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Tyson buys a new apartment.
It’s a modern, luxurious condo that corresponds with his NHL status and salary. Other guys on the team have been ribbing him for quite some time now about his housing situation. Most said that he’s been living like a poor college student and, quote, that there’s nothing sexy about it in his age.
So here he is, with an actual kitchen island and all the fancy equipment he’s not even sure how is called, one master bedroom, two guest bedrooms, two bathrooms, small office slash playroom and one giant open space that is made up by joined kitchen and living room.
Yeah, Tyson has been stoked by the place. It’s not either enormous or tiny, just the right size for him. When he’s in the apartment it doesn’t feel like he’s going to get lost living there on his own, but it’s also not as tiny as his last place where he felt like he’d suffocate every time his cooking skills failed him.
“Congrats on being an adult,” Nate legit shakes his hand and Tyson thinks the guys are a little ridiculous about the whole thing, but then again, Gabe’s giant head is kind of an old joke around the locker room and the guys need a new target every now and then.
“When’s the welcoming party?” Gabe chimes in and Tyson just rolls his eyes.
“Never, I’m not letting you destroy my new place. You’re like a herd of wild animals.”
Guys in the hearing vicinity both laugh and look hurt at Tyson’s implications.
“Well,” Dutchy stands up and it’s already a bad thing he started talking. “If my memory serves me well, the last time somebody was a wild animal was Nathan when he broke Pick’s new dining table with Jo.”
Nate goes red and throws his balled socks at Dutchy while the rest of the guys laugh and catcall at him.
It wasn’t exactly a secret about Nate and Jo around their respective teams. Not since these two were inseparable and all over the social media and group chats. Tyson was happy for them and also glad Nate just took one for the team and the conversation got steered towards listing moments when Jo and Nate got caught red handed.
It was a nice diversity from his new place.
-
The new apartment, as it turned out, might also be haunted.
Not that Tyson really believes in ghosts and such, but being alone in the new place gives him the creeps. He chalks it up to just not being used to the new living space and decides to ignore it.
What he can’t ignore though is that it’s always cold. He has to turn up the heat even when it’s still hot as balls outside, which is pretty weird and he needs to talk about this with the guy who sold him the place because he doesn’t remember being it this cold when he came for the showing.
Other than that the new condo is just amazing and Tyson pats himself on the back for making a smart investment. Besides, he lives about five minutes of walking distance from Gabe. It’s always good to have a running buddy nearby, even if he’d prefer Nate for this kind of exercise. But beggars can’t be choosers, right?
-
The apartment doesn’t get better over time.
It’s still fucking cold and on top of that Tyson starts having bad dreams. He blames the stress and the Ls they take on the ice and leaves it at that.
Nate comes visit and brings him a framed photo of them eating cotton candy. It’s one of Tyson’s favorite memories with Nate so he proudly puts it on display in his living room. Nate stays the night and it’s the first time in forever that Tyson gets a decent night’s sleep.
“Dude, why is your AC turned up so high? I was fucking freezing,” Nate tells him in the morning and Tyson swallows.
“I turned the heat up before we went to bed, man.”
Nate looks at him like he has two heads but then lets it slide in favor of home-cooked waffles. One of very few dishes Tyson can nail with precision.
More people visit Tyson’s place over the next month and it finally starts feeling like a home again. Memories are made, furniture is being broken in and there are new stains every now and then that Tyson doesn’t mind all that much because at least now his furniture doesn’t look so painstakingly new to the eye.
One thing he notices, however, is that every time somebody sleeps over he tends to sleep better. He decides it’s probably due to his dry spell and the fact that he’s been kind of lonely the past year or so and having people over just eases the ache.
-
The nightmares come during December and Tyson starts playing like shit.
Gabe approaches him after practice one day, asks what’s up and if he can do something to help. Tyson brushes him off, says he’ll sort himself out quick. Gabe gives him a worried look but doesn’t say anything else.
Tyson gets injured before the New Year’s and it fucking sucks because now he’s permanently stuck in his cold apartment.
The photo Nate gave him falls down from its place on the shelf one morning and shatters. Tyson probably put it there wrong in the first place. He cleans up and cuts his fingers on the glass. His life just sucks.
The thing is, he feels like the apartment is draining him. It’s dulled to shades of gray in the winter time, permanently cold and the nightmares only get worse. He dreams about dark creatures jumping at him when he opens doors. It gets so bad he feels anxious every time he’s about to open his own closet door while he’s awake.
He gets these ugly circles under his eyes, loses weight and his injury doesn’t heal properly.
Gabe comes to visit one evening after a terrible home loss that Tyson watched from home because he had a migraine and couldn’t drive.
Gabe doesn’t look much better than Tyson. Shattered and beaten, hair wet like a dog kicked out on a rainy street. Tyson lets him in without a word. Gabe cooks them dinner without ever being asked to, curls up with Tyson on the couch after.
“’S cold here,” he mutters and Tyson mentally prepares himself for explaining how he bought a shitty apartment, when Gabe just reaches for one of those thick blankets Tyson keeps folded over the back of the couch and drapes it over them.
An unexpected wave of warmth floods every inch of Tyson’s body and he feels like he’s in a cozy, warm bubble of comfort. He dozes off halfway through whatever movie Gabe has put on.
“I should probably go,” Gabe says when the movie is over.
Tyson blinks the sleep from his eyes. “Stay, I have plenty of room.” Please don’t leave me here alone again, goes unspoken.
Gabe thinks about the whole thing for a while before forcing out: “Your apartment is really dark, I… doesn’t feel good, sorry.”
Tyson looks down, defeated and nods. “I get it, man.”
That night that follows is the worst Tyson has ever slept through. He’s still shaking in the morning and on top of everything he starts showing symptoms of flu. Just his luck.
-
By early spring his injury finally heals and he’s cleared to play. The first game is a success and all the guys go out to celebrate. Tyson has missed them a great deal so he’s thrilled to go get drunk with them.
He invades Gabe’s personal space, being fully aware that Gabe tends to get very handsy when he drinks. And he just likes being touched by Gabe, leave Tyson alone, okay? He’s been harboring a massive crush on his captain basically forever and his endless dry spell doesn’t exactly help that touch-starved situation he has going on. It’s not like Gabe actually hates touching him. If anything, it always seems like he touches Tyson the most of all the other guys.
So they drink and celebrate. A lot. Like only hockey players do.
The younger guys pick up and Mikko is hilariously bad at it. All the older guys chirp him when a second girl in a row gently turns him down. Nate keeps live texting everything to Jo, sends him team selfies every ten minutes. Dutchy keeps talking about his dogs and Gabe gets progressively tipsy.
Tyson is in heaven.
Only if he weren’t so fucking tired.
He snuggles into Gabe’s side after his fifth beer, feeling the full effect of the alcohol he’d just consumed. He misses touching other people. Usually, as a hockey player, he gets touched by and touches other people on a daily basis, sometimes even very intimately (yes, shower fights actually do happen), but he hasn’t had any of that in over a month and he’s starved.
“Dude,” Picks laughs at him when half of the guys have gone home. “You’re like an octopus tonight. Totally climbing the Babe.”
Tyson pouts and owns up to it. “You’re just jealous I got to climb him first.”
Gabe laughs and it shakes all through Tyson’s body too. “Leave him, he’s been holed up in that god-awful apartment of his forever. Try sleeping there overnight, you’d turn into an octopus too.”
Tyson doesn’t listen to half of the things Gabe says, just lets his voice lull him into a nice state of drowsiness. Gabe smells nice, comforting even. He’s solid next to Tyson, holds him close with one of his ridiculously muscled arms and Tyson feels safe. Happy.
“Hey, wake up,” Gabe gently shakes him awake. “Time to go home.”
Tyson frowns petulantly. “Do I have to?”
Gabe laughs and shakes his head, handing Tyson his coat. “Come sleep at my place. Zoe misses you.” And Tyson appreciates the sentiment.
“Only because it’s Zoe.”
When they get to Gabe’s place Tyson is halfway into a coma, basically. Gabe half-carries him up and then says something about guest bedroom being renovated and the couch being too harsh on the back, so Tyson will have to sleep in Gabe’s bed. With Gabe.
And Tyson hits a jackpot right there, only hopes he hasn’t said that out loud.
He falls asleep the second his face hits the pillow.
-
He’s woken up by a gentle caress on his cheek and his name being called out quietly. It’s around noon and Gabe smiles at him, bright and sunny with a tray full of deliciously looking breakfast. Zoe sits next to him on the floor and wags her tail happily.
“Is it my birthday?” Tyson tries.
“Could be,” Gabe smiles at him and sets the tray with breakfast on Tyson’s lap when he sits up. “You look a lot better than you did yesterday,” he tells him as Tyson digs into Gabe’s famous blueberry pancakes.
“Thank you, I guess?” Tyson says around a mouthful and doesn’t care a bit because he and Gabe are way past that polite stage where talking with your mouth full is frowned upon.
Gabe takes the tray from his when he’s done and they take Zoe for her walk later, Gabe even lets Tyson to hold her leash. “I need to talk to you about your apartment,” Gabe says.
Tyson stiffens at that, but nods. “What about it?”
“It’s gonna sound weird, probably,” he takes a deep breath. “But ever since you bought that place you seem…” he motions with his hands in the air. “-drained.”
Tyson doesn’t say anything at that and stubbornly looks at the ground, so it’s Gabe’s turn to speak again. “I’m serious, Tyson. You barely sleep from what I heard. The place is perpetually cold and it’s all just giving me the creeps.”
Tyson recalls that night when Gabe refused to stay because the place was weirding him out. “It’s not for everybody, I guess.”
“Tyson,” Gabe sighs, defeated. “Just move out, please.”
-
Tyson doesn’t move out and things get back to their ugly standard.
The only time Tyson is able to close his eyes is on roadies, far away from his home or when somebody else crashes his place. Which happens less and less due to all the guys complaining about how cold and hostile his apartment is.
Tyson wakes up with a full-on panic attack one night. The nightmare he had was more real than any of the previous ones he had. It left him shaky and pale with tears streaming down his cheeks and breath hiccupping in his throat.
He puts on his running shoes and bolts out.
Gabe is tousled with sleep when he opens the door. He’s quickly shaken from the pleasant haze when he sees Tyson in front of him. “Jesus.” He pulls him inside and holds him in his arms until Tyson stops shaking.
He sleeps in Gabe’s bed again that night and there’s no flimsy excuse or awkward questions asked and Tyson is thankful that Gabe gets it. He curls up to him and doesn’t let go throughout the rest of the night.
The breakfast is a little awkward as they have practice to rush to.
They stop by Tyson’s apartment to pick his clothes and practice bag and then carpool to the rink. “Stay at my place tonight?” Gabe asks and Tyson can’t decide whether it’s a friendly command or a question.
So he goes with a polite “I don’t want to bother you.”
-
When Tyson gets home after practice that day his apartment looks unusually messy. There are pillows thrown all over the living room, photo frames of his family fallen over. He can’t recall whether it was him who knocked them over last night in the haste attempt to escape.
He ignores it, like all the other weird stuff around. Like the smudges on the mirror in the master bathroom he knows he never touches because his mom raised him better than that.
When he finds himself pacing around the apartment, peeking at dark corners if there’s something there hiding, he decides that’s enough. He packs an overnight bag and walks over to Gabe’s with slung shoulders and a grim mood. He thinks over an excuse to say to Gabe on his walk there since admitting he’s getting crazy in his own apartment is not something Tyson is ready to own up to.
“The water in my apartment broke. Can I stay overnight?” And Gabe smiles at him, small and soft and lets him in without saying a word.
-
It becomes sort of a habit after that.
“The heat isn’t working,” Tyson says, hands still cold, even though it’s hot outside.
Gabe wraps him up in blankets and cuddles him on the couch. They get drunk later and make out lazily on the sectional for no reason other than it feels good and Gabe is obviously an experienced kisser.
They don’t talk about the kissing part or the part where Tyson makes up excuses so he doesn’t have to stay in his own apartment. Everything works just fine.
-
“I have painters over.”
Gabe takes his overnight bag from him and puts it into his bedroom. They cook dinner together with a whole a lot of touching. Tyson almost burns himself on the stove when Gabe squeezes his hips to walk past him. It’s still worth it.
Later, when they are sprawled on the couch Gabe offers to massage Tyson’s back. It’s tender and Tyson melts into the cushions just a little when Gabe presses into all the right spots.
They end up rubbing against each other like horny teenagers until they are coming in their pants.
-
“The hardwood floors needed polishing.”
Neither of them acknowledges that Tyson comes over about five times a week to sleep at Gabe’s, each time with a flimsier and flimsier excuse. Whenever Tyson comes over it means they get to be together. Just the two of them. Touching, goofing around, watching sport movies and bad TV shows.
This time Gabe takes his time. Lays Tyson down on the fluffy carpet in his living room and kisses him senseless. They strip each other and there’s not enough skin, not enough lips and tongue, not fast enough and Tyson is going crazy with it.
And then Gabe finally takes him.
Sinks deep into his body and stays there until Tyson’s eyes cross with pleasure.
-
When Tyson opens his mouth to say his newest excuse for a sleepover Gabe just laughs and pulls him inside. “Just move in already.”