Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Kip Grady/Scott Hunter

Characters:

Kip Grady, Scott Hunter (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

Making Up, Texting, Bad Decisions, Good Decisions!, Sex, Scott Hunter Needs a Hug (Game Changers)

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-03-30 Completed: 2026-03-31 Words: 11,123 Chapters: 3/3

Settle Down My Shivered Bones

Summary

The first text arrives on a warm night, late. He sees the banner notification drop down with Kip’s name. The message preview hovers long enough for him to read it.

It’s been six months since he made Kip walk out.

Or: The long, winding road back.

Notes

Chapter 1

Chapter Notes

July 2014 (beginning)

The first text arrives on a warm night, late. Scott’s lying in his too-large bed, scrolling through the instagram page of a senior dog rescue. The dogs, at least, have each other. 

He sees the banner notification drop down with Kip’s name. The message preview hovers long enough for him to read it. He stops, immobile, watching as the notification slides away again. Then he opens the message app to read it again. 

It’s been six months since he made Kip walk out. Since then, he can frankly admit, things have utterly fallen to shit. He plays hockey like the robot he’s long been accused of being. He goes home to an empty apartment. He eats what the team nutritionist mandates, sent precooked and prepackaged in anonymous shrink wrap by a meal prep service. It’s under seasoned, but he doesn’t think he’s tasted a single mouthful since January. 

He can at least scrape together the energy to realise how pathetic he’s being. So that’s something, at least, he thinks. 

He checks the time. 1.14am. Kip is probably out. Drunk, most likely, to reach out like that. 

It’s an unpleasant feeling. 

He texts back, because he can’t possibly conceive of doing anything but let his traitorous thumbs dig into the bruise. 

It’s enough of an explanation. He rubs a hand over his face, pinches the bridge of his nose. He should put the phone away. He should turn off the blue light glare and get some sleep. 

The phone buzzes again in his hand. 

He doesn’t. 

He’d always respected Kip’s wishes, his boundaries. But the first message has sunk its claws into him and he doesn’t want to shake it off. 

In vino veritas, he thinks. It has to count for something. 

As a lifeline, it’s pathetic. A drunken admission of nothing that matters, followed immediately by recanting. 

Still, he doesn’t delete it. He doesn’t reply to it either. He opens his phone to look at it a hundred times over the next two days, feeling a twist in his gut every time. He reads the brief exchange—but never any further back—over and over. 

The last time he lets himself read it is a Monday morning as he waits at the airport gate, bag packed and ready to board a flight to Spain. 

It’s summer. Ibiza waits with open arms. He’ll drown himself in tinto de verano and anonymous men, sweating and claustrophobic on foreign sand and dark club floors, because this is all he can afford. This is all he can hold onto. 

He let the rest slip through his clumsy, lying hands. 

A voice over the tannoy announces his flight is boarding. He watches the flight attendants open the gate, lifting the retractable stanchion. Business class first. 

He locks his phone and slips it into his pocket. He boards the plane, settling into the cool leather of his assigned seat. 

He doesn’t think of Kip for the whole eight days he spends in Spain. Doesn’t think of Kip’s kind eyes and gentle hands as he lets another stranger roll a rubber over their cock and take his mouth. Doesn’t think of the warmth Kip would leave on the other side of the bed as he rolls into cold sheets each night, half-drunk and entirely alone, spent and sore and sorry. 

He lies. 

October 2014 (three months later)

Boston. Kip is in Boston, and Scott didn’t know. 

Last time they’d spoken in person, after the St Thomas benefit and before what Scott now refers to in his head as ‘The Collapse’, Kip had been waiting on tenterhooks for his acceptance letters. Scott, after his dressing down from Elena, had been counting the days til he was inevitably going to fuck things up. He hadn’t even had to wait four hours, turns out. 

He still thinks about it. A lot. Kip’s impossible request. His own impossible answer. 

It’s unsurprising that Kip got into grad school. He is brilliant, passionate, incisive, driven. Scott had known about none of these qualities when he’d first met Kip, first awkwardly attempted flirtation over crushed fruit. These had been the layers he’d been delighted to peel back and reveal. Kip, the whole person, who’d made him better, even as he’d grown more afraid with every passing, blissful day. 

But now they’re in the same city. 

Scott’s been finding refuge in the away games. Letting himself be worn down to a series of responses to calendar alerts: car service, team plane, check in, play, check out, team plane, car service, rest. He goes where he’s needed and he does his job and the rest of it floats by. 

Kip is nearby. Kip could be mere miles away, ensconced in a new and better life that he fought for and deserves. 

Scott tests responses, thumb moving over his screen: Where are you? I’m proud of you. Meet me? 

He deletes them all, leaves them unsent. He sends back, instead, a simple missive, designed with distance. 

January 2015 (three months later)

At the start of the new year, Scott finds himself in Boston again, because that is the rhythm of the season and he is still just following orders, one foot in front of another, one puck drop at a time, until he…well, until he dies, he guesses. The way his bones hurt some days he thinks it might be sooner rather than later.

He messages Kip because he is a masochist, and even being left on read will at least help him feel something. 

He’s surprised by the response. 

He hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t been able to let himself. 

He replies hurriedly, says he can meet in an hour. Kip names a cafe near the BU campus. 

Scott’s halfway out the door when another message comes through.

They don’t, in fact, lose. Scott could never lose. Not when Kip is walking into this bar near the waterfront. The spot is uncool and overpriced but anonymous enough, and nowhere near his team’s hotel. 

Scott’s dressed in his suit and tie still from the post-game departure. He feels overdressed when he sees Kip, comfortable in a white shirt and dark, slim fit jeans. 

Kip seems antsy. A little tired. He’s got half-moons smudged beneath his eyes, but he still smiles when he sees Scott—even if it doesn’t light him up as bright as it used to. 

They don’t hug. They don’t even shake hands. Kip just slides onto a stool next to him and orders a vodka soda. 

His hair’s getting long. Curly near his collar. It’s sweet, and Scott can hardly bear to look at it: the way it feathers against the linen of the shirt. 

“You look good,” Scott says, although he only half means it. Kip looks tired. Still so, so handsome, but exhausted. 

“You look worn out,” Kip says. “Rough game?”

Scott’s taken aback by the anger under his tone. “No more so than usual.”

Kip nods and sips at his drink. “Sleeping okay?”

“No. You?”

“No. Neither.”

Scott wants so badly to hug him, to wrap him into his arms, to invent a fucking time machine so they don’t have to be here, now, doing whatever this is.

“How’s school?” he asks.

“Hard.” 

“But good?”

“But good,” Kip nods. 

Their conversation is stilted, ungainly, like a newborn giraffe, or something old and cracked dragging itself along on broken legs. 

He watches as Kip downs four vodkas over the hour they sit there. Scott’s own beer goes largely untouched. 

“You wanna get out of here?” Kip asks eventually, his eyes fixing darkly. 

“Yeah,” he finds himself saying, even though it’s a terrible idea. 

They share an uber to a Kip’s place: an uninspiring brick apartment block in Back Bay. Scott follows Kip to the front door, his heart pounding, his mouth dry. 

“I’ve got roommates,” Kip warns, pushing open the door. 

The apartment is dark. It’s late. They don’t touch, not until they’re in Kip’s bedroom with the door closed, the blinds drawn against the city’s lights. 

Kip kisses him and tastes like vodka and imitation lime; his kisses bite, an undercurrent of anger slicing through what could so easily be tenderness. 

They don’t speak. Their hands strip each other of clothing, and then Scott is being pushed back onto the mattress, Kip crawling onto his lap. 

“Quiet,” Kip hushes him, his hand grazing Scott’s hard on. 

They kiss again, still no softer, Kip no less demanding. He pushes Scott’s hands away when he reaches up to cradle Kip’s face. The admonition is non-verbal but clear: I am not for you. You are not what I want. 

Kip chooses to open himself up, fast and without fanfare, his face tucked into the crook of Scott’s neck, breathing hard against his collarbone. 

Scott keeps his hands to himself, wanting nothing more than to touch, to care. 

When he’s ready, Kip rolls a condom onto Scott’s erection with efficiency. They didn’t use to bother. Now, well. Kip turns away to face the foot of the bed, giving Scott a view of his muscled back. He rides Scott like that, eyes down, not looking back over his shoulder once. 

The pleasure is intense, made all the more so in contrast to Kip’s indifference. Scott takes the punishment, reaches out to lay a hand on Kip’s scapula, feels the heat of him like a furnace in an ice storm. It’s been so long. It’s been too long. 

After Scott comes, Kip turns back around, kneels out of arm’s reach, and finishes himself off with his own hand. Kip barely looks up; a distance between them yawns, miles wider than the foot of mattress that separates their bodies.  It’s not what Scott wants. He wants to hold Kip, to kiss him, to look into his eyes and somehow take everything back. It is what he has, though. He drinks it with greed: the image, the stifled sound, the warmth of Kip’s body he can still feel faintly clinging to his own skin. 

Kip tenses, his neck red. Before he comes he grabs his own discarded t-shirt from the edge of the bed and shoots into it with a soft sigh. He looks at it for a beat, and then balls it up and tosses it towards a laundry basket in the corner of the room. 

“There’s a trash can under my desk,” Kip says. 

“Right.” Scott searches for a box of tissues and find one on the desk. He peels off the condom and wraps it, tosses it away. He feels incredibly naked in the room’s half-dark. 

They get dressed. 

Kip lets Scott pull him close, kiss him again. It’s softer now, sadder; something has been exorcised. Kip places his hands on Scott’s shoulders, just resting for long moments while they make out. And then pushing him away, not unkindly. 

“Your flight tomorrow?”

“Early.” 

Scott wants nothing more than to be asked to stay. 

“You need to go,” Kip says instead. 

“Yeah.” 

Scott kisses him again, but it’s not like it was mere moments ago. He feels Kip pull away, close off. 

He leaves. Kip watches him go from the front door as he waits for the elevator that will spirit him down and away. 

January 2015 (the next morning)

May 2015 (four months later)

The Admirals have been knocked out of playoff contention in the first round. It is one of several things in a not-very-long list of things that are making Scott miserable. 

Another reason is the months of silence after the miserable fuck he’d had with Kip back in Boston. He hadn’t texted. He certainly hadn’t called. He’d left the ball firmly in Kip’s court and then had the audacity to be surprised when it hadn’t been lobbed back to him. 

Furthermore, Kip has reached out now, after a stinging loss, just to let him know that he’s seeing some other guy. That he’s happy. The whole thing feels calculated, but he can’t even bring himself to be upset by it. The most likely reality of the situation is that Kip is not cruel, and this is not intentional. It is, most likely a well-meaning message of commiseration after a shitty playoff series, and Kip just happened to mention the boyfriend as a buffer after what happened in the winter. 

Scott reads too much into it anyway. 

The small solace that he finds in the whole sorry mess is that the guy—whoever he is—is a Raiders fan, of all things. It should make him mad. But instead, a small smile breaks out across his face. 

A Raiders fan. It’ll never last. 

Christ, he needs help. 

It’s a thaw, though. A crack in the wall between them. A hand, ghostlike, reaching out to wave hello. 

He doesn’t wave back. Instead, he pulls on his running shoes. He hits the pavement until it hits him back, ankle aching, sweat sticking his shirt to his skin. 

September 2015 (four months later)

He meets Kip at 9pm at a small, quiet bar in Lenox Hill—not a sports bar and not a dive, but nowhere particularly nice. He doesn’t think he’s even actually been here before. A place to be a stranger. A place with a clean slate. 

Kip turns up looking unfairly good, in glasses and a soft chambray shirt. He seems healthier, less exhausted, his cheeks fuller and pinker than they had been at the start of the year when they’d crashed into each other. 

Scott smiles and raises a hand in greeting. Kip smiles back, a small and uncertain thing. But it’s better than nothing. It’s better than the blank, cold ice sheet he’d been in January. 

Kip slides into the booth across from him. They don’t touch, again, but there’s something here. He can feel it.

They order wine. Kip regards Scott over the rim of his glass, and says, “You seem different. You seem…good.”

“I’ve been good, actually. Therapy. It’s, uh, a hell of a thing.” 

Kip looks at him with pleased surprise. “Good for you,” he says, and it seems like he means it. 

It had been the coach’s idea, after a feral game and a pounding loss that had seen Scott hitting a hockey stick against the locker room doorframe until the thing was a snarled, snapped mess. It’s a sports psychologist, and Scott hasn’t even come close to mentioning the whole gay thing, but still. He’s talking about the pressure. He’s talking about his parents. He’s talking about the expectations that are set for him, and that he sets for himself, couching them in terms of winning, and performing, but not really discussing the details of what the performance entails. The mask. But he’s feeling out its edges, and how he fits the costume. Which of its straps dig and pinch, and maybe how he can start to loosen things a bit. 

This is part of it: being in public, with a man, and not flinching. He’s earned this. 

They talk. He asks Kip about the conference, and lets Kip’s enthusiasm coast over him as he talks about the paper he presented. He asks questions just to keep it rolling, keep Kip happy. And because he wants to know. He wants to know whatever Kip will let him. 

Another glass of wine each. It’s almost 10 o’clock, but it’s a Tuesday, and the bar is still quiet.

“How’s your Raiders fan?” Scott asks into a lull between them.

“We broke up.” Kip shrugs.

“I’m sorry.” He doesn’t mean it.

“Yeah, well. He had stiff competition.” 

Scott’s shoulders slump. “You’re in demand, I’m can’t say I’m surprised.” 

Kip sighs, then looks at Scott and is brave, braver than Scott could ever be, more forward, more understanding of his own desires and precisely who he is in relation to them. 

“I meant more that he wasn’t you. No one is measuring up to you,” he says.

Scott nods, slowly. He doesn’t know how to respond beyond a base instinct to throw himself at Kip’s feet. 

Kip clears his throat. “I’m sorry about last time I saw you. I’m sorry for how I used you. I was in a shitty place—stressed about school, about money, about what it meant to be seeing you again. I took it out on you. It wasn’t fair.” 

Scott blinks, slow. “I think we both used each other. I’m sorry, too. But I won’t pretend that I didn’t want it. Or that I haven’t been thinking about it every fucking day since.” 

Kip nods. Beneath the table, their feet touch. 

They end up in an alley behind a closed Chinese restaurant whose lights are switched off. They barely make it two blocks from the bar, Scott offering to walk Kip back to the subway, before Kip’s taking Scott’s hand and dragging him between the buildings. 

Kip doesn’t ask, but he presses Scott against the brickwork of the restaurant, taking his face between his hands and kissing him soundly. It’s not tentative, nor is it gentle, nor is it the punishment of January. The kiss blooms open, real and wanting, asking. Scott answers, slides his hands to Kip’s waist, lets himself be pushed back and back until their bodies are pressed together from chest to knee, mouths open in a call and response chorus. Scott gives; Kip takes, and gives in return. Just this is enough. The hot press of lips, the warmth of Kip’s tongue in his mouth. 

They break apart, and Scott looks at Kip in the faint sodium glow of the street light. A car passes, wheels loud. Scott doesn’t care; can’t possibly bring himself to care right now. 

“We need to go somewhere,” Kip says, nipping at Scott’s jaw, fingers tight against Scott’s shoulders. 

“My place,” Scott murmurs.

“No.” 

“Okay. Okay.”

There’s a hotel nearby. Scott hands over his platinum card at reception, checking them into a room, feeling tawdry and cheap about it but too keyed up to care much. Kip waits discreetly near the elevator bank, pretending to be interested in a potted fern. 

When Scott takes the key from the receptionist, his hands are shaking. 

The hotel room is uninspiring, like the hundreds he’s been in on the road over the years. It fades away, though—the shitty art, the beige wallpaper, the gilt-framed rectangular mirror over an impossibly small desk—and all that’s left is Kip, Kip’s hands and curls and beautiful face, and the press of the mattress beneath them. 

They don’t talk, not much. They remove their clothes in the stifling silence that the hotel room offers, the patient anonymity of its bland walls. 

“I don’t have anything,” Scott says, when they’re pressed together, Kip’s erection digging into his hip. He’s bracing himself over Kip on one elbow, letting Kip kiss along his throat, his collarbone. 

“Like this is fine,” Kip says, shifting, taking them both in his hand. 

Scott rolls sideways to give him more space, twines their legs, rests their foreheads together. They kiss, over and over, until it becomes too much, and they’re just panting into each other’s mouths, lips grazing slackly. Kip closes his eyes, but Scott watches, looks down and stares as Kip comes, the feel and sight of it splashing against his belly enough to push him over the edge. 

They sleep, afterwards. They don’t discuss what they are, or what it means. But something has tilted; something has shifted there in that room as the New York City lights filter in through gauzy curtains, a bar fridge motor kicking in with sympathy in the quiet of the night. 

September 2015 (the next morning)

Scott clutches his phone to his chest. He’s being too intense again, most likely. 

He thinks about last night. About Kip beneath him, arching his back until their chests pressed together, their hearts separated by nothing but skin and bone and muscle. 

He wonders if it’s the start of something new.

Chapter End Notes

I wanted to write it again. I know I already did the time gap, but it’s just such a rich and fun playground.

Also this time I wanted to structure it around text messages because I’m a masochist and I love formatting HTML.

Chapter 2

September 2015 (one week later)

The call is brief, less than ten minutes. Scott checks the call time on his phone screen when they hang up. 

In terms of a concrete contribution to the conversation, he’d offered little. It had been more than enough to let Kip ramble. 

It had been enough to just hear Kip’s voice.

Something is starting here, he realises. A tender bud, nascent and new.

He keeps it in mind as he heads into the practice facility for morning skate. He gets into his gear, laces up his skates, makes his way across old and peeled  rubber to the edge of the rink. 

As he warms up, he thinks of it: they tiny seedling, tendril unfurling, fruit sprouting. He guards it softly in his hands, and waits to watch it grow. 

October 2015 (three weeks later)

It’s 3pm by the time Scott hears the knock on his hotel room door. 

He pulls it open to see Kip on the other side. It’s been over a month since they’ve seen each other, although they text fairly regularly. Kip has somehow managed to grow even more beautiful in that time: relaxed, perhaps, or self-confident. Being on surer footing suits him. 

Kip slips in the open door, brushing past Scott at close quarters. He smells good; spicy and distinct. 

“No roomie?” Kip asks as Scott closes the door behind them. 

“Not tonight. You didn’t want to swipe yourself in?”

“I didn’t want to presume.” 

Scott looks at Kip, and then at the big, white bed that Kip is staring at. 

“Presume away,” he says. 

It feels less seedy, having Kip in his space here during daylight hours. The room is still impersonal, but the sunlight brings a warmth to proceedings that has otherwise been missing. Kip has always looked brilliant in sunlight. 

“What time’s puck drop?” Kip asks, and Scott is embarrassingly turned on by the casual use of hockey terminology. 

“Not for a while,” he says. “I’ve got time.” 

“Good,” Kip says, and then kisses him. 

It’s easier this time. They’re less afraid of each other, and of what it means to be together again. Their old wounds are healing, the scar tissue a solid foundation for the unknown that comes next. 

Kip’s stubble scrapes against his chin, feels rough under the pads of his fingers as he cups Kip’s face in his hands. Kip’s fingers are already working at Scott’s belt, but he wants to draw this out—wants to kiss deeply and for hours until he’s regained the time lost. 

Kip shrugs out of his jacket, leans back to pull his shirt over his head. He’s still so muscular, his chest hair thick and dark. Scott slides his hands over Kip’s chest, feeling the heat of his skin. He rubs his thumbs over Kip’s nipples, hears his breath stutter. Kip’s hands are tugging at Scott’s t-shirt, his jeans, a flurry of want stripping them both to their skin. 

They tumble to the bed. 

“I want you,” Kip says, as though his actions haven’t shown it. 

“Tell me,” Scott says.

“Fuck me.” 

Scott is grateful for his hubris earlier when he’d packed his bag, stuffing lube and condoms into the inside zipped compartment of his duffle.

“Yes,” he says, even though it wasn’t a question, and kisses Kip again. 

They fuck on their sides, spooned together, because this is how Kip wants it—how he’s always preferred it. Scott cradles Kip’s head and turns his face just so, until he can kiss his slack mouth, drink his breathy moans. He adjusts the angle, sliding in deeper, Kip tight around him and warm inside his arms. 

He buries his face in the crook of Kip’s neck and speeds up, slides a hand from Kip’s chest to his cock to stroke him. He tilts Kip’s chin, slides a thumb into his mouth, filling him, feeling him, touching him. 

Kip comes with a cry, Scott’s fingers hooking his jaw open. Scott pulses into the condom, buried deep inside Kip’s body, his hand right over Kip’s heart. 

Afterwards, Kip takes a shower in the ensuite. Scott can see the shape of him through the bathroom’s frosted glass door. He emerges wrapped in a hotel robe, his hair still damp. He’s smiling. It’s nice.

Scott checks the time, and groans.

“I’m supposed to be having a pre-game nap,” he says. “Bus leaves for the arena in an hour and a half.”

“I’ll go, then,” Kip says, reaching for his pants where they’re pooled in a heap on the floor. 

“No,” Scott says, and Kip stops, holding his jeans in front of him. 

“Stay,” Scott adds. “Please.” 

Kip drops the jeans, and then shrugs out of the robe. He crawls onto the bed beside Scott, who’s still sprawled naked on top of the sheets. 

“One hour?”

Scott sleeps better than he has in months. 

Later, as he’s pulling on his suit to travel to the arena, Kip sits on the edge of the bed in his underwear, turning his shirt right-way-out again. Getting ready to leave. 

Scott wants nothing less. 

“Will you wait here?” He sounds intense, he sounds desperate, but he has to ask. “Order room service. Whatever you want. I’ll be back at 11. If you want.” 

Kip is tilting his head, considering it. 

“Okay,” he says. 

Scott smiles, can’t help but grin, and kisses Kip, again and again, until his alarm goes off this time for real and he has to pull away, back away, and drag himself out the door. 

“What are we?” Kip asks, when Scott is back in the room later that night, still sweaty and sore and exhausted. Kip is leaning back against the headboard in his T-shirt and boxers.

“What do you want us to be?” Scott asks, sitting on the bed and shrugging out of his suit coat. 

“I asked you first,” Kip counters, a juvenile smirk playing around his lips. 

Scott sighs and rubs his hands over his face, before turning and looking Kip in the eyes. 

Therapy has tried to teach him that asking for what he wants is okay. Maybe now is time to put it into practice. 

“I want this to be more than just casual,” he says. “I want to call you. I want to text you. I want to see you when I’m here and when you’re in New York. I want us to figure it out.” 

“The distance is impossible, you know? You’re flying out again in the morning.” 

“I don’t want to leave.” 

Kip picks at a loose thread on the mattress. “I don’t want you to leave, either.” 

Scott leans closer to him, sinking into the mattress. 

“So what do we do?” he asks. 

“What can we do? I’ve got six months left until I graduate. After that…I don’t know.”

Scott nods. “Are you coming back to New York?”

“I don’t know.” Kip runs a hand through his hair, brushing his curls askew. “My advisor is talking about the PhD track. Thinks I’ve got a ‘lot to offer contemporary scholarship’.” He does the air quotes and shrugs, self-effacing. 

Scott throws caution to the wind. They’ve come this far. 

“Whatever you want, I want to give it to you,” he says. “However I can have you. However you’ll take me.” 

Kip looks at him, eyes searching. “It can’t be the same as last time.” 

“It’s won’t be,” Scott says hurriedly. “We’ll figure it out.” 

“You have to meet my dad, at least.” 

“I can do that,” Scott says, letting out a sigh of relief. “I can absolutely do that.” 

After they talk, they crash together, months of pent-up fear and hope surging over like a king tide. Scott pulls Kip into the shower, where Kip sinks to his knees and blows him against the frosted glass wall, Scott’s legs tired and shaky, Kip looking up at him through water-dusted lashes. 

They tumble into bed, kissing deep and slow. Scott pulls Kip’s hand down between his legs. 

“Rest day tomorrow,” he says. “Make me yours again.” 

Kip shivers against him, kissing him again, once, twice, then moving his mouth down Scott’s body. He kisses each part of him: pecs, nipples, ribs, stomach, hips, cock, the crease of his thigh, and lower, tongue tracing hot and wet over the core of him. He teases for a while and then licks in, hands holding Scott open, then adding a finger, sliding it in easy where Scott’s wet and relaxed. 

Scott shudders, breath heaving and shaky, and bites his lip to keep from moaning. It’s been too long. 

Kip slicks his fingers with lube and slides two inside, kissing back up Scott’s body, kneeling over him, running his other hand up Scott’s ribs. Scott sighs into it, pulls one knee up to his chest, arches his back with a muffled cry as Kip curls his fingers with careful accuracy. 

By the time Kip hoists Scott’s legs over his shoulders and pushes in, he’s a wreck: lip bitten enough to bruise, hands fisting in his own hair as he flies apart, split open on the thickness of Kip’s cock. He takes it, takes it until Kip’s hips are flush against him, because he can, and because he needs it. 

When Kip starts to move, it’s intense. Scott thrashes his head against the pillow, clasps his hands in the sheets. He tries to keep it down, aware that Carter’s hotel room is just on the other side of the wall behind the headboard. When he starts to get close, he drops his legs, wrapping them around Kip’s waist, pulling Kip down to kiss him. He reaches down to stroke himself, pulling himself over the edge and Kip along with him, two climbers tied and doomed to fall together. Kip swallows Scott’s moans between his own ragged breaths, nails pressing half-moons in Scott’s thighs.

He’ll see the marks tomorrow and the day after, alone in New York—counting the days, now, until they’re together again.

December 2015 (three months later)

Christmas had crept up over the last two months. He and Kip talked on the phone every couple of days, and texted on the days between. Whatever is between them is still new, still tentative. There are still too many unanswered questions around what the relationship is, and how it’s expected to work given that their circumstances haven’t fundamentally changed in the last two years. 

Scott stands in his kitchen, staring down at his phone. Kip hasn’t wanted to come back here, and he can understand that. They’ve talked about it. There’s a lot tied up in it from last time: how Kip had felt trapped; how Scott hadn’t allowed them to be together anywhere else. 

It’s not a punishment, per se, but it is a needling reminder. This time, Kip needs more. Kip needs to be his outside these walls. 

He looks around at how empty the apartment truly is, how devoid of any sign of life it’s been since Kip removed himself—the one thing that meant anything. 

His phone pings again: Kip has sent through an address in Brooklyn. He can hazard a guess that this is the Grady house. 

Scott sees it for the second one challenge that it is: if you’re serious about this, you will come. 

If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s meeting challenges. He is scared. He is terrified, honestly. 

He goes anyway.

George Grady opens the door in answer to Scott’s knock. He’s shorter than Scott, balding and grey-haired, but he may as well be a giant for how small Scott feels standing in front of him. 

“Aha,” he says. “The great Scott Hunter, I presume?” 

George knows who he is—Kip had mentioned it, years ago: how his dad was a big fan. Until this moment—and the sheer disappointment with which George is regarding him—Scott hadn’t been entirely sure whether Kip had told his dad about two of them, about everything that happened. As George looks him dead in the eyes, Scott knows: George is aware that Scott broke his son’s heart. 

“It’s, uh, a pleasure to meet you, sir.” He tries for politeness to cover the nervous thud of his heart. 

George rolls his eyes, just a little, and Scott clocks it instantly: where Kip gets it from. The long-suffering sarcasm. But also an undercurrent of warmth, as George opens the door wider and ushers Scott inside rather than slamming the door in his face, which is probably what he deserves. 

The Grady house is everything Scott thought it would be. Cosy, lived in, messy in a way that’s comfortable and comforting at the same time. It looks like a home. 

“Coffee, Scott?” George asks, shuffling past him and turning into a tidy kitchen. 

“Um, yes, thank you.” 

“Well, we’re out.” George folds his arms. 

“Oh.” 

George’s look is cool and appraising as he takes Scott in. He imagines how he must look: tall but hunching, wearing a team hoodie and duffle jacket, desperately trying to fade into the wallpaper.

Thundering footfall on the steps saves him. 

“Dad,” Kip says, rounding into the kitchen. “Leave it alone.” 

George raises his hands in surrender and turns back to the sink, running the faucet. 

Kip takes Scott’s elbow and tugs him towards the front door and out onto the street. 

They walk for a few blocks before coming to a small park, trees naked in the winter air, grass laid low by frost. 

“He seems to really hate me,” Scott says. 

“He doesn’t hate you,” Kip says quickly. “He’s just being…territorial. He cleaned up a lot of my emotional mess last time. I don’t think he wants to see it happen again.” 

“You didn’t warn me.”

“I didn’t think I needed to. To be honest, I wanted to see if you’d actually do it.” 

“You’re testing me?” Scott asks.

Kip shrugs. “Sort of. You’ve passed, by the way. Very brave.” 

They’re not touching, out here in public. Kip is keeping his hands to himself, and Scott has his own stuffed deep in his pockets. 

He knows that Kip means it, despite the slight mocking he’s getting. He feels like he’s earned it. Hurting Kip last time—knowing he was doing it and still asking for more anyway—if this is his medicine, he’ll take it. 

“I’m all in,” he says, squaring his shoulder, stopping on the dead grass, facing Kip with earnest eyes. “Seriously. I mean it.”

Kip smiles, and Scott can tell, he can just tell, that Kip wants to kiss him. 

“Me, too,” Kip says. 

“Good. Now, let’s go back so your dad can yell at me some more.” 

George Grady doesn’t yell when they return. He drops the hard-ass act, too, once he sees Kip smiling indulgently at Scott over mugs of coffee. 

They end up having lunch, talking gently, a little awkwardly. Kip ends up rolling his eyes and telling George to just ask him about hockey, Dad, it’s fine, and Scott spends the next half hour answering every question George has, trying to prove his worth. 

There’s no shovel talk. There’s not accusations or apologies. There’s just this: a gentle laying of bricks in a road that will one day lead them somewhere better, somewhere kinder, where they can come together as the one thing Scott has craved most for more than twenty years: a family. 

January 2016 (one week later)

Chapter 3

Chapter Notes

February 2016 (six weeks later)

It goes so well. Coming out to people on his side of their equation had hung over Scott like a cloud for months until he finally dispels it, just before Valentine’s Day. 

Carter is waxing lyrical about Gloria for the hundredth time that week, laying out his plans for the weekend as he packs his bag. Scott has been keeping him company in his hotel room, waiting to head to breakfast together. 

“Fuck, man, I am stoked we’re flying back for the fourteenth, I made reservations at that new restaurant where you sit in the dark and can’t see shit and just have to, like, feel around on your plate and pray you’re not eating, I don’t know, cockroaches or some shit. Gloria wanted to go. It’s meant to be getting good reviews, but it’s the what the fuck aspect that really draws me in, you know?”

Scott does not, in fact, know. 

“I’m glad we’re getting in early,” Carter continues. “I gotta get to Tiffany’s and pick up the bracelet I got her. She dropped enough hints, I think she thinks I’ve got bad taste. Oh, shit, do I?” 

“I don’t think so,” Scott says, having no idea. 

“Ah, fuck, man. Sorry. I’ll shut up. You don’t need to hear me banging on about it while you’re desperate and dateless.” 

It’s a gentle ribbing, spoken with fondness and not cruelty. But it’s an opening, all the same.

“I’m actually not,” Scott says, his mouth going dry. His hands twitch against his knees where he sits. 

Carter looks at him, surprise painting his face. And then he smiles, wide and inordinately pleased. 

“Aw, shit, Scotty! Who’s the lucky lady? Far out, I didn’t think I’d ever see the day!” 

“It’s, uh.” He swallows. He scraped his fingernails over the denim of his jeans, the sensation grounding him. He stands, shoves his hands into his pockets.  “It’s not a lucky lady.” 

Carter looks confused. 

Scott puts him out of his misery. 

“He’s a lucky man,” he says, and then shrugs. 

Carter’s mouth drops open. Then he quickly shuts it again. He crosses the room to Scott, and grabs his shoulders, shaking him lightly. He’s smiling. 

“Scott Hunter, you fucking beautician,” he says, and pulls him into a hug. “Fuck, I am so happy for you.” 

Scott blinks. His eyes are hot. His breath feels tight. His hands come up and grasp at Carter, relief flooding through him as he hugs him back. 

Afterwards, as they make their way to breakfast, Scott feels a lightness in his step. He is Atlas shrugging off the weight. He stands taller. 

March 2016 (one month later) 

Quiet, it turns out, is impossible when meeting Kip’s friends. They are a force unto themselves. They move amongst and between themselves with a long-earned ease, a level of friendship built on honesty and loving one another for exactly who they are.

Scott is jealous for about five minutes until Shawn takes him and kisses him on the cheeks. He’s pushed into a chair, and someone slides a cocktail in front of him. 

“Drink,” Elena says, giving him a pointed look that has no heat in it. “Relax. We’re not going to bite.” 

“Unless you’re into that,” Kyle smirks. 

Scott looks at Kip for help and Kip is barely stifling a laugh. 

They end up squashed together into a booth for most of the night. Kip is pressed up against Scott, not running interference but prepared to do so if it’s needed. He can feel it radiating off Kip: the protectiveness and the pride. 

Kip shines brighter here, among the people that he loves—this other part of his family. Scott hates that he’d kept Kip from this; regrets that he didn’t let himself have this sooner. 

They don’t ask about hockey because they don’t really care, and Scott finds it refreshing. They also don’t grill him, although they’d have every right to. Instead, they have a nice time, folding him into the easy banter of their conversation, the comfort and familiarity they have with one another. 

Scott can’t remember the last time he got to have this: camaraderie and banter and friendship without the walls, with no secrets kept close to his chest. He feels greedy for it; he wants it in all parts of his life. He wishes, with a pang, that it could always have been this easy for him. That his twenties could have been different: honest, real, a time to learn to be himself, to let his honest self be shaped by people who knew and loved him. 

He’ll take it now, if Kip is willing to share it. To share them. 

Kip tells his friends that he’s coming back to the city after he graduates, trying to find a job. He and Scott have discussed it—what it will be like for them in the summer, when Kip has graduated and Scott is in the off season and they’ll finally have time to be together, for real, in the same zip code. 

“Don’t you dare go back to the smoothie shop! I feel like I only just got out!” Maria shouts. 

“I think I got everything I need from that place,” Kip says, pressing his knee against Scott’s under the table. 

Later, after stretched-out goodbyes and promises to not let it be so long next time, Scott and Kip go back to the Grady house in Brooklyn. Kip lets Scott order a car with only a slight roll of his eyes. 

When they get inside, George is there, sitting in an armchair and doing the crossword, wearing comfortable plaid pyjamas. 

George eyeballs Scott and Kip as they make their fumbling way into the house, tipsy and hanging off each other. 

“All right, boys,” he says, standing up and dropping his newspaper onto the armchair he’s just vacated. “Drink some water before bed, will you?” 

 Scott has never had a parent waiting up for him to come home from a night out before. He feels something warm and a little sad bloom under his ribs. The pain of being cared for; the ache of being known.

“I’m off to bed,” George says, sidling past them to head up the stairs. “It’s late. Good night. I love you. I’ll wear earplugs.” 

“Dad!” Kip exclaims, mortified. 

Scott blushes scarlet.

They fuck anyway, Scott’s long fingers pressed down over Kip’s mouth, holding his moans in as he presses in, in, their bodies aligned in one long line, Scott’s chest against Kip’s back, their feet kicking the sheets off the end of the bed. Scott holds him close, wraps him in his arms, kisses the back of his neck, his cheek. The sun-gentle touch of being seen—being loved, even if they haven’t said it again yet, he feels it—warming him from the soles of his feet upward. 

In the morning, the drought breaks. They lie in Kip’s too-small bed, curled together. Despite the morning breath, they can’t stop kissing, breaking apart to murmur nonsense, to make each other laugh. 

They lie on their sides, heads sharing a pillow. Kip’s eyes are warm and dark; smiling eyes. Scott’s eyes are open, fully. 

“Hey,” he says, trying to be calm despite the beat of his heart. “I love you.” 

Kip’s smile gets bigger, his cheeks dimpling. “I love you, too.” 

They’ve waited long enough, until it felt sturdy and sure and true beneath them. 

They crash back together, grinning like maniacs, teeth clashing and they’re laughing into their kisses, relief at having been found again pouring between them like wine. 

A knock at the door sends them scurrying, tugging the sheet up and over their heads like they’re sixteen again, hushed laughter as they crowd their faces close. 

“Coffee’s on,” George calls through the door. 

“Thanks, Dad,” Kip calls back. 

They hear footsteps retreat on the landing outside. Scott lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. 

“Five minutes,” Kip says, leaning into Scott’s space again. 

Scott, if he can, will give him forever. 

April 2016 (early)

Kip is graduating. Scott doesn’t think he’s ever been prouder of anyone in his life. He wants to be there for Kip, more than anything. Even having been asked is…a lot. So much. He thinks about what it will be like to see Kip walk across the stage and get his diploma. How hard Kip’s worked, and how much he deserves his moment. 

Scott never had any of that for himself. His trajectory had been different. He was a college dropout, drafted straight into the MLH in his junior year. He’d been making high six figures before he was legally able to drink. 

He thinks of how things were before, the last time he and Kip were together. When Kip hadn’t even told him that he’d gotten into his masters. Hadn’t really even talked about where he’d been applying. It had been a vague future—one that hadn’t fit in with the exigencies of now that their relationship had demanded. 

This time it’s different. They share more now. The woes of scheduling, the stress of the study, the unending thesis corrections. He gets to be there for it, to love Kip through it. 

And now, finally, Kip wants him there to see the fruits of his labor. 

Meanwhile, the conference finals loom. The culmination of a year of work, of sweat and blood and bruises. 

Scott’s going to play hard. He’s going to give the playoffs everything he can. He’s going to bring the Cup home—for the team, for himself, but for Kip, too. If he can’t be there for Kip in his moment, the win is the least he can do. 

He swallows. The old feelings creep up. That there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for this man; nothing he wouldn’t give him. If only—if only—he can be enough.

April 2016 (ten days later)

Scott starts a Skype call the minute he’s home and clean, perched on top of his bed, resting his back against the headboard.

“Hey, baby,” he says when the call connects. “I’ve missed you.” 

“I miss you too,” Kip says. He looks so cute, comfortable in a soft T-shirt and sweatpants. Ready for bed. Scott wants to crawl in beside him. 

“Second round, huh?” Kip asks. 

“Yep. Make or break.” 

“It’s your year.” 

“It feels like it, sometimes,” Scott says, tentative, not wanting to push his luck with the hockey gods this close to a win.  

They chat for a while, idle talk, Kip talking about thesis revisions, Scott mostly just listening. 

“I wish you were here,” he says, eventually, barely stopping himself from reaching out and touching Kip’s face on the screen. 

“I wish you were here, too,” Kip says, grinning so broad and open it’s blinding. “Oh, hey, there was something I read in this article the other day that I wanted to share. Just a sec.” 

He puts on his wire-rimmed glasses, then looks away from the call to sort through a pile of papers on the bedside table. 

The glasses are…very hot. Scott can barely stifle a small groan as soon as Kip looks back at the camera, the full force of his attention on Scott again. 

“What?”

“Nothing. You just…”

“I just what?” 

“It’s, uh. It’s a good look.” 

Kip reaches up to touch the glasses, laughing. “God, these? I should—”

“No! Leave them. Um. Leave them on.” 

Kip crosses his arms, looking amused. “Oh, I see. This kind of call, huh?” 

“God, I shouldn’t, not during the playoffs.” 

“I can’t believe you’re still superstitious about that.” 

“It’s science!” 

“So, if I were to…I don’t know…tell you how much I miss your mouth, that would be a bad idea?” 

“Kip…” he warns. 

“Or,” Kip starts, his smile now somewhere between predatory and mirthful. “Or if I said that I was counting the days til I can see you again and get my hands all over you—would that be a bad idea?” 

Scott sighs, but can’t bring himself to interrupt. He’s already starting to stir, a low thrum of arousal. 

“I do miss your mouth, you know,” Kip says, his voice dropping low. “I miss kissing you, obviously. But there are so many other things it can do.” 

He reaches down, out of frame, the movement of his arm hints that he’s touching himself, adjusting himself. 

“Want some examples?” he asks.

“Fuck yes,” Scott groans.

“Your mouth is perfect, you know,” he starts, tone direct and matter of fact. “When you’re on your knees for me. You take my cock so well.” 

It’s zero to hundred, and Scott has whiplash. He’s achingly hard already, uncomfortable in his sweatpants. 

Kip looks slightly shy, but he remembers. Surely. They used to do this all the time, when they were first together and Scott was on the road what felt like every other day. 

“I wish you were here,” Kip continues, arm still moving out of frame, bicep flexing. “Would you let me have you?”

“Kip, I can’t, god, you know I can’t.” 

“Such a good boy, huh?” 

Scott shivers, his dick twitching, his hands clasping on nothing. 

“I can, though, can’t I?” Kip breathes, cheeks pink, staring straight into the camera. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Scott urges, mouth watering. “Touch yourself, lemme see it.” 

He watches as Kip rearranges the laptop, changing the angle, sliding his sweats down his thighs, pulling his hard cock out. It’s obscene. It feels dangerous. 

He strokes himself firmly, eyes still boring into Scott through the screen. 

“Jesus, Kip—”

“Tell me,” Kip says, breath hitching. “If you’re not allowed to come, but I am. What would you do?” 

Scott lets out a shaky breath. 

“I wouldn’t tease you,” he says. “I’d get my mouth around you. I want you on my tongue. Fuck.”

“Keep going.” His hand is moving faster now. 

“I’d…I’d suck you til you’re shaking. I’d get my fingers wet, slide them inside you. Press my thumb behind your balls. Would you like that?” 

“Yeah, yeah. Scott, c’mon.” 

Scott reaches down, palms at his own dick. God, he feels like he could explode just from this, just from talking this way, seeing Kip undone. 

‘God, I want you so bad,” he says. “I wanna taste you. I wanna choke on it.”

He has to pull his hand away from his crotch. He’s not going to come. It’s maddening. But he’s not wishing the play-offs away, either. That’d be bad luck. No matter how much he wants to come his brains out right now. 

And so he suffers, his dick aching. He watches Kip with greedy eyes. 

Kip’s neck is blotchy now, he’s feverishly working his cock. His eyes are still staring at the screen. Scott wonders how he himself looks right now: eyes dark, lip bitten, mouth open, half-wild. 

“You—you wouldn’t be allowed to touch yourself,” Kip shudders out, not a question, half a command. 

“No,” Scott agrees, voice deep. “I’d just watch you. Touch you. Get my hands all over you. Push your knees apart.”

Kip gasps, eyes finally slipping shut. 

“You could…could pull on my hair,” Scott says, because he may as well get what he wants from the fantasy. “Put me where you want me. I’d suck you so good, baby. I’ll give you everything you want.” 

“Fuck, Scott, I’m gonna come…” Kip’s breathing hard through his nose, making small, delightful sounds that the laptop mic is barely picking up. 

“You wanna come down my throat?” Scott asks, gripping his sheets again, desperate not to touch himself, crazy with the way his dick is aching, heavy between his thighs. Fuck, he might actually come anyway, without a hand on him. He wonders vaguely if that would still count. 

“Yes, yeah,” Kip whines, and then comes all over his fist, eyes screwed shut, chest heaving. 

Scott wishes he could reach through the screen. He wishes he could get it all over himself. 

He wants to close his eyes, he can feel pleasure spiraling through his spine already, just from this. Just from talking and watching. But he can’t look away. 

Kip comes back to earth, breath evening out. He grabs some tissues and cleans himself up, pulls his pants back up. 

“Well, that was…” he starts. 

“Yeah,” Scott says. 

“You okay?”

“Nope. I feel like I’m about to punch a hole through my sweats.” 

Kip laughs. “Go get that Cup, babe. Make it worth your while.” 

May 2016 (two weeks later)

He sits, comfortable and excited and anonymous in the crowd, next to a beaming and weeping George Grady, as they watch Kip cross the makeshift stage to get his diploma. Scott claps so hard he thinks his hands will go numb. 

“My boy, the MA!” George clasps Scott hard on the shoulder. He looks at Scott with such pride, such unfettered joy in his eyes. Scott realises, as it dawns on him—better late than never—that George is otherwise alone. No siblings for Kip, no mother. His joy—just like Scott’s—is increased tenfold by virtue of having someone here to share it. 

Together they are beacons for Kip, glowing among the sea of faces at Nickerson Field. 

Afterwards, they have lunch at a seafood place. Scott pays, and George tries to argue, but Kip just says, “Dad, let him.” He feels a stirring of something: pride, pleasure, satisfaction, as his credit card gets swiped through the reader. 

In the hotel room that night—because Kip deserves to stay somewhere nice, somewhere George is also in a suite but three blissful floors away—Scott demonstrates his pride enthusiastically for Kip, once and again, until they are both sated and messy. 

Kip makes a show of limping to the bathroom afterwards. 

“Jesus, Hunter, what do they put in your post-season smoothies?” 

Scott hides his face in a pillow, blushing. “Sorry. I was just…pent up. Did I actually hurt you?”

Kip laughs at him, delighted by his discomfort. “No. You caveman. Any inability to walk can be ascribed to the fact that you just made me come twice, and my legs are no longer functional.”

After they’ve showered and lie together in the hotel bed’s crisp, white sheets, Scott thinks again of how nice it was to pay for Kip: for the lunch, the hotel rooms, the room service he is extremely keen to order.  He has an idea he wants to float, if Kip is willing to hear it. 

He lets Kip wrap an arm around him and pull him in close. 

“So, you’re a graduate now. I’m so proud of you.” 

“So you’ve said. A hundred times,” Kip snorts. 

“I wanted to get you an extravagant graduation present. If that’s okay. You can say no. I know you’ll probably say no.” 

Kip looks at him in the soft lamplight. His face is inscrutable. 

“There’s not really anything I need.”

“Okay, but what about things you want?”

“Everybody has things they want.” Kip traces a fingertip over Scott’s eyebrows, one and then the other, soft and soothing. “I’d say this is already a pretty big get.” 

He drops a kiss onto Scott’s waiting mouth, then says, “Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?” 

Scott shifts, rolls closer to Kip. “I wanna take you to Paris. Can I?” 

Kip laughs, a sharp and pleased bark. “Are you fucking for real?”

Scott laughs, too, can’t help it. “Yes! You’ve worked hard. You deserve nice things. I have a couple of weeks over the summer where I have downtime. Let me? Please?”

He’s aware that he’s pretty close to begging. 

Kip stares at him, considering. His eyes are so warm and bright. 

“You know what?” he finally says. “Fuck it. I have worked hard. Okay. Okay. Let’s go to Paris.” 

Scott beams, pulls Kip into a kiss, rolling on top of him, boxing him in with his arms. His mind is going a million miles an hour, already planning. He’s kinda getting worked up again, just a little, because Kip is letting him give this to him, and it feels fucking incredible. 

“Je t’aime,” he says in a shitty French accent, kissing Kip’s neck, his cheek, sloppy and playful. “Je t’aime.” 

And Kip’s laughing, and squeezing Scott’s arms, joyful, because he loves Scott, too. 

November 2016 (six months later)

Kip does, in fact, get the job. 

It’s a tense wait while the panel shortlists, and then deliberates, and then checks references, and then asks for an additional written statement. It’s all exhausting, and the calendar is winding its way into early December by the time Kip gets the call. 

They’re sitting on the couch in Scott’s living room. The fireplace is casting a warm glow over them both.  Outside the air is frosty and unkind, but everything in here is muted and soft: Scott in his faded Admirals hoodie; Kip in a Ben Sherman sweater Scott bought him ‘just because’. It’s easier now: the indulgences. Kip accepts the doting as part and parcel of the man. And if Scott gets a little worked up when Kip wears the things he pays for, well. No one is losing. 

Kip gets up to pace while he’s on the phone, but he’s making agreeable sounds. Lots of nodding and a faint smile on his face. Scott is pointedly not eavesdropping, but it’s impossible not to pick up the thread of the conversation from context clues. 

“You made it,” Scott says when Kip hangs up and flops back onto the couch cushions. “I knew you would.” 

Kip looks at Scott in disbelief. Then, to his great surprise, Kip buries his face in his hands and sobs. 

“Hey,” Scott soothes, hurriedly scooting over to wrap Kip in his arms. “You’re okay. You got here. You deserve this. You’ve arrived.” 

He lets Kip cry onto his hoodie for as long as he needs. 

March 2017 (six months later)

Their new apartment is in a prewar building in Chelsea, walking distance from the Whitney and closer to Madison Square Garden than Scott was before. It is, all told, perfect for them. 

They had argued, minimally, about how the finances would work. Scott sold his penthouse and bought the place outright in both their names. Kip pays half the co-op fees and most of the groceries, because Scott has most of his food delivered via the team’s meal prep contractor anyway. 

Kip is aware of how unfair it is to every other person trying to survive in this city who is doing it without a millionaire athlete boyfriend, and he makes sure Scott knows it. Scott, who grew up with none of this, tells Kip that he’s very much aware, thank you, now just sign the paperwork, please. 

Their bills come out of a joint account, which they both pay into for expenses. It’s at least some kind of transparency. It’s laughable, in the face of the reality of the situation. 

Scott flies in from Vancouver and has to wait for Kip to buzz him into the building. 

“I completely forgot you wouldn’t have keys yet,” Kip says as he lets Scott in. 

“I don’t need keys; I have you.” 

Scott kisses him, dropping his bag and bringing his hands up to cradle Kip’s jaw. 

He pulls back and looks around the apartment. Their apartment. 

The place is a shambles. There are boxes stacked everywhere, although Kip has at least made a start on the bookshelves. 

“Priorities,” Scott notes. The books are organised by spine color. 

“I also made the bed,” Kip says, tugging Scott by the hand down the hall. 

The bedroom is behind original pocket doors; its floor is honey-warm wood, its walls white, its ceiling high. It’s so far removed from the penthouse and its impersonal, angular grey. 

Scott feels like he can breathe, here. 

They take each other apart in their big, warm bed in their big, warm room in their big, warm apartment. It’s under-furnished, and their pleasured cries echo off the walls. They’ll need to put up art, lay rugs, decorate. 

For now, their bodies fill the space.

For now, they have each other, in every sense of it. This thing they could not have imagined years ago when they took their first tentative steps and crashed together. How things have changed; how they have grown, apart and then together, roots growing strong now and vital. 

There’s plenty of time to fill their home with their combined things, their combined existence. Nothing but time to weave it all together into this: a single life.

June 2017 (three months later)

Chapter End Notes

Thank you for coming on this journey with me AGAIN! Once wasn’t enough, it seems.

Comments are super welcome here.

Now to rest my thumbs.