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Ransom kicks open the door to the Haus with a bounce in his step. Labs are the shit but chem labs are especially the shit - the kid with blue hair two seats back had somehow exploded his titration into something that looked like black tar. It was ‘swawesome. God, he just loved the bits of premed that weren’t exams, or tests, or studying, or—
Well, he loved explosions at least.
He drops his bag on the coffee table in front of the couch, which had someone’s laundry piled on top of it. A foot was sticking out from underneath the pile. Ransom kicks it. The pile groans and unfolds into Holster, who looked like he’d gone three rounds with a spin cycle and lost. “You all good?” Ransom asks him with a frown.
“Yeah bro, living the nap life,” Holster says, scratching at his face. There was a red mark pressed into the bridge of his nose where he'd clearly fallen asleep with his glasses on.
Ransom frowns harder. “On that excuse for a couch?” he asks, “I swear, last time I napped on that I got a—”
“—a rash. Rans, I know,” Holster says fondly. “You’ve told me that story legit six times and I’m pretty sure the rash just turned out to be raspberry jam or some shit—”
Ransom tries to sit on Holster to shut him up but gets unceremoniously tipped onto the floor. “No, really though,” he says from the floor, “What’s up?” He sprawls back casually onto his elbows as if the floor was exactly where he intended to be.
Holster scrubs his hand over his hair, dislodging a sock. “I’m just figuring out what to do for winter break,” he says. “My moms won a Christmas cruise so we’re not doing the big family thing this year.”
“Sucks, bro,” says Ransom. He’s got a great view up Holster’s nose from his spot on the floor, but he somehow looks good even from that angle. He looks good from every angle. Its deeply unfair. “Christmas cruise, though,” he adds hastily, before he gets caught daydreaming about Holster’s nostril hair, seriously what the fuck. That is definitely not buddies. “That sounds like a banger of a time.”
“Ridiculous,” Holster agrees. “I shit you not. I don’t even think they’re going anywhere, they get on this big-ass boat that just goes in circles around the Caribbean for three weeks and all they do is lie in the sun and drink piña coladas with the little umbrellas.”
“The little umbrellas are what really make it,” Ransom says, sitting up a bit so he can prop himself against the coffee table. The proximity to the awful couch is making him a bit squeamish. “Plus, anything’s better than winter in Buffalo.”
Holster throws a sock at him. Ransom hopes it’s clean, but from the way it crunches as it bounces off his forehead, it probably isn’t. “You’ve never even been to Buffalo,” Holster says accusingly.
Ransom just looks at him, eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, all right, fair,” Holster says. He stretches himself out along the couch, one arm precariously close to what looks like a burn mark but might be a puke stain. Ransom suppresses a wince. “Anyway,” Holster says, “None of my sisters are going home either, so I’m just gonna chill solo in the Haus, maybe get some work done. Maybe hit up the lax bros for New Year’s, mend some fences, get schwastey.”
They both shudder at the thought.
“Not lax bros, come on,” Ransom says. An idea dawns on him and he leaps to his feet, narrowly avoiding the coffee table. “Just come home with me for break,” he exclaims. “I’m driving anyway, and everyone loved you when you came over last summer for our Transcontinental (B)Road Trip of Fun.”
“Wait, seriously?” Holster asks, his eyes brightening. “Also I heard that capitalisation bro, nice.”
“Seriously,” Ransom says solemnly. “Bros don’t let bros funnel with the lax team.”
Holster holds out his hand for a fist bump. “Done deal.”
“Same playlist?”
“You know it. “
It's not that he's in love with Holster or anything.
That would be such a cliché— who accidentally falls in love with their best bro in real life? He is not that much of a teen Disney movie. They’re just really good friends who live together and study together and play hockey together and have different yet complementary taste in music so they can put together perfect mid-2000s driving playlists with the ideal Fergie to Outkast ratio, and also Holster has objectively great hair and broad shoulders and he smells really nice even though he has the fashion sense of a middle aged high school football coach—
Anyway. The point is, its not like Justin’s pining away. And like, if he was, it’s not like he’d say anything about it. That probably wouldn’t be bros.
When he’s away at Samwell, Ransom always misses his little sister Aya the most. It only ever takes about half a day of being home for him to remember that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Like, he loves her, obviously — she’s 13 and cool as hell and probably his favourite person in the world — but she’s also a massive dick.
She’s clearly been holding off while Holster’s around — she hadn’t said a word when they’d arrived just in time to be fussed over by all the aunties for missing dinner — but as soon as Holster leaves to shower she goes in for the kill.
Ransom’s in bed, lying on his side facing the door when Aya barges into his room, slamming the door open hard enough that it bounces back off the frame and into her legs. “I can’t believe you have a crush on a white boy who un-ironically wears cut-off sweatpants,” she says gleefully. “This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me.” There’s already a mark on her knee from where the door hit her. Ransom kind of wishes it had hit her a little harder.
“Hey to you too,” he tries. “Long time no see! Love the braids, they’re new - who did them? Was it Mom?”
Aya just narrows her eyes. Ransom avoids looking at the sweatpants in question, folded accusingly at the foot of the blow-up mattress squished in on the floor against his bed frame. They really are awful.
“I can’t believe my baby sister is making fun of me right now. I changed your diapers,” he says. “Also he’s just my bro, drop it.”
Aya tosses her braids as only a smug 13-year-old can. “Well, maybe you should stop staring at your bro’s ass when he’s helping Mom with the dishes then,” she says smugly. “Someone might get the wrong idea.”
“Don’t say ass,” Ransom says, horrified, “You’re a baby!”
“I’m 13!”
“A baby!”
“Sweatpants!” Aya hisses. She does a little Vanna White hand gesture towards the pants as if to say, “Ta-daa! Congratulations for your terrible taste in clothes and also men!”
Ransom sighs. “I’m not winning this one, am I?” he asks plaintively.
“Bro,” she says, “you’ve lost so badly it’s kind of gross.” She pats him on the head, conciliatory. “I still missed you though.”
Ransom holds out his hands for their Oluransi Sibling Handshake of Death. Aya obliges. Halfway through she murmurs, “I bet you made a spreadsheet about him,” which makes Ransom fumble a handclap and accidentally smack himself in the face. Ava cackles and runs out of the room, narrowly avoiding crashing into a bemused Holster in the hallway.
The sad thing is, Ransom totally does have a spreadsheet. It used to be titled AAAAAARRGGHGGHGHGHGG FUCK FUCK FUCK, but he relabelled it as Involuntary Serotonin Impulse Reaction Tests (2012 - ongoing), partly because it was easier to hide it in his bio notes that way but mostly because the original file name didn’t properly fit into his computer file categorisation framework. He's not sure which part is more embarrassing.
“Was that your sister?” Holster asks as he shuts the door behind him. “She was a lot quieter when I saw her last summer.” He drops his towel and pulls on the sweatpants. Ransom manfully does not look.
“Yeah, this is pretty usual,” he says, “This is why I can always nap during a Haus party if I have to - I’ve been desensitised to excited yelling.”
Holster nods sagely. “Useful life skill bro.” He hits the lights and gets into bed, the air mattress making a sad wailing sound under 6’ 4" of solid hockey player. Ransom can just see the profile of Holster's face in the moonlight from the window. He sees him open his mouth, visibly hesitate and close it again.
“She really was, uh, really loud,” Holster says quietly. “Rans.” Ransom stops breathing. He sees Holster turn to him, his face weirdly naked without his glasses. “I think I heard something about my sweatpants?”
Ransom is still not breathing. “Sweatpants,” he finally manages, “Yes, you have them. They’re really terrible.” He doesn’t know where this is going. This was not a scenario he had planned for. He’s suddenly very aware of his hands. “Yup,” he adds, somewhat uselessly.
“Were you really staring at my— my ass?” Holster asks. His voice cracks on the word “ass” because of course it does, this is Ransom’s life now. He clears his throat and tries again. “I mean, I get it— is this another thing like how you’re trying to help Bitty with his squat game, cause like bros always look out for their bro's butts, and—”
Ransom catches one of Holster’s wildly gesticulating hands in his, cutting him off. He's somehow not freaking out anymore. This is just Holster. He sets it up and Ransom taps it in, that’s how they work — he can’t believe he got so caught up in his feelings that he’d somehow forgotten that. Why had he thought they were going to be out of step when it came to this when they were so in sync with everything else?
“Bro,” he says softly. “Those pants are a monstrosity. I would not stare at any ass wearing those pants unless it was yours.”
Holsters twists his hand so that he can lace their fingers together. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me,” he whispers.
Ransom can see Holster’s face even clearer now that his eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and he just has time to register how close it is before lips touch his, which, hey. At first everything is soft and warm and wet, but then there are teeth and everything gets a bit more urgent. Ransom gets the hand that isn’t still being held in a death grip by Holster into Holster’s hair. Holster makes a noise like he’s dying and bodily pulls Ransom off the bed and onto the air mattress.
Ransom is really not used to making out with someone just as strong as him, someone he can pin down without holding back, which is definitely something to revisit later. He pushes his thigh in between Holster’s and grinds down. “Adam,” he gasps, “oh fuck—”
“I know, right,” Holster breathes, pulling Ransom impossibly closer with a hand on his hip. “We could have been doing this for years.“ He licks a wet stripe up the side of Ransom’s neck and arches up against him. Something small and important in Ransom's brain whites out.
The air mattress takes that opportune moment to let out a last plaintive squeak before popping under their combined weight, throwing them both to the floor. Holster’s head bounces off the desk on the way down and he lets out a truly undignified squawk.
The ensuing silence is only broken by hysterical laughter from the room next door. Ransom bangs on the wall, and the noise quiets but doesn’t entirely stop, as if someone had perhaps tried to muffle their laughter with a pillow.
“Bro,” Holster says “Is that your sister?”
“Yeah,” Ransom says sadly.
“The walls here are really thin, aren't they.”
“Yeah.”
“We’re gonna have to wait to get back to the Haus to bone or she’ll never let you hear the end of it, will she?”
“...Yeah.”
“Does this mean we need a new handshake?” Holster wonders aloud. “But like with our dicks? Like a dick handshake — a dick shake—”
Ransom tries his level best to smother Holster with a pillow.