Blake doesn’t wake up when Elliot curses loudly. Blake is on his back now, snoring quietly. Elliot wants to lie back down next to him so badly, pretend that he didn’t wake up and just sleep here, with a few inches between them, but then he’d hope that he’d roll against Blake in the night, that Blake would put his arm around him and that he’d wake up with Blake’s breath tickling the back of his neck.
Most of the time, sleeping that close to someone isn’t that great anyway, it gets too hot and you end up with someone’s knee jamming into your thigh or someone’s elbow in your ribs, and it’s really not that romantic. But Elliot still stares at Blake for at least a minute, contemplating how cross he’d be with himself in the morning.
He really needs to go.
At least he manages to get out of Blake’s room without tripping over anything else and the door shuts behind him with a quiet click.
He’s halfway down the hall to the elevators – his room is one floor up – when a door opens behind him and Noah Andersson not-very-stealthily slips out into the hallway. He freezes when he sees Elliot, who’s also frozen to the spot, because there’s really not a good explanation for sneaking out of someone else’s room at three in the morning. And, okay, Elliot is standing in the hallway, but there’s also no good explanation for standing in the hallway at three in the morning.
Noah walks up to him, somehow managing to look casual about it. His shoes aren’t tied and his shirt is buttoned up the wrong way.
“Headed for the elevator?” Noah asks.
“Yeah,” Elliot says and starts walking again, with Noah following at his heels.
“What a coincidence,” Noah says, “so am I.”
Elliot pushes the button for the elevator and it takes forever to come, and they’re only going up one floor, both of them, Elliot nodding when Noah hits the button for the fifth floor, and it still seems like the longest elevator ride in Elliot’s life.
“Hey, uh, if I don’t mention this to anyone and you don’t mention this to anyone,” Noah says, “it’ll sort of be like it never even happened.”
“Yeah,” Elliot says. “Great. Let’s… never mention this to anyone.”
The doors glide open, Noah nods at him and quickly struts away.
Elliot follows, but walks the other way, to his room, fumbles with the key card, nearly drops it, and then jams it into the slot with a little too much force, eager to get out of this hallway.
He lets out a deep sigh when he’s finally in his room and then lies awake in bed for half an hour.
Elliot doesn’t have a chance to talk to Blake the next day, at least not in private. They’re around each other and they do talk, but there’s always someone else there. Someone asks for a picture of the two of them, since they were on the same team in juniors and Elliot sees later that their junior team retweeted the picture, adding another one from when they were still on the team. Elliot doesn’t remember that picture even being taken – it’s just him and Blake on the ice, probably after practice, Blake covering Elliot’s head with his catching glove.
“Do you remember this?” Elliot asks when he shows Blake.
“Yeah,” Blake says, “I have that one at home somewhere.”
“Huh,” Elliot says and looks down at it again.
They’re interrupted by George Tremblay’s kid, who’s been making her way around the locker room with a jersey and a sharpie, asking them very politely if they could please sign her jersey. Her dad, probably one of the biggest and scariest D-men in the league, is looking on fondly. He doesn’t usually look fond on the ice and Elliot is happy that he’ll be on their team tomorrow.
There’s some interviews, then the skills competition, and Elliot borrows Tremblay’s kid for the breakaway challenge and apparently he’s her new favorite person after that, because she won’t go back to her dad and sits with Elliot until her dad forcibly removes her. She finds Elliot again afterwards and tugs him with her so her mom can take a picture of them.
Then there’s more interviews.
That night, Elliot goes to sleep in his own bed and he doesn’t ask Blake if he can come to his room again.
They win the game the next day and Elliot scores twice with Morgan Boyle on his line. They exchange sticks after the game, and then Elliot takes one of his other sticks over to Blake, who’s in the middle of taking off his pads, and gives him a tap.
“You wanna exchange sticks?” Elliot asks. It’s ridiculous, because they’re good enough friends that Elliot can ask Blake for a stick whenever he wants and Blake would probably give it to him, but this is a special occasion and if there’s anyone’s stick that Elliot wants to take home with him, it’s Blake’s. “If you still have one left.”
“Yeah, I only promised one to Morgan,” Blake says and gets up to grab one of his sticks. “Want me to sign it?”
“You have to do the fish,” Elliot says.
“I always do the fish, but I’ll make it really big for you and give him a face, okay?” Blake says with the straightest face imaginable and then turns around to ask someone for a sharpie.
Elliot signs his stick for Blake in the meantime and Josh Roy comes by to give each of them a pat and to thank them for playing well.
They end up on
