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Brent isn’t speaking to Duncan. It takes Duncan about four minutes to figure that out. Not that he has any idea of why, but Brent’s definitely ignoring him completely.
Okay. Duncan can handle this. Brent’s Brent, after all. He gets mad about stupid, easily-fixable things.
“Seabs,” Duncan nudges him, but Brent ignores him, focused on taking off gear. “Come on, Seabs, talk to me.” Brent doesn’t so much as look at him, just stalks off into the showers.
Duncan tries not to look like he’s staring after Seabs in shock (and okay, maybe also just staring, because Seabs isn’t wearing a shirt, and-)
Their teammates are staring at him. Duncan tries to pretend like he doesn’t notice, but then Kaner decides to be a dick and throws an elbow pad at him.
“What the fuck’d you do?” he calls over, and Duncan just flips him off, turns back to his own locker. He spots Brent’s car keys on the bench, and pockets them.
Brent comes back, still dripping from the shower, and curses to himself as he looks for his keys. Duncan just sits back and watches, while their teammates gradually leave the locker room.
“Found ‘em,” Duncan says, once the locker room’s all cleared out. Brent glowers.
“Because you took them,” he says tightly. Duncan shrugs.
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
“Tell me why you’re mad,” he pleads. Brent frowns.
“It’s stupid,” he says reluctantly, sitting on the bench beside Duncan.
“You say that after you spend all day pissed off at me? Come on,Seabs, tell me.”
Brent scuffs the ground with his toe, staring resolutely down. “Your website,” he finally says.
“My… website?” Duncan pauses for a second, “oh, that one.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s wrong with it?” He’s kind of proud of it, actually. Not that he made it himself. He can’t write for shit; other people did that, because if he did, his charity would be a laughing stock, instead of as awesome as it is.
“Nothing,” Brent mumbles. Duncan bumps his shoulder into Brent’s lightly. “Well, um. That section about you.”
“Yeah?”
“It doesn’t… it doesn’t mention me,” Brent says, and Duncan only doesn’t burst out laughing because he sees the hurt look on Brent’s face and it makes him freeze. “I mean, obviously there’s no real reason to, but-”
“Seabs, I didn’t write that.”
Brent lifts his gaze to Duncan’s, but doesn’t say anything.
“Someone else did, I can’t write at all.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“So if you did-”
“Man, if I did, it’d end up having more of you in it than me.”
Brent seems content enough with this, and Duncan tries not to think about how Brent actually thought he was unimportant enough to skip over in the story of Duncan’s life. It’s too wrong, too absurd, and more than that, he hates the thought that Brent would feel that way at all.
That evening, Mowgli loudly informs Duncan that someone’s at the door. He’s lying on the couch, mostly asleep, and frowns when she pushes her nose into his face.
“Tell ‘em to go away,” he groans. She barks again. “Who is it?” Another bark. Duncan wonders if he’s lost it, seeing as he talks to his dog way too much to be totally sane.
Brent’s at the door, it turns out. “Talking to your dog is weird,” he informs Duncan, walking past him into the house. Duncan stares.
“How…?”
“Man, you always try to treat Mowgli like your butler or something. And it never works.” Brent crouches down to pet Mowgli, who licks at his face enthusiastically. “Yeah, I bet you told your daddy to get the door himself, didn’t you,” he coos, and Duncan rolls his eyes because who’s weird now, and goes back to the couch. Brent comes over a few minutes later, pushes Duncan’s legs off the cushions and sits there instead. Duncan growls his disapproval, but Brent’s in an unshakable good mood. Which is weird, considering this morning and all.
“So, you just come over here to make my dog think she’s better than me?”
“She already knows that,” Brent smirks.
“Fucker. Well?”
“Maybe that was the only reason,” Brent says lightly. “I mean, I was also considering telling you I was upset about the website thing because I thought I wasn’t important to you and that I hated that because I’m in love with you. But, you know.” He says this so casually that Duncan almost misses it. He sits up a little.
“Uh, could you say that again?”
“Which part?”
“The important part, Brent.”
“Which part do you consider important?” Brent asks carefully. Duncan sighs; he definitely just heard Seabs drop an I’m in love with youinto the middle of that sentence. Brent doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it, fine. Duncan can also pretend like his entire world didn’t suddenly shift just then.
“Okay,” he says, “get over here.” Brent looks at him.
“Why?”
“Because I want to kiss you because I’m in love with you too. Now would you come here?”
“If you’re gonna make it worth my while,” Brent says, but he’s grinning and already moving to straddle Duncan, leaning over him. Duncan pulls him down, brings their lips together. They may have just casually admitted to being in love with each other, but Brent kisses him like it’s the most important thing he’s ever done, all slow deliberation, and Duncan’s more than happy to match him, because he’s been waiting for this, and Brent tastes a hundred times better than Duncan even thought he would.
“So,” Duncan says, kind of breathless, “are we- can we be- together now?”
“Well,” Brent grins, “I still wanna be taken on dates.”
“I should have known you’d be high maintenance.”
“Not very. Also, you should totally add me into your website bio thing.”
“Was all this a way to get written proof that I love you?”
“Damn, am I that transparent?”
Duncan grins, tugs Brent back down to kiss him again. A year from now, Duncan will add married Brent Seabrook in the summer in Winnipegto the website, but for now, he just whispers I love you against Brent’s lips, their hands on each other, lingering touches and gentle strokes writing out all the proof they’ll ever need of the love they have for each other.