#nargynargy

“You don’t need to get this, I can do it!” Jamie’s panting as it comes out, but it’s also mixed in laughter. Tyler takes a left into the kitchen, and thanks his designer for the open floor plan. If he gets cornered he’s done. “I don’t need you to text people for me.”

“I’ve seen your texts, bro, you really do.” Jamie’s texts are a ridiculously endearing nightmare of clear punctuation and capitalization, and when he’s texting texting, they’re formal and uptight and make the girls he’s texting think that he’s some uptight asshole, when really he’s—well, he’s Jamie, quiet and laidback and determined and so good that Tyler is determined not to let him stand in his own way. “This is what I’m good at, just let me—oh, shit!” he swears, as the change from kitchen tile back to den rug trips him up and makes him stumble.

Jamie takes the opportunity and barrels into Tyler with all his weight and momentum, and Tyler goes down. Jamie manages to cushion it a little, rolling them as they fall so Tyler doesn’t end up actually hurting anything. Instead, he’s on his back and Jamie’s over him, pinning down his thighs and grabbing for the phone still in Tyler’s hand.

“No!” Tyler yells, trying to squirm out. Jamie’s way too solid for that, though, and he’s flushed and laughing above Tyler and grinning in that way he has that makes it seem like the sun coming up and all those other ridiculous clichés, and Tyler stops squirming before it becomes a situation. (maybe it’s getting closer to becoming a situation a lot recently. Maybe it’s almost a situation even when its just the two of them hanging out and watching TV and Jamie gives him a sleepy grin. Tyler’s got this. He’s not making it a situation and Jamie doesn’t know it’s a situation and so everything is good).

“Give it,” Jamie rumbles, low in his chest. Not a situation, Tyler reminds himself, and keeps smacking at Jamie’s hands as he tries to get the phone away.

“I’m saving you from yourself! This is for your own good!”

“Segs—” Jamie gets a hand the wrist of the hand not holding the phone, firm despite how he’s breathless from laughter. Fuck.

“I love you,” Tyler starts, and he means to end with a chirp about how Jamie’s got no game, but Jamie’s whole body does something at those words—some sort of jerk.  

It makes Jamie’s grip go loose and his weight shift, and Tyler’s body reacts to that before his mind catches up to him, and he surges up and rolls them so Jamie’s back hits the ground and Tyler’s the one straddling his massive thighs (not a situation. This is not a situation), holding the phone in the air.

“Hah!” Tyler crows, distracted by the win, and Jamie lets out a noise that’s half a laugh and half the sound he makes when he gets hit.

Tyler looks down at Jamie at that sound—he doesn’t like sounds that make it sound like Jamie’s getting hurt. He’s still flushed, and the remnants of the laughter are still on his lips, but his eyes are wide, somehow even bigger than usual, and staring at Tyler with the same sort of shocked disbelief he’d had that first second that he got the call about Jordie being traded.

“Hey.” Tyler lets his hand falls to his side. If he managed to fuck up somehow—he doesn’t know who will kill him if he managed to get the captain hurt wrestling on his living room floor, but he expects there will be a line and he doesn’t think he’d get out of the way.  “You okay?”

Jamie blinks, and that look is gone, something like a smile back. “Yeah, ‘course.” He reaches out and snags the phone from Tyler’s limp grip. “Got it!” He smiles again, and it’s still a little anemic.

“Jamie.”

“Tyler,” Jamie echoes, a hint of sternness in it. Something like his captain voice, but something like his voice after a bad game too, when he can’t let himself think about it in front of anyone else and still be the captain they need.

But Tyler’s not anyone, and it’s when Jamie sounds like that that he needs Tyler to poke at him until he lets off the steam. “Jamie,” he says again, and he rocks back and forth a little so Jamie’s body rocks too. “If you really want your phone back, it’s fine. I won’t text her any bad shit. Not if you really like her.”

Tyler hadn’t thought he liked her that much—they’d gone on one date that Jamie had sounded pretty tepid about—but Jamie’s got still waters running deep, sometimes. Maybe he really liked this girl. Maybe he was going to go off and marry this girl. Tyler would be—he’d be fine with that. (Not a situation. Definitely not a situation).  

“No, it’s—I know you wouldn’t,” Jamie replies, so sure. Like he trusts Tyler. After this many years, Tyler knows he does, but it never fails to light something in him, to know that Jamie trusts him so unquestioningly, despite everything. (maybe a situation. Maybe almost a situation). “It’s fine. I promise.”

Tyler remains unconvinced. What had he said? He’d just—

Oh.

“You know I love you, bro, right?” Tyler says, more of an experiment than anything. Jamie doesn’t do the same muscle thing that had happened earlier—he just smiles, easy and not reaching his eyes.

“Yeah, of course. Love you too.” Jamie reaches up and shoves his hand into Tyler’s face, pushing him away. “When you’re not being annoying.”

“So you love me all the time, awesome,” Tyler retorts, trying to watch closely. Jamie doesn’t react, just rolls his eyes at Tyler, smiling again. Which is good, all things considered. But Tyler still wants to know…

He licks his lips, then reaches down to ruffle Jamie’s hair. It’s something he does plenty, messing it up because Jamie only so recently figured out what to do with it, so it’s not a situation sort of thing. Except, well. Jamie’s hair is soft beneath his fingers and if Tyler were, say, to lean down and kiss Jamie right now, he’d get his hands in Jamie’s hair like this, make sure to mess it up and maybe tug a little to see if Jamie liked that. So it could be a situation thing. If there were a situation. Which there isn’t.

Jamie’s eyes go a little wide with that same shocked look, and because he’s literally sitting on him he can hear his sharp intake of breath. Tyler doesn’t stop looking, watches like he does on the ice, for any sense that anything is changing, and he sees the twitch in the muscle of Jamie’s neck and how his lips part the tiniest bit, like an invitation for a kiss that sets off an ache in Tyler he’d been trying to ignore for years. Unconsciously, he shifts, maybe to lean down—

Then Jamie’s pushing up and shoving Tyler off, rolling to his feet with that weird grace that belies the size of him and turning away from Tyler.

“Now it’s been forever and she probably thinks I’m weird, thanks,” he mutters, his back hunching over his phone. He’s not texting, though. Tyler knows what Jamie’s back looks like when he’s texting.

“Good, then she won’t be surprised,” Tyler yells after him. Jamie doesn’t even respond, just stalks back towards the living room, his back stiff.