Work Text:
New beginnings usually sucked. Sometimes, though, it was very important for Hannah to take that thought and push it as deep inside her mind as she could, because, as her therapist always said, there’s absolutely nothing in the world that we could be one hundred percent sure about. Now, if she tried to be more specific about what she was trying to say, she would probably start by mentioning one tiny detail about the way her life was right now.
The first time they talked about it, the topic came up in a very unexpected, but actually self-explanatory way. Like sometimes you try to learn how to play a specific tune, and it seems like you’ve almost got it figured out, but suddenly one string just breaks and then you realize that your guitar fucking sucks.
Moving on from metaphors, it all started when Tucker tried to cook something he wasn’t familiar with. Some kind of casserole dish or whatever it was that usually required a whole Top Chef team to get it right. But Tucker decided to cook it all by himself and almost burned the hockey house down. Right after the fire alarm rang, the only thing they needed to do was to find a fire extinguisher, the one that Dean actually stole one day for a firefighter role play with some girl he hooked up with a year ago.
The girl, just like the fire extinguisher, has vanished from his memory long ago. As Dean said in his own defense, they all had so much faith in Tucker that it didn’t ever occur to him to actually return the extinguisher. That poor thing had probably suffered a lot while laying under his bed, until one day Dean decided to throw it away (he still couldn’t get a comprehensive answer to the question of why the fuck would he throw away something like that).
So, Tucker was burning the house down, Dean was trying his best to do something about it without doing anything. Logan wasn’t even here in the first place, because he had just left for some repair hustle in the neighborhood. Joke’s on him, though.
Garrett could be the most responsible one to call the security company, as he was the one paying for their system installed in the house. They got them a whole package of things to save the house from a literal apocalypse. But it was a needed measure. A month or two ago, somewhere between Dean’s ‘upstanding member of society’ spiel on hookups and his devastating Allie-yearning era, a puck bunny tried to get inside Dean’s room through his window, but she got mixed up in the process and almost ended up getting beat up by Garrett’s hockey stick when he saw a woman climbing inside his window.
Such a loyal man, that one. Hannah would always remember the sheer look of horror in his eyes when he told her about that.
So Tucker was burning the house down, Dean was being as unhelpful as he could about it, Logan wasn’t even here, and Garrett was actually here, but didn’t notice a damn thing about anything because he decided to take a nap and lured Hannah in with cuddles and forehead kisses.
Hannah actually was the first one to wake up due to the putrid smell of melting plastic and something else. Then the overall vibe of the situation caught up to her.
“Garret, wake up,” she said, pushing his shoulder. She climbed out of the bed and opened the door. She shrieked and ran back to the bed, hitting Garrett on the back. “Graham! Oh my God!”
“Hey, what the fuck?” he lifted his head and tried to wake up as much as he could. “What would you do that for?”
“Downstairs!”
Garrett sat up and saw the smoke clouds crawling slowly through the door frame. He sprinted out of the bedroom and called for the rest of the guys.
“Tuck, the hell is happening down there?”
“I really don’t have the time right now, G, I need you to come down and help me get some fucking help!”
Hannah ran down the stairs with him and saw nothing but pure panic in Tucker’s eyes, as well as Dean’s guilty face while he was running from the kitchen to get the black mass of something outside. Garrett sprinted to the fridge, opened the freezer and yanked the whole ice tray out.
“Go away, Tuck!”
Never underestimate a guy-only dorm with enough ice to make the whole block’s drinks chill. As soon as the frozen pieces of water touched the surface of the stove, smoke started to turn into steam. Garrett filled the container with cold tap water and poured all over the top to stop the little flames crawling up the counter top.
For a second, everything went still. The only two sounds in the room were the hissing from me melting ice meeting the ruins of the stove and the guys’ heavy breathing. Tucker put his elbows on the kitchen island and hid his face in his hands.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Garrett said, looking at the stove. “What the actual fuck happened, Tuck?”
Dean went back inside. He glanced at Tucker’s mortified face and sighed.
“It’s all on me, G. Tuck burned something in the oven and I lost the fire extinguisher”.
Garrett put the empty container on the kitchen island. Hannah still stood speechless and tried to fathom at least one coherent thought.
“I’m so sorry, G. I didn’t even know the whole thing would burn so much”. Tucker looked so guilty and scared that Hannah couldn’t even look at him without wanting to hug him and tell him it’s okay.
The four of them stood in the kitchen and looked at each other.
“Why didn’t the alarm trigger that fucking sprinkles?” Garrett frowned and looked up.
“Maybe the smoke wasn’t dense enough..?” Dean suggested, looking there as well. Garrett let out a very frustrated sigh.
“Open all the doors and go outside. Windows, too”. He came up to Hannah and took her hand. “You okay, Wellsy?”
She looked around and settled her gaze on him. After the initial shock passed, she noticed how worried he was.
“Yeah, of course. Let’s go sit outside. Go get Tucker, I’ll open the windows in your bedroom”.
Garrett put an arm around Tucker’s shoulder and nodded to Dean. They all went outside. Hannah went up the stairs and entered Garrett’s bedroom. There wasn’t as much smoke as there was in the kitchen, but the smell was horrible and it was spoiling the aroma sticks she once brought here as a joke that Garrett started to actually use.
She smiled lightly at the thought and went back down.
Outside, the four of them sat on the front porch. Dean was in the front talking to Tucker quietly, Tucker was looking like he was about to cry. Hannah put her head on Garrett’s shoulder and sighed when he started stroking her hair.
“You still okay?” he asked. She nodded and put her hand on his thigh.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s not an everyday experience, but at least everyone’s alive”.
She looked up at Garrett. He looked like he wanted to give Dean an earful about the fire extinguisher, but opted for giving him a slap on the back of his head.
“You’re going to buy a new fire extinguisher and put it in the kitchen, and I’ll make Tuck or Logan take a fucking picture of it every day until it expires and you have to buy a new one”.
Well, these things usually last longer than the guys are going to spend in this house, but Dean still nodded solemnly and put his hand over his heart.
“On my life, Cap”.
They hired the tires of Logan’s truck on the pavement.
“Holy shit, what happened?” he asked worryingly, running up to the house.
Tucker shook his head and looked around.
“From now on, the only things I cook are instant noodles and frozen meals”.
Dean shook his head at him. He leaned down and started to tell Tucker something Hannah couldn’t hear, but she was certain it was good, because then Tucker nodded at Dean and hugged him.
Garrett kissed her on the side of her head and started to stand up.
“Shall we go for a stroll while we wait for the house to smell good again?”
She stood up with him and looked around.
“You sure they’re going to be okay here?” she asked. She didn’t like the thought of leaving Tucker alone with his guilt, no matter how hard Dean tried to console him.
“We’ll be alright, Wells, sorry you had to witness all of this shit,” Dean comforted her.
Hannah and Garrett went down the porch and headed to the main road. Garrett was quiet and pensive, and for a while Hannah let him walk silently, holding his hand.
As soon as they started to enter the campus territory, she looked around. It was a while since she got to just go around this place without the need to go to a class or a piano session or a studying date with her friends. Well, not only her friends, but Garretts’s as well.
Speaking of which, Garrett was still silent beside her. She stopped walking and took his second hand. He looked at her and raised his eyebrows.
“Wellsy?”
“Graham. A fifteen-minute walk without your genius word flow is making me sad”.
He chuckled and rolled his eyes.
“Now, one might think you actually like me if you can’t even walk without hearing my voice”.
She pushed at his shoulder lightly with their joined hands. He took both of her palms in one and put in on his chest, hugging her with his free arm.
“I don’t know, maybe I do like you. Just a tiny little bit though.”
“Wow. I can’t even believe you would say that, H. Whatever I can do to make myself more likeable for you?”
Hannah shrugged.
“You can start by telling me what got you so quiet in the first place”.
Garrett lifted his head up and smiled. He brought his eyes back to her face.
“Actually, I keep having this thought, but I don’t know if it’s stupid or not”.
“Don’t knock it till you try it, hm?” she smiled at him.
Hannah absolutely adored when Garrett became self-conscious about something she was sure was related to her. In comparison to the first impressions she got of him when they met, it was like someone went in and switched the uni’s hockey legend into a shy puddle of tiny compliments and awkward pick-up lines that Garrett once proudly called his ‘puck-up lines’.
“No, actually though, are you okay? It all happened so fast, even I didn’t have the time to process”.
Garrett nodded at her.
“No, yeah, I’m okay. And you’re also okay, which makes me even more okay”. He let go of her and put his hands in the pockets of his sweats. “I was just thinking about talking to you about this thing, but then we fell asleep and then the house almost burned down”.
She looked at him, worrying her lower lip with her teeth.
“Is it, like, a good thing or a bad thing?”
Garrett glanced at her and started examining his shoes. Then he shook whatever the thing that was making him so nervous and smiled at Hannah, opening his mouth.
“I think it’s a good thing. Do you remember when was the last time that we got to spend time together? Like, actually spend time together. I’m not even talking about sex, cause, like, we can do it at night and…” he trailed off. Hannah knew he always did that when he started his nervous rant. It was actually kind of hot of him.
“I don’t really know what you’re trying to tell me yet, but yeah, to answer your question, I don’t really remember that either. It’s either Allie or the guys nearby. Or all of them. Or all of the campus”. Hannah tried her best to guess whatever he was trying to say without actually pressuring him to say that.
Garrett took a deep breath and looked at her. She could never get enough of that face expression he got when he just looked at her. All open and vulnerable but still the strongest she ever saw him. Like she could actually read his thoughts and examine his soul through his eyes.
“Do you think… Wouldn’t it be cool if we actually lived together?” he finally asked. “I mean, we kind of do already, but sometimes I really wish we could spend some time with each other without it being planned separately so that no one could bother us”.
She stroked his face with her right hand, not saying anything yet. Just to let him relax a bit and help him get through his thoughts. She scratched his head lightly.
“Well, I’ve yet to think about it in a grand-gesture-of-love kind of way, but yeah. Of course I have these thoughts. Especially when the guys wake us up regularly. Now we can also add a potential house fire to the list”.
Garrett smiled wide and exhaled. He shook his head.
“Fuck, I love you so much, Wells. You’re like my favorite person ever”.
She kissed his cheek gently.
“It’s a nice thing for you to say, Graham, cause I’m pretty fond of you too.” She took his hand to resume their walking. “Let’s go to the park. We can sit there and talk”.
He shook his head once again and squeezed his hand.
“I might actually have an idea, but I really need you to tell me you’re okay with that”.
“Of course, go ahead”.
“So, I was talking to Allie once at some party, and she told me that there’s a girl in your dorm that wants to give up her room since her neighbor moved back to her parents and she didn’t want to stay there alone. I guess she just wanted to share gossip, but I got curious”.
Hannah looked at him, surprised. Garrett continued to talk.
“I know we haven’t talked about it that much, and I wouldn’t pressure you in any way to make that decision, but like, wouldn’t it just be nice to have something we could share and call our own place? Home, no? I really love the routine we have now, but sometimes I just need to get back from practice and know that you’re the only person I see around me. And I remember you telling about that time Allie was watching some series and crying non-stop for several days…” he trailed off. “I found out that the dorm is actually ace. It’s the same two-bedroom that you have with a common area, and it’s two floors up, which means we don’t need to carry your things around much. And, like, if we do it, you know I would want it to be as easy on us as it could. The guys could help me move my things there.”
Garrett looked at Hannah, not quite nervous already, having said the most important part. Just calmly waiting for her to get her head around it.
Could she imagine her life like that? Of course. She sometimes found herself daydreaming, too, about what it would be like to actually have some kind of routine saved for just the two of them. Movie nights, dinners at home, hell, a place they could both call their home and not get mixed up in trying to understand which one’s house is their home for today. She spent five days out of seven in the Hockey House, and started to get used to the rowdiness of it, but the mere thought about having a place where it could be quiet made her heart squeeze. And, of course, there was sex. Sometimes it was just hard to concentrate when she knew that someone could start banging on Garrett’s door to try to get him to play a video game.
So yeah, maybe she didn’t realize it to its fullest, but somehow having her own home with Garrett Graham became a quiet dream she slowly developed.
Garrett didn’t try to push her to speak, which she was always grateful about. He just stood there and waited for her, squeezing her hand in his.
“Do you think we can take your bed there? The dorm’s beds are shit, and you posh hockey people get the best furniture. I would miss your bed,” she said finally. She knew Garrett didn’t need to actually hear her affirmative answer to understand what she meant.
And he really didn’t. He laughed out loud and hugged her once more, that kind of bone-crushing huh that made her bones melt.
“I mean, fuck it, if they don’t let me take it politely, I’ll have Logan pick it apart so we could smuggle during the night”.
Hannah grinned at him.
“Then yes, I think I’m in”. The overall giddiness that filled her was something she was yet to get used to. That all-encompassing joy and adoration for another person just because he looked or talked to her in his own kind of way that grounded her and proved here she was right where she was supposed to be. And she knew it was like that for him too.
He wiggled his eyebrows and leaned down to whisper in her ear.
“You sure about that? I think of myself as a good neighbor, but sometimes I might get too loud,” he said. “My girlfriend is a feisty one, sometimes we just can’t stop going at it until one of us cries.”
Hannah rolled her eyes.
“You’re actually in luck, Graham, because my boyfriend is the one who usually ends up crying during sex. I’d say you’ll get on well”.
He took his phone out of his pocket, looking at the time.
“For real, though,” he started. “Would you really do it with me? I know we haven’t really talked about it that much, but it wouldn’t hurt to look at that dorm. If it really is the place we need, we’ll just feel it. Besides, I kind of got the girl’s number from Jules already. She told me we can come whenever”.
Hannah was afraid she would combust from the image of Garrett approaching this girl, meanwhile being all hopeful (and trustful, let’s give him that) that Hannah wouldn’t get angry about something like that. She knew they needed to talk a lot of the things through in order to get it right, but she really trusted them to make it all right. They’ve done so many times already, what’s there to be afraid about?
She kissed him gently on the lips and then on the cheek. Garrett didn’t blush easily, but he sure got all mushy and delighted when she did that.
“I think it would be great. Really. And thank you for thinking about it all. But wouldn’t you miss the Hockey House? Dorms are nice and all, but do you really want to switch your place to something with potentially loud neighbors and their drinking marathons that usually end up with people scattered blacked-out all over the hall?”
Garrett went pensive for a second.
“Yeah, pretty sure I’ll handle that. Besides, the Hockey House is just as noisy as your dorm, it’s just that Dean stopped hooking up all over the place, which, honestly, thank God there’re no more condoms blocking our shower”. He turned his head and looked around. “The only thing I would really miss about the Hockey House are the get-togethers we have, but there’s really no reason for us to stop coming over, yeah? And just imagine how fun it would be to actually host something. We can make a room for ourselves, keep the second one as a guest bedroom and turn the common area into something for both of us. I’ve been dying to buy more barbels for myself, really, but Dean keeps fucking stealing them.”
Hannah nodded at him, unable to say anything coherent about this. She just fell hard into daydreaming about this being their life in the future. Waking up together (they already do it now, but some day she would also like to maybe walk around their space half or totally naked), deciding on a take out or cooking something shitty only to end up in a cafe later, watching movies on a big screen, playing her music while Garrett did his gym sets nearby. Not having to label every item she had to put in the guys’ bathroom just so that Dean wouldn’t use her mouth wash as a cleanser. He learned it the hard way.
Hundreds of images ran behind her mind like a movie she was yet to see but somehow knew she’d love it. This feeling kept appearing every time Garrett did, well, literally anything, from complaining about her being a blanket hog to telling her about one time she was playing guitar in his room and he searched for soundproofing panels to make her a tiny studio to pull her all-nighters in.
He was thoughtful from the very beginning, always going great lengths to make her feel comfortable, seen and appreciated, even when they were bickering all the time. He was the first one to suggest bringing some of her clothes over and sometimes let her steal his hoodies, never even wondering where they went. One time she caught a cold and he came over despite her saying to keep away from her, just to sit beside her bed on the floor, watching movies and bringing her new tissues to blow her nose in.
She was never the one for princess treatment type of behavior her other friends wished for, but she sure as hell felt like one. She even brought it up once. Garrett snorted and rolled his eyes.
“You are as far from a princess as I am from a prince, Wells. You literally didn’t let me hang a new poster for you. If anything, I sometimes feel like I’m the one being pampered and princess-treated”.
So yes. Whatever it was that Garrett would always think, or tell, or propose to her, she was one hundred percent sure it was something he mulled over for some days before telling her.
She looked in his eyes and got lost for a second. They were always especially beautiful when it was sunny. Like the warmest color of hazel with a drop of green around his pupils.
“You are the loveliest person I know, Graham,” she grinned at him. “If you want to, we can go and try to have a look at the room right now”.
He lifted her in his arms and kissed her, deeply, lovingly, putting everything he needed her to know in the gesture. And she really understood everything.
“I love you so fucking much, and we’re going to live together.” He put her down and started leading them to the dorms building, never letting go of her hand. She was glad to be pulled along.
“I love you too, my dearest,” she knew he loved it when she called him that. “Let’s go see if we can put a mirror above the bed.”
Garrett took a deep breath, laughed out loud and started to type a message to a person that was soon to pass her living space to them so that they could make it their own home.