Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandoms:

Heated Rivalry (TV), Game Changers Series - Rachel Reid

Relationship:

Kip Grady/Scott Hunter

Characters:

Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Kip Grady, Elena Rygg, Maria Villanueva, George Grady, Shawn (Game Changers), Kyle Swift

Additional Tags:

Possessive Behavior, Toxic Relationship, Controlling Behavior, Emotional Manipulation, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Unsafe Sex, Threats of Violence, Codependency, Closeted Character, Vomiting, Financial manipulation, Threats of Outing, Voyeurism, Scott Hunter Loves Kip Grady, Kip Grady loves Scott Hunter, Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch Scott Hunter (Game Changers), Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch Kip Grady, POV Kip Grady

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-04-06 Words: 5,959 Chapters: 1/1

violate all the love that I’m missing

Summary

“I want you to stay here tonight.”

Scott squeezes, and Kip thinks he can feel the bones in his wrist press together. Is he strong enough to break them? Would he try?

Of course not, Kip thinks. That’s crazy. It’s just a game. But he really wants it to bruise, at least.

-
Have you ever looked at Kip and Scott and thought to yourself, what if these lovely two people who are so good for each other were a toxic mess instead? If so, this one is for you.

Notes

...honestly, the tags make this sound worse than it actually is, but I wanted to make sure I covered everything that might bring up some not so great feelings.

There is something very wrong with Scott Hunter.

Kip doesn’t see it immediately – at first, he’s just an exceptionally attractive customer that tips well and makes somewhat clumsy attempts at flirting with Kip that he probably shouldn’t find as endearing as he does.

But then, he sticks around. The excuse about working on his emails is flimsy at best, and Kip likes that. Mostly, he likes how he can spin it into something that he isn’t yet sure is actually there. It might just be his fantasies getting ahead of themselves. But it feels different this time.

It’s the random serial killer talk that seals the deal for Kip. Because this guy is weird, and weird in a way that feels incredibly compatible. Not the serial killers specifically, Kip isn’t much into all that. But the obsessiveness of it. The whole vibe he brings, a little nervous at all times and way too intense, like a sweaty racehorse that’s about to be spooked by a twig cracking in the distance and run off. Hot-blooded. Strong. Flight risk.

He decides to see how far he can push. There’s an awkward moment of silence after the hot lumberjacks comment and Kip thinks, come on. Do something. Be as interesting as I think you are. He doesn’t expect getting invited to a hockey game, but hey. It makes sense.

-

Scott being into him is honestly a bonus. Because Kip could have gotten over his crush. Maybe. He also could have gotten over the little ding! his brain made when they first talked to each other and every molecule in his body was vibrating with this one this one thisone.

The combination of those two things would have been more than a little lethal, had it all been unrequited, but – it’s not.

What a move, asking Kip out while he’s working at an event that Scott is a guest at. Every single interaction they had so far, except for waving at each other at the game, was technically customer service. And Kip is always the servant.

What a move again, taking him home. Is it a good idea, getting into a virtual stranger’s car on what’s technically the first date? Does that scream safe to anyone? Probably not.

They don’t fuck the first night, because Scott doesn’t have condoms at the apartment. And Kip, though a lot more likely to carry one, doesn’t exactly stock up for a wild night when he goes to his cater waiter job.

So – no. A blowjob is one thing, one risk, but they’re being responsible otherwise.

But then Scott says, “I can’t stop thinking about you”, and Kip thinks, I will do absolutely fucking anything you want from me.

He says “stay” and Kip does.

The next morning, Scott finds him snooping around the fridge. Being a little too liberal with how freely he uses the kitchen, for what is at this point a one-night stand. A little obnoxious, making so much noise with the blender while Scott is still sleeping.

And well. Scott wants. So does Kip.

Fuck being responsible.

-

Their conversation after that is the last attempt at any sort of reasonable behavior either of them makes.

It all goes way too fast. Way too fast.

When Scott says he doesn’t want him to leave and Kip’s little joke of “like ever?”, that tiny bit of water-testing and boundary-pushing that wasn’t even all that serious, only makes him give a self-conscious little laugh and a shrug, Kip knows they’re both in trouble.

“I’m too intense,” Scott says, and Kip is instantly hard again. 

“I never brought anyone back here”, and some primal part of his brain wakes up that wants to eat Scott alive. That wants to make sure it stays that way, that no one else ever comes back here after him.

“I want you so bad”, and Kip’s entire nervous system lights up and floods his brain with so much dopamine that he can’t think straight. Can’t think beyond have me and also I need to have you.

“Is that too much?”, and he knows it’s already over for both of them.

-

When Scott comes back from practice and sees Kip on the sofa, the smile that spreads over his face gives Kip a power trip like nothing else. This is what I do to you?

They ride the high together. They have so much sex in the first few days that Kip thinks he won’t ever remember what it’s like not to be sore all over. They can switch, at least, and the first time that Kip hears the little whimper that Scott makes when he pushes inside him, he’s immediately addicted to it.

“Is this, like, normal?” Scott asks him, looking a little bewildered after they just had sex for the third time in twelve hours and he still seems unable to stop touching Kip.

“I mean, not really,” Kip says. “Not like this.”

-

Scott really does like it when Kip is at his place. He seems to like it so much that when Kip says he has to go back home for some fresh clothes after a few days, Scott gets that look on his face that vaguely reminds Kip of a kicked puppy.

“I’ll go while you’re at practice and I’ll be back here before you. You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“You’ll definitely come back?” Scott asks, his eyes dark and searching.

“Yeah, of course I will.”

“Okay.” Scott laughs, sounding tense. “Okay, sure. Of course you can go. You’re not, like, a prisoner. I don’t know why I said that.”

Kip’s heart pounds in his chest. Not yet, he thinks, shivering with all the possibilities.

He comes back with a bag full of clothes, a few pairs of shoes and a little box of chocolates that his dad bought “for Elena”, a sweet gesture to thank her for letting Kip stay over so much. It makes him feel bad, but – it is what it is.

-

Kip hasn’t seen his friends in three days, which is a long time for them. He’s been getting increasingly annoyed texts asking when he’ll be back at the Kingfisher and where he’s been.

“Worse than my Dad, Jesus,” Kip mutters, scrolling through the group chat.

Scott is standing behind him, arms wrapped around his waist and chin on his shoulder. He’s reading along.

Stop freaking out, I’ll be there tonight, Kip types, but doesn’t press send yet.

Scott takes a noisy breath right next to his ear.

“Okay, yeah,” he finally says. “Of course.”

He’s still pretending like it was a courtesy of Kip to loop him in, like they’re just coordinating schedules and like he wasn’t just asked permission.

He fucks Kip right before he has to leave, pulling out at the last moment so he can come all over Kip’s stomach. When Kip reaches for a tissue to clean up, Scott catches his hand and presses it down into the mattress.

“No. You go like this.”

Kip shudders and his dick gives a desperate little twitch, spent as he is.

“I need a shower,” he tries, just to see what Scott says.

“No. Like this or not at all.”

Kip feels high when he walks into the bar later, positively reeking of sex. Still a little wet with lube, Scott’s dried come sticking to his skin. It’s uncomfortable. It’s rude, and he should be ashamed. Should be.

“I don’t have a fucking boyfriend,” he tells his friends, laughing. It doesn’t even feel like that much of a lie, because whatever the fuck this is, boyfriend doesn’t really cover it anyway.

-

Kip gets his own compartment in Scott’s closet to store his stuff (and there’s a somewhat painful joke in there somewhere).

A few days later, it has magically filled up with more clothes. Basics, socks and underwear and some t-shirts and sweaters and jeans. All of it more expensive than Kip could ever dream of getting for himself, the Ralph Lauren and Hugo Boss labels almost a mockery.

“So you have some stuff here and don’t have to go back and forth so much,” Scott says, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck like he’s apologizing for spending his own money.

“You really didn’t have to do this,” Kip says, Scott’s pants already dragged down his legs and Kip’s mouth half on his cock.

-

“Why did I just tell your dad you’re here and ‘in the shower’ while you’re definitely neither?” Elena asks when she calls Kip.

“Ah.” Maybe he should have actually mentioned to her that she’s his alibi. “I’ll call him back, I’ve just been busy.”

“Well, you haven’t been busy with us, that’s for sure,” Elena says. “So who am I covering for? Scott Hockey Guy? Someone else?”

“Uh.”

“I can’t say I like this much, babe.”

“It’s okay, Elena, I promise.”

-

They both put a location tracking app on their phones. So Kip can see where Scott is on his road trips, because he travels a lot and it’s easy to lose track. It just makes sense.

And also, because Scott says it warms his heart when he looks at it and sees Kip at the apartment even while he’s out. What a lovely new euphemism to use when they both know it means he jerks off to it in his hotel room as soon as he’s alone.

-

The little corner store is unusually busy for a Tuesday night and Kip stands in line with ground coffee and a carton of milk, annoyed. It’s too hot in there as well and he’s tired after his shift. But their grocery delivery isn’t coming for a couple of days and Scott is still in…Montreal, the app says, and Kip is definitely going to need coffee in the morning.

“Cash or card?” The girl behind the counter gives him a bored look when he finally makes it to the front of the queue. Kip would recognize the dead eyes of a customer service worker anywhere.

“Uh, card please,” he says, digging through his wallet. He knows he had his bank card – when exactly? A couple days ago? Last week. Shit.

“Sorry, just – sorry.” He checks the very back, but of course he doesn’t have enough cash to pay for his stuff, he never even carries cash anymore.

What he finds instead is a new, unfamiliar card. Kip’s heart skips several beats when he realizes what it is. He knows what a black Amex looks like – in theory.  

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. He pulls it out and runs his fingers over the raised silver letters spelling Scott’s name.

The check-out girl sighs, getting a little impatient with his antics, and Kip quickly hands the card over, his cheeks hot.

You’re crazy, he texts Scott as soon as he leaves the store, the card in his wallet burning a hole into his pocket.

Scott wants to know what he bought with it and when Kip tells him, he texts back a string of laughing emojis. Get something more interesting next time.

-

After one too many complaints about his absence, Kip goes to meet his friends at the Kingfisher again.

Scott almost doesn’t let him, this time. Well – it’s not like he physically stops him from walking out the door. But he makes a compelling argument when he joins Kip in the shower and works two fingers into him, even though he knows they don’t have the time.

“Later,” Kip promises with a laugh and Scott bites the back of his shoulder so hard that it leaves teeth marks.

He’s only a little late. To their credit, his friends don’t immediately ask about Scott this time, even though Kip is sure they must all know by now. Maria and Elena definitely do anyway, and Shawn and Kyle have both heard him talk about Scott coming to the shop enough in the beginning, seen him suddenly be obsessed with hockey – they know him well enough to understand that wasn’t nothing, no matter what he says.

“Are you okay?” Kyle asks a little too softly while the others are engrossed in a discussion about some new movie they all hate-watched together. That usually, Kip would have seen with them.

“I’m great,” Kip says. “I promise.”

He gets a text from Scott around nine. It’s a screenshot of his little dot on the map in the tracking app, followed by a photo of Scott’s hand wrapped around his hard cock. Is it “later” yet?, the caption asks and Kip makes a hasty exit shortly after.

He can feel four pairs of eyes boring into the back of his head. Disappointed. Concerned. He’s fine.

-

Scott doesn’t seem to mind Kip going to work so much, maybe because he can come see him there.

It’s a sweet little game they play, seeing just how much flirting they can get away with while upholding plausible deniability in front of Maria. The answer is zero, of course, because Maria isn’t fucking stupid.

Still though, it’s nice. Their fingers brush when Kip hands over the smoothie cup and it has him hard for the next twenty minutes.

Once, when Maria calls in sick for the day, Kip texts Scott, I’m all alone and it’s dead in here, just to see what happens.

And what happens is that Scott comes in half an hour later and turns the little sign on the door from open to closed.

What happens is that Kip takes him to the back room and has his dick sucked leaning back against the freezer, with the door handle digging into his back a little painfully.

“Are you gonna get fired for that?” Scott asks after, looking completely unconcerned.

“Ha,” Kip says. You wish. “No, no cameras back here.”

“Cameras?”

-

The freak-out follows when Kip comes home that night. Scott pulls him into a hug, shaking all over.

“I wasn’t thinking,” he says. “Cameras. People. The door said closed but I didn’t actually lock it. What if someone –”

And Kip knows it’s not about him, not about getting in trouble at work. It’s irrelevant, in Scott’s world, whether or not Kip has a job. But Scott getting caught on camera giving a blowjob, that’s a whole other story.

“I know,” Kip says and holds him as tightly as he can. He wants to say it’s fine and that nothing could have happened, but he can’t. He can’t give Scott that guarantee. Every happy moment they share comes with a risk.

They have to stop being so stupid.

-

The so-called security cameras that the Straw+Berry uses turn out to just be cheap webcams that can be monitored through an app if you know the corresponding code. The code is taped to the back of one of the cameras.

Kip logs in to make sure to delete any footage of the day Scott followed him into the backroom.

Scott logs in to find new inspiration to jerk off to when Kip is at work.

-

Kip has tickets for a concert he’s supposed to go to with Shawn. Some new hyper pop act, whatever that means. He’s not super committed to it all.

Scott is home for just two nights between roadies and wants Kip all to himself. He’s very committed to that. He makes a bit of a show out of not letting Kip get out of bed, playful. Needy and sweet.

When Kip has his clothes and his shoes on and his keys already in his pocket, Scott comes to stand by the front door. He wraps his fingers around Kip’s wrist and looks at him like he’s not sure he’s allowed to do what he’s about to.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“Okay,” Kip says.

“I want you to stay here tonight.”

Scott squeezes, and Kip thinks he can feel the bones in his wrist press together. Is he strong enough to break them? Would he try?

Of course not, Kip thinks. That’s crazy. It’s just a game. But he really wants it to bruise, at least.

“Stay,” Scott says, his voice low and rough. He yanks Kip close, his other arm coming around Kip’s waist, locking him in place.

Kip lets himself be pulled in, pressed against Scott, and makes a frantic little sound when he feels him press into his hip, rock hard.

“Stay,” Scott repeats, a whisper against the skin of Kip’s neck.

Of course Kip stays.

-

The location tracking, like most of his other apps, doesn’t work too reliably on Kip’s old phone. Scott solves that problem by buying him a new one, as was probably to be expected.

Maria seems to decide that this, of all things, is the last straw. She calls Elena to come into the smoothie shop, because Kip is kind of hard to catch in person these days except at work.

“Give me your phone,” Elena says in that clipped tone of hers that brokers no argument.

“No?”

“Yes, Kip.”

She takes it into the backroom (if only she knew) and plugs it into her laptop to check for any spyware. Kip is almost disappointed when she doesn’t find any. But then, Scott isn’t the most tech-savvy person, and he knows Kip’s code anyway, if there's anything he wants to look at on his phone. He wisely doesn’t mention that to Elena.

“If the plan is in his name, he could still be getting the call logs with the bills,” she tells Maria and they both look at Kip like they’re very carefully trying not to say something.

Elena is bad at not saying things she wants to say though.

“He’s controlling you. He’s isolating you. It’s textbook abuse.”

Kip laughs in her face. Has she never heard of a honeymoon phase?

-

Scott says “I love you” much too early and Kip says it back much too early. Of course.

Scott also says, “you’re the only person I’ve ever been in love with” and Kip can’t say that back, but he knows that whatever he thought was love before had nothing in common with the all-consuming force that’s currently pulling him and Scott together like magnets.

“I don’t think I can live without you anymore” makes Kip feel hot and dizzy and he says, “you can’t”. Because frankly, he isn’t that interested in Scott living unless it’s with him.

And then Scott has to go on a road trip for nine days and it feels a little bit like they’re both dying.

Kip has a dream that he quits his job and spends all his time following Scott around the country without him knowing. He goes to every game and he stands all the way in the front, right by the glass. And he knocks against it and he shouts and cries for Scott, but Scott ignores him. He isn’t even allowed to look at him because then everyone would know. 

-

Kip buys an additional webcam for the Straw+Berry and gives Scott the code. It’s placed under the counter at crotch height. When Kip knows Scott is at home and watching, he’ll lean on the counter, push his apron aside and stroke himself through his jeans until he’s visibly hard.

The first time he does it, Scott picks him up and fucks him against the front door with all his clothes still on as soon as he comes back in from work.

-

“I want. Uh.”

Scott isn’t finding his words, but that’s actually okay, because Kip just put a lot of effort into fucking him absolutely stupid, and if he was still talking all big now, he would have failed his mission.

Then again, it’s interesting, what Scott has to say when he’s like this, loose and relaxed and fucked-out, guards down.

“You know I like when you’re here,” he tries again.

“Yeah,” Kip replies, low and amused. What a colossal understatement.

“I would like,” Scott says, clearly enunciating, his face pressed against Kip’s chest, nibbling at him a little bit. “If you were...ready. All the time. Not all the time, all the time. But.”

Kip isn’t going to get hard again so soon, but damn if his body isn’t trying.

“Maybe on a weekend, when we’re both here all day,” he tries and he knows, he knows he’s holding back and that Scott is also holding back, and that they want so much more than just the careful, vague idea they’re throwing around.

“Do you know what that’s called?” he asks and Scott shakes his head.

Kip doesn’t tell him, because it doesn’t really matter, but his brain is singing it at him, use me, use me, make me yours, make me live here and exists in your space for nothing but your pleasure whenever you want to take it. I am not needed anywhere else. I have nothing better to do.

“Nobody’s ever needed me like you do,” he tells Scott instead and Scott bites down on the tendon by his shoulder and then asks, “how long do you think until you can fuck me again?”

-

Grad school applications go out.

Kip is very aware of his position and so he applies anywhere halfway reasonable with a scholarship program. He doesn’t want to go anywhere but NYU or Columbia, but he couldn’t justify it to himself not to even try.

He wishes he’d told Scott about it. He wishes Scott had ripped every application to anywhere outside of New York from his hands and torn it right up. But. But.

It kind of feels like the last bit of agency he even has.

-

The paranoia gets worse. Or, how does that saying go? It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you?

And Kip knows people are after Scott sometimes, he’s seen it. Maybe not to the point that justifies hissing at him like a large angry cat in an art gallery, but it’s not like Scott is seeing ghosts that aren’t there.

Scott wants to make up for it, and he fucks Kip so good and slow that night, holding him and kissing him like he’s trying to pour all his love into him, drowning him in it so he will forget. Forget what it’s like when they’re not here, safe inside the apartment, forget that the world outside even exists.

Kip wishes he could forget that, too.

“Please don’t leave,” Scott says after. Like, ever, his own words echo in Kip’s head.

“We don’t need to go out anywhere,” he tells Scott, and gently brushes his thumb over the drying tear tracks on Scott’s cheeks. “I don’t care about it that much anyway. I like being here with you.”

For some reason, that only sends fresh tears to Scott’s eyes and Kip kisses them away, their salty taste a testament to their strength, to how much they’re sacrificing. It’s supposed to be hard work, true love.

-

Elena seems to have switched tactics. She tries to empathize with Kip, with how difficult things are. But he already knows what she really thinks, so he doesn’t really trust the softer new approach.

Still, he goes with her to the fundraiser as promised. He meets her for dinner at the Kingfisher a few days before, which is rare enough these days that maybe she doesn’t want to ruin it by pushing too far.

It’s not that Kip doesn’t miss his friends. But it’s all so difficult now. He doesn’t know how to talk around something that’s the most important thing in his life and that he knows they hate.

-

“I’m gonna go home tonight,” Kip says after the fundraiser, even while his entire heart, body, and soul are screaming at him not to. But the whole night was a bit of a disaster, and he feels like they’re on the edge of something terrible. “I need to.”

Stop me, he thinks. Don’t let me leave. Please don’t let me go.

But Scott does the decent thing. Whatever he’s thinking, whatever the fuck Elena said to him, goddamnit, goddamn her meddling – it’s making him hold back.

Because Kip knows what Scott wants, and it’s always worked that way, they work that way. Scott asks and Kip gives and Scott thinks he has control, but Kip knows it’s not true. He could break that man with one sentence, and he’s saying it now. And Scott isn’t even fighting him.

He wants to shake him, push him, scream at him. He wishes right then that Scott actually was what all his friends think – controlling. Abusive. Maybe violent.

Because if he was that, Kip wouldn’t be given a choice. He’d be staying one way or another.

-

As expected, Kip does not have a good birthday. Sure, it’s nice being with his friends, and even his dad comes out to the Kingfisher. They’re all so happy to see him and Kip feels sick and empty and ungrateful. Just because the one person he wants most isn’t there, doesn’t mean anything else is worthless.

He gets a lot more drunk than planned and his dad gives him a tight hug and a glass of water when they get back in and then sends him to bed.

There’s a text from Scott from a couple of hours ago when Kip checks his phone for the first time that night, and his heart starts beating right out of his chest when he sees the notification.

Scott sent a photo of Kip and his friends at the bar, taken through the window from across the street. It looks like a shot from a private investigator, like someone was stalking him. Scott was there.

Please come back, the caption reads.

Looking at the stupid photo gets him hard. It makes him feel sick with how much he’s into it.

No, Kip texts back, suddenly heady with power. Come get me.

30 min, comes the instant reply. Scott was probably staring at the phone, watching Kip make his way home on the tracker app. Good.

Scott calls him when he’s parked outside the Grady house and Kip talks to him while looking down at his car through his window.

“Can you come open the door for me?”

Kip is still drunk and still hard and actually starting to feel a little queasy.

“No.”

“Kip…”

“Ring the doorbell.”

“Your dad…”

“Do it. If you want me. Come get me.”

He hangs up.

Scott rings the doorbell.

Kip stays in his room and listens to the muffled voices in the hallway. Kip’s dad isn’t exactly happy and Scott sounds strained, calling him “sir” and apologizing a hundred times.

That’s what you get, Scott, for letting me walk away, he thinks with a little bit of satisfaction.

When he decides Scott has done his penance, Kip opens his door and walks out to them. He’s shivering, bare feet on the floor and cold sweat all over him.

Scott stares at him with big, terrified eyes and doesn’t move. Kip sways a bit and holds himself up against the wall, and then suddenly Scott is by his side, crushing him into a hug, breathing hot and wet and fast into his ear.

The room starts spinning and Kip pushes him away with a mumbled apology and bolts to the bathroom just in time. He hasn’t thrown up from drinking in years and really feels a little stupid about it.

But Scott is here. He’s really here. He sits down next to Kip on the bathroom floor, still in his coat, and puts a large hand between his shoulder blades.

“’s not because of you,” Kip slurs and Scott laughs a little helplessly.

“Yeah, I figured.”

Kip’s dad comes to stand in the doorway and gives them both a somewhat pitiful look.

“Oh boy,” he sighs.

Kip lets Scott stroke his hair and rub his back until he thinks he’s probably done. He feels gross. Maybe he deserves to feel gross, maybe they both do.

“You can make him a cup of tea,” George tells Scott as if he’s being very generous. Scott kisses Kip’s sweaty temple much too gently before getting up to do as he’s been told.

Kip takes a very quick shower and brushes his teeth. He feels a little crazy, for what he’s done. What he’s made Scott do. But he came.

Scott follows Kip back to his room and sets the ginger tea down on the bedside table. He stands around a little awkwardly, his eyes flicking over all the corners of the room. Kip knows he really wants to snoop.

He sits down on the bed and pats the space beside him. He wishes Scott would at least take his coat off and stares at him until he finally does.

“You’re not coming back with me, are you?” Scott asks. He sits next to Kip and very carefully puts an arm around him. Kip leans heavily into his side.

Does Scott think he’s just jerking him around?

“Tomorrow,” Kip says. “And we can take some more stuff.”

Kip finishes his tea and then Scott strips down to his underwear and climbs into bed with him. He curls his body around Kip’s and slips his hand under Kip’s t-shirt, very gently rubbing his stomach.

“Are you feeling better?”

“I feel insane, Scott,” he whispers and Scott takes a deep breath.

“Yeah, me too.”

“But I’m really glad you came here.”

“I can’t believe you made me talk to your dad first. That was scary as hell.”

“You deserved scary, you let me leave. You can’t do that.” Kip can feel his energy draining out of him, and he realizes how tired he actually is. How small he feels.

“No?” Scott asks very softly. “Even when you really want to?”

“No. Never.”

You told me you can’t live without me. Act like it.

-

George Grady sticks his head in through the door before leaving for work the next morning, which Kip thinks is very brave choice and a little intrusive. But – well. He who acts like a messy teenager will be treated as such.

Kip’s head is pounding and his mouth tastes stale and sour. At least he doesn’t have a shift this morning. He blinks at his dad. Scott is spooned up behind him, snoring into his shoulder.

Was all of that really necessary? George’s look asks and Kip gives him a tight smile.

“Come back here sometimes, okay?” he says gently. “Both of you, if that helps.”

It helps.

With the house empty, Scott fucks Kip in his childhood bedroom, telling him he’s been a brat and a terror and a handful.

Yes, Kip thinks, hungover and tired and a little delirious. Scold me. Rein me in. Punish me for leaving.

-

They take a stack of letters back to the apartment with them that Scott looks very interested in, but doesn’t ask about. Things still feel a little off-balance that way, like they’re tiptoeing around each other. It must have scared him, the way the past few days went. It scared them both.

“It’s uh – I applied for grad school,” Kip explains in the car. “To a lot of places. Anywhere that offers scholarships and isn’t at the other end of the country.”

“Okay,” Scott replies. Kip watches his jaw tense and his fingers drum against the steering wheel. He looks annoyed and he’s right to be. That Kip hasn’t told him. That this massive, potentially life-changing thing was set in motion without even informing him. But then again. Did he ever ask what Kip was planning on doing with the rest of his life? Did he assume smoothie barista was the plan?

“What does that mean, exactly?”

“It means…” Kip takes a deep breath and puts a hand on Scott’s knee. A bid for contact. Scott covers it with his own fingers and gives him a little squeeze. They’re okay. Barely. What a fucking week it’s been. “It means we’ll open them together and make a decision.”

Kip has received three acceptance letters. Boston University, Rutgers, Columbia. Only one full ride: Boston.

“No,” Scott says. He picks up the letter from Boston and crumbles it into a ball in his hand.

Kip swallows and doesn’t say a word.

“Not twelve hours ago you told me not to let you leave again, and now what the fuck is this?” His voice breaks on the last word and Kip immediately wraps him up in a hug, letting him shout his frustration into the thick fabric of Kip’s hoodie. He strokes his hair until Scott has calmed down enough to continue their conversation.

“You’re going to Columbia, right?”

“I don’t –”

“If you say anything about money right now, I’ll fucking strangle you.”

Kip makes a strained sound in his throat. Not because he’s scared, but because he thinks that sounds…interesting. Because he likes that Scott loves him like this.

“Sorry,” Scott says, misinterpreting. He presses his face back into Kip’s shoulder, hot little kisses against the side of his neck. “I’m sorry, that’s a shitty thing to say. I don’t mean that.”

“Of course not.”

“I just mean – don’t worry about the scholarship, okay? Whatever you wanna do, I –”

“I know,” Kip whispers. “Thank you.”

-

“You know that if you pay for me to go to grad school, you actually have to let me go sometimes,” Kip says in bed that night. “Return on your investment and all.”

“Mhm.”

“I’ll be out a lot. I’ll be busy a lot.”

“Marry me,” Scott says, completely out of nowhere, and Kip squeezes his eyes shut so tightly that he sees stars and tucks his face against Scott’s chest.

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Scott replies tiredly. “I don’t know.”

He buys him a ring anyway. It’s not an engagement ring – it’s not. It’s simple and black and looks like it wasn’t expensive, even though it was probably very expensive. It looks like something Kip reasonably could have bought for himself because he liked the style. It also doesn’t fit on his ring finger. Maybe intentionally, or maybe because Scott misjudged the sizes. Kip has broad palms and thick fingers and if anyone should know that, it’s Scott, given the amount of time those fingers have spent up his ass. Maybe he told the person in the shop he was buying it for a woman.

He wears it on his pinky, though never when anyone he knows might actually see. Scott likes seeing it though, and Kip likes wearing it, and that’s what matters.

Anything else – they can’t.

-

“How long?” Kip asks.

“A few years?”

“No.”

“You don’t – you can’t decide that for me.”

“I could.”

“Kip.” Scott looks pale and maybe a little scared.

Of course Kip would never intentionally out him. They both know that, or he hopes that they do. But it makes him feel better about everything, knowing that he could. That he has that power, and there’s nothing Scott can do about it. He has months’ worth of proof. Texts and photos and witnesses. It would be incredibly easy.

“If I win the cup.”

“If?”

“When.”

“When is that gonna be?”

Scott laughs, bitter and tired. “Fuck if I know.”

“Maybe never,” Kip says.

This is bullshit.

“Okay.” Scott sighs. “Okay. Cup. Retirement. End of the season in…three years. Whichever one of those comes first.”

“If you slipped in the shower tomorrow and, like, broke your leg weird –”

“I’d be retired pretty damn fast, yeah.”

“Fuck.”

“Don’t push me down the stairs, I’m paying for your education.”

Fair point. Kip laughs and Scott smiles back at him. He doesn’t look so haunted anymore.

“Cup, retirement, three seasons,” Kip repeats and nods. He can live with that.

“And then you marry me.”

“Deal.”

They shake on it, they laugh, and then they fuck about it, because what else is there to do.