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Keith’s shift is winding up now. It tends to be pretty quiet at this time of night, the dinner rush over and mostly just glasses that need cleaning, and Keith would normally just chill out and take it slow. Tonight, though, he can’t. Because he made a decision this morning, and since that moment it’s all he’s been able to think about.
When Maddy pokes her head around the corner to tell him they’re done for the night, it’s not the usual relief. Instead, Keith’s stomach churns as he sets the dishwasher going one last time and wipes down the surfaces. The sight of a whole gastro of Joaquin’s excellent pasta bake left in the kitchen lifts his mood some, though, and he nabs two bowls after hanging up his apron.
“I want those back by eight am,” Maddy says, glancing up from the book where she’s jotting down returns and spying him with the bowls.
“You’ll get ‘em,” he lies - like fuck is he getting up that early, and they both know it - then bids her goodnight before heading throught the lodge's main lounge, which is mostly empty, and up to the staff rooms. He reaches the door to his own room and, as he has done for the last week, continues past it to Hollis’s. Before he can lose his nerve, he knocks awkwardly with his elbow.
The door swings open to reveal Hollis, looking mildly annoyed at having to get up, but he perks up when he sees the pasta.
“Ooh, breakfast,” he says, taking a bowl out of Keith’s hands.
“You’re welcome,” he replies, following him into the room. It’s cosy and dim, the only light coming from a lamp on the table and flickering from the TV, where the Sochi Olympics is just getting going for the day. The time difference between there and Kepler is absolutely disgusting, but Hollis is determined to watch the whole thing live, and to be fair, he’s right about how shitty the streams would be. Even on tourist wifi from the lodge, there’s no way it would be watchable.
So every day for the last week, Hollis has passed out straight after he finishes work teaching beginner skiers, then dragged himself awake with several litres of caffeine at one in the morning to watch. Keith joined him that first night because his shift ended around when the coverage started, so he figured he’d just stay up - and then he did the same the next night, and it became a comfortable routine. He’s still impressed by Hollis’s dedication, though - he’s bringing the same kind of quiet determination to this that he does to bike tricks and ski technique - a solid, constant push to getting it right and getting it done. He’s decided he’s gonna watch all of the Winter Olympics, and like hell is anything gonna get in his way.
Adrian, Hollis’s roommate, usually watches with them. He crashes early, but he’s a heavy sleeper so they’ll just put it on mute once he’s out. He’s got a day off tomorrow though, so he’s gone to spend the night with his folks. Jake’s also not here tonight - he doesn’t stay at the Ski Trails Park, even though he’s the one who’s worked here the longest, so he only joins them every other night or so. When all four of them are there it’s felt almost like a party, everyone yelling when an athlete pulls off something particularly impressive and the smell of the popcorn Jake swipes from the bar filling the air.
Tonight, though, tonight it’s just him and Hollis. Which is part of why he decided on today. The other guys are fucking cool - Adrian’s been running with the Stunt Club for a couple of years now, and Jake’s his best friend after Hollis. But there it is - he and Hollis have been inseparable since the day they met twelve years ago, and if Keith’s going to do this, it needs to be Hollis.
The pasta thief in question has curled up on his bed, tucked into the corner in a position that does not look at all comfortable for a human person, but he’s like a cat that way. He can sleep anywhere too. Keith works his shoes off and flops down beside him, and just basks in the comfort for a moment. Onscreen, a journalist interviews Lindsey Van.
“How’s it taken them this long to figure out that maybe women can also fucking ski jump?” Keith complains.
“Right? Monique and Laura and loads of girls in the Stunt Club have been pulling that shit off for years, but the global leading athletics organisation couldn’t possibly let women put their poor frail bodies at risk until twenty-fucking-fourteen.”
“It’s bullshit.”
“Monumentally,” Hollis agrees.
Lindsey Van flies through the air, hitting 227.
“Damn,” says Keith. “We were rooting for you!”
“Your pasta’s gonna get cold,” says Hollis.
“Yeah, yeah,” says Keith, but after another minute he sits up cross-legged and takes the bowl from the bedside table. Honestly, fuck Joaquin for refusing to share his recipe. Keith’s tried to recreate it but there’s something he can’t figure out, and it never tastes quite as good as Joaquin’s.
Once he’s done he sets the bowl down. Hollis passes his own over wordlessly and Keith stacks it with the other one beside a precarious pile of coffee mugs, then settles back against the pillows. But he just can’t get comfortable. He punches the cushions to try and make them less lumpy, he lies down but can’t get a good angle on the TV. He wishes he had something to whittle, something to do with his hands, because now the meal’s done and there’s nothing but his own fear standing between him and the words that will change it all, and that makes him feel shaky, shaken , like he’s going too fast over stony ground with his tires half flat.
He stretches his legs out in one last-ditch attempt at calming down, and scrunches his fist against his eyes. This shouldn’t be so scary. Really, it’s no big deal, except that this will change everything and so this could be the last night they do this, the last time Hollis will think of him the way he does now. It probably won’t be, it’ll almost definitely be fine, but Keith is not good at talking and has absolutely no way to gauge how Hollis is going to react. He knows there’s only one way to find out, but he can’t-
“Spit it out,” says Hollis, as he slings his legs over Keith’s, sliding further down the wall. The sudden, familiar weight on his thighs is grounding for a moment, but the thought of losing that easy physical comfort he has with Hollis suddenly overwhelms him.
“Uh, spit what out?” he says.
“Don’t bullshit me, man, something’s bothering you.”
The flare of joy from Hollis calling him “man” is swept away pretty much instantly by the same old worry, and nope, Keith can’t do this. They’ve been best friends forever, and this dynamic that they have - Keith can’t imagine living without it. He doesn’t want it to change, at least not yet. He looks back to the TV. God, he’s a coward, but no. He’ll tell Hollis another time.
“It’s nothing, you know, the usual. Customers are assholes.”
Hollis groans in agreement. “Oh god, did you have that German couple? With the woman who talks like a squirrel who drank Surge?”
“Holy shit, she does,” Keith gasps, and Hollis laughs.
“I swear, I can’t handle another day of them. They expect me to work magic and just psychically imbue them with the power to ski, they don’t listen to me at all. Why the fuck would you come all the way here to suck at skiing? Switzerland is right next door and I don’t have to deal with your bullshit if you’re there.”
“I wish,” says Keith, and maybe there’s a little too much emotion in his voice, because Hollis’s legs stiffen on his.
“Were they really shitty? Because I can tell Carla they’re a danger on the slopes and get them banned, no fucking problem, I wouldn’t even be lying.”
“Oh man, please, sounds like they deserve it,” says Keith. “But nah, they actually tip surprisingly well.”
“Then who? Because I will abuse my authority to get them got ,” says Hollis, his expression exaggeratedly evil.
“No, it’s not, it’s no-one,” says Keith, “just, you know, customers in general, and work. I’m just tired. It’s... nothing.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really,” Keith snaps, and he can feel Hollis looking at him, but he keeps his eyes glued to the screen.
“Well, you’re definitely lying, because Sara Takanashi just dropped off the podium and you didn’t react at all.”
“She did?” Keith takes a moment to actually process what he’s looking at, and Hollis is right. “Aw, hell, how the hell did that happen?”
Hollis hums. “See, that’s what you should have said when it actually happened, not two minutes after the fact,” and he draws his legs up off of Keith’s to sit cross-legged facing him. Keith’s heart is racing suddenly. Fuck, Hollis just knows him too well to let this one slide. He goes to take a sip of his soda and realises his hands are shaking. He sees Hollis notice too.
“Seriously, what is going on with you?” The concern in his voice is overwhelming, and if he’s honest with himself, Keith knows that whatever happens next, he’s not going to lose Hollis. They care too fucking much about each other to let that happen. But saying it out loud is still the scariest thing in the world.
“I-” he starts, then looks down, and then determinedly back at the screen. This is fucking ridiculous. He regularly does shit that could kill him just for the kicks, and he can’t just say a few words.
Hollis is waiting for them though, and Keith really, really just wants him to know.
“I think I’m a guy,” he blurts out, and the immense wave of relief actually brings tears to his eyes. He blinks furiously until they’re clear, then risks a sideways look at Hollis. Who is staring at him now, and doesn’t say anything. Keith rushes to fill the heavy silence. “I mean, I think, I don’t know, it feels better… If I think of myself as a boy. Like, in my head I’ve been calling myself ‘he’ and that feels right, I guess. But if I look at myself now, I don’t see a girl, I’m not, yeah,” and god, doesn’t he sound pathetic? He’s clearly not making any sense because Hollis is still just kind of staring at him.
And then he breathes out, and says, “Okay.”
Keith blinks. “Okay?”
“Don’t get all Fault In Our Stars on me here. Okay, you’re a guy. That’s pretty cool.” And Hollis is smiling, just a little bit.
“Cool? You don’t think I’m a fucking weirdo now, or anything?”
Hollis laughs, and then stops. “No, I - I should call you he, shouldn’t I?”
Something in Keith’s chest leaps, and he nods, lips pressed firmly together. Hollis nods back, then says, “Do you want me to call you a different name?”
God, this is so much easier than Keith had imagined it. Hollis is making it so easy, and for a moment Keith lets himself bask in how much he fucking loves his best friend. He says, “I like Keith. I mean, I’ve been using it in my head.”
“Keith?” asks Hollis, and Keith can just hear the smile in his voice.
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not,” says Hollis. “It actually really suits you. Keith.” Hearing someone else call him that for the first time sends a shiver down his spine, and he laughs at the shock of that joy. “Okay, Keith, to answer your question, I do think you’re a weirdo. You’re the weirdest person I’ve ever fucking known-” Keith flips him off, and he grins and keeps going - “but not because you’re fucking trans or whatever, you’re just deeply, fundamentally, not normal.”
“Fuck off,” Keith mumbles.
“Never,” promises Hollis, and he turns to lean back against the headboard, then he looks back over to Keith, and lifts the arm nearest to him. “Come here, then,” he says, and Keith smiles and tucks himself into Hollis’s side, who wraps his arm comfortably around his shoulders. And it feels just like it did all the times before, every long night watching trashy monster B-movies and stunt compilations, every afternoon spent piled up against each other on the sofa bemoaning bullshit English essays, every time Hollis pulled him laughing and breathless into a hug after they’d pulled off some awesome new trick. It feels just the same. The world didn’t end, and Hollis knows , and he doesn’t hate him. Keith feels like a completely different person, but Hollis? That’s something that will never change.
The ski jump event ends and the coverage switches to curling, which is oddly thrilling for something with so little threat, compared to what he’s used to.
“This is a weird sport,” he says.
“Yep,” says Hollis. “What do you expect from something invented by Scotland?”
“What, it’s not Canadian?”
“Nope,” says Hollis. “Bunch of Vikings in medieval times, or something.”
“Huh,” says Keith. “It seems like the kind of intense batshit thing Canadians would come up with.”
“It does,” agrees Hollis. Onscreen, the rock slides agonizingly slowly closer to the circle, and the low commentary gets more and more frenzied, but Keith can’t pick out the words. Over it, Hollis inhales, and says, “Hey, can I ask you something?”
Keith’s not worried - it is Hollis after all, and he’s proved that he’s chill with the whole transgender thing, but there is something in his tone that makes him slightly nervous.
“Shoot,” he says anyway.
“What made you realise you were a guy? How did you figure it out?”
Keith thinks about it. He knows exactly when it was, can pinpoint the moment where his life tipped, gravity took hold, and he fell headfirst into the realisation. But it was a whole lot of feelings, and it takes him a while to put it into words.
“A customer - this was a couple of weeks ago - called me “young man” which, you know, I get a fair bit,” he says, gesturing towards his short, choppy hair. “And then when I turned around he started apologising like people usually do, and I realised, it didn’t make me feel bad. Him apologising was the shitty thing. And then I thought back on all the other times that happened, and I realised it was never people thinking I was a guy that annoyed me. It was when they realised I wasn’t. And then it was like, the whole time, I was actually kind of hoping they would think I was a man, and I had been dressing more masculine and stuff. But I never realised any of that shit consciously until yeah, about three weeks ago.” He pauses for breath. “God, it’s good to say all this out loud. You’re the first person I’ve told, you know.”
Hollis’s hand tightens just slightly on Keith’s arm. “I’m glad you did,” he says quietly.
“Yeah, me too, Hollis,” says Keith. “So fucking glad.”
They lie together like that and watch twenty minutes of curling, which is somehow both hardcore and calming enough that Keith starts drifting off, before Hollis speaks again, very softly.
“Keith?”
“Yeah, Hollis?” he mumbles sleepily. He’s so caught up in the joy of hearing his name - his name! - coming out of someone else’s mouth, that he almost forgets Hollis had spoken until he does again.
“I don’t think I’m a guy.”
“Hmm?” says Keith, and then he wakes up and cranes his neck to see Hollis’ face. “Wait, what?”
He chews on his lip, and says, “I’m not a guy.”
Keith scrambles to his knees, the Olympics forgotten, again, because holy shit, is this happening again ? - and grabs Hollis’s shoulders, almost laughing out of the sheer ridiculousness of this all. “Are you serious? You’re coming out to me right now?”
“I thought I’d return the favour,” and Hollis’s lips are curling the way they do when he jokes, but there’s something vulnerable in his eyes. He looks actually scared - as scared as he did the time last year when Keith opened the door and found him panting outside, bundled up in his coat, having run from his house to tell Keith his family was moving back to Hawai’i after he finished high school and he didn’t know what to do. Maybe, Keith thinks, as scared as he looked himself half an hour ago. His heart twinges. To make sure Hollis knows that he’s safe with Keith, he sits back down on his heels and grabs his hand, which makes him smile, and he squeezes Keith’s hand back.
“So,” Keith prods, “if you’re not a guy, then what are you?”
Hollis raises an eyebrow, and Keith grimaces. “Sorry, yeah, shit way of saying it, but I have literally never talked about this stuff out loud. Are you a girl, then?”
Hollis frowns. “I’m not sure. And this is why I didn’t tell you, right? I trust you more than anyone else in the world. I wanted to be sure of myself before I let anyone else know. But if you can be that brave, then I can.”
Keith scoffs. “It wasn’t that brave, man, I just-” he cuts off when he sees Hollis’s face. “Don’t give me your teacher look, it won’t work on me.”
Hollis raises his eyebrows a fraction higher, and Keith throws his arms up in exasperation. “Yeah, okay, it was scarier than a backflip on a BMX. But you? And you know, anything you say is cool,” he adds.
Hollis leans back against the headboard again, and runs his free hand through his long, shiny black hair. Keith’s always been jealous of it, but he knows the maintenance is a nightmare. There’s a reason he’s kept his own hair short for so long - although looking back now, five-minute showers was probably not the only reason.
“I’m not a girl, either,” says Hollis finally, twirling a strand of hair tightly around his fingers.. He frowns, glances up at Keith and back down. “I always knew on some level that I wasn’t exactly a boy - you know, I’m not the most masculine person in the world. But I knew I wasn’t a girl either, so I didn’t really think about it.” He sighs, and pauses for a long while. Keith’s not really sure what to say, so he just squeezes Hollis’s hand again. He looks up at the ceiling, gathering his thoughts, and keeps going.
“I was in the library and found this article about how colonialism impacted gender identity and roles across the world, and lots of cultures just didn’t have the male-female binary - including Hawai’i. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and reading more.” A frown flickers across his face. There’s a lot of words out there, for someone like me… someone who’s neither. But none of them fit, or I haven’t found the right one yet, or I’m something else completely.... I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out. But what I do know,” and Hollis inhales, “is that I like they and them pronouns. That feels right, to me.”
And immediately something clicks in Keith’s mind. This is still his best friend, still the exact same person, but when he looks at this person he’s known his basically entire life, he doesn’t see a boy anymore. Just Hollis. Just them .
“Well fuck, Hollis, that’s - that’s very fucking cool.”
It’s so cool. They found each other all those years ago, and kept finding each other over and over again. Keith swears sometimes Hollis is the only person who really understands him. And here they are catching each other once more. Or at the very least, they’re falling together into this new world.
Hollis smiles and looks up again. “Is it?” they ask.
“ Yeah ,” says Keith. “I mean, I, and you, like, we ,” and he can’t put it into words but Hollis gets it. Because of course they do.
Another thought occurs to Keith.
“Wait, do you have a new name now too?” he asks.
They shake their head instantly. “No, Hollis is still good. That’s absolutely me, I’m not gonna change it.”
“Fucking sick,” Keith says, and then he laughs, throwing his head back. Hollis looks confused, and then just amused at their best friend totally losing it over nothing at all.
“What,” they say. “What’s so fucking funny, madman?” and they poke him in the ribs.
“Oh god, no, don’t,” gasps Keith in between peals of laughter. Hollis doesn’t let up though, keeps poking him and then, because they’re a dick, they go for the super ticklish spot on his neck, which makes Keith squirm and fall off the bed with a yelp.
“What the fuck, dude?” he complains from his crumpled state on the floor, still giggling breathlessly. Hollis peers down over the edge at him.
“I bare my fucking soul to you and you start acting like the damn Joker, this is exactly what you deserve, Keith Ramachandra.”
“I’m not laughing at you, dumbass, I’m-” he breaks off into another burst of laughter, can barely get himself under control. “I was tearing myself apart worrying about fuckin’ telling you, and then you’re fine with it, and then you’re like ‘Oh by the way, me too’? Isn’t that just fucking ridiculous?”
Hollis laughs too, a beautiful, bright sound. “I think it’s fantastic,” they say.
“Yeah, it is,” Keith grins. “In it together through everything, right?”
Hollis leans down and offers Keith their hand. “Right,” they say. Keith takes it and clambers back up onto the bed, lying down again. On the TV, the curling continues.
“Are you gonna tell anyone else?” Keith murmurs after a moment.
“Yeah, I think so,” says Hollis. “The Stunt Club, anyway. I know they’ll be cool with it, half of them are gay anyway. Now you know, I feel okay telling them.”
Keith smiles. “I’m gonna tell them too.” He yawns. “To be honest, Kepler’s kind of a small town. Knowing the Stunt Club have our backs...”
“Right. No-one can fuck with us. We’re the Kepler fucking Stunt Club. I’d like to see them try,” and they crack their knuckles menacingly.
“Hollis, you won’t even kill spiders, don’t try and act tough.”
“Spiders can’t be transphobic, Keith. They deserve to live their lives.”
He laughs. “That’s fair.” He closes his eyes. “Wake me up for the figure skating.”
“Will do, Keith,” replies Hollis.
And just as he has for the last week, Keith drifts off to sleep, the blue light of the screen dancing dimly against his eyelids, and the warm weight of his best friend pressed against his back.