Chapter Text
The girl Macklin is talking to is blonde.
She’s tiny: short but curvy in the way that Mack usually likes, the top of her head probably hovering around Mack’s chin. She’s got some strappy, sparkly thing on, skimming the tops of her thighs and Mack reaches out absentmindedly to trace one of the straps every once in a while.
She leans up after a moment, placing a delicate hand on Mack’s chest to whisper something in his ear, and Will tears himself away at the sight. It was getting a little pathetic anyway.
He’s in some corner of the bar they had all gone out to, post-Capitals win. The roadtrip has been a mix of wins and losses, nearly ideal in the way that the losses never hit too hard and the wins never got too easy.
Will had retreated to the bathroom line when the mix of players who had gone out for the night had gotten grating. He didn’t score any points, despite being on shift for two of the five goals. But the bathroom line had come and gone, along with most of his teammates, and Will still stood in the hallway, nursing a vodka sour and only feeling a little bit like shit.
“Smitty,” a familiar voice calls, Will snapping up in confusion. Sure enough, Ryan Leonard stands by the wall cutting him off from the rest of the bar, drink already in hand.
Will blinks a few times, going through the motions of dapping him up and pulling him into a hug before he finds his voice. “Miss me already? Thought I wouldn’t see you again until break.” They had already said their goodbyes at dinner the night before the game, and the Sharks were flying out in the morning.
Leno grins, sharp. “That was before I scored a fucking hat trick, Smit. C’mon.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Will snorts, leaning back against the wall. “Still lost, though.”
“Remind me how many hatty’s you’ve gotten before?”
“Remind me if you’ve ever been on the first line before? What’s your TOI looking like?”
“Remind me how many of your first games you’d gotten scratched from?” Will thins his lips in response, and Ryan can apparently still read him well enough to know he’s reaching the end of his rope, because he continues on before Will can chirp back, “I texted asking where your bum ass would be for the night.”
Will pulls out his phone, sure enough, seeing two texts from Lenny, timestamped about twenty minutes ago. Jesus, had he been staring at Macklin that long? “Decided to just track me down instead?”
“You would've taken off your location if you cared,” Leno shrugs. “Where’s your team? This bar sucks, you know that right?”
Will takes another sip. “Early flight, tomorrow. Where’s yours? No one taking you out to celebrate?”
“Still lost, in the end,” Leno waves him off. “‘Sides. Everyone's all old. Not every team is run by teenagers.”
The chirp is weak, and Will only hums in response. Leno was used to being best friends with half his team. So was Will, to be honest, but the only difference was that after graduating BC, Will still got to be best friends with his liney. “I’ll buy you a drink then, to celebrate.”
Leno considers him for a moment. “You can get me next time. Not drinking tonight.” Will hums, already knowing the next words that’ll come out of Leno’s mouth before he speaks them, lips twisting into a smirk just this side of sleazy. Or maybe the wrong side of sleazy. He looks fucking stupid, is the point, but Will grins back anyway, some sort of pavlovian response. “What are you doing after this?”
It’s the same thing every time. Leno hits him with the same smirk he uses on sorority girls, followed by some form of what are you doing later, even when the answer is usually obvious. Well, he supposes, the answer used to be obvious. The last time Will was on the receiving end of a what are you doing later was when the answer was heading back to their shared dorm building — getting convinced to walk down the hall and into Leno’s single wasn’t too far a jump.
But it’s been a minute. Summers are busy, hopping back and forth between Lexington and San Jose and Halifax, and after facing each other in games, one of them is always in a shit mood.
He supposes it isn't like that this time. Both of them are in the same place, at the same time. Will coming off a win, Leno off a hatty.
Still, Will takes a swig of his drink, shaking his head. He omits a verbal response, mainly because he really doesn't know what he would say.
Leno’s eyes glitter, looking Will up and down. “Holy shit. Who made an honest man out of you?”
Will rolls his eyes. “Shut up, man. Maybe I’m just not in the mood.”
“When are you ever not in the mood?” Which…yeah. “Is it Celibrini? You two freaks finally shacking up or what?”
“No,” Will stresses, startled, but Leno just keeps going.
“Oh, I totally saw that coming. Should’ve known when you two were making moon eyes at each other barely into dev camp. You really can’t survive without hooking up with your liney, can you?”
“Leno—”
Leno wiggles his eyebrows. “Your boy know about what you used to get up to, back at BC? I thought he didn’t like me, back when we played in San Jose.” He snorts to himself. “Fuck, you know when you, like, come up with a crazy good chirp but it’s like way too late—”
“Leno,” Will snapped. Finally, finally, Leno stops talking. “It isn’t…we’re not like that, me and Mack.” Naturally, he cuts a glance past Leno to where Mack still stands, a hand slung low on the girl's waist, now.
It’s enough for Leno to notice, whipping around. “Oh,” he remarks. “Didn’t see him when I came in,” he says, casually, like he’s still recalibrating.
“Fucking obviously.”
“So you’re single.”
“Obviously.”
The girl lets out a belt of laughter, less audibly noticeable but more in the way her shoulders shake and she brings a hand up. Mack smiles his incredulous smile he always does when he makes someone laugh, like he’s surprised to have done so.
Leno cocks his head. “What, so do you just go out to bars after wins and just stare at him flirt with whichever chick he’s tryna wheel and then go home alone? That’s fucking depressing, man.”
Will doesn’t dignify him with a response. He holds back the urge to make Leno turn back around, make it less obvious they're staring at Mack. “Fuck off, man.”
“You in love with him, or some shit?”
“Fuck off,” he repeats, but it’s practically an acquiescence with the way Leno can read him so well.
Leno hums, studying Will’s face and flicking back to Mack over and over, while Will purses his lips and waits so see if he’ll say anything. Hanging with Leno always pisses him off a bit, but fuck if Leno wasn’t quick about it, today. It had to be some sort of record for them.
“So I’m not seeing why you can’t come back to mine after this.”
“Someone’s desperate,” Will remarks in lieu of an answer. Mainly because he doesn’t have one, save for you aren’t Mack, which isn’t something he wants to say out loud. “You can find someone else.”
“You just gonna pine forever then? Go celibate until Celebrini decides he wants you?”
Will narrows his eyes. “Jesus, you were never gagging for it this bad in Boston, what’s up? D.C. pussy not cutting it for you anymore?” Will asks, meanly, because he kind of needs Leonard to shut up right about now.
Ryan doesn’t even flinch, not in the way he would have two years ago at any implication that he wanted guys, wanted Will. His smirk doesn’t even waver, but he brings a hand up and waves.
Not at Will. Will tears his gaze up, cursing, where sure enough, across the bar, Mack waves back, eyes flicking between them. His eyebrows are twisted upwards, vaguely confused. Leno throws an arm around Will, yanking him closer, and Mack’s eyes narrow, just slightly. He never really liked Leno. It’s only after Will nods in acknowledgement, internally wincing, that Mack shrugs and returns to the girl in front of him.
“Come on…” Ryan drops his voice. He’s a lot closer now, breath fanning across the side of Will’s neck. “Just like old times, yeah?”
“Leno…” Will starts, wincing, but the proximity is getting to him. He can smell Leno’s stupid cologne, the same shit he used to wear in college, and if he closes his eyes it’s like he’s there. In Leno’s single, in their freshman year, when everything was easy and before their NHL debuts had begun to loom over them.
Leno twists — ending up partially in front of Will — but doesn’t pull back, latching onto the soft spot behind Will’s ear. Will shivers in surprise, bringing a hand up in what he means to push Leno away, but kind of just ends up twisted into the fabric of Leno’s shirt.
“Jesus, Len, we’re in public.”
Leno grins; Will can feel the teeth against his skin before Leno bites, and Will makes a strangled sort of sound, eyes darting around the room in case anyone in their little crevice had noticed. “No one’s here,” he pauses to run his tongue over the mark. “It’s fine.”
Will hums. He’s not wrong, but it’s riskier than Leno had ever been, back at BC. Leno isn’t unfamiliar— the proximity, the feel of his shoulder under where Will’s hand loosely rests, the sensation of Leno’s mouth on his neck — but at the same time, the unhurriedness of it all felt new. Will was used to everything being hot and fast between them, adrenaline spiking after games culminating in a need to get each other off and not much else.
But this is new, sort of. Leno’s mouth skims across his neck and he finds a new spot right over his pulse point, hand pulling back from where it was draped over Will’s shoulder to thumb across the base of his neck. He sucks another mark into Will’s skin, high enough that Will is gonna get chirped to hell and back for next time he’s in the locker room, but he can’t really bring himself to care.
Leno returns to the spot by his ear, harsher this time, and Will goes dizzy like he always does, biting back a moan. Leno’s head doesn’t need to get any bigger than it already is. He tangles a hand into his hair, instead, scraping absentmindedly against his scalp. It’s nice, sort of. He didn’t think he’d missed it, but now, in the dim light in the back of the bar, Will can admit to himself that he kind of did. Leno knows him better than any hookup ever could.
Leno pulls off, after a moment, hovering by his ear. “Is he looking?”
Will blinks a few times, eyes snapping past the wall to where Macklin stands, just to see the same sight he’s been seeing for the past twenty minutes, at least. “Obviously not,” he hisses, and he feels stupid that he even looked.
“He will.”
Will rankles at whatever point he’s trying to make. “Why the hell are you so invested, anyway? What are you getting out of this?”
“Well,” Leno starts, nipping at his earlobe. “I either get some decent head or get to piss Celebrini off, so…”
Will can’t help from laughing. “Decent,” he repeats, eyes fluttering shut when Leno traces up the shell of his ear with his tongue. “You know I’m better than that.”
“Care to remind me, Smitty?”
And, well, it doesn’t seem like such a terrible idea anymore. He could get off, get Leno off, and be on his way back to the hotel within the hour. Leno was familiar, and good, and more importantly, not Macklin Celebrini. Will could have one hour where he wasn’t attuned to Mack’s location, one free hour where he wasn’t thinking about—
“Will.”
Will shoots his eyes open. Mack stands before him, face doing something complicated that Will can’t easily read. He isn’t sure he’s ever been unable to read an expression on Mack’s face.
Fuck.