Chapter Text
Keep It Small
People don’t know as much as they think they do.
Throughout this whole thing, that’s the primary fact that Holster has learned for himself: People don’t know. And they aren’t good at guessing much either.
Freshmen year, everyone “knows” that Ransom and Holster have been friends for years (not true, they’d met first day of hockey pre-season, same as the rest of the team) and everyone “knows” by sophomore year that they are always down for a threesome (they’d only done it twice actually; twice before it got to be too much) and, when Junior year comes around, everyone “knows” that Ransom and Holster are “best friends for life.”
“The closest bros,” people say. “On the same wavelength.” “Downright freaky.” “Always thinking the exact same thing.”
Also not true. Well, partly true. Most of it could be true.
If it weren’t for the other thing.
Of course, that’s where people are the most incorrect. Not even just the other guys on the team. Everyone, from what Holster can tell. The entire human race.
Because people think being in love is this huge, all-encompassing thing. They think it takes over and colors all it touches and it’s a constant stabbing, shooting pain that makes the friendship not worth it.
That’s not how it is, though. Not for Holster.
Holster is very careful. He keeps it small. He keeps it contained. He very carefully does not think about it and does not entertain it.
For him, love is the tiny corner of his brain that he locks away and ignores.
Ignores. Not denies.
He hasn’t bothered denying it since sophomore year. He let himself feel it and then let himself flirt with it (those two threesomes) and then very carefully put it aside.
There is no chant of what if when he and Ransom leap into eachother’s arms during a celly. He does not think if only when someone jokes “you two might as well be dating!” His brain is not flooded with ohmygod, ohmygod when he and Ransom cuddle for warmth in the attic.
No, he rolls onto his side and tells Ransom to go to sleep and then follows his own instructions. They do not wake up tangled together and the payment for using Holster’s bed is exactly two episodes of the sitcom of his choice so Ransom will wake up, stay for exactly 48 minutes, and then they go about their days.
Holster does not regret what could have been.
He does not stare at Ransom’s cheekbones and wonder. He helps create a new best bro handshake and laughs at Ransom’s jokes and keeps Ransom calm through a thousand and one study-induced panic attacks.
Of course, he also doesn’t date. But then, to be honest, not many boys on the team do. There’s no time for it. He is not strange or different and everyone “knows” he is hooking up with plenty of people.
No need to worry. He isn’t worried.
Junior year, Holster does not flinch when girls ask if they are still “up for something different,” he smiles and shakes his head and “don’t worry, my boy there can handle everything himself” and finds somewhere else to be that night.
(He always leaves with a girl, drops her off, and then circles back. He has lost track of the times he has broken into Samwell’s library and crashed on a couch on the second floor. He uses one of the computers to watch some 30 Rock and keeps a cell phone charger hidden in the stacks and remembers to set an alarm so he wakes up in time for breakfast.)
The thing the people really don’t understand (or wouldn’t, if he told them all of it) is that Holster is happy.
He has a great team, a great life, and a great best friend. He doesn’t really need more. There’s a difference between want and need, after all, and he doesn’t even know what a relationship with Ransom would look like.
Maybe it would be even better than what they have, but maybe it wouldn’t. Holster’s never been in a relationship. He has no idea what he would even want it to be. Maybe he’d be jealous. Maybe Ransom would want to hold hands too much. Maybe it would actually all be terrible. Maybe they are better off as friends.
(Maybe it would be perfect but that doesn’t matter.)
Either way, he doesn’t let himself think about it, doesn’t lay awake at night and imagine them in different scenarios, doesn’t daydream or picture Ransom’s face when he jerks off.
Somedays he even thinks he’s not in love at all. But then he goes on a date and it’s just… flat and denial only makes that little part of himself more insistent.
So, yes, he’s in love. But in pain? No. No, Holster is okay.
For the most part.
Really.
99% of the time he is happy.
There are… slips. Moments when that little part of his brain that is supposed to be carefully tucked away somehow runs the show and suddenly, Ransom is Justin and he is awake at 4 o’clock in the morning wondering what to get him for his birthday and Holster doesn’t do temptation but the phrase “a birthday kiss” comes into his head and for two days straight, Ransom is Justin and Justin is a maybe and–
The worst, though, is when he’s not ready for it.
Coming home in the middle of the afternoon to find Ransom having sex throws him more than he’d like to admit. Not that he minds (good for Ransom!) but he is not prepared and he had plans to challenge Rans to a game of Madden and Holster is not an uptight dude who sticks to a schedule ever, but for some reason this one was important and folding laundry is annoying and Jus- no, Ransom has a test the next day and–
It is a slip. A big slip. And it takes Holster the rest of the afternoon to put his brain back in order.
He gets it together, though. And then he is fine for months. Junior year ends and Ransom starts dating March and when Senior year rolls around, he keeps track of how much they talk, but it’s not in a jealous way. It’s just… something to do.
No one calls him on it. No one would think to. After all, he’s somehow done the same for Jack and Bitty. He is a captain. He observes. Makes sure everyone is doing alright. Makes sure Tango isn’t too confused. Makes sure Whiskey’s relative silence is a happy one rather than a tense one.
Happens to know how often his best friend talks to his girlfriend and tracks the progress of hickeys as they rise and fade over time.
Really, Holster is fine.
Then Ransom and March celebrate their fifth month anniversary.
And they don’t just go to dinner. They don’t just go on a date. They go to a bed and breakfast because by their sixth month anniversary, hockey season will have started and they will see less of each other and it is romantic. Ransom gives him no details except that it is “apparently pretty cool, bro - we should see if we could get the whole team to do a crazy fucking sleepover!” and it is something he can prepare for.
Holster holds up remarkably well being alone for the weekend. He watches a Real Housewives marathon with Bitty and helps Lardo with art stuff and ends up refereeing a series of challenges between the Frogs and the Tadpoles. He stays downstairs with everyone until he is tired and falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow both nights.
His streak continues. He even keeps it together for the next two weekends, when Ransom sleeps over at March’s apartment on both Friday and Saturday (it makes more sense, March has her own room, Ransom thinks he’s being polite by not sexiling Holster, maybe he is). They talk til late in the night on Sunday and they are still best friends and it is all fine.
Which is why it doesn’t make sense that the next Friday, when Ransom is there, in the Haus, ready to hang out, that Holster suddenly can’t do it.
The little part suddenly takes over and he is so careful - so fucking careful - to avoid this and maybe that’s the problem, he works so hard at being careful when Ransom is gone that he had forgotten to keep it together when he is here, but regardless when Ransom tells him that March is busy and it is a bro-night, Holster abruptly stops being able to breathe.
For the first time in his life, it is difficult. He has to work the smile onto his face and has to think about their best friend handshake and by the time they get to beer pong, he think he has it under some semblance of control, but he can feel it. Simmering.
It is a relief when Ransom gets a text message halfway through the night from March, telling him that she finished her paper early, asking him if he wants to come over.
“Dude,” Holster says. “You should go!”
“No, I mean, it was bro-night.” Ransom replies.
“C’mon, hockey starts up soon. We’ll have tons of bro-nights! Hotel bro-nights! The best kind!”
Holster likes this part. He knows this script.
He doesn’t think he should be alone in a room with Ransom right now.
“I dunno,” Ransom says. He looks uncertain still. Holster tries to take that and feed it too that part of his brain. Tries to tell himself that is enough.
“I’ll walk you,” he offers. “We can have bro-talk on the way over!”
“A PRE-DATE BRO-WALK!” Ransom yells and that is that.
Half an hour, Holster promises himself. He only has to make it through another half hour. They do a few shots before they leave and fill up a flask “for the journey” and he is going to make it. When the walk takes longer because they are both pretty drunk and Ransom wants to stop and look at the stars, Holster remains calm.
If he can make it half an hour, he can make it forty-five minutes.
He does make it. He politely chats with March and waves to April and, sure, he has to drive his fingernails into the meat of his palm to do it, but he keeps it all together.
He even manages to walk away and get back to Samwell’s campus before his hands start shaking and the only solution seems to be to tip what’s left of the flask down his throat and–
Oh fuck, oh fuck.
All his usual defense mechanisms crumble. He is my best friend is drowned out byI want more. And Significant Others come and go is answered by Not always. And I am happy becomes I hate this.
It’s a hard punch to the gut and he’s gasping a little bit, but not crying and it’s stupid but it’s his years of experience helping Ransom that allows him to recognize a panic attack when he sees it.
He sits down hard on the steps (and oh look, he’s made it to the library) and coaches himself through it.
In for three, hold for three, out for three. Again. Again. Again.
Up it to five. Relax. Everything is going to be okay. This is just a moment. Hold for five. A bad moment, but it will pass. Exhale for five. Again.
Up to seven. He should not have drank so much. But he is okay now. He is. In for seven.
The panic lingers. Enough that he thinks if he stops counting even for a moment, he will lose it again. Hold for seven.
He can’t do this forever.
C’mon, he tries. You are okay. Everything is fine. Everything is–
He exhales hard on four and then it’s a quick gasp in and this isn’t working, fuck, I don’t–
He scrambles for his phone.
Ransom is first on his Favorites list (always is, has been since Freshmen year) but the thought of calling him makes the panic worse so he scrolls down and–
Shitty is too far away. Same with Jack. The Frogs are… he is their captain and besides that the Tadpoles are too young and Bitty–
Bitty will ask questions. If Holster calls him. Lardo will know.
His mom is asleep and he scrolls back up to Ransom, breaths coming faster again even though he is exhausted, he knows, he can’t have that much energy to do this because he is–
He is not okay.
He thinks it and then the next gasp burns and his eyes fill with tears and okay. New plan.
He is going to let this happen. He is going to give himself one night. One night where he can be stupid and want and–
He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes but it’s not really an attempt to stop the tears. It’s more to force them out. He stops trying to control his breathing and his emotions and his thoughts and just… lets go.
I am in love with him, he thinks and he wonders how long ago he had actually let himself think that. He is perfect and he makes me laugh and he is an idiot but I love him.
He is glad there is no one around. No one to hear the choking sobs or the little wounded noise that comes out of the back of his throat.
He is glad that just this one time he is allowed to think about the way Ransom loops his arm up and over his shoulders (even though Holster is taller) when they celebrate- either on the ice or at the beer pong table - and pulls him closer and laughs into his neck. He lets himself think about the curve of Ransom’s smile and the way he curls his knees up to his chest when he is a bit anxious (usually about a test, sometimes right before a game), the way he does it when they are playing Halo and he has lost his controller and Holster is the one who is about to die.
It was Holster’s first sign, really. The fact that he always thought it was adorable. A big buff guy like Ransom curling up at the first sign of distress.
Holster curls his knees up now. Just to see it if actually helps.
He is too tall for it to be comfortable, but it’s okay. He likes that he has something to cling to. He likes that he can press his face into his knees and muffle the sounds.
He dislikes that it probably makes him look even more pathetic but he can’t worry about that right now.
He has to focus on the fact that he is desperately, completely in love with his best friend and that they will never be together. He has to remind himself that freshmen year, when asked, Ransom had said “I’m straight” and Holster had shrugged and replied “I think I am?” and Ransom said “Cool, bro.” and that was that.
He has to remind himself that for all the openings he’s given (“Man, Jack does look great in that picture” “That on fanfic we read, Ransom… how about that, huh?” “The guy is wearing those shorts, don’t you think?”), Ransom has never given any indication whatsoever that he is attracted to dudes. Not really. Nothing beyond: “Dude, our captain always looks fit as hell” or “That fanfic is burned into my memory” or “Yeah, he is- do you think I could pull them?”
Ransom is straight and he is not and it will never work and it is not fair.
It’s not fair.
Holster gives himself this one night to let that hit him. He thinks of all the things he loves about Ransom and then lists all the reasons they can’t be together and he tells himself he is only so upset because he is drunk and he tries to get mad about it for a little while. Tries to say that Ransom in an idiot, that he is out there dating the girl-version of Holster anyway but that’s not true.
March isn’t the girl-version of Holster. She is her own person. She prefers period dramas over sitcoms and doesn’t watch reality television and is majoring in political science and she really is great. She comes to their games even though she doesn’t really like sports and cheers for him and never gets mad or jealous that Ransom is never available to be her beer pong partner.
Holster can’t even hate her. She is perfectly nice to him. To everyone. She makes Ransom happy.
He can’t hate her and he can’t hate Ransom and so all that’s left really is to just sit and cry on the steps of the library like a pathetic loser.
So he does that. He makes it as painful as he can. Twists the knife in his heart to try to get it out and tells himself it would be perfect, that their relationship would be perfect, that their lives would be perfect and it’s melodramatic and stupid but he does it because it’s all he can think to do.
He stops eventually. He thinks maybe the actual breakdown was fairly quick, all things considered. He doesn’t bother checking his phone to see the time.
“Okay,” he says, wiping his face and sniffing and taking as deep a breath as he can manage. Just to put an official end to the whole thing. “Okay.”
He stretches out his legs and sits and thinks about breaking into the library but it seems like too much work and suddenly he wants nothing more than to be in his own bed. So he stands and starts walking and muscle memory is the only thing that gets him home. His brain feels offline.
He gets to his room, feels a dull sort of victory that everyone else is already in bed, and puts on an episode of Community, only to fall asleep halfway through.
“Hungover,” Holster grunts when Bitty calls up to him the next morning. It’s not even a lie. He might be hungover.
His head aches and his hands are still a bit shaky and he feels… hollow. Wrung out and a part of him dares to hope that this is the end of it. That last night was grief for what he knows can’t happen, a final goodbye. A quick rundown of the five stages of grief and he’s already hit acceptance.
But when he looks up, he still expects to see the dip in the middle of the bed that tells him Ransom is there and there is a pang when it’s just the usual sag and–
It’s only ten o’clock.
Holster thinks he has at least three hours to get himself back in order.
Plenty of time.
He just has to keep it small.