Chapter Text
Steve and Apollo were both giggling as they tumbled down the steps of the entrance to the ice hockey field. They were both mildly drunk, on the tail end of a hang out session with their friends. Apollo couldn’t help but lean into Steve’s thick winter coat. They tumbled onto the benches.
Steve looked at Apollo through his fringe, smiling a crooked smile that never failed to knock Apollo slightly off-kilter. “You sure you’re up for this?”
Apollo cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, do I think I’m up for this? You’re in for the surprise of your life, rookie.”
The rink was technically not open, but Steve said he’d gone here with his friends past opening time before and he’d never gotten in trouble for it. Slightly questionable but so were many of the things Steve did, and Apollo was just tipsy enough that it seemed more fun than stupid. Consequences were a thing of the day-time and the night-time sky seemed to invite them to fill its call for opportunity.
He finishes tying up his skates and penguin-waddles to the ice. Steve powerwalks after him.
He takes a wobbly step onto the ice, hesitant because he doesn’t want to end up on his ass within the first five minutes on the ice. Steve zooms out and does a couple twirls around him. “Come on, ‘Pollo, what’re you waiting for? You got shaky feet?”
Apollo barks a laugh. “No, man, I’m just warming up. Just you wait, I’ll steal your thunder and then we’ll see who’s laughing.” He most definitely would not be stealing Steve’s thunder, seeing how he’s twirling and prancing like he was born on the ice. But Apollo wasn’t going down without a fight. And a little trash talk, for fun.
He doesn’t really know how he ended up making this bet with Steve, that he’d beat him in a skating race, without even knowing if he was good or not. Apollo himself had skated a decent amount as a kid, playing ice hockey with his brother or just fucking around on his own. He figured he’d have decent chances despite not having skated much in the last couple years. He hadn’t factored in the fact that Steve had apparently figure skated semi-competitively as a teenager. Which he only revealed after the bet was made, of course.
Steve reached the other end of the field before Apollo even got halfway, but he skated all the way to join him and indulgently let him shower him in teasing jabs.
They ended up on their backs in the middle of the field, cold seeping into their necks under their warm woollen hats, talking until the sun started seeping past the horizon, tendrils of red and yellow creeping across the sky and chasing away the constellations.
Having Steve as a roommate was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, Apollo got to live with his best friend. He got to talk to him whenever he wanted, he got to eat breakfast with him, got to do crosswords with him while they were still in their pyjamas, as they were eating slightly blackened scrambled egg courtesy of Steve’s shockingly abysmal cooking skills and pancakes by Apollo (one of like three things he could successfully cook). He got to have shitty horror movie marathons with him, smoke with him on the balcony and have existential late-night conversations, got to see the look in his eye when some game came out he was excited about. They could do their homework together and bitch about professors that didn’t know what they were talking about or the ones that did but were horrible still because they had a strange vendetta against the students and were on a bit of a power trip.
On the other hand, living with Steve could be pretty damn hard. When they went for a walk together and the snowflakes rested on his face for seconds before melting away and Apollo’s eyes got drawn to the redness of his cheeks and lips in the cold, the way his hair looked as fluffy as the fresh snow next to the paths. When he saw Steve curled up with a blanket in front of the TV, looking like an adorable shrimp, and all he wanted to do was join him and curl up behind him. When Steve brought him his coffee in the morning in his favorite mug with Zelda on it, all he wanted to do was ask him if he could please bring him his coffee every morning forever.
Living with Steve was hard because Apollo had a massive crush on him the size of the moon and had to do everything in his power to not just ask him out. Because he was pretty sure Steve was straight.
But it was okay, it was okay because it had to be. Sometimes Apollo thought he was a bit of a masochist for being so close to Steve when he knew he could never be as close as he wanted. But he couldn’t imagine not seeing him every day, shaping his days around Steve’s, perfectly interlacing.
In the early spring holidays, their friends had planned to spend a week in the mountains, in a little cabin Hafu’s parents owned and said they could use. Apollo was excited because it was their first time going on vacation as a group.
Come February, they all packed into two cars, Hafu driving her sleek black sports car with 5up, Dk and Janet in it, and Ellum driving his grey subaru with Steve, Apollo, Kimi and Koji. Steve ended up having sit halfway on Apollo’s lap, squished together as they were. Apollo was viscerally aware of the area where Steve’s thigh was touching his, the warmth seeping into his bones. Steve tried to get everyone to play I spy and various other car games, but mostly what they could see was a lot of woods and road, so they played a couple rounds before moving on. He was also animatedly talking about what they would do once they reached the cabin, that he was going to fuck them up in a snowball fight, that he would make them some sick hot chocolate, and also wasn’t it wild that Hafu’s parents just had a whole other house in addition to their regular one?
“What’re you most excited for, Apollo?” he asked, turning his head, bright-eyed. Because of their proximity his face was now only a couple inches from Apollo’s, but Steve’d always had a bit of an issue with personal space. It wasn’t that Apollo minded, per se, apart from how it made his heart beat out of his chest. He could see every one of Steve’s freckles individually dotted across his face.
“Um.. I think the sauna will be real nice after a cold day in the snow,” he said, throwing out the first thing he could think of. What I’m mostly looking forward to, he thought, is spending time with you. And then mentally had a little freakout at how sappy that was. I am not in love with my best friend, he thought, as though that would make it true.
“Oh my god, yeah,” said Steve. “A sauna in the house, that shit is so boujiee. I can’t believe this. Are we sure Hafu isn’t secretly the offspring of a pair of oil barons?”
Kimi laughed. “She probably is. I can’t believe she hasn’t been paying for all of our drinks whenever we go out. That is sooo not fetch.”
Steve sighs dramatically. “What’s the point in having a heiress as a friend if she’s not gonna be your sugar mommy about every little thing.” He pauses. “You know what, I take that back. I don’t want the words Hafu and mommy to ever be in the same sentence again.”
“You didn’t even use them in the same sentence,” Apollo says automatically.
“Shut the fuck up, Apollo,” says Steve. He shifts to look out of the window. “God, it’s so beautiful out here. Nature is fucked up, dude. Look how fucking big those mountains are.”
Apollo follows his line of sight. The mountains are, indeed, big. It’s true. They’re high up enough at this point that the trees are becoming sparser and shorter, and the landscape is mostly white snow, interspersed by dark black cliffsides that cut through the blankness in geometric precision. Apollo does admittedly spend a very large portion of his life inside, and seeing things like this makes him wish he got out a little more.
They arrive late at night, after a little fiasco where Ellum’s car almost didn’t make it up a final corner because his tires started skidding on the snow. The whole thing woke up Steve, who’d been napping on Apollo’s shoulder, and Apollo can’t help but enjoy his head resting on his collarbone, his hair tickling Apollo’s neck. There’s also something about Steve when he’s sleeping, eyelashes fanned against his cheek, that makes Apollo feel fiercely protective.
But they do make it, and they pile in, sorting themselves into their respective rooms after Hafu gives them the general tour, which does indeed include a sauna, as well as a nice big living room with a fireplace and a guitar and a spacious kitchen with a beautiful solid wooden table. It’s all so delightfully quaint and old-fashioned, Apollo kind of feels like he stepped into a picturebook. He lugs his suitcase up the stairs, breathing heavily because of the thin mountain air (and no other fitness-related reason). He’s rooming with Steve, which people just kind of took as a given when the discussion was happening because they’re roommates anyway. Apollo can’t say he minds; this way he has a room he can come to just switch off without needing to socialize. Him and Steve can tell when the other needs space and when they’re down to chat and have a silly time and that relaxes him because he knows if he empties his social battery, he can recharge in peace. Also, he can’t stand messy people in his space, and he’s not gonna name names, but he’s glad he’s not rooming with 5up or Dk.
Steve does end up making them hot chocolate, using actual chocolate, milk and some spices, shockingly not burning or over- or undercooking it or any of the other ways he frequently destroys perfectly viable foods. Apollo sniffs at it suspiciously.
“Don’t sniff at it, man! I can’t believe you don’t trust my cooking.”
“You did basically poison us with that chicken that one time,” says Dk gamely.
“That was like sooo long ago,” says Steve rolling his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re still on about that. And no one even, like, died.”
“Steve, it was two months ago,” says Hafu, laughing.
“I swear I spoke to God when I was shitting my guts out on the toilet that night,” says Kimi.
“Jesus, guys, alright, I get it. Well, I promise this hot chocolate is perfectly safe. See?” he takes a long gulp and promptly spits it out onto the countertop. “Fuck, fuck, hot, fuck, ow, can someone give me some cold water, shit.”
Apollo bursts out laughing. He blows on his mug and patiently waits for it to cool down. When he does taste it, it is admittedly quite delicious, and he does inform Steve of the fact. Everyone else chimes in one by one, and for that night, Steve’s cooking reputation is restored.
They end up eating a quick plate of spaghetti cooked by Apollo - nothing fancy because it’s getting quite late, and then they head to bed.