by Emrys Apollo
It hits him harder than he thought it would, and maybe it’s because he recognizes the three little words. He’s heard them before, he’s said them before, the texture of them sits heavy in his memories, in his ears and throat and even now - even now, he’s never admitted that maybe he might be, never written the words down or said them out loud. He’s had the thought, maybe, but he’s never actually said it, because he’s a coward about this still, because he’s a professional hockey player and now that he’s found love, Robin has the fucking audacity to say -
“I’m not gay. I’ve loved women before. I’m attracted to women.”
“You’re not attracted to me, then. Seeing as how I’m not a woman. I thought my dick might’ve hinted at that.”
“No! I want you, too. Just - it’s never been like this for me.”
“Me neither,” Clive says eagerly, taking Robin’s hands again, “but we’ll figure it out, make it work, we can talk about it, love, you know I love you, I’ve loved you since I was fifteen, probably - “
Robin looks away, but his eyes almost seem wet as he swallows past the lump in his throat. “Kendra’s pregnant.”
Clive blinks. “Sorry?”
“Kendra. She’s pregnant. I’m going to propose to her. She didn’t notice the first time she missed her period, she was on tour and all that, but then she missed another one, and she thought maybe it was because she was losing weight, you know, and she didn’t have much on her to lose, it messes with a woman’s body - But then the morning sickness started. They’re cancelling the rest of the tour, she’s coming back home to be here with me. I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
Clive feels vaguely nauseous, and pauses a moment to reflect on the fucking irony that Kendra’s probably feeling nauseous too.
His brain completely short-circuits - he can’t muster up the effort to make an excuse. “I-I’m going upstairs now,” he says quietly. He’s numb, and devastation is starting to sink into him and ruin him, like a notebook left out in the rain, all runny ink and stuck-together pages. He just needs to go somewhere Robin isn’t, even if that means being alone again.
Robin grabs his wrist, and his hold is like fire. Clive’s burning from the touch, he can’t stand being touched by Robin right now, won’t be able to stand it ever again -
“I love you.” It’s a punch in the gut, because for the first time, Clive can’t tell if his best friend is lying to him. And even if he’s not - does he love him in a platonic way, in a romantic way? Does he love him as a brother, but not a lover? As a teammate who passes to him just right?
“I need to go upstairs now. I need you not to follow me, Robin.” Clive speaks slowly and distinctly, and maybe half of that is for emphasis, but the other half is just because he feels like the moment is stuck in molasses, tongue thick and heavy in his mouth and each word painstakingly reluctant to form.
He walks away, and Robin watches him go as the kettle begins to whistle.
He drags himself up the stairs and he doesn’t turn around to see if Robin’s followed him.
He had. But just to the base of the stairs, and he’d stood there, watching Clive take each step and lift himself up, watching him until he’d turned into his bedroom and out of sight. He’d set his left foot onto the first step and considered defying his request and following Clive all the way up, all the way to wherever the hell Clive wanted to go -
He brings his left foot back down, slipping back into the kitchen and making two steaming hot cups of tea.
Clive sits on the bed, drowning in the silence and stillness of their bedroom - and how fucking pathetic is that? He’s been living in this house for years, and just two months into a relationship, he’s already calling it theirs.
He lets himself fall back onto the bed. He wants to phone Luke, but even Luke doesn’t know about him being gay, let alone about Robin. He dials the number automatically.
“Hello?” Jarrod sounds distracted, but he’s picked up the phone. Clive feels it as much as he hears it, feels the word pass over him like a wave, in that familiar voice, that same intonation.
“God, you don’t know how good it is to hear your voice.” Clive’s voice is thicker than he’d like it to be.
“Clive.” Jarrod sounds surprised, in the way a student would be surprised at a pop quiz. Unpleasant. He tries not to let it drip through his voice. Clive knows he tries to school his expression, but it sinks through, when he dislikes people.
“I’m sorry. Fuck. I’m sorry. I just didn’t know who else to call - “
Something in his voice must alarm Jarrod somewhat, because he sounds alert and concerned. “What’s happened, Clive? Are you alright? Is it your family? I’m not a doctor yet, I can’t be a second opinion, but I can try to help you understand - “
Clive chokes out a laugh. “It’s not that. God, it’s not that. It’s Robin.”
“Is he okay? You two aren’t married, partners don’t have many legal rights, but you are friends, you should be able to access his bedside if his family allows it - “
“Stop - it’s not him. I mean it is him, but he’s not - sick. He knocked up his ex-girlfriend. Or I think she’s his ex, I never asked him to break up with her? I just - I’ve waited so long for him, you know? I didn’t want to ask too much and have him leave me. I don’t know how I’ll cope without him - “
“Hey. Hey,” Jarrod says softly, “slow down. You two, you've been together since I called you last time?”
Clive nods, humming in agreement when he realizes that Jarrod isn't in the same room as him.
“And his girlfriend, how far along is she?”
Something sinks like a stone in Clive's stomach, every night they’d been apart suddenly suspect. “I don't know how far along. She's missed two periods and she's having morning sickness.”
“I haven’t had my OB/GYN rotation yet, but it sounds like she's a few months along,” Jarrod says gently, “I don't think - for what it's worth, I think it was before you got together, at least, love.”
The pet name hangs in the air between them, soft and careless in a way that Jarrod hadn’t been since they’d broken it off. It takes Clive away, takes his mind off Robin for a moment and makes him think about when Jarrod calling him love had been normal, when it had happened every single day. How it still stole his breath away, even then, when it was just part of his life.
“I miss you,” Clive confesses, “I love him, but I miss you, too, Jarr. We didn't- I know it was mostly just talking on the phone, I know there were only a few days we got to actually see each other, be in the same space together - but I missed you. Hearing your voice used to make my whole day. Even now, you still make me feel better.”
“We were good friends,” Jarrod agrees quietly, “and maybe we could be again. But it’s not me you need to be talking to right now, love. Go talk to Robin. Work things out. I’d make it better for you if I could. You know that, right? I would fix everything if I knew how. But only he can make it better now, Clive.”
“I don’t know how,” Clive whispers. “I can’t - when I look at him, Jarr, my chest hurts, and I don’t know how to talk to him - it’s not fair, I know that, he was her boyfriend, we weren’t even together at the time, probably. But having him and losing him is so much worse - “
“You’re not losing me.” Robin’s voice comes in suddenly from the doorway.
“Robin - “
“Call me later, Clive. I’m working tonight, but I’ll return your call, love, I promise. Tonight, even, if you don’t mind me waking you.”
“Yeah, sure,” Clive says distractedly, “bye, Jarr, talk later.” He hangs up the phone and instinctively misses the feeling of holding it, of something solid that he could hold onto, the feeling of Jarrod’s voice in his ear, telling him that things would be okay.
“You’re not losing me,” Robin says again, louder and firmer this time.
“You’re going to marry her, Robin. Of course I’m fucking losing you! Did you even break up with her in the fi
rst place?”
Robin stays quiet, looking at the ground like a child getting a lecture from his parents.
What a fucking analogy, Clive thinks, the words searing across his mind. Considering that of course, one day there would be a child, looking at the ground after Robin lectured him. Because Robin was going to be a father. And Clive wasn’t, even though he loved kids and wanted them and they liked him too, the way he tossed them into the air and caught them and gave them piggyback rides. But then, Robin would learn those things, with Kendra, and Clive would be the kid’s uncle, passing through his life now and then, a person on the TV and in old photographs of their dad.
“You didn’t break up with her. You just cheated, with me. Because I was here and willing to spread my legs for you, or bend over the sofa for you, or get on my knees for you. Fuck you, Robin.” Clive’s voice only gets louder and louder, until the last three words land with all the sting of a slap.
“Baby - “ Robin starts softly, “I’m sorry, I love you - she was on tour, I thought she would end up leaving me anyway - and then she phoned a couple of days ago and I just had to go see her, there’s a picture of him, of our little baby. And I couldn’t leave her after that, Cli, how could I leave the mother of my child - “
“Him?”
“What?”
“Him. You said him. The baby’s a boy, then?” Clive has a sudden, masochistic desire to know every single detail, to dig the pain in deeper, to know what kind of wedding dress she’ll wear, and where Robin will hold the wedding, and when the baby is due and whether it’s a boy or a girl, and of course Robin wants a boy, someone to play hockey with, someone who will carry on the legacy -
Robin looks caught off guard by the question. “It’s too early to tell. Vic and I have a bet on, I think he’s going to be a little boy, she thinks it might be a little girl. I wouldn’t mind either, but I just know he’s a boy - “ The more he talks about it, the warmer his voice grows, the more he looks golden and untouchable, like that brilliant demigod that Clive had loved from afar for all those years.
“Congratulations,” Clive says softly, “now if you’ve ever cared about me, as a friend, as a teammate, as… whatever, please get the fuck out of my house.”
“Clive, please - I don’t want to go, I want to stay here and be with you - “
“Robin - “ Clive remembers Jarrod’s voice on the phone, the way he talked to him, the way he’d talk to a patient, or an injured animal, soft and soothing. The way he’d told Clive to talk to Robin.
“Downstairs, then. Not in my bedroom.” My bedroom, because it is, of course. Clive’s and nobody else’s, because Robin is going to marry Kendra and Jarrod is in Birmingham studying, and there’s never going to be a we who own this space, only ever an I, an ever-lonely, ever-yearning I, and if Clive thinks about it, he’s going to start crying, so he has to stop -
“You go when I tell you to go, Robin, no discussion.” Clive doesn’t wait for a response, just walks past him, further from the phone, further from Jarrod, down the stairs to stand in the kitchen - the most neutral room in the house. The living room was too soft, all warm leather sofas - that was where they’d kissed for the first time. Even the kitchen is soaked in memories of Robin cooking, of doing the dishes and feeling Robin’s lips against his neck, turning and feeling almost unspeakably happy, because Clive had never had this before.
Even if he had, once, in a tiny apartment with a single bed and a poster of Michael Starling on the inside of the closet door.
He sees the kettle and wishes he had some tea without having to make it, wants to hold something warm, wants the heat against his hands, his lips, his throat, steadying his stomach.
He sits on one of the barstools, moving it a few inches away from its neighbor so they can have some distance between them.
“What did you want to talk about, Robin?” Clive’s voice is all wrong, all blank and robotic and numb, and Robin cringes as he hears it.
“I just wanted to talk about us.”
“You’re going to go marry Kendra. You didn’t even break it off with her, and I’m guessing she doesn’t know you fucked me every chance you had. You cheated on her with me, Robin. Played with me until she got home to you again.”
“No, love, that’s not what this was, I swear to God, I liked you! I do like you, still. I still want - when we’re traveling, or when we’re alone, I still want you. I think I’ll always want you, Clive.”
“Fucking greedy, that,” Clive says, and the words are bitterer than when Jarrod had said them to him, just a few months ago, “fucking greedy to still want to fuck your best mate after you get engaged. Am I going to be your best man, too? Throw you a stag do, make a toast about how brilliant Kendra is and how lucky you are to have her, and somehow leave out the part where we slept together and I’ve been in love with you for almost a decade? Is that what we’re meant to do? Because you might be able to pull it off, you’ve got all that acting practice, but I don’t think I can.”
Robin leans forward and wraps his arms around him. It’s awful, not because it’s bad, but because it’s so familiar. Robin’s still warm, his body’s still the same, even now that he’s going to be engaged. Even now that he’s not Clive’s anymore. Robin leans in and kisses his neck, and it would be so easy, to slip back into old patterns again.
“I want to be yours, love,” Robin murmurs, kissing his jaw. “I want that more than anything.”
It’s not true, though, is it.
“I want to be yours, too,” Clive chokes out miserably, “that’s all I’ve ever wanted, Robin. Just to be yours.”
Robin pulls away, just slightly, and leans in, pressing his mouth to Clive’s, and it’s infuriating, the way he presumes Clive will kiss him back, and it’s completely baffling, that Clive does.
They sit in the kitchen and kiss for a long while, maybe because it’s easier than talking, and maybe because Clive can almost forget everything when Robin’s kissing him like this, and Kendra and the tiny little bean in her womb that’ll grow into a person almost seem like a nightmare. Because Robin’s here, isn’t he? He’s with Clive. Not his pregnant fiancée. Or almost-fiancée.
Robin stands up and holds a hand out for Clive to take. “Let’s go upstairs and make love in our bed,” he says quietly. It’d gotten dark, at some point, and it’s as if they’d had a fight over something else, something like the fact that Robin redid the dishes after Clive had done them because they weren’t right. Something like the fact that Clive left his dirty towels on the floor, and it made Robin’s OCD go haywire.
But of course, this isn't one of those fights. It's a fight about Robin leaving him. Or maybe it's about Robin not leaving him, and Clive facing a lifetime of being the other person in Robin's marriage. Being the affair.
Would it be that different? asks a treacherous voice in the back of Clive's head. You're in the closet anyway, Robin's in love with his wife, you were never going to be his husband, you fucking idiot.
Not his wife, Clive reminds himself, she isn't his wife. Not yet.
Clive wonders what Jarrod would think of him, just for a fraction of a second, as he takes Robin's hand.
He forces himself to forget. He can process later. It’s time to make mistakes that he won't regret. He takes Robin's hand and lets himself be kissed. He lets himself be led through his own house, ignoring the farcical nature of all of this, how fucking stupid he feels walking backwards up the stairs as he gets kissed ferociously by a man who isn't his anymore because he never was.
There's something ugly and performative about the way Robin takes his clothes off, something superficial about the way he worships every inch of just-bared skin. He doesn't expect it when Robin sinks down to his knees, but somehow, he still isn't surprised. It's just Robin, trying to buy forgiveness with his good looks.
“I want to try.” Robin sounds brave, but Clive can hear the nerves in his voice, see them in his face. He unzips his fly and unbuttons his jeans, keeping them on as a naked Rob
in pulls out his cock, gazing at it with some trepidation. “You know I've never sucked a man off before,” he murmurs, setting his hands firmly onto Clive's hips. “Stay still,” he whispers. He licks him first, dragging his tongue from the base up to the tip before swiping his tongue over the top, and Clive's already starting to leak precome, appallingly enough.
He's still angry, or he's trying to still be angry, but it's hard, when Robin wraps his lips around the tip of his cock and sucks tentatively. Clive can see the moment he first tastes him, the slight grimace at the taste, and he can see the moment Robin steels himself and makes the decision to ignore the flavor and keep going. It's that same rigid determination he'd seen in Robin's eyes for years, really, each time preseason started and they all had to push through the pain barrier. Each time they'd had a grueling match that felt like it'd been four hours long.