Saved Works

Jack's smile started everything.

Look, they just think Jack looks pretty when he cries.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

But later, packing up the leftovers of a chicken pasta bake Brock had said was “like my mom’s if my mom cared about protein and fats or any of that shit,” Elias said, “You do like it. When it hurts.” Maybe it was too insistent or too much, Elias didn’t know.

“You said you wanted to help, baby. This is how,” Nate says simply, and muscles Cale’s thighs apart, wraps them around his waist.

They didn't lay out specifics to their World Juniors watch party bet, and Ty regrets that now. He hopes Jack asks for something easy.

Eric has a cage, a key, and a twink. Jeff's just along for the ride.

“Swallow,” Elias says, rolling his hips a little. “Thank you. Now do it again, please.”

They're athletes. Everything is body. Or: How to ask your best friend to give you a hand, and not for a bro-job for once.

Patty knows what TK and Raff get up to on the road.

"I can't believe you got whipped cream," Matthew says, trying to sweep past the way his blood is pumping hard through his veins. "Why?" Jack smiles. "Cause I'm sweet enough already?" You just don’t go around hooking up with your little brother’s best friend’s little brother. Right?

So Tyson plays well, racks up the ice time, gets an assist, almost decks McQuaid. JT gives him a quiet little fistbump when he slides into the bench and Tyson has to shove the hem of his shirt into his mouth at 2am to not say JT’s name when he comes.

Dylan is his brother. Ryan loves him, and it’s ordinary. One slip doesn’t mean anything. The complicated dreams he’s had since the trip are rare. He has it under control.

"When someone says, 'Oh, hey, you want to finally come up and spearfish with me, by the way I'm a fish creature, is that going to be a problem' I guess you just expect, I don't know? Fins? Tentacles? Those teeth whales have so they can eat the little shrimp things?" "Krill? You expected me to have baleen?" "I don't know, I learned about whales when I was like, seven."

“No, no, I don’t want to pick up, not really.” JT’s suddenly glancing off somewhere behind him as he speaks. “I just—you’re a Tyson.” “Sure am, buddy.” Tyson confirms, confused. He follows JT’s gaze to where it’s anchored, and all he can see is Josty, trying and failing to charm one of Lisa’s friends—one of Lisa’s very male friends—into buying him a drink. “Oh.” Tyson says again. “You want Tyson tips.”

“So, what, you’re buddies with the new photographer?” Nate asks. “I mean.” JT shrugs. “He’s a cool guy.” “Leave him alone, I think it’s sweet,” Tyson says. “We like him, right, Gabe?” “We are two separate people with separate opinions,” Gabe says, then takes a sip from his drink. “But, yeah, we like him.”

Jeff was a good dog.

The Facetime struggles to adapt to the changing lighting for a second, and then Elias can finally see Brock clearly, and it kind of sucks. His hair is already sun-lightened, some strands actually glowing gold, and he’s got a light sunburn already going tan on his cheeks and the bridge of his nose and the top of just one ear, and his broad shoulders fill more of the screen than is good for Elias’ overall health. “But,” Elias says, “your boys will miss you if you leave.” “Petey,” Brock says, in between breaths from his light jog, so maybe he’s drunker than Elias anticipated, “Petey. You’re my boys too. And I missed you. Even though, y’know, you’re the one who left me.”

Nolan feels all the things he’s been wanting to say to someone and can’t rise up and crowd in; a pressure, a weather system. I thought I was better. I’m not doing well. It is happening again. It will happen forever. Instead he says, “Does that hurt?”

TK thinks it's almost always more productive to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. Trying to top your hook-up buddy in a kind of mean way shouldn't really be any different. Probably.

Damon spends most of the fall not thinking about what Jack can do off the ice. Then he gets first star.

“I hate you,” Phil says, which is awfully bold considering that Nic is the one who’s deciding whether or not he gets to come. “I hate—fuck.”

Nolan goes through his first NHL camp knowing three things about the guy in the next stall: 1. He talks a lot. 2. He likes to fish. 3. The ducks in his tattoo are named after the Ninja Turtles.

It starts because Travis wants a Canadian buddy and Nolan wants Travis. Shit gets more complicated from there.