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The honeymoon was dead and gone by the final semester of Kip's M.A. program. He loved Scott fiercely, passionately, and he didn't regret the compromises it had taken for him to fit into Scott's life. Scott compromised for him, too. But now he had to live with Scott Hunter with the shine worn off, and Scott had to live with him, and sometimes murder-suicide sounded like a viable option. Kip could do it! They'd listened to Scott's favorite podcasts in the car all the way to Rochester and back and those were full of ideas.
Kip absolutely had to get his driver's license this year. Driver picks the music was ancient law and he could not trust Scott with that power. Unless he hurled both of them out the window right now, solving the problem permanently.
What he'd been trying to articulate for the last hour of fruitless conversation was, more or less, "The jobs available to a PhD in art history aren't that much more numerous than the ones available to a M.A. Arguably the situation's worse, because I'll be overqualified for entry-level work that might get me onto a museum staff sooner. And even with teaching, I'll be committing to more years of making less than I could waiting tables at the Kingfisher. Getting to do research for a few years is fun, but is it responsible? Maybe it's time for me to get a real job."
Either he wasn't saying it right, or Scott wasn't listening. He just nodded along and kept suggesting solutions that Kip wasn't asking for, like how to arrange his schedule. Kip was trying not to snap.
Until Scott Hunter said in the voice of sweet reason, "It's not a big deal."
Oh. That answered Kip's questions.
"You. Fucking. Asshole."
Scott was still reeling when Kip grabbed his jacket and his shoes and stormed out.
It must have been the shower cutting off that woke Scott, the sudden absence of sound. He hadn't twitched when Kip first came in and shucked his clothes into the hamper. On his stomach, hugging his pillow, blanket twisted around him, he looked less like he'd fallen asleep and more like he'd wrestled sleep down. Kip watched from the doorway, toweling his hair, as Scott groggily lit his phone screen and found out that it was a little after two in the morning.
When he pushed himself up and reached for the bedside lamp, Kip said, "Leave it off."
The Manhattan night through the gauzy curtain was enough to navigate the room by, and neither of them would have their mood improved by squinting against the light. With his glasses and his contacts left by the sink, he wouldn't be able to make out Scott's face clearly anyway, and the darkness made them equal. He sat on his side of the bed, facing the headboard with his knees drawn up, his arms folded on top of them. That ugly fucking painting that hung above the bed was just a dark smudge on the wall, the upside of myopia.
"Can we talk?"
"You have class in the morning," Scott said, sleep-muzzed.
Kip snorted. "Yeah, and you have physio for your ankle, so this is mutually-assured destruction."
Scott didn't laugh. That was fine. It wasn't much of a joke. After a little while, he said, "I thought you'd go to your dad's."
Of course he did. Once after a hard talk, Kip had gone to his dad's home and stayed for a while, until he could sort himself out. Ever since then, some part of Scott had been expecting that to be where he went when he walked out.
And Scott did believe he would walk out.
It was irritating, but Kip was tired, and instead of being annoyed it just made him sad. So he said, "Either I live here or I don't. This is my bed or it isn't. Is this my bed?"
"Yes! Of course, it's all —" That was the sound of Scott Hunter stopping himself from saying something too intense. It sounded like swallowing a sentence backwards.
Scott's hand had twitched towards him, but it stopped, hovering somewhere in between their bodies before dropping to the bed.
Kip nodded to himself, over his knees, and hugged them closer. "Then I want to sleep here."
Quietly, hopeful, "Okay."
Maybe they should just go to sleep. He'd yawned so hard in the shower that his jaw was sore. Class was going to be brutal. Undergrad hadn't been like this, had it? Aging seemed to be nothing more than a process of needing more and more naps, until you took the big one.
He rubbed his neck, telling the yawns to go away. "I went to see a movie. It was French and depressing, you'd love it. It was actually kinda terrible at getting my mind off of you. I barely had to look at the subtitles, though, so I think my language exams are going to be fine." Stop procrastinating. "Do you understand that it's not about the money?"
"No," Scott said, and he sounded a little less apologetic and a lot more annoyed, "because you keep talking about money. I don't understand why you're worried about whether or not the salary will be worth it when we have —" His teeth clacked together and his breath hissed through them. "Is this your bed? Is everything in this place yours? Or is it all something you resent having to put up with?"
Kip thought about it for a while. The question was important. He'd figured out a few things about what preoccupied Scott Hunter. When Scott said everything in this place, he didn't just mean the things money bought. "If I could choose between this place and being able to hold your hand on the street, you know which one I'd pick in a heartbeat. Let me finish," he snapped when Scott tried to interject.
He hadn't meant to do that. "I know that's not a choice we have. Pretending you're not rich won't change the reason you're rich. I don't resent your money. I resent the hell out of hockey for locking you in the closet when you were a child and making you afraid of how they'd punish you if you ever tried to leave. I don't want you to quit playing the sport you love and I don't want you to put yourself in danger from coming out." He shrugged. His shoulders felt tight. Neither of them could have everything they wanted. They both knew that. They'd worked very hard together to figure out what they needed.
"We already agreed on that and I'm not reneging. I am so, so angry that's even a thing you have to worry about, and you're just going to have to accept that I'm always going to be angry about it. It's fucked up that I was safer as a broke barista who couldn't make rent than you are now.
"And I know I'm not that anymore. Broke, I mean. I know that we have more money than we are ever gonna need and you think it's stupid that I still wait tables when the tips I make in a week at the bar are pocket change. That is the problem. I want you to take me seriously and I don't think you do. And I'm not sure you're wrong not to, because I'm nearly twenty eight and I've never had a real job, and I'm considering giving myself another four years, minimum, before I even try to get one. I went from living with my dad to living with you and I don't know if I ever could have made it on my own."
Two a.m. was the worst time to say this. It was the only time to say this. In the light of day, Kip knew he would cringe away from this much honesty about himself. Hypocrite, hypocrite. Resenting Scott's silence, hiding himself in the dark. "You don't care about the money. I don't care about the money. I want to share the things we do care about, the things we can, and we can't do that if you're a functional adult and I'm just … a fuckup who hides his head in paintings."
Silence stretched, until he said, "That's all."
"Fuck," Scott said. It was distorted because he was rubbing his face as he said it. "That's. A lot."
"Yeah."
He didn't let himself apologize for it. Living with Scott for better than a year had taught him what it sounded like when someone apologized for just being a person.
Scott said, "I think you're probably the first person to accuse a professional jock of being a 'functional adult.' I mean, ever in history." He shifted out of the frightful stillness he'd held while Kip was speaking and moved so that with just a small turn of Kip's head they were face-to-face. Without his glasses, Kip wouldn't see more than a blur at the best of times, and his own face must be in shadow for Scott. But it felt important that they were looking at each other, even if they couldn't see.
"Sweetheart, I'm sorry, I am so sorry that I acted like I don't respect you. I do. So much." Respect wasn't the word Kip used, but Scott was right. That word was right. "You're — you're amazing. No, if you get to be honest so do I. Let me talk, please. You're so smart, and capable of so many things I've never even had the guts to try. I spit my own teeth out for a living. Nothing about you is less than me."
It was remarkably hard to listen to someone praise you when you were down on yourself. Especially the one you most wanted to hear it from. Kip bit his lip and made himself listen.
Tentatively, Scott asked, "Can I … when you talk about making it on your own. What's that mean? What's making it to you?"
Kip shrugged. "Being able to pay my fair share, I guess. Independence. Having my shit more together than it's ever been. I lived with roommates in undergrad, and that was stupid. I covered part of the rent with loans when I could have just lived with Dad. I had to move back in anyway. Interest rates didn't seem real when I was eighteen."
He yawned despite his best efforts. It was a hell of his own making, sitting in his warm, inviting bed, across from the person he wanted to be snuggled up against, not able to sleep yet. The hour wasn't the only reason he felt drained, but it was a lot on its own.
"I just … don't want to make the same mistakes I made a decade ago, when I got a degree I couldn't do anything with," he said. That hadn't haunted him, precisely, in the years since graduating. He could go whole days without thinking about it, especially when he was working. Dissociating into the minimum-wage life he could have had with a lot less effort, if this was always where he was heading. But inevitably, he would think about it. "Even if you'll make sure there aren't any consequences for me screwing up, I don't want to do that again. Dad and Meg were so proud that I went to college, and I want to actually earn their pride."
Scott cleared his throat. His fingers scratched over the covers in his lap, making nervous little sounds. "It's, um. My brain isn't firing on all cylinders right now. I guess by that definition I had it made. Way before I met you. They don't even make me have a road roomie anymore. But I was …"
He laughed, not the kind where you could think it was about anything funny. "Jesus, I know I'm still fucked up now, but I'm not spending every July sucking dick in Italian bars like that's all I'm allowed to eat in the off-season because that's the only way I can be close to anybody."
Stuff like that made Kip wish he was capable of being even more angry at the NHL than he already was. He needed to be angry enough for two people.
"I get to be close to you. And Elena, Shawn, Maria, your dad, Meg texts me to make sure I'm treating her baby brother right, Kyle sends me memes and makes fun of me when I don't understand them, it's. I haven't had this since I was twelve. People I can talk to. I couldn't get that on my own. When I thought about telling someone, telling them who I really was …" He trailed off into bad memories.
That was too much. They shouldn't touch right now. Touch between them was too good; at their worst, their bodies still never got the memo that they were supposed to be in conflict. Scott's body just fit his too well, like all the little hollows were cut to Kip's size. Touching each other made their problems seem small, even when they weren't. They'd let sex cover up too much conflict, those first two months. It had almost ruined them.
But Scott was remembering what it felt like to be completely alone, without hope it would ever really end, and that was too much for Kip to listen to without touching him. They had fought. Past tense. Even in the dark, even with his weak eyesight, he didn't have to fumble around to find Scott's hand and pull it to his chest, folded up in both of his own hands. His body always knew where Scott's was.
"You mean just as much to me," he said softly. Scott shivered a little, his hand drinking in Kip's warmth. "I'm here for good. I need you to really believe that."
"I do," Scott said. "I know that. And I know there are things I need to do to make it easier on you."
He cleared his throat, and Kip knew what expression was on his face without needing to see it: determination and a vague nausea, his eyes glancing to Kip and down again repeatedly, deep lines furrowed in his forehead. The look he wore when he forced himself to say something that he was afraid to say. It was also how he looked when he asked for something he wanted.
He said, "I've been thinking about telling some of the guys on the team. A few. Just to start. Vaughnie, I mean, you've met Carter and he loves you already. It's actually ridiculous how much. I want to tell him that you're more than a friend. I can start there."
He leaned over, bringing his other hand to cover Kip's, so that they were each holding on to the other. "Because I wasn't going to make it on my own. You make my life better. I want more people to know that. I, um, I don't know if you should get your PhD or not. But I think maybe you don't need me to tell you? I just think, whichever way you decide, you'll make something good out of it. Like you have out of me."
Their bodies did what their bodies always did: fit together. Scott's mouth in the middle of the night tasted stale against Kip's fresh toothpaste. They'd both shaved that morning and Scott's beard didn't grow as fast as Kip's did. His chin was almost smooth still; the stubble on Kip's jaw must have pricked at it. But he put his hands in Kip's hair to pull him closer. It was so easy to lean against him, knowing he would welcome Kip's weight. A little bit of interest started to stir in Kip's cock. Scott's enthusiastic kisses. His long fingers. The press of his body. Hours of anger and apprehension, falling away. He could push Scott down to the mattress and the sounds Scott would make when Kip straddled his thighs and —
They yawned in each other's faces. Big, creaking, jaw-popping yawns.
Laughing, they leaned apart, letting go of each other.
"We should get some sleep," Kip told him. "Dad always says it's important in a marriage never to go to bed angry at each other. I'm not angry anymore. Are you?"
When Scott was silent, he regretted it. "Sorry, I mean …"
Scott said, "We're not married." He sounded unsure about something, but Kip couldn't guess what. The situation was pretty unambiguous.
"No," Kip agreed, waiting.
He had to wait a little while. Until Scott asked, "Do you want to be? When. When we can?" He sounded like …
Like a man who'd gotten good news and couldn't quite believe it.
Oh. It was an easy question to answer.
"I'd like to be," Kip said. "When we can." Not now. Not soon. But it didn't have to happen right now. The laws changed just last summer. They could get married anywhere in the country, any time they wanted to. When the time was right.
They had fought, and Scott had woken up in the middle of the night to talk about it when Kip was ready. They had time, because they were gonna last.
"Good." Scott's voice almost, almost managed to be even. He settled back onto his side of the bed, kicking the blankets more or less straight. "You'll own half of everything. Can't argue with me about spending it then. The law's on my side."
Kip rolled his eyes. The gesture was invisible in the dark, but Scott could probably hear it. "Okay," he graciously conceded. "When you're my husband, you can be right about money. Sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
"On Wednesdays. Between the hours of two and four in the afternoon."
Scott pouted. "That's the worst part of Wednesday."
Kip shook his head, wriggling himself around to get beneath the covers. "Keep complaining and I'll cancel your hours during the playoffs. No shaving, no sex, and no getting to be right."
"Tough negotiations," Scott murmured. "I'll have my agent get back to you." He sounded like he was already drifting off, and Kip settled himself with his eyes closed, letting the warmth of a bed shared with another body sink into his muscles.
But for the next few minutes, Scott shifted restlessly. He slept on his stomach nearly always, but laid there for only seconds before turning onto his back. Kip heard the soft thump of a pillow hitting the floor, Scott deciding there were too many. It didn't help.
Softly, Scott asked, "May I hold you?"
Kip said, "Yeah," knowing what he was in for.
When the six-foot-two octopus creature attacked him, Kip just lifted his head so that Scott could get a bicep beneath it. He let himself be manhandled over, turned onto his side to face the window. It was easier — and a lot more fun — to let Scott arrange him like he was a large, breathing pillow than to try to sort out how to lay himself. After a few adjustments, Scott sighed happily against his neck. With his thigh thrown over Kip's hip and his arms like cords around him, they weren't lying beside each other so much as they were occupying the same space, two bodies that fit into each other like stacking cups. Scott's hand rested right in the middle of Kip's torso, riding each breath he took.
"Your dad's pretty smart," Scott murmured. "That's where you get it."
Kip hummed. "I should point out, my parents divorced when I was eight. He's more of a theory guy."
"Mm, theory," Scott said, and it sounded like he was trying to make it sexy, but he fell asleep in the middle of faking a moan.
Absolutely ridiculous. Kip was going to marry that man. Maybe …
Maybe once he got his PhD.