re you so tense?” Nursey asks, the concern back on his face. “Do we need to go through concussion protocol? Or should we head to the hospital?”
“Shut up, no, I’m fine,” Dex promises, but Nursey doesn’t move away or drop the concerned look, so he forces on a grin that feels more like a grimace as he tries to joke, “What, are you gonna kiss it better too?”
That gets Nursey’s features to relax and he laughs, and for the moment, Dex’s cuts don’t hurt anymore. “If you ask so nicely,” Nursey says and presses a kiss to Dex’s forehead near the cut. He lets his lips linger there, and Dex’s brain just shuts down.
When Nursey pulls back, Dex’s heart is beating like he just came off a shift on the ice and he can’t do anything but stare at Nursey’s lips. That were just on his forehead.
“What?” Nursey’s mouth quirks up at the corner in a way that Dex has learned means he’s nervous, so he decides to take a leap of faith.
Dex’s hands don’t even sting when he cups Nursey’s face and pulls him into a lingering kiss of his own. It takes about a second for Nursey to kiss him back, but once he does, he sighs into it and props his hands up on the counter on either side of Dex.
After they break apart, Nursey smiles down at him and Dex goes to trace the shape of it with his thumb.
“If you wanted to kiss me, you didn’t have to brain yourself,” Nursey says into the space between them, almost against Dex’s lips.
“Worked, though, didn’t it?” Dex asks before he leans in again.
“You’re impossible,” Nursey comments after. “I can’t believe I like you.”
Dex pecks his lips again. “I like you too. Just so it’s out there. I’m so gone on you I fell down the fucking stairs.”
Nursey’s grin is the best thing Dex has ever seen. “I’m glad we’re on the same page, but let’s leave the clumsiness to me from now on, yeah?”
In response, Dex wraps his arms around Nursey’s neck and kisses him again and again, and only stops when Chowder’s disappointed oh c’mon guys interrupts them a good while later.
when I started shipping it if I did: After reading @omg-whiskey's It All Started with 1 Twitter DM series, it's horrible, it's like a gateway drug to whiskent, you think it's just a nice fic but then pretty soon you'll be thinking up life stories for their kids
my thoughts: I think when you first read the comic, you wouldn't imagine them together, because they're two background characters, but then you think about it and they're actually perfect for each other. they compliment each other and know how they think and just get each other and it's really lovely
What makes me happy about them: It makes me happy how perfectly they fit together, how they both have similar-ish stories of being devoted to their sport and so they understand each other so well
What makes me sad about them: they're just. really lonely I think. They're just two lonely boys and if I think about it too much I'ma cry
things done in fanfic that annoys me: I mean I'll read anything with these two, but I don't like it when they're not chirpy, like if they're all gushy. These guys are emotionally repressed and can express love through hockey and that's about it lmao their love language is jokingly insulting each other
things I look for in fanfic: I'm a sucker for angst, and so I honestly love reading them work through their problems together and being there for each other.
Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Ooh, I looooove WTF, I think it's the sweetest ship. With Kent? Swoops, probably.
My happily ever after for them: They're retired and have three cats and two kids and a dog and get to define their life by who they love instead of what sport they play
who is the big spoon/little spoon: Whiskey's big spoon, Kent's little spoon.
what is their favorite non-sexual activity: I think horsing around? Like they'll go on a walk and push each other into the snowbank, or they'll make everything a competition. They're idiots your honour
op literally has the most stunning voice i've ever heard, but go off i guess (@zimms )
you have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that,,,ever since T made my voice drop I lost a lot of my vocal skills and it’s been really hard getting them back so this means a lot 🥺💕
Coach BIttle is based on something i wrote for tumblr (but can’t find on my blog any more??) and in its current form it’s 500 words of coach’s inner musings about how he knew gay people existed but never thought they could be happy, and then after the center ice kiss he’s confused because jack
a. based on stereotypes seems straight
b. is bisexual
and coach didn’t know bi people exist
He knows that gay people exist, okay? He follows the news, and there have always been people who’ve lived with a “friend” for their entire life, and the ones that either escape the rumours up north or end up dead. Some marry, but then the rumours turn to pitying their wives.
Coach is happy for Junior and his Jack, he really is, but a part of him can’t understand it. If this Jack could have married a woman and been happy, why would he kiss Junior like that, without a care in the world?
