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The first time Ben sees Jake he knows he’s totally going to be fucked.He wishes he meant that in the nice way, the “Jake’s dick in my ass” way, but he doesn’t think their dicks are going anywhere near each other. No, he means the “ice cream and rom-coms and sad phone calls to my mom” way.The problem is that there’s nothing he can really do to keep from growing feelings. They’re rookies in the same season, so PR keeps throwing them together. But even if that wasn’t the case, they’d still probably have gravitated towards each other; having someone around who’s going through exactly the same thing as you are is a lot better than the alternative.So that first season together, Ben treats as a test. If he can get through all the upheaval, the media and the pace of play and all the rest, without letting his feelings slip? Well, then he can be confident that he never will.--(For that reason alone, he’s almost glad Jake doesn’t stick in his sophomore season. Almost.)--As his third season starts, therefore, Ben is feeling pretty confident about the whole feelings thing, because even though he likes Jake a whole lot more than he’d even expected to, he can mostly shove down the ones that aren’t exactly platonic. At least, he can when they’re together, and sometimes when he’s alone, too, and that’s about as much as he feels like he can reasonably shoot for, anyway. He barely even gets jealous now when Jake sends him snaps of, like, his flavour of the day or whatever.Jake is basically his best friend, is what Ben’s saying, and he can pretend he doesn’t care if Jake fucks other people and not him.But then Ben walks into training camp and stops in his tracks, because Jake got buff, oh god.He stands there screaming internally, because fuck fuck fuck it was way easier to ignore his feelings before this, until Jake spots him and wanders over, shit. When he gets closer, all the ways his shirt is clinging to him now become obvious, and fuck, it looks like he put on fifteen pounds of muscle at least, shit fucking damn. Ben looks up and realises Jake just asked him a question. Fuck, why the fuck is this happening? “Um, what?” he asks, because he’s a fucking idiot, apparently.“How was your summer?” Jake asks, probably for the second time. At least, Ben hopes it’s the second time and not, like, the fifth.“Oh. Uh, it was good. You probably know pretty much everything I did, you saw my snaps and stuff,” he says. “You look like yours was pretty great too.” Oh god, why did he say that?“It was,” Jake says, smiling.It hits Ben right in the heart. “That’s good,” he says, a little strangled.Jake just smiles some more. “Want to hang out later? I didn’t really have time for video games this summer, maybe you can finally beat me at something.”“Ha, sounds good,” says Ben, because apparently, he hates himself.--Actually, Ben’s not a bad gamer most of the time, but being near Jake means he has to put a lot of brainpower towards things like “not being blatantly obvious about the whole feelings thing” and “not vomiting everywhere, figuratively or literally,” and that’s not to mention the way Jake’s presence is kind of a huge, muscular distraction.He’s pretty sure this has gotten harder.He’s staring at the TV, trying to focus, but out of the corner of his eye he can still see Jake shooting him weird looks.“I must be more out of practice than you are,” Ben says.“Maybe we should just watch a movie,” offers Jake.They watch a movie. Afterwards, Ben’s not really sure what happened in it or even which movie it was, honestly, because Jake had sat next to him, popcorn between them, one arm over the back of the couch, behind Ben’s shoulders. Their hands had touched in the popcorn bowl once or twice, and Ben had felt like a fucking teenager again every time his stupid heart leapt.--Ben’s been better, and he knows he can continue to be better, so to watch his icetime dropping, game after game, is depressing as hell. The worst part is that Jake is right there with him at the bottom of the barrel, giving them too much in common yet again.He doesn’t think he could blame his feelings, though, even if he wanted to. He’s been playing through them for his entire career, after all, and anyway right now they’re a welcome distraction from how much he sucks. Possibly a little too welcome, for the good of his mental state, but he can’t really help himself.Ben starts hanging out with Jake more and more often, until Horvy and Boes start complaining that they feel left out. After that, he invites them along sometimes, but it’s still getting to the point where the majority of the time he’s awake is spent with Jake. Then Boes goes to the All-Star Game and Horvy goes home for the weekend and Ben ends up crashing at Jake’s that Friday night.In the morning he wakes up first, and he’s just standing in the kitchen trying to figure out if anything in the fridge is actually edible when Jake shuffles in with an audible yawn. Ben doesn’t look at him, because he needs more than a few seconds to steel himself for the sight of a disheveled, sleepy, probably ridiculously attractive Jake. But Jake comes up behind him, and maybe they don’t really have personal space anymore, but he wraps his arms around Ben’s waist and nuzzles at his ear and that’s a bit much.His brain is screaming What the fuck? so loudly that he can’t even think. Ben spins to face Jake and gets a split-second eyeful of him, his hair flopping every which way, before his mouth is on Ben’s.He’s still screaming internally but there are no more words in it and nothing he can do but tangle his fingers in Jake’s ungelled hair and kiss him back. They make out right there, Ben leaning on the counter behind him, until Jake’s hands stop roaming all over his chest and start teasing their way down his stomach, until Ben has to stop kissing him and say, “Wait.”“Oh, sorry,” Jake says, and he looks kinda sad and pouty, but Ben’s pretty sure what he has to say will cheer him right back up.“No, I just think we should, like, bedroom? Or at least the couch.”Jake seems more relieved than anything else, but at least he’s smiling again as he leads Ben to his room, and he keeps smiling until Ben takes his shirt off. After that, he’s biting his lip, and Ben’s pretty sure it’s supposed to be in the sexy way, but it could also be in the nervous way, so he asks, “Do you want me to put it back on?”Okay, he could probably have been cooler, actually, but Jake just laughs. “No way,” he says, and takes off his own shirt. He really did get buff over the summer, and Ben’s both glad and sorry he gets to appreciate it properly now: glad, because Jake is fucking hot; sorry, because this is going to make it a lot harder for him to look away in the locker room.But he shoves that thought down into the space where he usually keeps wanting Jake, since there’s a lot of room there just at the moment, and goes back to - well, wanting Jake. He’s watching Ben like he’s waiting for something but doesn’t want to ask for it. The only thing Ben can think of is to take off his pants.He drops them to the floor, steps out of them. Jake is staring at Ben’s dick, biting his lip again. “Do you want-?” Ben starts, also again, because he’s not a very creative asshole even when he’s not staring at Jake.“No,” Jake almost shouts. Blushing, he sheds his pants like he’s in a hurry, kicking them into the corner. Ben’s seen his dick before, but never like this, hard and flushed, tip already smeary with precome. There are kind of too many options here, to be honest, so he pulls Jake in to kiss him again, accidentally trapping their dicks between them.The light friction as he backs Jake towards the wall is enough to put him on edge. When they get there, Ben props himself against it with one hand, wrapping the other around both their dicks, jerking them off together. He almost wants to look down and see it, because he can’t quite believe this is really happening, but Jake is kissing him and he definitely doesn’t want that to stop. He breaks the kiss when he comes, though, panting and feeling weirdly strung out, and he’d be embarrassed about how quick he was except that Jake opens his eyes, says, “Oh, fuck,” and comes right then.“You know,” Ben says, when he gets his breath back, “I guess we could have done that in the kitchen after all.”Jake laughs, weakly.They spend the rest of the weekend in bed.--Ben’s not really sure where they stand after that, but there are games to play and practices in between, so he doesn’t worry too much about it when Jake doesn’t say anything.It’s almost two weeks later when Nilsy comes into the room looking like a happy puppy, and Marky instantly starts chirping him. In Swedish. Hank and Dank join in pretty quickly, and Eds after that, and it goes on until Suttsy asks, “Will someone please explain what’s happening?”“I’m Hetero of the Year!” Nilsy says, gesturing to his masks.“Heter- oh,” Stech says, catching on a fraction too late.Everyone applauds Nilsy then, and Guddy starts a chant of, “Speech!”Nilsy laughs, and says, “I’m just happy that something so small for me to do has made a lot of people feel a little bit safer and happier.”Ben hasn’t really thought about it before, but it’s nice that they’ll all accept him without any issues, if he ever gets over Jake and finds an actual boyfriend. Thinking of Jake makes Ben look for him. Jake is staring at him. His face twists when he sees Ben looking, and he walks out of the room.Ben follows. He’s pretty sure Jake doesn’t want him to, but he’s also pretty sure he needs to.He finds him sitting in a corner near where they hang out pregame. Jake looks up at Ben’s footsteps. He’s not crying, but his eyes are red and wet, and Ben feels awful.“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” Ben says. “Are you-” “No, I’m sorry,” says Jake. “It wasn’t fair of me to sleep with you, not when I feel-” He stops.Ben isn’t sure how Jake means that, exactly, but he knows how he hopes it was meant, so he sits down next to Jake, shoulder to shoulder, backs against the wall. “I’m pretty glad we did, to be honest,” he says, “because I’m pretty into you, and I figured that was better than nothing.”“You’re… what?” Jake sounds like he doesn’t get it, doesn’t believe what he does get.Ben takes his hand. “Jake,” he says, “babe,” and Jake grips his hand tighter, “if I could rearrange the alphabet, I’d put u and i together.”When the team comes to find them, Jake is sitting on his lap, and they’re maybe sort of kissing. Actually, Ben’s not exactly sure how long the guys were watching before someone - probably Bouch - wolf-whistles.But Ben looks at them all, Nilsy wearing his “proud papa” smile, Horvy and Boes elbowing each other and grinning, and everyone else looks amused, mostly. So Ben smiles at them, and waves, and goes right back to kissing Jake.