Blake snorts and ducks out of the way, grabbing them two plates while Elliot mutters about how Blake’s pans are all inadequate somehow. He does manage to cook their food in the end, frowning down at his chosen pan like this is part of some high-stakes operation, like they can’t order pizza if dinner doesn’t turn out to be edible.
And it does turn out fine, even though Elliot is grumbling about how the chicken isn’t exactly the way he wanted it to be.
“The chicken is great,” Blake says.
“But I wanted to–”
Blake kicks him under the table, and Elliot kicks him back, and then it goes back and forth a couple of times until Elliot winces.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I just have a gigantic bruise on my leg, it’s fine, though, don’t worry.”
“Sorry,” Blake says.
Elliot shrugs and kicks him back one more time.
#
Elliot arrived at Blake’s without much of a plan, fully expecting that Blake would tell him to go home.
He realizes that he’s making things harder for both of them, because Elliot is far from making up his mind about anything, has barely had time to gather even a handful of coherent thoughts. He dragged himself through their playoff games, one game after the other, worried about nothing but hockey. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, other than that he’ll be on his way to Prague soon.
“I’m going to play at Worlds,” Elliot tells Blake when they’re cleaning up after dinner.
Blake’s smile is soft. “I’m glad.”
“And you’ll go as far as you can.”
“Obviously.”
“Until you win the Cup.”
Blake rolls his eyes at him. “I’ll do what I can.”
“I know you will,” Elliot says. “I want you to win it.”
“Elliot, everyone wants to win it. But there’s thirty-two teams in the league and half of them get a playoff spot. Even if you’re in the playoffs, you’re still competing against fifteen other teams.”
“I know, but… what’s the point if you don’t believe in winning it?”
“I’m trying to be realistic,” Blake says with a shrug.
Elliot chews on his bottom lip, trying to keep all his thoughts in. He knows that most of the stuff he’s thinking is completely ridiculous and he’s putting himself down, because that’s what you do after a loss like that.
“Hey,” Blake says, because of fucking course he can see it all on his face, and then Blake’s hand is cupping his cheek and Elliot can’t keep it in after that.
“I stopped thinking we could win against you at some point,” Elliot says. “What if I jinxed it because I thought there was no way we could win it anymore after we’d lost three?”
“Elliot,” Blake says, stepping closer.
“I know it’s stupid, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I thought about it all of last night. I didn’t do enough and–”
“You did everything.”
“But it wasn’t enough.”
“You’re not the only guy on your team,” Blake says.
He pulls Elliot closer, against his chest, and Elliot doesn’t really cry easily, maybe he’ll have tears in his eyes after a sad movie, but you won’t really find him on the couch, sobbing into his bowl of popcorn or anything.
He cries now, though, because he’s been trying to hold it back for days, telling his guys in the locker room that they’d get another chance next season, that he’s proud of them for giving everything, that he couldn’t possibly have any better teammates. But now, with Blake, he doesn’t have to be strong or hopeful or proud of anything.
Blake doesn’t say anything, just holds him tightly and kisses the top of his head, hand running up and down Elliot’s back. He doesn’t let go.
Elliot doesn’t pull away either, head bent down, face pressed into Blake’s shirt. Even when he’s done crying, he holds on, just can’t bring himself to let go. Blake doesn’t seem to get tired of it either, pulling Elliot with him when he leans back against the counter, keeping his arms firmly wrapped around Elliot. Blake will hold him like this however long Elliot needs him to, won’t even ask if they can sit down, so Elliot eventually convinces himself to pull back and says, “What now?”
“I don’t know,” Blake says and reaches out to wipe a tear off Elliot’s cheek. “What do you need?”
“I’m okay. Do whatever you’d do if I wasn’t here.”
Blake brushes his hair back and scrunches up his nose. “I sort of need to feed the cats and clean their litter box.”
“Okay, you do that and I’ll… I’ll go sit on the couch. Unless you want help. I can help.”
“No, go sit down and pick something to watch and we’ll… hang out.”
Elliot nods and shuffles into the living room. He pulls up Netflix and starts clicking through movies, eventually flopping down on his side, Squid hopping up onto the couch, curling up next to Elliot’s chest, purring as soon as Elliot starts scratching his head. He can hear Blake move about the apartment, softly saying something in another room, probably to Angus. Squid leaves when Blake puts out some food in the kitchen.
Blake comes back, sits down next to Elliot’s head and pulls a pillow into his lap, patting it gently. Elliot takes that as the invitation that it is and scoots closer to put his head in Blake’s lap and closes his eyes. He’s not really tired, but his eyes are itchy now, and he doesn’t want to watch a movie either. Lying here is great, he’ll keep doing that.
“You can watch the Eagles-Cardinals game if you want to,” Elliot mumbles.
Blake is very quiet for a moment, which means that he probably wants to. “No, you don’t–”
“It’s honestly okay.” Elliot gets it. He’d want to watch it if he was in Blake’s position. Blake
