Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

________________________

Ransom moves out on a breathlessly dry day in the middle of June.

It’s the exact opposite of the movie clichés. Holster kind of hates it, that the sun should be so bright and intense when the sun of his life is packing up to go away.

In the living room Holster turns the volume up on the remote, staring at the TV they’d bought at Samwell like he isn’t hearing the subtle sighs and creaks of Ransom splitting their lives apart. He knows Ransom has a system — living with someone as long as they have, loving someone for even longer, you realize these things — knows he’s getting close to done by the way his footsteps have started toward the family room where Holster’s currently buried underneath as many blankets as he could find. Ransom probably wants to say something, and Holster, right now, just wants this done. They’ve built up to this for so long; his heart hurts from holding onto him. He’s leaving. They’re done. Holster wishes they could let it be done.

He feels rather than sees Ransom lean against the doorway. Even now, with everything they’ve said hanging in the air between them, Holster’s still so very aware of Ransom’s body and how near they are to each other.

He would be lying if he said he doesn’t want to hold him right now. That he doesn’t want to pull Ransom into his lap and look at him like he’s stupid in love with him, hands on his hips until Rans rolls his eyes and tilts his head the way he does when he’s about to lean down and kiss him. That the thought of fucking this problem away didn’t cross his mind.

It did, and they tried, and they’re here anyway. Holster tries to hold a throw pillow casually, like he isn’t falling apart at the edges.

Ransom knocks uncertainly against the archway. “I’m, ah. I’ll be heading out now.”

“Okay,” Holster says, tugging at the beading on the pillow. He wipes his eyes furtively. “Go, then.”

“Won’t you,” Ransom starts. He sounds the saddest Holster’s ever heard him and this makes him angry now because this was his idea, Holster never fucking wanted to hear him like this, there’s a ring in his underwear drawer saying he planned on making him happy every goddamn day of their lives, and Holster needs him to leave before he starts yelling and crying. “Won’t you look at me?”

Holster whispers, “I can’t,” and the door closes softly moments afterward.

A car starts outside. Pulls away.

Holster locks the door and collapses in their bed in their bedroom, which is his bed in his bedroom now, isn’t it, now that everything’s done. When he wakes up he’ll change the sheets. Ransom’s deodorant has always perfumed their blankets, but he can’t — if they’re really, truly over, he can’t do that to himself.

He burrows into the blankets, closing his eyes. He’s nearly off to sleep when he thinks that, maybe, he would’ve liked to see Ransom one last time in this house before he left.

____________

Shitty picks up on the first ring. “Holtzy? How — how’re you doing?”

“Ransom told you, didn’t he.” Holster moves the laundry from the washer to the dryer.

He hears Shitty’s hesitation through the phone. “Not any details, just you mutually decided to—”

“Mutual,” Holster says bitterly. “Is that what he’s saying?”

Shitty asks, “Did you ever ask him to stay?” and it’s like getting checked into the boards.

“He didn’t want me to, Shits, you should’ve heard him.”

Shitty sighs. Holster rests his head against the dryer, closes his eyes a second.

“You don’t have to — believe me I know this is rough personal shit you’re dealing with — but, Holster, what happened?”

But he wants to say it. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to say it, how he hadn’t told any of their friends they were going through a hard time when they started. Some things, his grandma has told him, you speak into existence. He hadn’t wanted to make this true.

Holster tells him about the stressful late nights at their consulting job, how they started coming home and just wanting to be alone in separate places to destress, how this grew to early mornings and late nights and poor sleep because Ransom steals blankets and Holster steals mattress space, how eventually they started sleeping on the edges of the mattress so they wouldn’t have to touch each other until Holster finally moved to the couch.

And then the smaller things, the tiny details he didn’t know to look for. When they stopped making breakfast for each other in the morning. How, when they kissed, it was almost clinical how short it was. The way they just didn’t fit in each other’s arms anymore when they used to be so close it didn't matter if maybe Holster’s shoulders were too solid to be comfortable or the fact that Ransom’s chin was too pointy.

He tells Shitty how they talked about it, how they realized they had a problem. He tells him about the later nights on top of the late ones and how cranky they’d be in the morning from lack of sleep. About how they started looking at their relationship from two different perspectives, how Holster thought they could just get through the rough patch and how Ransom started thinking they weren’t going to make it. How much worse it felt when they both gave up, quietly, in their separate rooms in their house.

He even tells him about how they’d had sex two nights ago with the hopes it would help things, and how afterward, Holster still inside him, Ransom’s fingers pressing so hard into his thighs that Holster still found bruises just this morning, Ransom had started crying and said this isn’t working, we aren’t working anymore. He doesn’t tell him how much that shattered him. It’s Shitty, though, so Holster thinks he probably knows anyway.

“I guess we just,” Holster says, still leaning against the dryer. It’s nice to have something else in charge of supporting his body weight. “We fell apart in the little ways. It was sort of inevitable, eventually.”

Shitty’s voice, when it comes, is gentler than he’s ever heard it. “Do you want us to come over? Lardo and I — and Bits and Jack too, I bet they’d — we’d be happy to, if you want.”

And Holster’s thought about this, he has. When he woke up from his nap the house seemed too big to be alone in, and he’d been so close to texting the SMH group chat they still keep up with even these four years after his own graduation. Then he realized Ransom was in that group, and he’d have to make another group chat, and how he’d never wanted to be the guy who forced his friends to chose him over their other friend, even if that friend is Holster’s ex who just broke his heart.

Holster rubs his eyes. “Not right now,” he says. Shitty, because he’s a good friend, doesn’t comment on how Holster’s voice breaks. “I think I need to be alone in this house. Make it mine, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

There’s a pause. Holster realizes he hadn’t started the dryer so he does that now, watching the way the clothes spin around and around until Shitty’s saying something in his ear.

“What’s that?”

“I was saying I’ve gotta go,” and his voice sounds so apologetic. “Lardo’s parents are here, we’re going over wedding things today.”

Of course, of course today’s wedding prep day. He’d forgotten in the midst of everything that Shitty and Lardo were finalizing colors and cakes and tables today. Their wedding’s in six months, and he’s a terrible friend for having forgot. He says this and Shitty all but shouts him down.

“You fucking kidding me?” Shitty sounds mad, and it’s almost reassuring. He always gets like this when his friends are down on themselves. “Are you actually kidding me right now, Adam Birkholtz? We know you love us. We know you’re going through some shit, you’re not a terrible friend for focusing on yourself for one goddamn minute.”

“Okay,” Holster whispers.

They hang up after Shitty makes him promise to believe it. Holster tries.

It echoes in the silence around him. The house is still too goddamn big.

He queues up one of his favorite musicals and doesn’t have the heart to sing along.

____________

It hits him again at night. He was going to propose, had gotten the ring months before all of this happened. He’s watching SNL and thinking about how things could be different if he’d found the right time earlier when they were still happy together.

There’s an empty space on the wall where a picture of them, happy and smiling on the ice, used to be. Holster isn’t sure where it is now. Ransom may have taken it, he himself may have hidden it somewhere, but all that matters right now is that he was going to propose and now he’s left with a house full of holes.

____________

Holster goes to work the next day. Gayle and Evan from his department whisper to each other in the break room when he walks in, but cut off when he closes the refrigerator door a little too hard.

“You’ve got something to say?” Holster asks. His hands clench around the handle. They’ve always liked Ransom more, were overjoyed when they finally got together because it made Ransom so happy.

He’s going to have to do this now, have to deal with this at work. He and Ransom were on some of the same projects before — before all of this, knew the same hiding spots and the same people. They were electric here, when things were going well. Most of that was Ransom’s charisma. Holster’s not foolish enough to imagine everyone here who liked them liked them because of him, he knows he’s too loud and too big and too into really detailed pop culture references to be fun to be around all the time. On the ice being bigger than life was fine; it’s why he and Ransom were such a powerhouse when they played together. At work it’s always been different.

Then Gayle says, “We’re saying we wanted to be there for you, too,” and Holster turns to face the wall so he doesn’t start crying. A sob makes him shake regardless.

They come up behind him and hug him until he can sort of breathe again, short, rough breaths that tear at his throat and lungs on the exhale. Someone rubs his back soothingly.

“Thanks,” he rasps out. The hands squeeze his shoulder reassuringly.

He’s going to have to do this now. There must be new spaces to breathe in this building, another office with the same view they love to look at during lunch, and he’s going to have to find them on his own this time.

Maybe not entirely alone, he thinks, as Gayle squeezes him again and asks Evan about his wife and children. Maybe there’s something here.

____________

A week after Ransom moves out, Holster’s sister comes over with an armful of plastic bags and dumps them on the kitchen counter. “There’s more in the car,” Brianna says, and suddenly it’s like they’re kids again helping Mom take in the groceries. Holster says this and Brianna laughs, but it’s a nice laugh. It fills the kitchen.

They spend a few minutes moving around each other, opening drawers in the fridge and the pantry, carefully putting away all the food she brought. He opens one of the bags and tears fill his vision when he realizes she’s bought all the junk food he secretly loves but won’t admit. Milk Duds. Cool Ranch Doritos. Those really terrible, weird tasting off brand Twizzlers that are objectively disgusting but work so well with a warm beer. Holster pulls his sister in for a hug, and she holds him tight.

“Thanks,” he mumbles against her hair.

Brianna says, “I got you, bro,” and asks him to pull down cookie baking sheets.

They spend the afternoon baking some premade dough — Holster says a silent apology to Bitty, who can never know about this — with the living room TV on in the background. He thinks it’s an NCIS marathon and he’d change it, but it’s Brianna’s favorite show. Maybe remembering that will ease the fact that it was Ransom’s, too.

As if she hears him thinking about it, she asks, “How’re you doing? Like actually doing, you know I know if you’re lying.”

“I’m trying to stop thinking about him,” he says. He spatulas a cookie off the sheet and sets it on a cooling rack. “It’s hard.”

“Understatement of the year,” she notes. When Holster raises his eyebrows, she says, “Your friends keep texting me.”

This rubs him the wrong way. The next cookie he moves cracks because he sets it down too hard. “They don’t think I can take care of myself? Did they tell you to babysit me?”

Brianna rolls her eyes. “No, dumbass, they said you’re having a hard time and thought I might wanna know.”

It hits him as soon as she says it. Oh. “I didn’t tell you.”

“You did not,” she says, elbowing him out of the way of stove. She takes the spatula and peels off another cookie. “You didn’t tell Mom or Dad either, did you.”

Brianna doesn’t say it as a question. They both already know the answer. She crosses her arms, looking up at him, and it strikes him how old she is now. It feels like the last time he really saw her she was still in sophomore year of high school and he was just out of juniors, knee fucked and feeling sorry for himself. They’re four years apart and sometimes it feels bigger, but less so recently, especially right now that she’s clearly disappointed in him.

“I’ll call them later,” he says quietly. “I just. I didn’t wanna worry you, with all of this. I should be able to handle it.”

“That’s bullshit,” Brianna says flatly. “Hand me the milk and a glass, I can’t reach anything in your cupboard.”

He does. “Why?”

“Because you’re a giant, and I’m not as tall as you.”

“No I mean,” Holster says. He takes a bite of one of the misshapen cookies. “These are great by the way, thanks Bri— I mean, why is it bullshit?”

She stares at him. “We’re your family? We’re going to worry worse when you don’t tell us things?” She knocks on his forehead; he brushes her off, annoyed. “Anyone home in there? Do you really think I wanted to hear about all of this from Shitty?”

“I didn’t think—”

“I know you didn’t, you never do,” Brianna says exasperatedly. “Especially when it’s about Rans.”

The nickname feels like a slap. They had been together, officially together, three years after months of dancing around the fact that they still woke up cuddling the shit out of other after kegsters their senior year and well into the Haus they rented with Shitty and Lardo; it makes sense, then, that Brianna would call him Rans. His family has known them as best friends and then as boyfriends for at least seven years. Ransom was as much of their family as Holster himself, and he knows it’s the same sort of thing for Ransom’s family, too. Hearing his nickname now feels wrong. It almost makes him expect Ransom to walk through the door and smile at him the way he would when they’d just bought this house, the way he’d frame Holster’s face in his hands and Holster would hold his hips and they’d just. They’d just fit.

Ransom’s nickname fits into the dust free spots where he used to keep his favorite mug in the cupboard or in the fridge where his protein shakes used to be or in the bedroom where—

Brianna wraps him in a hug again and he realizes he’s crying, big, gulping sobs.

“I want to hate him,” he gasps. “This is so, so hard, I don’t — I don’t think I can do this, without hating him.”

“But you don’t,” Brianna says softy. He thinks she’s crying now too. “You don’t, do you? You don’t really want to hate him.”

He shakes his head and holds her tight until they’re both breathing easier again.

“I can’t keep loving him,” Holster whispers. “He’s gone and I can’t keep loving the spaces he left.”

Brianna says, “Maybe you shouldn’t,” and Holster cries against her shoulder.

____________

He goes to work. He comes home. Weekends he thinks about moving or getting a dog, anything to make this place his. Shitty and Lardo come by one Thursday with a pile of Parks and Rec and 30Rock posters that they hang up in his bedroom, hallways, and living room. Holster thanks them with beer and Chinese takeout and Jack’s hockey game on the TV.

During the intermission report, he clears his throat and asks, “How’s he doing?”

They don’t pretend to misunderstand. “He’s in Toronto,” Lardo says. “With his parents.”

That makes sense, then; Holster hasn’t run into him around the office yet, which makes him both breathe easier and hold his breath turning corners.

Holster just says “That’s a lot of vacation days” and then changes the subject to Jack and Bitty and whether or not they’ll elope after Jack’s next game against the Aces.

This turns into marriage talk once Shitty remembers they haven’t decided for sure on flowers yet. He pulls some pictures up on his phone and shows them to Holster and it’s nice, to be allowed to have an opinion on this. They go back and forth on pale flowers versus a more vibrant variety before Holster reminds him he’s getting married in December, and maybe that would influence the colors they wanted to use, and what about the color scheme? Isn’t it soft reds and creams and golds? And so on.

Shitty goes to get another beer from the fridge, going on and on about whether or not it’s cliché to have mistletoe at a wedding around the holidays. Holster smiles at Lardo, who’s listening to Shitty with a fond expression on her face. It’s so good to see them like this.

He wonders a moment if this is how it was for them to see him and Ransom, and then he quietly tucks that thought away.

Jack scores the game winner four minutes before the third period ends. As soon as the buzzer goes off, Shitty blows up the group chat with sexually implicit metaphors and Bitty sends a <3 and Holster’s about to chirp them both about it a text from Ransom pops up. fanfuckingtastic game jack!!!

His thumbs hover over his phone, and he knows Lardo and Shitty are looking at him very, very softly.

The thing is he can imagine Ransom’s face as he sent that. Eyebrows drawn a little, biting his bottom lip a little, but his eyes wide and excited and thrilled because he’s right, it was a fanfuckingtastic game, Jack, and Jack should know it, which is probably why Ransom decided to send it. Holster knows him better than anyone here and maybe better than himself and he knows , in an instant, that Ransom’s been telling them all to check in on him, knows without them telling him he’s trying, in some small way, to have Holster’s back. Lardo punches him gently on the bicep and he asks her wordlessly, and she shrugs in a way that means yes.

“You guys are — you’re checking on him too, right?” Holster asks, five minutes after Ransom’s text. “I don’t want him to be alone right now.”

It surprises him that he means it.

Lardo says, earnest as anything, “We’re not leaving either of you,” and Holster nods.

“Good,” he says. “That’s … that’s good.”

“Have you talked to him at all?” Shitty asks gently.

Holster shakes his head and laughs a little. “Shits, you know I’m not ready for that.”

Shitty and Lardo seem to have a conversation without words. Holster spares a second to be jealous of that easiness.

“We just wanted to check,” Lardo says carefully. “He’s going to the wedding. Are you, you know. Gonna be okay?”

The save the date he’d gotten had been addressed to him and Ransom both. Holster aims for breeziness when he answers. “I’ll be fine.”

For a few minutes he believes it. When they leave, he’s less sure. He goes into the kitchen after walking them out and studies the invitation hung on the fridge, taking in the careful, swooping calligraphy of Larissa Duan & B. Knight. It had taken her weeks to do all of them and she’d written several of them in this kitchen, swearing up a storm whenever she accidentally blotted the ink. Ransom had always kissed her on the top of her head when this happened and Holster had gotten those terrible veggie puffed chips she loves and together they talked her through frustration tears.

Lardo had given them theirs at the very end. “Something special in there,” she had said, handing it to them with the instruction that they should open it when she left. “Thanks for letting me crash, when I get stressed Shits gets stressed and he keeps saying he’d marry me at city hall, if I don’t wanna do this like this.”

Ransom had said, “Does that mean we get a special shoutout in the toasts,” and they’d all laughed.

Now, Holster flips the invite open. For our fave D-men, she’s written. You two and Jack & Bits are the reason I think we can do this. Thanks for letting us share in your love for each other.

____________

Gayle knocks on his cubicle one Wednesday, looking stressed, and before he can ask what’s going on she says, “He’s back.”

He processes her words ridiculously slowly, as if she’s talking to him through the boards at the rink. When they register, he goes cold all over.

“He’s — Justin’s—?”

Gayle starts nodding before he finishes his question, which is good; he has no idea what he was about to say.

“He’d taken some sort of lifestyle break or something, Jason and all them approved it,” she’s saying now. “Worked from home a while apparently. But he’s back now, transferred to a new team and got a new desk on the seventh floor, so don’t worry about running into him.”

Holster considers this for a moment. Then he says, very deliberately, “That’s good.” At the skeptical, concerned look on Gayle’s face he adds, “I’m trying so hard not to hate him, Gayle. I just. I want to get to the point where I want him to be happy.”

Gayle is older than him with a kid in her early teens. She looks every inch a mom right now, studying him through her glasses like she’s considering calling him on some bullshit. The problem is Holster isn’t sure she’s wrong.

“If you say so,” Gayle says finally. “Thought you’d want a head’s up.”

“I’m doing better about it,” Holster says sincerely. “I am. I think. And I really do appreciate the warning.”

Gayle smiles at him now and it makes him feel like he’s twenty again, having just been told by the doctor he needs to take it easy on himself or he’ll never play hockey again. It’s a look that says, rest. One that says, be kind to yourself and it’s okay that you’re still feeling this. He’s not sure how to respond to it, so he just nods awkwardly until she taps her knuckles lightly on his head and then he laughs for real.

____________

He doesn’t run into Ransom.

Holster spends a little longer in the morning getting ready, picking shirts he knows make his eyes look even more blue, his shoulders even wider, his biceps bigger. Bitty had given him some gel for his birthday two years ago and Ransom had told him how good it smelled whenever he wore it, so Holster lightly spreads some in his hair just in case. Evan wolf whistles at him whenever he passes him in on his way to the water cooler and Holster winks at him and he doesn’t run into Ransom.

He tells himself it’s for him, that he’s proud of his body and he wants, maybe, to start going out more. He’d gone out with Jack, Bitty, Lardo, and Shitty and it had been fun but it’s different being on the town with couples, even when they’re your friends and they’re actively including you. It feels like missing an arm. He’d downloaded Tinder as soon as he’d gotten home.

Part of him worries about coming across Ransom’s profile, but he tells himself the odds of that are slim. It’s a big city. They even work in the same building and they haven’t seen each other yet, so. Not something to worry about.

Part of him hopes he does, though. In a bizarre, twisted way, he thinks it’d give him some closure. The knowledge that they’re both moving on at the same rate, even now, even separate, going the same speed.

____________

He runs into Ransom in late August.

Holster’s wearing his best pants and he’s unbuttoned his shirt enough to show off some skin and Ransom’s at the bar laughing with the bartender like he didn’t used to laugh with Holster like that.

Bitty follows his gaze and mumbles, “Shit.”

It’d be funny coming from him if Ransom wasn’t making eyes at the guy behind the bar, wasn’t wearing the shirt Holster bought him for his birthday last year when they still had something. He knows without looking that the bartender’s interested.

There’s no reason to be jealous. Holster takes several deep breaths and reminds himself this, tells himself he’s drunk and can’t do anything about it anyway, that they both deserve to have lives apart from each other. He watches Ransom stir his drink before looking at it and taking a sip. Holster knows that move. Ransom always uses it to give whomever he’s wheeling time to appreciate what he looks like, and the way his lips are pursed, and what that might look like in another setting. It’s worked on Holster more times than he’d like to think about.

He dimly realizes Bitty’s been tugging on his sleeve for the past — he doesn’t know how long. Bending down, he catches the tail end of “didn’t realize he’d be here, d’you wanna leave?”

Holster’s responding before he thinks about what he’s saying. “He looks good, doesn’t he?”

“I — well, yes, I suppose,” Bitty replies, sounding startled. “Holster let’s go, there’re so many other good clubs we can go to, you have that look you get when you’re about to do something dumb as fuck.”

This is funny coming from Bitty, so Holster laughs. Some sober part of his brain recognizes the fact that Bitty probably has a point. He’s never been great at staying away from Ransom, though, and even the sober part of his brain isn’t surprised when he starts heading toward the bar.

Then Ransom leans over and kisses the bartender.

Holster stops dead.

Someone bumps into him. He barely feels it.

From around his chest, a voice says, “Okay, Holster, we’re leaving,” and small hands push him until he starts walking again.

The voice turns into Bitty’s when Holster’s out of the club. It started sprinkling in the last hour or so; he tilts his head up and the rain feels like a thousand tiny kisses on his face. He wants to bottle this feeling. Anything to get that image out of his head.

When they’d moved out of the Haus into Haus 2.0, Ransom had had a boyfriend for a little bit. When they’d broken up, Holster had hoped he’d never have to watch Ransom kiss anyone else. This isn’t something he wants to dwell on. It’s one thing thinking abstractly about him moving on and it’s another thing completely to see it in front of his face the first time he’s gone out since their breakup.

Bitty bundles them both into a cab, typing furiously on his phone. Holster’s too grateful for the silence to ask him about it. He doesn’t want to hear apologies or reactions right now.

After a few miles, though, he realizes he has no idea where they’re going, so he asks about it.

“Jack’s and my place,” Bitty says, glancing up at him. He’s illuminated in the faint blue light from his phone and Holster’s tipsy enough to tell him he looks beautiful like this. Bitty rolls his eyes. “You’re proving my point, you’re too drunk to be alone right now.”

Holster thinks he isn’t drunk enough, and he tells Bitty this too. Bitty fixes him with something close to a death glare and says sternly, “You’re drinking nothin’ but water when we get there, Mr. Birkholtz.”

____________

Jack has a glass of water waiting when they step out onto the curb. Holster’s feeling a little dizzy, so he says, “I’m gonna vomit,” and Jack says, “Don’t miss the toilet this time.” He doesn’t. Jack takes an unopened toothbrush out of the bathroom closet while Holster rinses out his mouth. He’s an angel, so Holster tells him.

Jack laughs under his breath. “You’re still drunk,” he says gently. “Come on Holtzy, let’s get you into bed.”

Holster moves through their house in a bit of a haze. Jack has to remind him to turn, to watch out for the lamp everyone always runs into when they go down the hallway. Eventually Jack just slings Holster’s arm over his shoulder and leads him into the guest room and Holster’s not at all sure he isn’t pretending to be drunker than he is just to lean on someone. He thinks he might be.

Jack walks him to the bed and Holster plops onto the mattress, eyes suddenly very heavy. He watches Jack set the water on the bedside table, then rummage through the dresser before pulling out some pajama pants and a soft-looking Samwell Men’s Hockey shirt. He takes them with a “thank you” he’s not sure he actually says out loud, but Jack looks like he understands anyway.

Jack pretends to dick around on his phone while Holster changes, clearly not trusting him not to injure himself somehow. Which, okay. That’s fair. Once his junior year, he’d fallen down at least six steps in the Haus after a kegsters and had to get stitches in his chin. Hall and Murray had not been impressed.

He still has that scar. Ransom used to like running his finger over it in the morning.

“’M good now,” Holster mumbles. Jack turns at that, gesturing like Holster should get under the covers.

“Let me tuck you in,” Jack says quietly. “You — it’ll make me feel better.”

It hits him then that Jack’s worried about him. Now that he’s aware of it, he can see it in his face: Jack always worries his bottom lip with his thumb when he’s concerned, and he’s been doing that at least since Holster and Bitty got in the house. He feels bad about that. He never meant to worry anyone.

“I’m sorry,” Holster whispers, getting under the blankets.

Jack pauses, hands reaching for the covers. He’s actually going to tuck him in, the dork. Holster keeps this thought to himself.

“Sorry? What for?”

And even though he’s Québécois and Ransom’s just Canadian, there’s enough similarity in the way they say “Sorry?” that’s got Holster’s breath stuttering. He swallows a sip of water.

He says, “I didn’t wanna make you worry,” and Jack’s face clears.

“Too bad,” Jack says, smiling slightly. He tucks the blankets firmly around Holster’s shoulders and Holster almost wants to cry at how good it feels. “I love you, I’m always gonna worry.”

Holster doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t respond. He thinks Jack knows what he’s feeling.

Jack says, voice quiet, “Good night,” and Holster asks, “Jack?”

Jack makes a noise like hmm?

He says, “What would you feel like, if Bitty left you?” He doesn’t know why he wants to know. Maybe there’s some need for something like absolution here. Some reassurance that what he’s feeling is okay, that it’s good he’s feeling what he is.

Jack says, “Something like this,” and Holster burrows a little deeper under the covers. Jack takes a deep breath like he’s considering his next words. He says, “I don’t think I’d know how not to love him,” and he looks like he’s aching in his bones for them.

Holster hadn’t cried over this in two weeks but he wants to now, looking at Jack imagining losing the love of his life, and he wonders if this is how he’s looked for the last two and a half months. This sort of shattered and crushed.

He says, “Oh,” and his voice is very small.

Jack seems to hesitate and then he’s walking back toward the bed and kissing Holster’s forehead. It’s kind of awkward; Jack’s never done that to any of them before, at least to his knowledge. But it’s kind of sweet, too, like something Holster would do for Brianna if her heart was breaking over and over again, so he smiled sleepily and says, “Thanks, Jack. For everything,” and Jack nods in a way that’s familiar from years of understanding each other on the ice.

“I got your back,” Jack says, exactly how Holster knew he would. He raps his knuckles against the doorframe. “You know where we sleep, we’re just down the hall if you need us.”

“Night,” Holster says sleepily. Jack says it back and then he’s off, padding quietly down the hall to his bed and Bitty. Holster’s asleep before his door closes.

____________

He gets a dog. Brianna takes him to a rescue shelter and he finds a Schnauzer that somehow reminds him of his neighbors growing up in Buffalo and he knows with immediate certainty that this is the dog coming home with him.

“It’s the eyebrows,” he tells Brianna on the drive home. “He and Mr. Matthews have the same eyebrows.”

As soon as they get home, the dog — he’s decided to name him Ron Dogson for the same reason, his incredibly impressive eyebrows — jumps up and licks his face over and over again and he’s laughing like he hasn’t in ages. It doesn’t escape his notice how delighted she is that he’s laughing, but it doesn’t hurt like it might have a few months back. He’s trying to be better about the fact that people want to look out for him.

“Y’know,” Brianna says, kneeling to pet Ron herself. “I can see it. He always looked so grouchy.”

Holster scratches Ron’s stomach and the dog goes crazy, amped up on being adopted and being in a new place. He watches as he wiggles around in the grass like he’s never felt it before. He thinks a moment on how he might not have, and feels a deep rush of affection for this dog.

He strides over to Ron and wrestles him a little while as Brianna watches, snapping some pictures on her phone. Eventually they stop and just lie by each other, both — or Holster, at least, looking up at the sky. He turns after a heartbeat, filled with a sudden need to say something as deep and wide as he’s feeling.

He whispers, “I’m gonna love you so good,” and Ron barks like he understands what he’s saying.

Brianna sends him the pictures when they’re inside. She plays with Ron as he scrolls through them, deciding to Instagram a closeup of him and Ron snuggling in the grass with a bunch of dandelions framing their faces. He looks genuinely happy here. It’s kind of blurry, and his eyes are shut, but he’s smiling so wide.

He posts it with the caption Me & my #1 .

When he checks his phone before bed, one hand petting Ron, he’s got a notification that Ransom liked his picture. He puts his phone aside and tries to ignore it.

____________

Lardo comes over with a binder full of wedding things and paint all over her arms.

“You look like you just fought the color wheel and lost,” Holster observes. She glares at him as Ron comes dancing up to her, and she scratches behind his ears.

“I have seating charts to do,” she tells them both briskly. She pulls out a bag of popsicle sticks with names on them. “Shitty’s family is being a bag of dicks and haven’t responded to our RSVP and I know he isn’t upset about it, because obvious reasons, but they’re fucking up my seating plan.”

“Tell then they have until Saturday,” Holster suggests. “Otherwise they’re either not coming or bringing their own chairs.”

Lardo says, “That’s not a bad plan, Rans said something like that too.” He must make a noise, because her eyes widen like she’s started panicking. “God, I’m sorry.”

Holster says, “It’s okay,” like he’s testing it out himself.

“No I just — I saw he liked your post, I thought maybe, you know.” She shrugs helplessly. “Maybe you guys talked about it. I’m sorry, I really am.”

“It’s okay, Lards,” Holster says again. This time he tries to sound firm enough that she knows he means it, because he does. Maybe it was the shock of seeing him with that bartender that did it, but he doesn’t hate hearing his name anymore. It stings slightly but he knew it would.

Lardo looks like she doesn’t believe him, but she takes the out. “Anyway, I came to the best for help. No one plans parties like the Samwell Kegster God, long did he reign.”

Holster laughs and says, “You’re gonna inflate my ego so much I won’t fit in the church.”

She spreads her binder out on the table. “We’re getting married at Faber,” she says seriously. “Did you not read the RSVP?”

He bolts to the fridge and almost takes himself out by sliding on the kitchen floor and he’s saying, “Wait I swear it said—” before he realizes she’s laughing so hard her forehead’s on the table.

Holster crosses his arms and taps his foot, projecting annoyance. Ron tries to nibble on his toes.

“Shitty said,” she says finally, trying to suppress giggles. “He thought we’d get someone. Bitty wasn’t having it at all when we tried it on him.”

Holster says, “This wedding planning stuff is really getting to you, huh,” and she throws a swatch of fabrics at him, still laughing. He catches it and tosses it back.

“That’s your suit by the way,” she says, once she can breathe again. She wipes her eyes. “Shitty figured out the colors he wants his groomsmen in.”

“Oh! Throw it back?”

This time when he catches it he studies the bundle closer. It’s a nice dark blue fabric with a creamy colored accent he thinks must be the ties they’ll all be wearing. Holster mentally pulls up a picture of the groomsmen, and texts a :) to Shitty.

“This is gonna look so good on all of us,” Holster says. “Your boy did good.”

Lardo smiles smugly. “I know.”

They sit and chat idly while Holster alternates between playing tug of war with Ron and helping her move people around the seating chart. He’d be the first to admit he’s not very helpful with the issue of Shitty’s parents; he keeps saying “Put them by the bathroom” when she brings it up.

Half an hour later she says, “Where do you wanna be? You’re at the head table with us, duh, but do you have a preference? I already figured not, y’know—”

“Not next to Rans, yeah,” Holster says, getting up from the floor. He leans over her shoulder at the chart. “Any of your cousins single?”

She slaps at his chest and he’s thankful it’s more of a joking slap than a real one. “You will not be hooking up with my cousins at my wedding, Adam Birkholtz.”

He heaves a sigh so loud Ron barks at him. “I suppose that’s fine,” he tells her, crouching to give his dog some TLC. “The bride gets what she wants.”

“Good,” Lardo says, pointing a popsicle stick at him. “Don’t you forget it.”

He promises her he won’t. He still tells her to put Shitty’s family by the bathroom when she asks, though, and Ron chews up the popsicle stick she throws at Holster. They don’t get it back until Holster offers his second least favorite shoes for him to chew on instead.

____________

In October, Jack and Bitty send out their annual Halloween invitations. Bitty promises in the group chat that the pies will be as excellent as ever and that yes, Ransom, Tater will be there, please keep your cool this time, which leads to a flood of chirps from everyone, Nursey and Dex especially.

Holster types out bet we can get Mashkov to wear a thong and sends it before he can think about it. Ransom replies almost immediately with a slew of sweating emojis.

And it’s … it’s the first time they’ve interacted, purposefully, since that night they had sex and Ransom called it off. Holster pets Ron while he considers what he’s feeling and is relieved to find he’s feeling nothing. Some tinge of unease mixed with curiosity at what this might mean, but for the most part, nothing good or bad. It’s kind of lightening.

Holster blasts Disney songs all afternoon while he cleans his house. It’s one of the best afternoons he’s had lately.

____________

He and Ransom had always coordinated couples costumes, so it’s weird looking through his closet with the knowledge that he only has to worry about his own costume this year. Holster hangs up several options on his closet door and goes to the thrift shop with Shitty and Lardo to find some key pieces. Lardo leaves with a pair of overalls she says she wouldn’t feel guilty about getting dirty and Shitty chirps her for the fact that she’s already wearing a paint stained pair of overalls.

The group chat is blowing up with ideas and questions and trying to trick everyone else into giving up their plans. The only one who’s fallen for it so far has been Chowder, who’s going as Katy Perry’s left shark from the Super Bowl, but privately Holster had kind of seen it coming; he’s been Sharkie, Jaws, and, memorably, the shark from The Little Mermaid. They still give him grief for that.

Gayle and Evan chime in with costume ideas now and then in the break room and Holster has a whole page full of notes.

“If you’re going sexy,” Evan says, “make sure you bring a jacket, it’s going to be cold. And less is more, you don’t have to put absolutely everything out there for it to be hot.”

Holster says, “Thanks, Dad,” and Gayle laughs. It’s a good note though, so he writes it down.

____________

The morning before the party, someone knocks on his cubicle.

“Evan’s already told me,” Holster says, turning in his chair. He about drops his coffee mug.

Ransom says, “Evan said what?”

“Um.” He takes a sip of coffee to combat how unfair this is, that Ransom’s here, leaning again his cubicle the way he did when they were together. He’s always known how well Ransom dresses, but it’s another thing completely to have him well dressed and in his face when the last time he saw him in person he was making out with a bartender. Holster has still not gone out since then.

He says, “I uh. I thought you were Gayle. She and Evan have been helping me with my costume.”

Ransom has the decency to look a little uncomfortable. “About that,” he says. “Can we talk?”

“Sure,” he says. He hopes he sounds as nonchalant as he absolutely does not feel.

Ransom leads him past the break room and Holster feels their coworkers staring at them. They pass conference room now, Holster trying dearly not to stare at Ransom’s ass. Sneaking around the office with him feels too familiar. He half expects Ransom to yank him inside one of the rooms, pin him against the door, and kiss him until both of them look too wrecked to have been doing anything else.

They end up in front of a window instead. Holster refuses to be disappointed by this.

“What do we need to talk about?” he asks neutrally. He crosses his arms and looks out the window.

Ransom sighs. “Are you still not looking at me?”

This needles. Holster raises his eyebrows and flattens his mouth into a thin line and looks at him. “Better?”

“No, actually,” he replies. His words are clipped. “I wanted to talk about the party.”

He shouldn’t be happy about getting under his skin like this, he knows that, but — “What about the party?”

Ransom leans against the window and this isn’t the time but Holster’s kinda, really okay with the way the sun’s shining through his shirt.

He shouldn’t be reacting to him like this. Holster takes a deep breath in through his nose, holds it, and exhales through his mouth. He thinks Ransom’s watching him. On impulse he loosens his tie, sucks his bottom lip, and glances over at him. Ransom’s lips are slightly parted, and the look on his face looks like one he’d seen a lot of in college.

Guess he’s not the only one reacting inappropriately.

It shouldn’t make him feel better. Holster’s kind of being an asshole right now and he knows it; it isn’t fun to be the one whose emotions are being played with. Sometimes you need to know for sure, he tells himself, before releasing his lip with a sharp popping sound.

The noise seems to bring Ransom back to himself. “I thought — maybe we should at least be in the same room before tonight. A trial run, I guess.”

“We’re in the same room,” Holster notes. “You said you wanted to talk. So.” He makes an expansive sweeping gesture with his hands. “Talk.”

Ransom crosses his arms and he’s starting to look like pre-presentation Ransom, a little pale and edging toward jittery. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something and then seems to think better of it.

Holster wants to know what he was going to say. That, more than anything, is probably the hardest thing he could ask of Ransom, and after everything, he wants to ask it.

He does. Ransom takes a shuddering breath.

“I don’t know how to talk to you,” Ransom says quietly. Holster looks at him sharply, surprised; this is not at all what he expected. “I miss having my best friend. I hate knowing I can’t just — just text you when Dunkin’s has coffee for under a dollar, or the best places for gas, or ask if my pants look okay.”

Holster starts speaking somewhere around the middle of the last phrase. “You don’t get to,” he says, shaking his head. He stares out the window again, not even bothering to be looking at something in particular. “You don’t get to miss that, you’re the one who left.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Rans says evenly. Holster kind of hates him for how calm he sounds. “I wanted to tell you I’m okay missing you. I don’t know how to talk to you and I want us to be friends but I’m okay missing you, if you don’t want to — well. I don’t want anything from you, I promise, Holtzy, I just. I needed to feel that for a minute.”

Because he knows him — knows him, how inadequate a term that is, when you’ve seen every side and every inch of a person — because he used to love him, Holster hears something like doubt undermining Ransom’s words. Something like he’s saying things he wants to be true. Holster’s said these things to himself nearly every night for three months.

He pretends to look at a billboard advertising Keller & Keller. “Why are you telling me this,” he says.

Ransom makes an irritated noise. “Because we aren’t going to ruin this party.” The dumbass goes unsaid. Holster hears it anyway.

“Who said anything about—?”

“We both know,” Ransom interrupts, “this is still less than ideal, and we aren’t going to take this out on Bitty, or Jack, or anyone else. We’re going to go and be polite and when Lards and Shits get married we’ll be perfectly fucking civil, okay?”

Holster refuses to think about how many ways he can interpret the phrase “perfectly fucking civil.”

“Okay,” he says instead, before striding off to his cubicle. He doesn’t have anything else to say.

He takes some savage joy in imagining Ransom looking at his ass as he leaves.

____________

As per Evan’s advice, Holster brings a fake leather jacket to keep himself warm. Sheer, fishnet shirts may make his chest look fine as hell but they do fuck all to retain body heat, and he makes a mental note to tell Evan thanks for the tip on Monday. He scratches Ron behind the ear before he leaves.

The party’s in full swing by the time he arrives. For a second it feels just like Samwell after winning a hard fought game; Bitty and Jack are dressed as Princess Aurora and Prince Philip, whispering to each other against the wall; Nursey’s egging Dex into doing body shots, both wearing some sort of lumberjack outfit; and Chowder’s doing a kegstand with Farmer holding his ankles. Farmer’s wearing something that looks like a TV cut out with the words SHARK WEEK on it. Holster spares a second to appreciate Chowder’s onesie, then wanders further into the living room. He spots Lardo and Tater absolutely dominating Marty and Snowy at beer pong and there’s a crush of people around him but he’s still peering into corners, unwilling to name the reason why.

Shitty does for him. “He’s on the balcony!”

Holster startles, taking a step back. Shitty’s wearing something that looks like a canvas with a smiling tree on it. “I’m not drunk enough for your costume, brah,” he says, and Shitty pulls a half full bottle of Jack Daniels from somewhere. Holster takes a swig, then another. It burns so beautifully down his throat.

“Lards is Bob Ross,” Shitty says happily. He flings his arm over Holster’s shoulder and plants a wet smack of a kiss to his cheek. “She’s the best, Holtzy, I’m so goddamn lucky.”

“You’re goddamn right you are,” Holster says, practically shouting over the music.

It’s so loud in here. NHL stars and his own former teammates and other people from Bitty’s and Jack’s lives jostle him and Shitty where they stand and Holster decides on the spot that he needs to be way drunker than he is. He downs the rest of the bottle, wincing, and Shitty ruffles his hair fondly.

“Good thing you showed up,” he mumbles. “Ransy’s looking for you.”

And suddenly Holster’s furious with himself at how this makes him feel, furious that a not so small part of himself wants Ransom to have been looking for him to say something like I was lying, I do want something from you, furious at how even now, after what he’s gone through and their talk just hours earlier, he still wants to give him everything if he’d let him. He chokes on the urge to ask Shitty what he’s talking about and Shitty pats him absently on the back, offering a beer this time when Holster stops coughing. Holster takes it, decides he’ll switch to water after this cup, and chugs it.

“You’re still so good at that,” Shitty says, sounding impressed.

Holster waves off the praise. “Looking for me why?”

“Who is?”

“Ransom?”

Shitty whacks himself in the forehead so hard Holster can already see the beginning of a red mark. Or, he thinks he can. The Jack Daniels is starting to hit him all at once.

Shitty says, “He didn’t tell me,” and now he sounds like he’s about to cry. “He said he wanted you to find him.”

Holster rubs his temples. “He said that?”

Something like apprehension settles heavy in his stomach. He spent a lot of time after work analyzing their conversation, and he’s pretty positive he acted pretty terribly, and some of that has to do with the fact that he’s still not over this yet, but mostly it’s because he wanted to act terribly. There’s some cruel satisfaction in hurting someone who’s hurt you.

The thing is, Holster kind of misses Ransom too. He doesn’t want to. But it means he does, despite everything, understand where he’s coming from.

“Sure did, bucko,” Shitty says. He tips so wildly Holster instinctively reaches to steady him, and Shitty pats him clumsily on the arm. “So strong.”

“Shits, I don’t — do you think I should? Find him, I mean.”

Shitty claps him on the shoulder at that, staring like he’s trying to impart wisdom but actually looking like he’s passing gas. “You gotta listen to you, brah. That’s a you question.”

This is hugely unhelpful, and he says so. Shitty sighs. “He’s upstairs,” he says. “On the balcony, I think.”

“Okay,” Holster says.

There are too many thoughts in his head.

“Look, if you go up?” Shits pauses a moment to adjust his canvas. “Be good to him, okay? I know he fucked you up, but you fucked him up, too. Just. No more fucking each other up, okay? Please?”

Holster starts to say “I’ll try, but” and Shitty shakes his head so rapidly Holster’s own neck hurts just watching him.

“None of that,” he says firmly, and he seems significantly more sober in this instance than he’s seemed all night. “Playing my groom card. No fucking each other up.”

“Okay,” Holster says. “I won’t, Shits. I don’t want that.”

Shitty says, “Good,” and kisses him on the cheek before bouncing across the room and draping himself across Lardo’s back. Holster takes a deep breath, holds it until it makes his lungs hurt, and goes upstairs.

____________

Upstairs feels like a completely different place. The music still bumps along his skin and he feels the bass underfoot but it’s quieter, and there aren’t any other people up here as far as he can see. He runs a hand along the walls. Jack hung some of the photos he’d taken at Samwell and at his first Cup celebration and there are a few pictures of all of them together. Even here, standing with his hand shading his eyes from the sun, Jack’s already angling himself toward Bitty. Holster fuzzily remembers seeing this in person. He wonders if he and Ransom were like that too, if it was clear enough to everyone but them that they’d end up together. Even for as short a time as they were.

He finds Ransom on the balcony outside the main second floor living area. Back when Jack and Bits had bought this house, Holster and Ransom had given them grief for having two different balconies. Jack had just said, “Can’t have the same view for window sex every time, gotta keep the spark alive,” and Bitty had gone so red they’d immediately chirped him instead. Seeing Ransom backlit from the backyard lights, Holster has to admit he sees the appeal. The light shimmers delicately on his shorts. Holster wouldn’t mind seeing the light shimmer on his bare skin.

Ransom looks like he’s deep in thought. Holster slides the door open quietly and joins him at the railing, resting on his forearms. Ransom shifts his weight, almost in acknowledgement, and Holster looks at him.

If he was holding a cup he would’ve dropped it.

“Are you,” he starts. Hi voice has suddenly gone very, very hoarse. Ransom waits for him to finish, distinctly amused. “A mermaid?”

It’s a dumb question. Ransom’s shorts, now that he sees them up close, are patterned to look like scales and he’s not wearing a shirt and his torso looks like its been dusted with gold, green, and blue glitter. The effect of it on his skin is almost overwhelming. Ransom shifts his weight then, leaning forward into the light, and Holster nearly can’t breathe at the realization that he’s wearing gold eyeliner too.

He looks … god. He looks like something straight out of one of Holster’s wet dreams.

Holster can’t take his eyes off him.

“Like what you see?” Rans asks softly. Uncertainty bleeds through every inch of his face. He sounds like he’s really asking, like he’s not just trying to get under Holster’s skin.

Holster says, honest, “Yeah,” and Ransom lets out a breath in a slow hiss of air. Holster lets himself drag his eyes up and down Ransom’s body, lingering here and there the way he used to when he wanted to tell Ransom this is where I’ll be kissing you later. “You look really, really good, Rans.”

He has no idea what he’s doing. Ransom ducks his head, seemingly shy, and this feels somehow fragile. He doesn’t know what to do here with Rans looking like this. The list of things I can do and things I want does not line up. For all he knows, Ransom’s actually dating that bartender. And they promised not to ruin the party, and he said he wouldn’t fuck them up.

“You do too,” Ransom says. He adjusts Holster’s jacket and his hand lingers on his shoulder, playing with the material of his shirt. “Sexy Han Solo?”

Holster says, “That’s the idea,” and Ransom hums. It vibrates with the music on Holster’s skin.

Ransom flattens his palm on Holster’s chest.

Holster covers Ransom’s hand with his own.

There’s a too-long, honey-full moment where they look at each other.

Holster says “Rans” at the same time Ransom closes his eyes and says “Can we just” and Holster’s adamant Ransom should go first, so he opens his eyes and gently cards through Holster’s hair with his free hand. He looks terrified and hopeful at once and Holster—

Holster doesn’t want to let himself hope.

“Can we just, tonight,” Ransom says hesitantly. His fingers hook through the fabric of Holster’s shirt. “Can we just pretend? For once.” And then, in a whisper, spoken like it’s an ache and a terror but an exhale too, like it’s something he can only say here in the dark in the upheaval of a party: “I miss you.”

And, oh.

They really, really shouldn’t. Holster has too many reasons to say no, that they need to be broken up if they’re going to be broken up, that it’s unfair for Ransom to ask this of him. At the end of tonight he still has to go home to a house that’s just now beginning to fill up again and if they do this tonight he’s going to gome home with Ransom’s cologne on his body like a ghost.

Holster’s about to say this when Ransom bites his lip and meets his eyes, and the force of this look and the way he said I miss you like his heart would break if he didn’t, the way it sounds so different now than when he’d said it hours earlier — it’s all too hard to fight against, and Holster’s tired of fighting.

He doesn’t say anything.

He leans down, closing his eyes, and Ransom kisses him back.

____________

“You still with that bartender?” Holster whispers into his ear. Ransom gasps and tilts his head back, an invitation, and Holster kisses the column of his neck, sucking a hickey at the point where his neck meets his jaw.

“No, that — one time thing,” Ransom says breathily. He starts to ask “How did you—?” when Holster scrapes his teeth against his skin, a little less gentle than usual, but Rans outright moans at that and he sounds so destroyed already that Holster doesn’t know if either of them are gonna last long. Ransom tugs on Holster’s shirt until Holster rips it off himself, leaning over him until he’s bracketing Rans with his arms.

Holster wants. This entire night — those booty shorts, the whiskey, Ransom on the balcony in the moonlight — all of it set his nerves on fire and here in Ransom’s bed he’s ready to turn into flame with him in his hands. He’s so hungry for it he’s surprised Ransom hasn’t said anything, but then again, he thinks, Ransom’s fingers digging into his thighs, heels pressing into right above his ass, and those moans — Ransom’s hungry for it too.

The beauty of his costume is that he’s already shirtless. Holster kisses a hot and filthy line up his stomach, making him hold tightly onto Holster’s hair. Holster shudders, grinds down, and Ransom swears at him.

“Did you just say ‘fuck you’? Because I’m trying to fu—”

“Did you always talk so much,” Ransom whispers, sliding one of his hands around the back of Holster’s neck, “when we were doing this,” and now he’s pulling him toward him and they’re kissing, a needy, breathless thing that deepens the second it starts. Holster thrills at the shock of Ransom’s tongue in his mouth. He tastes familiar and new all at once, and Holster’s drunk on it.

He fumbles at the top of Ransom’s shorts and Rans arches off the bed so beautifully Holster almost comes right then. Holster takes his shorts off with his teeth, pausing now and then to press kisses to the inside of his thighs and knees and calves. Ransom’s legs shake. He wants to make them shake more.

“Is this okay?” he whispers huskily. Ransom’s eyes are already squeezed shut. He nods frantically, covering his mouth with his hand. Holster takes his hand and threads their fingers together the way they used to. “Don’t hide,” he says softly. “Rans I — I want to hear you.”

Rans makes a strangled sound at that. Holster swallows him down, slowly at first, then building to the rhythm he knows Ransom likes. His hand in Holster’s hair contracts and relaxes and contracts again as he edges and backs off, coaxing sound after gorgeous, wrecked sound from him. Holster thinks he himself could come from just this, Rans’ dick in his mouth and knowing all these moans and gasps are because of him and his tongue and his lips. He glances up and Ransom’s looking at him, trembling, pupils blown wide and almost desperate. Holster closes his eyes and licks him up.

Ransom catches his chin with a shaking hand. “Look at me,” he says. He sounds like it’s costing him everything to say this. Like he’s been carrying it around with him awhile. “I’m so — Holtzy, god, you’re just, you’re so — I’m so close, and I need you to look at me.”

Holster looks at him. Ransom comes, crying out Holster’s name in something that sounds close to a sob, and Holster swallows him down.

When he’s done, Ransom’s still got his hand in his hair. He’s flat on his back and he looks gorgeous like this and Holster tells him, because even if this is for one night and that’s it, this is one of those things he’d regret not saying now that he can. Ransom palms the front of Holster’s pants at that, and Holster’s so hard the pressure alone nearly does it for him.

“Want me to take care of that?” Ransom murmurs. He teases Holster’s zipper and Holster’s saying god, yes, before he realizes he’s said anything, and Rans peels off his pants and kisses Holster’s dick through his underwear. Holster holds onto Ransom’s shoulders, tight, as Ransom takes off his underwear and begins in earnest and he just — he oh, he feels so fucking good, his lips should be illegal for this alone, Holster’s making so many embarrassing noises and they’re both breathing hard and even this isn’t everything, because — oh, Ransom’s mouth on his balls is too much, it’s just — just so much of everything, and he thinks he’s probably leaving fingernail marks on Ransom’s shoulders, and he spared a moment to fervently hope they stay long enough for someone else to notice before he comes on Ransom’s chest and collapses onto the bed next to him.

They’re both breathing so, so fucking hard.

Ransom reaches for his hand and he grasps it without hesitation. Ransom kisses his fingers.

This just makes him want to kiss Ransom again, and he’s about to go brush his teeth before Rans rolls his eyes and straddles him. Holster’s dick twitches, and Ransom’s smirk tells him he definitely felt it. He runs a finger up Holster’s chest. Now his dick definitely twitches, which shouldn’t be allowed because they’d just gotten each other off, and yet.

“What a tease,” Holster whispers. “Just kiss me already.”

Ransom’s kissing him before he finishes his last word. His come is tacky and slightly uncomfortable where they’re pressing together, but Holster runs his hands up Rans’ back to try and get them closer. If this is one night — Ransom bites his lip, tugs, almost makes him completely hard again — if this is their last night, he wants them as close as possible. He digs his fingers into the sides of Rans’ ass and Rans makes a noise like unngh , rolling his hips like he knows Holster’s opinion on their closeness and he agrees.

After a little while their kisses even out, their grinding less desperate. Holster is the one who leans back first. For a few seconds, Ransom’s eyelashes flutter even though his eyes are closed. Holster wishes he had something other than his memory to capture this moment.

For a brief second he wishes he could wake up to Ransom like this every morning, and then he remembers the ring and just how badly things imploded last time. Just for tonight, they’d said. He can’t afford to want that anymore.

Ransom slides off him and stumbles to what Holster thinks is the bathroom; he hadn’t exactly gotten the full tour, just the highlights. He studies his hands as Ransom runs some water, feeling awkward and planning his exit strategy. He both wants and doesn’t want Ransom to ask him to stay. That realization sends a shock through his body.

From the bathroom, Ransom calls: “Aren’t you coming?”

Holster swallows his amazement and all but runs to him. Ransom’s half in, half out of the shower like he knows Holster wasn’t expecting this and is letting Holster take him in, all of him. Holster nearly doesn’t care that he’s so easy to read. It’s hard to be worried about his pride or some shit when Rans is pulling him into the shower and then pressing him up against the wall in order to kiss him harder.

The water’s gone most of the way to cold by the time they get out. Ransom hands him a spare t-shirt and boxers and Holster takes them after a brief, awkward exchange.

“Stay,” Ransom says, holding the clothes toward him.

“But you said—”

“It’s not tomorrow yet,” he whispers. “It’s still tonight. Please stay.”

Holster whispers back, “If you’re sure,” and takes the clothes.

They take their usual sides of the bed without talking about it.

For the first time in nearly a year, Ransom fits comfortably against Holster’s shoulder. Holster holds him gently, carefully, and Ransom falls asleep in his arms.

____________

Holster quietly slips out of bed at 12:01 AM. Slowly, he takes off the clothes Ransom lent him and dresses in his costume. He zips up his jacket, thinking he’d really better text Evan for the reminder, and pauses on his way out of the bedroom.

This is really, truly it. Sleeping with Ransom this one last time, it helped, he hopes; he doesn’t want to be hung up on him anymore. They’ve both got to move on. For real this time.

Holster whispers a goodnight, Rans, and this time he’s the one who leaves first.

____________

He goes to work. He comes home. In the mornings he wakes up alone aside from Ron’s tail in his face. Afternoons when he’s free, he and Lardo bring Ron to the dog park nearby and they work on fetching sticks and frisbees and, once, a woman’s purse. That had been accidental and he’d apologized for it, but she’d just laughed after the initial shock and asked him out for lunch.

“Sorry,” he’d told her. “I’m seeing someone.”

The woman looked disappointed. Holster doesn’t dwell on why that was his first response. Lardo looks like she’s going to ask about it, but the look on his face must stop her.

Evenings he eats takeout or makes small portions of pasta or chicken or tacos. He has Brianna over every other day; they’re working on nailing Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” routine, because she swears they had it memorized when they were younger. Ron wags his tail whenever they clear out the living room floor and constantly gets in the way underfoot, but Brianna crouches down so she can hold his paws. She moves them in time with the beat. Ron licks her face.

____________

He comes across Ransom’s tinder profile. Holster sets his phone down and forces himself to put his hands on top of his head, opening his airways, and takes several gulping breaths. He taps through Ransom’s bio with shaking fingers and then deletes the app.

____________

Jack takes him running Sunday mornings. He doesn’t make him talk about anything, which Holster appreciates; he still hasn’t told them he and Rans slept together, and he’s not looking forward to how any of them are gonna react. From the way Shitty hasn’t called to confront him he assumes Rans hasn’t told them either.

Running helps him get out of his head. When he mentions this to Jack three weeks after Halloween, Jack says something about the rhythm of it all, how your thinking turns into planning your route and how the billboard you see every day has changed and whether or not this certain cat in this certain apartment has finally knocked over the plant in the window.

“The immediacy of the moment,” Jack says finally. They’re waiting for a stoplight to turn so they can continue onward, stretching against each other’s shoulders. “That’s what helps me. Everything demanding you look at them, making you feel present.”

Holster considers this, looking around for the last time he felt that present. An image of Ransom, naked, on his back and making those sounds—

“I slept with him,” he blurts. Jack stares at him in alarm. Holster thinks there’s something like shock there, too. “At your party. I’m sorry, Jack, we said we wouldn’t ruin it and Shits told me to promise not to fuck him up and we slept together anyway.”

Holster concentrates on the orange glow of the crosswalk sign to avoid looking at Jack’s face. He’s gone stiff beside him the way he does when he isn’t sure what to say or think, and Holster is not going to cry about this on the corner of 1st and Douglass. The crosswalk turns white and starts counting down, but Jack catches Holster’s hand before he can take more than a couple steps.

“How’d this happen,” Jack asks levelly. There’s a hint of his captaincy slipping in now, asking and not asking at once. Holster doesn’t mind it.

He says, “He asked to pretend. Just for once,” and Jack sighs. Holster digs his nails into his palms for five seconds, then relaxes his hands.

“I think we’re done running today,” Jack says. He searches something on his phone and adds, “There’s a café nearby, you wanna get some food?”

Holster nods, afraid to blurt anything else out. Jack glances at him now and then as they go, expression soft, but there’s something hidden in his face that Holster can’t read.

The café must be one Jack’s stopped at multiple times, because everyone inside seems to recognize him in a way that’s different from recognizing him as the Falconers’ leading scorer and alternate captain. Jack leads Holster to the register, smiling and making small talk with everyone, and it’s so unexpected that Holster kind of just stares at him and orders without really seeing the menu.

He nabs them a table and plays with the sat and pepper shakers while Jack waits for their meal at the counter. There’s no need for that, Holster’s almost positive they’ll bring the food out to them, but he’s grateful for the chance to breathe and gather his thoughts. He has a sneaking suspicion Jack’s using it to do the same thing.

Jack brings their food over a few minutes later and drops into his seat like he’s exhausted. Holster takes a bite of his sandwich, trying not to feel guilty about unloading. He definitely feels guilty about nearly everything else.

“So,” Jack says eventually. Holster watches as he pinches off pieces of his napkin. “Walk me through this? I know what you said, but I know how you’ve been during all of this, I think, and I think there’s something more to it than Rans just asking and you just agreeing.”

Holster considers this. Jack gives him room to think by reading the fine print on their table’s hot sauce selections, humming now and then at an interesting fact.

He’s not wrong, exactly. That’s the problem. These past few months, there’s been too many emotions swirling through Holster’s mind for this to be a cut and dry answer. Parts of him are apathetic, half of him doesn’t want to care at all, bits and pieces here and there are still in love with Ransom and now, looking back on that night, Holster isn’t sure how small those bits and pieces are.

“It’s like you said, I don’t know how not to be in love with him.” His voice cracks on the last three words. Jack looks like he wants to say something, but he pauses. Holster starts moving the salt and pepper shakers across the table again. “I just. I was doing so well, this whole time. Burying things and moving on, making the house mine. And then, hearing that from him … Jack,” he says, looking at him pleadingly. “Tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing if it was Bitty.”

Jack smiles slightly. “I can’t.”

They’re quiet a moment. Outside, a pigeon tries to pick up a hotdog and fly away with it. Holster watches as it hops around the hotdog and then, tentative even from this distance, flap its wings carefully. The hot dog slips from its grasp and lands on a baby carriage. Holster huffs a laugh.

“What do I do, Jack?” he asks. He winces at the tremor in his voice.

Jack gathers up his napkin pieces. “I’m not the right person to ask,” he says, and Holster flicks a tomato at him. Jack clutches his chest like he’s mortally offended.

“But I’m asking you,” Holster says. He needs Jack to understand this, that he needs permission to wallow from someone like Jack. He isn’t sure why. “Please. Just tell me what to do.”

Jack sighs again and Holster thinks this must be a record for them. Most Times Holster’s Made Jack Sigh Since The Settlers of Catan Debacle.

“I think you need to feel it,” he says finally. “Let it be immediate, whatever you’ve been holding in, and then let it go. But you gotta let yourself feel it first.”

____________

You gotta let yourself feel it first.

Holster goes home. He changes into his softest clothing and runs his fingers over the spaces where their picture frames used to be and he mourns . There is still the laundry detergent that Ransom likes in the laundry room. There is a sock wedged between the mattress and the wall that he must’ve worn to sleep his last night in their bed. Holster walks through his home and when he cries over Ransom’s missing mug in the kitchen, Ron starts licking his calf.

“It’s okay,” Holster says, his breath hitching. Ron barks like he doesn’t believe him. “It will be, anyhow. It will be.”

He calls his parents and says, “Rans and I broke up.” When they say they knew and ask if they’d gotten back together, he tells them, “No, but I think I just realized what it meant to say that.”

He lets himself feel it. The Hallmark channel starts playing a slew of Hanukkah and Christmas movies and he watches as many of them as he can that night. He calls sick into work and finishes up the marathon with Ron warm and sleepy in his lap. When it ends, he goes through his Netflix account for more romcoms and watches a ton of those, too.

Sometime around 4:35 PM he texts Shitty rans and i had sex at the party . Shitty calls him immediately.

“I know what you’re gonna say,” Holster says when he picks up. “I know I promised not to—”

“He already told me,” Shitty cuts in. “Made me swear not to say anything until you did, didn’t want me to freak out on you.”

Holster fiddles with the beading on one of his throw pillows. “Do you want to?”

“When I found out, yeah,” Shitty says. “I, uh. Kinda went off on him.”

Holster searches his tone for any unspoken accusations. There aren’t any.

“And now?”

“Now I think,” Shitty says, pausing like he does when he’s trying to pick the right words. “I think, maybe, it’s you holding you back.”

Holster freezes. “What d’you mean?”

Another pause. Holster tugs so hard on the beading that the string breaks, sending all the beads tumbling over the couch. It seems fitting, somehow.

“I’ve heard a lot of this from his perspective,” Shitty says now. “Maybe more than from yours. That entire time he was in Toronto, he was Skyping me saying he thinks he made a huge mistake, that he didn’t try enough when you were giving him the space you thought he needed. And then when he came back to work and you seemed to be doing well without him … he thought he was the only one still feeling it.”

This is … this is too much. He has no idea what to say to this.

“When he talked to me about the party,” Holster says quietly, “he told me he missed me, but he didn’t want anything from me.”

Shitty laughs and it’s so unexpected Holster accidentally rips another strand of beads. He tosses the pillow onto the other section of the couch. Ron jumps on it.

“Holtzy of course he’s gonna say that, you didn’t even look at him when he left. He thought you hated him. He wanted to show you he’s fine on his own.”

He hears it again, the uncertainty in Ransom’s voice when he said I needed to feel that for a moment . He hadn’t wanted to let himself care enough to call him on it the way he used to when they were together. “He wasn’t, though.”

“You say that like you were,” Shitty tells him, not unkindly. “But anyway, then you slept together, and you left while he was asleep after he’d asked you to stay. Humor me a sec and imagine how that would feel.”

Holster doesn’t even have to imagine. They’d had several nights when they were together when Rans would slip out before he woke up to watch TV on the couch. When Holster had asked, he’d said he couldn’t fall asleep, that his back hurt too much from how little room he had. That’s mostly why Holster had taken the couch when they’d started splitting up, so he could spread out.

“It’s shitty as fuck,” he says.

“Yeah. So. You’re still in love with your ex boyfriend. You try to clear the air before a party, and he’s not giving you anything. You’re looking for him at the party but trying not to look like you’re looking for him. You ask him to pretend, just this once, he agrees, he asks you about a random hookup from months ago, he leaves before you wake up without a word. Doesn’t say anything for, what, it’s been three weeks? Let’s say three weeks. How would you be feeling?”

Hearing it all laid out like that — he’s spent so, so much time up his own ass that he figured Ransom at the club was Ransom all the time. But at the same time he’d tried, hadn’t he? Tried to make this work between them? It wasn’t his idea to pretend again, he doesn’t deserve all this guilt Shitty’s giving him. He feels like he’s been boarded by an entire defensive line.

Holster says, “Shitty as fuck. But Shits, it was his idea.” He thinks he probably sounds like a child but it hardly registers enough for him to care.

“I’m not saying it wasn’t,” Shitty says. “Just wanted you to know what’s going through his head.”

He suddenly realizes Ron’s been head butting his knee, apparently bored with the pillow he’d been chewing on. Holster clears off a space to his right and Ron, panting happily, makes several small circles on the cushion before plopping down, resting his jaw on Holster’s thigh. Holster rubs behind Ron’s ear.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says.

Shitty replies, “I guess you’ve just got to figure out how you feel about him, get some indecision out of the way,” and Holster wants to laugh because he knows already, knows he’s still in love with Ransom, he has been since they were freshmen and probably will for the rest of his life. He’s trying to love himself again, though, and neither of them deserve half spoken truths whispered during a one night stand that wasn’t supposed to happen.

He tells Shitty all of this. Shitty makes a noise that says he agrees. Then, because he’s been wondering: “When did he tell you?”

Shitty snorts. “I went with him when he got his suit fitted. You left finger marks all over his shoulders and when he took his pants off, Jesus, Holtzy, I know you have a thing for his ass but—”

“Okay,” Holster interrupts. His ears are on fire. “I’ll figure it out.”

____________

Holster spends the week trying to figure out what to do. At work, Evan and Gayle talk in vague circles that glance at the issue at hand in a way that tells him Ransom probably talked with them, too, and he wants to ask them what they discussed before remembering Rans is allowed is own space apart from him. It’s enough that they stuck with him all this time.

Ron becomes his official confidant. He talks to Ron like he would when he sees Ransom, and Ron always wags his tail no matter what he says. It does wonders for his confidence, but Holster tries to tell him to bark angrily now and then. It hasn’t worked yet.

Thursday Bitty comes over with bags full of fruit and dough and he takes over the kitchen while Holster cleans the living room and bathroom. They don’t talk too much, each engrossed in his own work, but it’s enough to have another person in his space. Holster persuades Bitty to critique his “Single Ladies” performance and Bitty laughs so hard he has tears in his eyes.

“Oh sweetie,” Bitty says, wiping his cheeks with his sleeve. “It could use a little work.”

Holster pouts. “Show me then.”

Bitty does, which devolves into Holster protesting that’s exactly what he was doing, and Bitty defending his dancing. They end up spending the night baking pies and looking up the music video on YouTube.

It’s nice. It reminds him of nights in Haus 2.0 when they’d all come back from work hyped up on terrible bosses and low quality coffee. He and Ransom used to get together in the kitchen, drag Shitty and Lardo off their butts, and have a mandatory dance party. They used to teach themselves routines “just in case we need it,” Rans would say. Holster was in love in a different way back then, holding onto small glances and soft, seemingly accidental touches.

He spends an hour after Bitty hugs him goodbye debating whether he misses Ransom or is just ridiculously touch starved. Even before they started they used to hang on each other all the time. It because more purposeful afterward.

It strikes him that he misses being able to reach out and find Ransom within arm’s reach. He spends another hour trying to figure out what to do with that. He calls Brianna. She’s laughably unhelpful in her advice.

“I dunno what you expected,” she says. It sounds like she’s eating something crunchy, and when he comments she crunches down extra hard. “You know me.” Her crunches turn thoughtful now, and she adds, “Whatever you do, make it good, or I’m disowning you.”

He says, “I will,” and she makes him promise again before talking about their parents. Apparently they’re getting a pool.

____________

There’s a difference between knowing and feeling and sometime exactly two weeks before the rehearsal dinner Holster feels the fact that he’s still in love. It hurts worse than anything he’s ever felt, even more painful than splitting open his knee and worse still than Ransom packing his things and closing the door behind him.

Holster sobs. There’s no other word for it. He turns inward and sobs and sobs. Ron wails next to the bed, nudges his toes, and they cry together.

____________

The dinner is on a Thursday in mid December in an art gallery that’s housing Lardo’s current collection. The Wednesday before, Holster takes the elevator at work to the seventh floor and wanders through the cubicle maze until someone takes pity on him and points toward Ransom’s desk. “Just around the corner,” they say. Holster thanks them.

He had come up with a short speech  in the elevator, a simple, clumsy thing to say he missed him too, that he hoped Ransom missed him too. That maybe they could work on not missing each other together. The words are on the tip of his tongue when he rounds the corner.

The windows in this building are huge. They let in so, so much sunlight.

Ransom glows in it.

Everything he’s prepared flies straight out of his head.

“Hey, sorry, one sec,” Ransom says absently. He types something in an Excel sheet and Holster gasps aloud at how familiar this is. Ransom turns at the sound.

His eyes go wide.

“Hey,” Holster says weakly. “Can we talk?”

____________

Ransom has a presentation before lunch, so they arrange to meet at a little café down the street during their hour break. Holster doesn’t even pretend to work on his projects. Evan and Gayle run interference for him whenever Jason comes down to supervise, and Holster swears to himself he’s going to make it up to them.

Holster arrives at the café first. He doesn’t bother ordering food; he’s so nervous he can’t imagine eating right now. He asks for a lemonade instead. He drinks half of it before Ransom shows up.

He doesn’t know what to say to him. He’s mostly hoping at this point that the right words will show up when he needs them, but he’s not sure they will. His track record with these things is not great.

The bell above the door rings. Holster looks up, and Ransom pauses with his hand on the door.

He says, “I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” and is running away before Holster can blink.

“Rans, wait!” Holster shoves a few dollars onto the table and takes off after him.

____________

He finds him in an alley next to their building. Ransom’s crouching with his back against the wall, shaking, and Holster’s heart is breaking all over again. He kneels next to him. Ransom hardly seems to register his presence.

He’s having a panic attack. Holster recognizes his symptoms like he’d recognize his own face in the mirror. When they were together, Holster used to hold him on his lap on their couch until he stopped trembling. He’s not sure if touching him now will make it better or worse, though, so he talks about random things in a low voice. How Ron hates to be inside so long, to the extent that he’s bitten so many of Holster’s best shoes. How his parents are getting a pool. How no one knows if Shitty’s parents are coming to the wedding and how Lardo and Shitty have finally given in and decided to put them by the bathroom no matter what. How Jack, when he’s uncertain of something, will look at Bitty like Bitty’s the surest thing in the world.

Then he’s telling him about himself these last six months, how he wanted to hate him so badly. All the little things he tried to get over him: the remodeling, Ron, all those talks with Shitty and Brianna, going to the club with Bitty and then seeing him kissing someone else. He doesn’t tell him about the ring. He does tell him he misses him.

Holster keeps talking until Ransom reaches out for him. He falters to a stop.

He takes Ransom’s hand.

“Did you always,” Ransom says, his voice hoarse, “talk so much?”

He looks exhausted, strained, and like he doesn’t quite believe Holster’s here, kneeling in the alley next to him. But he’s smiling.

____________

Holster drives them to Ransom’s apartment. They don’t talk on the way there — Ransom’s tired as fuck, Holster doesn’t know what to say even if they both were in a talking mood — but their arms are touching on the center console. Holster clings to that desperately.

When they get inside, he tucks Ransom into bed. He tries not to think about the last time he was here. His ears are already turning red, he can tell, and remembering it in more detail is only gonna make him look as toasty as if he’d gotten sunburnt.

Ransom looks like he’s remembering. He snuggles into his pillow and blankets and whispers, “Stay with me.”

It’s as much a request as a wish. Both together in one breath.

He climbs into bed next to him, softly saying, “Okay,” and Ransom takes a sharp breath. Holster carefully puts his arms around his shoulders, moving slow enough that Ransom can push him away if he wants to. Holster hopes he doesn’t want to.

Ransom slides his arms around Holster’s waist. Holster holds him tenderly, trying to put all his unspoken I love yous into this touch, and he kisses Ransom’s cheek before he thinks about it.

He freezes.

Then, slow enough Holster almost thinks he’s imagining it, Ransom kisses his hip bone.

“Rans,” Holster says. He clears his throat and tries again. “Rans, can we pretend. Just this once.”

Ransom exhales like it’s a breath he’s been holding since June. “I didn’t think you’d ever ask.”

This time, Ransom leans up and meets him halfway.

There’re things they need to talk about. Holster knows this, but tonight, with him warm in his arms, their hands almost chaste on each other like they were when they just started dating, Ransom kissing him like he’s something that’s impossible—

They can have this tonight.

____________

He wakes up first.

For a wild moment he wants to leave before Rans wakes up. It’d be easier in some ways. He wouldn’t have to explain himself, for one, and he wouldn’t have to say he’s still in love without knowing if Ransom feels the same way, for another. He wouldn’t be in a position where it mattered whether or not they talked about anything.

He’s never been good at not caring.

When Ransom starts waking up, Holster kisses him the way he used to whenever he woke up first when they were dating. It’s his way of starting the morning off on the best foot possible.

Ransom smiles sleepily up at him. “You’re still here.”

“I am,” Holster says, sudden butterflies in his stomach. “Is that okay?”

“More than okay,” Ransom mumbles. “Thought you were gonna leave.”

Holster traces a line up and down Rans’ arm, presses a kiss to his shoulder. “I wanted to wake up with you. At least one more time.”

Ransom’s face shutters. “Oh.” He pulls away, hands holding his head like he’s just gotten hit in the face. “One more for the road, eh?”

“Rans, what—?” Holster wants to hold him again. This is so very not how he thought this would go.

“It’s okay,” Ransom says, tone sounding like it’s very much not okay. He throws his hands up and gets out of bed and starts pacing back and forth. “I get it, here when you want me but no other time.” He stops in front of his dresser, lips drawn in a thin line. He isn’t looking at Holster. “I think you should leave.”

Holster gapes. “That’s not—”

He says, “Please,” and he sounds angry and hurt and like it’s killing him to say it.

Holster gets out of bed and is about to say something when Ransom holds up a finger. “No, this is — I’m still in love with you, and I — I need to get past you. For real this time.”

It feels like a punch to the gut. “Please, Rans, you don’t understand—”

“I understand enough. You have to go.” Ransom’s tone is final. If he would just — just look at him, Holster’s sure he’d see what he’s trying to say, he’s never been able to hide how he feels for him.

He lingers in the doorway, hoping beyond hope that Ransom will see how much he loves him in his eyes, but he doesn’t look up.

Holster leaves. This time, leaving first hurts worse.

____________

He makes it through the rehearsal in a haze. Bitty definitely notices; during dinner, Holster keeps getting concerned glances sent across the table his way, and now and then Jack comes up with an excuse to pat him on the back or shoulder or arm. Silent support. He feels the absence when Jack goes up to give his best man toast.

Hearing it, you wouldn’t think Jack had ever been uncomfortable with verbal declarations of affection. It’s funny and full of memories from Samwell and the mornings Shitty had gotten under the covers with Jack and Jack says, “I’d almost be jealous, Lards, but I’ve got someone pretty special too or I’d fight you for Shitty’s love,” and Bitty and Jack look so in love Holster pretends to need something from his suit jacket so he doesn’t have to see it. Lardo’s saying something in response, but she and Shitty are in the middle of the table and if he looks there’s Ransom, and his own heart has just been newly broken, and he definitely doesn’t want to see him, either. He keeps trying to find an exit plan on his suit jacket until he finally stands up in the middle of Lardo’s cousin’s toast and slips out of the room.

Air. He needs air.

The venue has a huge wall of glass windows looking out onto the river. If he remembers correctly, the art curator had mentioned a little walkway running along the banks that you can access through this giant wall of windows. Holster clings to this idea, borderline frantic now. He needs to go back inside to support his friends but he needs, more than ever, room to breathe.

He bursts through the doors and the breeze off the river is better than he could’ve hoped for, cool and soothing at once. Rolling up his sleeves, he leans against the railing. Flecks of water hop up now and then to land on his skin. He breathes.

The door opens and shuts quietly behind him.

Holster says, “I’m fine, I’ll be right back,” and Lardo says, “You don’t have to lie to me.”

She says it kindly, gentle. When Holster turns, she smiles at him sadly. She steps beside him; she either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that the river’s getting her dress wet. He mentions this. She shrugs.

“There’re more important things,” Lardo says. He watches her scan the landscape in front of them, her eyes bright, like she’s memorizing it for a painting later. Her gaze flicks to him now. She slowly slugs him in the shoulder, giving him time to move out of the way if he wants. He doesn’t want. It feels familiar; he hadn’t realized how much he missed her. “‘M talking about you, just so we’re clear.”

“I got that,” he says, because it’s too much to say how good and painful it feels to hear that. “I didn’t mean to take you away, d’you need to get back?”

Lardo hip checks him and Holster pretends to stumble to get her to laugh. “I’m playing the bride card, Shits has it under control.” A loud clattering, shattering bang from inside reaches them. “Or. He said he did.”

There’s so much love when she says his name. Holster clears his throat, trying to figure out how to word his next question. Lardo slips her arms around his waist while he thinks. He closes his eyes. It’s so, so nice to be held like this, without someone wanting something from him.

“Lards,” he starts. She hums in acknowledgement. “Did I — did you ever think I could’ve been in love with him? I mean. Was it obvious? How I felt?”

She says, “How you felt, past tense, or how you feel, present tense?” and it’s almost like jumping into cold water. He breathes around the sting.

“Either. Both.”

Sometimes you need to know for sure.

“I thought you were dating during school,” Lardo says. He glances down at her and she’s still looking out toward the water, but she starts rubbing a soothing circle against his lower back. “Thought it was a me and Shits kinda thing, you’d tell people when you were ready. So I thought, then, that you were in love with him. If it helps I thought he was in love with you too.”

Here she pauses, which is good because Holster can’t tell if he’s crying or if it’s the mist from the river. He hugs her closer. She squeezes him around the waist briefly, then relaxes her hold.

“Now … now I don’t know. I know most of it, Shitty told me, but. It seems different now. A little more selfish.” She flattens her hand against his back now as if to remove herself slightly from what she just said, adding, “Just from what I’ve heard. And what I saw tonight. And my general understanding of both of you as human beings.”

Selfish. He turns it over in his head, thinking. The late nights spent trying to fix this when they both knew they were broken. Sleeping with each other after the Halloween party, both of them just wanting sweat and mouths and the feel of someone else’s weight on top of them, someone familiar even though it would feel worse in the morning. All the times they tried to talk to each other for “closure” and a game plan as if hurting around each other was better than leaving well enough alone.

Maybe they wanted it too much. At the start, when it was just lingering looks and the touches during kegsters that lasted too long to be innocent, the way Holster started craving goals during his final seasons so he’d have an excuse to bury his face against Ransom’s neck in front of everyone — maybe it built up too much, felt like they’d done too much longing for these feelings to go away so quickly. Maybe it’s selfish to keep doing this to himself, to keep holding on even now.

“Why is it so hard to stop being in love with someone,” he asks. His voice breaks. “I don’t understand why I’m still feeling it.”

“Do you want my honest answer?” He nods. Lardo sighs. “You have one of the biggest hearts out of everyone I know. You feel a lot and you feel it intensely and you were in love for years and of course that’s going to hurt, when you care about someone you really care about them. Those feelings don’t just go away.”

There’s a moment where Holster watches the lights shimmer on the water.

He says, “I wish I could turn that off. Caring so much.”

He’d said at the start he wished they could let it be done. Maybe it’s time to really, truly, let go. Throw it in the river and let the water take it away.

“No, you don’t,” Lardo says firmly.

Holster’s not so sure.

“Did you ever figure out if Shitty’s parents are coming?” he asks after a few beats, in a needful attempt to change the subject.

Lardo pokes him to say she knows what he’s doing, but she allows the shift. “No idea. They think we’re getting married because I’m pregnant, too, so if they ask tell them it’s triplets.”

He blinks. “Are you—?”

“No. Do you really think Shitty would be able to keep something like that secret from you guys?”

“Well—”

“Holster.” Lardo sounds amused. “He wouldn’t. Not unless I really wanted him to, which I wouldn’t, because I like you guys. Most of the time.”

“I like you too,” Holster says back. He hugs her tighter, caught up in an immediate realization that she’s here, she’s here supporting him when her rehearsal dinner’s happening just inside. “Thanks for coming after me. I don’t deserve you, Lards.”

“It’s okay to feel it,” she says, her voice muffled by his shirt. She leans back enough to make eye contact, her gaze serious and meaningful. “It is. Don’t be upset with yourself about that, you’ve both done enough shit to each other that you don’t just walk away from.”

They talk about lighter things, like how her cousins Insta-stalked her friends and found the one post of Jack’s ass Bitty has on his feed and are overly impressed. She goes inside a little bit after that. Holster stays out on the walkway a while longer, listening to the waves.

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