Work Text:
The world is a little greyer today. It could be the weather – overcast in that way that makes the entire sky one block of nothing colour. The ever present threat of rain is there, held over Kip’s head, making the air heavier. Everyone in his carriage is wearing a parka, zip pulled up to their chin. Kip didn’t think it was that cold.
It’s quieter too, uncomfortably still. The noise of the subway doesn’t register as loud as it should. The roar as they pass through a tunnel sounds distant, perpetually an approaching train rather than the one he’s in. His fellow passengers move like they’re floating, every imperfection of their movement smoothed over by a brain too lazy to see the details.
His head aches as he takes the stairs up to ground level, like a weight pressing across his temples and forcing his brow down. It feels- well, it feels. And that’s something.
He wishes it would rain.
He’d nearly stayed on the two line and gone to his dad’s, nearly messaged Scott saying George needed a hand with something and he’d be back a bit late. Not because he didn’t want to be around Scott. It’s just that his dad wouldn’t ask questions. He’d put the Mets game on, pat Kip on the shoulder, and in some pause between innings tell Kip how proud he was of him. Kip would be sent off with a tupperware full of leftovers he really didn’t need and a longer-than-average hug. He’d get a call “just to say hi” some time later in the week. That would be that.
He knows entering Scott's apartment will definitely mean concerned questions and almost laughably unsubtle hovering. But he wants to see Scott, wants to be enfolded in the radiator of a man that is his boyfriend. It's okay that Scott’s still learning him. Kip would like to be learned, he supposes.
The key turns in the lock, stiffer than usual or maybe that’s just him. He steps in, shrugs off his jacket and toes his shoes off in a way that would make a cobbler cry.
Scott’s in the bedroom – Kip can hear him pulling things out of drawers. He calls out as Kip closes the door behind him.
“Hey, love. How was thesis torture?”
“Good, it was … good,” Kip calls back, the energy taken to raise his voice using up his final reserves.
Silence follows and then Scott’s appearing in front of him, blue banana socks in hand. He’s packing for his away game tomorrow.
Kip puts on a smile. It’s awkward on his face, manually sculpted and pasted on.
“Not a productive day?” Scott asks, stuffing the socks in his pocket and coming to stand in front of Kip.
“No, no. It was fine, honestly,” Kip says, hoping his face is holding up to the lie.
“Yeah?”
“Yep, gotta piss, be back in a sec.”
He steps around Scott and shuts himself in the bathroom, grateful for the white noise of the fan. Scott’s left the seat up again. Kip sighs, pinches his noise through the really very minor annoyance and swings it shut. Sitting down on the closed lid, he cracks his neck and rubs his temples.
It’s not the weather.
Cloud cover and a high barometer reading doesn’t lead him here – hiding in a bathroom that smells of Scott’s shampoo when all he wants is the man himself, who is right outside almost certainly champing at the bit to fix whatever he deems to be wrong. Kip doesn’t need all that but he really wants Scott, just to be close to him. He levers himself up, flushes the toilet for appearances sake, and splashes his face with cold water.
Scott’s waiting when he comes back to the kitchen, Kip’s go to post-school snack – PB&J sandwich (can’t beat the classics) – plated up on the island. Scott’s doing his mother hen thing that he’s been at since thesis season properly started.
Kip thinks about the lunch he didn't finish earlier.
“I’m uh not super hungry right now. Thank you, though.”
Scott frowns, nods. “No worries.”
Kip stands uselessly in front of him. He wants a hug. He wants to sit down. He wants to curl up somewhere dark and quiet for an indefinite amount of time.
“Kip?”
“What?” He asks, terser than he meant to.
“Are you … okay?”
“I’m fine, Scott,” he forces out. “I just need to sit for a bit.”
Scott’s hands come up to grip Kip’s arms where they hang heavily at his sides. It burns the corners of Kip’s eyes. He shuts them against the feeling, against Scott’s careful observation.
“Kip.”
It’s not a question.
“I think I’m just tired.”
Scott looks at him, chases Kip’s gaze as it skitters around the room
“No,” he says firmly. “I know tired. This isn’t tired.”
“Okay,” Kip agrees because Scott’s right and he doesn’t actually need to be a contrarian.
Scott nods again, eyes wide and wet like they always are when he’s worried, or upset, or confused. It's a lot. Kip tries not to keep a tally of how many times it’s him putting that expression on his boyfriend’s face.
“Let’s sit down,” Scott says.
He positions them both in the corner of the sectional, one arm slung around Kip’s back, rubbing his shoulder. It should be comforting.
Kip leans forward, elbows on knees, head resting on his hands, and convinces his brain to be honest.
“I’m just not feeling very good.”
“Okay,” Scott says, carefully neutral. “Thank you for telling me.”
Scott always thanks him now, when Kip actually shares a feeling. It’s sweet. It’s- well it’s a way he really has learned Kip, how hard he finds it not to sit on shit.
“What kind of not good?”
“I don’t know, heavy?” He rolls a flurry of words around his mouth, none of them right. “Grey, maybe. Out of it. And tired, just really fucking tired.”
“Like, depressed?”
Kip laughs, a wet sound – trust Scott to get right to the point.
“Yeah, yeah that.”
“Okay, is that something you feel a lot?” Scott asks.
“No, not a lot. Not anymore.”
“Not anymore?”
He tells Scott about high school and the first year or so of college, the days he’d spend moving on complete autopilot. He tells him about how worried his dad was, how he finally spoke to someone and realised perhaps it wasn’t normal to feel like he didn’t exist in his own life. Scott doesn’t talk while Kip’s getting through it all and Kip knows he’s filing every detail away in his database of Christopher Grady. At certain points, he nods like he understands. Kip thinks he probably does, maybe more than Scott himself realises.
“What do you need right now?” He asks when Kip’s finished.
“My thesis to be over.”
Scott is quiet, the thinking quiet. Kip raises his head for the first time since sitting down and looks at him.
“No, Scott. That’s not something you can make happen.”
“I can try,” Scott grumbles.
He would.
Kip sorts through all the things he wants. Besides the impossible, it's quite a short list.
“I need a hug,” he admits. “And some crappy reality TV. In that order.”
“That I can do.”
Sometimes Kip imagines Scott as a service dog, not in an unkind way. It's just his big dark eyes and his heady devotion and mainly, his relieved joy when he finds a way he can help.
Scott wraps both arms around him. It’s an awkward angle and suddenly Kip’s being turned and dragged back, hands grasping him tight.
“Scott.”
Then he’s sideways across Scott’s lap, body tensing against the provision of comfort.
“Sorry. You deserve a proper hug though,” Scott says, all earnest and genuinely apologetic.
Kip tucks his head under Scott’s jaw, tries to push away the awkward stiffness in his muscles. The smell of his pine shampoo is there, and it helps. The rise and fall of Scott’s chest helps too. Kip almost smiles at how deliberately even it is.
Scott places a hand on Kip's forearm where it lies against his thigh.
“You’re cold,” he frowns.
“Oh,” Kip murmurs, noticing the heat of Scott’s body compared to his own for the first time. “Think I forgot to zip my jacket up.”
Scott tsks softly and rubs up and down Kip’s arms. The warmth bleeds into him, spreads across his skin like honey. He shivers involuntarily, brain only just catching up with the discomfort. It makes Scott stop and reach for the blanket draped over the other end of the couch. He wraps it around them both, creating a hibernation den Kip wants to spend the whole winter in.
Inside the den, he slumps into Scott, against the solid mass of muscle underneath him. Scott takes the extra weight like it’s nothing, only folding himself around Kip somehow further. His traitorous eyes burn again and he sniffs, breathes through it. Scott squeezes the back of his neck and it makes him feel like a baby animal, scruff held tight in its mom's mouth.
The safety of it almost hurts with how heavily it slams into him. It's a good pain, like a perfect full body stretch or the burn of a hot cocoa when you've been freezing for hours.
He's still a little off axis and he doesn’t want to look at his laptop or another person for the next five days. But the world pulls into focus. He doesn’t want to hide in the bathroom anymore.
“Thank you.”
“Any time, baby,” Scott says planting a lingering kiss on his forehead. “Now then, what are we watching?”