ryan whitney/taylor hall future curtain not!fic
who is the big spoon/little spoon?
Despite the fact that Ryan's still got at least fifteen pounds and a few inches on Taylor, on the mornings when they wake up together, Ryan often wakes up in increments, only to find Taylor wrapped around him with his heavy sleep-octopus limbs.
"--the fuck?" Ryan mumbles, more out of habit than anything these days, and doesn't even make an attempt to move, because it's comfortable and warm and familiar.
"Shut up," Taylor tells him sleepily, and then presses his face further into the crook of Ryan's neck.
--
what is their favorite non-sexual activity?
Their absolute favourite non-sexual activities are arguing and fighting. Even if Taylor's comebacks are pretty much as lame as ever, Ryan can appreciate his willingness to never give up trying to give as good as he gets.
--
who uses all the hot water in the morning?
Ryan most definitely uses all the hot water every morning. Why does he use all the hot water in the morning? Because FUCK YOU, HALLSY, that's why.
--
what they order from take out?
More often than not, ordering take out used to result in epic battles about their preferred noodle houses, but ever since that time a couple weeks ago when Ryan came back from an annual physical with the news that he had slightly high blood pressure, suddenly they're ordering salads and plain noodle dishes from Earl's and from that vegetarian place, and Ryan kind of hates his life a little bit, but Taylor insists that it's The Right Thing To Do.
(Seriously, fuck Taylor: Ryan's totally going to kick him out one of these days for cooking bland foods and making Ryan order things that are significantly less awesome than he's used to. Maybe. Probably not though - that might make Frank a little sad. Also: blow jobs. And Ryan could totally order delicious, diabetes-inducing foodstuffs while Taylor's away on road trips, so there's that. But then he just pictures how disappointed Taylor would look if he knew and orders something dumb and healthy instead.
Fuck Ryan's life right in the face.)
--
what is the most trivial thing they fight over?
Since arguing and fighting are their favourite pasttimes anyway, there isn't much they haven't fought over: they argue over grocery shopping and who gets the remote control and hockey facts and stats and how they should split up their time between Massachusetts and Ontario and Alberta in the summer. It's almost like this thing, whatever it is that they never actually named, is rooted into their constant trivial arguments: Ryan snipes at Taylor, Taylor chirps back at Ryan, but when they're both in Edmonton, they go to bed together at the end of the night, and it works out well.
And then, when Taylor starts sneaking bran into Ryan's cereal, and switching cream for half and half in pasta sauce, and buying skim instead of two percent, of course they argue over that too:
"We're getting a divorce," Ryan announces grimly.
"We're not married," Taylor replies sweetly and slides a bottle of Centrum across the table at Ryan.
Ryan just glares in response - "I should be so lucky to be the one to die first," he mutters.
But then Taylor gets all quiet and takes Frank out for a walk instead, leaving Ryan alone in the kitchen and blinking in confusion because he's totally made cheerful jokes about murdering Taylor, or murder/suicide scenarios in the past and Taylor had always laughed and razzed him right back. Luckily, when he comes back from the walk, whatever seems to have been bothering Taylor has mostly been alleviated because they lapse back into easy patterns, and for the most part, Ryan forgets that this discussion even happened, until halfway through the season when Taylor fucks up his hip and decides that he's going to wait until the end of the season to get it fixed.
"It's fine," Taylor insists calmly, and somehow, that just makes Ryan angrier and before he knows it, they're fighting about it and it spirals quickly out of control, and Taylor leaves on a week-long roadtrip without saying goodbye, doesn't text or call. As the days pass, Ryan's anger dissolves when it occurs to him that they're suddenly fighting about things that matter and all of a sudden, it's less fun and actually downright scary - that Taylor worries about him; that he worries about Taylor.
So when the Oilers finally return after splitting the four games, Taylor comes back late on a Tuesday night, limps into bed and tentatively brushes his fingers against Ryan's shoulder:
"Hey," he says, tired and nervous.
Against his better judgement, Ryan rolls over and pulls Taylor toward him, threading a hand through his hair, and almost instantly feels Taylor relax against him.
"Hi," Ryan says quietly in a way that he'll deny ever having said in the sober light of morning, trying to say everything he wants to without actually ever having to say any of it out loud. "Welcome home."
--
who does most of the cleaning?
For the most part, they hire someone to come over and vacuum and wipe down their place every couple weeks, but it's not even like they're all that gross: Ryan's a high-functioning adult who can clean after himself. On top of that, Ryan really enjoys how, when Taylor gets into a cleaning and cooking kind of zone, he's got most of the makings of a cinematic 1950's housewife.
("Fuck off and make your own dinner in your dirty clothes," Taylor snaps at him. Ryan hopes that's an empty threat: Taylor makes a surprisingly good parmesan chicken and Ryan's almost out of clean socks and doesn't want to wash them himself on principle.)
--
what has a season pass in their DVR?
They've got all the hockey stuff of course: games, That's Hockey, all the Sportscentre specials - you name it, they have it. They also have all the classics on Comedy Gold queued up - the fact that Fresh Prince and 30 Rock and HIMYM are now all retro now make both of them feel ridiculously old. Sometimes, they sit there and complain about how kids today just don't have the same quality program as the good old days.
--
who controls the netflix queue?
The conversation about who gets to control Netflix goes a little something like this:
"Me," says Ryan, grabbing for the controller.
"What?" Taylor blinks. "Fuck you! Why you?"
"Because you have terrible taste," Ryan informs him and queues up an Adventure Time marathon.
--
who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working?
Since Ryan's usually the one at home anyway and more likely to have the grave misfortune to be stuck in Edmonton winters with no heat (he keeps threatening to move back East, down South maybe, but Taylor, that bastard, usually just laughs at him and pats him on the shoulder like he's fucking humouring Ryan), he's usually the one who calls the repair people. However, he's absolutely not going to go down without a fight, so it's definitely not without a running internal monologue about how fucking useless Taylor is and how terrible Albertan winters are, and the vague desire to move back to Florida when the temperatures dip to forty below.
But that would probably mean that he's prematurely aging and it's not like he's that old, no matter what Taylor says, so Ryan supposes he'll stick around for a while longer, just to prove him wrong.
--
who steals the blankets?
Ryan doesn't care how much ridiculous money the Oilers are paying Taylor these days, how many goals he scored last season, how many All-Star appearances he's had: despite it all, at the end of the day, Taylor Fucking Hall is a fucking Blanket Stealer. It doesn't matter what time of year it is, or who goes to sleep first: inevitably, every morning, Ryan wakes up with Taylor's sleep-heavy limbs wrapped around him and all the blankets on the other side of the bed where they had not been just hours before.
On the mornings when the Oilers are still on the road, Ryan's blankets always stay tucked carefully around himself just the way he likes it, and yet more often than not he finds himself waking up at five a.m. on these mornings in a bed that feels too big and empty and strange, and has to haul himself downstairs to the couch where he naps with Frank until it's time to get up to go to work.
--
who leaves their stuff around?
There was this year in his life when Ryan had lost his goddamned mind and actually agreed to move in with Taylor and Ebs, which was really stupid because living with the idiot twins meant that he was constantly ganged up on, two against one on most decisions - and often three against one when Lauren was around - and while neither of them was too disgusting, for all the chirping that the two of them kept doing about how was messier, both of them left things lying around and would forget about it. Ryan remembers being particularly disgusted with Taylor using the dishwasher to keep clean dishes and Ebs not talking him out of it: Ryan distinctly remembers being thisclose to punching one or both of them in the faces for that one, because number one: unsanitary and number two: what the fuck.
Now, almost a decade later, both of them are pretty much better about all of this - Ebs now spends a lot of time cleaning up after his kids, and Taylor stacks the clean dishes in the cupboards. Sometimes, Ryan leaves stuff lying around just to see what Taylor will do.
(Mostly, he just picks it up, drops it into a pile beside where Ryan's sitting and demands a handjob.
Ryan can roll with that.)
--
who remembers to buy the milk?
Here's the thing: it's not like either of them ever forget to buy the milk - both of them are keenly aware of the fact that they are most definitely out of milk, but who inevitably ends up buying the milk always comes down to who cracks first. Ryan has a longer attention span and also more years of practiced trolling gifted to him by his two younger brothers and usually wins, because Taylor will go to the store for dog food and forget that he was waiting for Ryan to buy the milk. Then he sees Ryan, remembers that he wasn't going to buy the milk, and writes TAYLOR'S MILK on the carton in a messy Sharpie scrawl, shoving it into the back of the fridge with a scowl.
(Ryan's other favourite pasttime is taking the TAYLOR'S MILK carton out of the fridge and drinking directly from the carton in Taylor's line of vision. Mostly, it just makes Taylor laugh: Ryan suspects this is because Taylor thinks he's tricked Ryan into drinking skim milk without complaint. Let him think what he wants - it still means that Ryan wins and didn't have to go buy the milk.)
--
who remembers anniversaries?
Taylor's absolutely terrible at remembering dates that aren't hockey related: for example, he remembers the date of Ryan's last game and the night of Ryan's five hundredth game, but he can't remember birthdays and he certainly won't remember anniversaries, especially for things that are just kind of a thing, you know? And that's fine by Ryan, it really is, but he likes Taylor's mom and feels kind of bad that her only kid keeps forgetting her birthday, so he just steals Taylor's phone and programs in all the information: it's not like it's hard to hack into his phone either, Ryan gets in on the third try (his password is the last four digits of Ebs' cell phone number. Of course it is) and proceeds to program in important dates like birthdays, and just for shits and giggles, a few random non-watershed moments from their stupid time together, and sets obnoxious reminders and pop-ups to make sure Taylor never-again forgets things like his parents' anniversary or Ebs and Lauren's oldest kid's birthday.
Ryan realizes he's created a monster when he gets a call from his own mother ecstatically thanking him for the birthday bouquet "from us," and cooing about how thoughtful and sweet Ryan's boyfriend is, and then another five minute commentary on how she knew he was going to find a good one and settle down and why don't they come visit more often and how about they all Skype tonight so she can thank them properly and on and on it goes.
That evening, Ryan yells at Taylor for a solid thirty minutes. Taylor just smirks.
("My mom likes you more than she likes me," Ryan mutters tragically from where he's lying with his head in Taylor's lap, tired out from his tirade.
Taylor pets Ryan's hair sympathetically: "That's probably true.")
On the seventh anniversary of Ryan losing his goddamned mind and taking a red-eye up to Edmonton from Ohio (programmed as a joke into Taylor's phone as "stupid bullshit day - i hate you"), he gets a text that says "Happy whatever. Still dunno why you were in edm though" followed by a collection of weird emoticons (jesus, he's a thirty-two year old man and still types like a fifteen year old girl), and it suddenly strikes Ryan that he's happy, so fucking happy, and Ryan would never admit it out loud, but he can't imagine wanting anything else.
Despite the fact that Ryan's still got at least fifteen pounds and a few inches on Taylor, on the mornings when they wake up together, Ryan often wakes up in increments, only to find Taylor wrapped around him with his heavy sleep-octopus limbs.
"--the fuck?" Ryan mumbles, more out of habit than anything these days, and doesn't even make an attempt to move, because it's comfortable and warm and familiar.
"Shut up," Taylor tells him sleepily, and then presses his face further into the crook of Ryan's neck.
--
what is their favorite non-sexual activity?
Their absolute favourite non-sexual activities are arguing and fighting. Even if Taylor's comebacks are pretty much as lame as ever, Ryan can appreciate his willingness to never give up trying to give as good as he gets.
--
who uses all the hot water in the morning?
Ryan most definitely uses all the hot water every morning. Why does he use all the hot water in the morning? Because FUCK YOU, HALLSY, that's why.
--
what they order from take out?
More often than not, ordering take out used to result in epic battles about their preferred noodle houses, but ever since that time a couple weeks ago when Ryan came back from an annual physical with the news that he had slightly high blood pressure, suddenly they're ordering salads and plain noodle dishes from Earl's and from that vegetarian place, and Ryan kind of hates his life a little bit, but Taylor insists that it's The Right Thing To Do.
(Seriously, fuck Taylor: Ryan's totally going to kick him out one of these days for cooking bland foods and making Ryan order things that are significantly less awesome than he's used to. Maybe. Probably not though - that might make Frank a little sad. Also: blow jobs. And Ryan could totally order delicious, diabetes-inducing foodstuffs while Taylor's away on road trips, so there's that. But then he just pictures how disappointed Taylor would look if he knew and orders something dumb and healthy instead.
Fuck Ryan's life right in the face.)
--
what is the most trivial thing they fight over?
Since arguing and fighting are their favourite pasttimes anyway, there isn't much they haven't fought over: they argue over grocery shopping and who gets the remote control and hockey facts and stats and how they should split up their time between Massachusetts and Ontario and Alberta in the summer. It's almost like this thing, whatever it is that they never actually named, is rooted into their constant trivial arguments: Ryan snipes at Taylor, Taylor chirps back at Ryan, but when they're both in Edmonton, they go to bed together at the end of the night, and it works out well.
And then, when Taylor starts sneaking bran into Ryan's cereal, and switching cream for half and half in pasta sauce, and buying skim instead of two percent, of course they argue over that too:
"We're getting a divorce," Ryan announces grimly.
"We're not married," Taylor replies sweetly and slides a bottle of Centrum across the table at Ryan.
Ryan just glares in response - "I should be so lucky to be the one to die first," he mutters.
But then Taylor gets all quiet and takes Frank out for a walk instead, leaving Ryan alone in the kitchen and blinking in confusion because he's totally made cheerful jokes about murdering Taylor, or murder/suicide scenarios in the past and Taylor had always laughed and razzed him right back. Luckily, when he comes back from the walk, whatever seems to have been bothering Taylor has mostly been alleviated because they lapse back into easy patterns, and for the most part, Ryan forgets that this discussion even happened, until halfway through the season when Taylor fucks up his hip and decides that he's going to wait until the end of the season to get it fixed.
"It's fine," Taylor insists calmly, and somehow, that just makes Ryan angrier and before he knows it, they're fighting about it and it spirals quickly out of control, and Taylor leaves on a week-long roadtrip without saying goodbye, doesn't text or call. As the days pass, Ryan's anger dissolves when it occurs to him that they're suddenly fighting about things that matter and all of a sudden, it's less fun and actually downright scary - that Taylor worries about him; that he worries about Taylor.
So when the Oilers finally return after splitting the four games, Taylor comes back late on a Tuesday night, limps into bed and tentatively brushes his fingers against Ryan's shoulder:
"Hey," he says, tired and nervous.
Against his better judgement, Ryan rolls over and pulls Taylor toward him, threading a hand through his hair, and almost instantly feels Taylor relax against him.
"Hi," Ryan says quietly in a way that he'll deny ever having said in the sober light of morning, trying to say everything he wants to without actually ever having to say any of it out loud. "Welcome home."
--
who does most of the cleaning?
For the most part, they hire someone to come over and vacuum and wipe down their place every couple weeks, but it's not even like they're all that gross: Ryan's a high-functioning adult who can clean after himself. On top of that, Ryan really enjoys how, when Taylor gets into a cleaning and cooking kind of zone, he's got most of the makings of a cinematic 1950's housewife.
("Fuck off and make your own dinner in your dirty clothes," Taylor snaps at him. Ryan hopes that's an empty threat: Taylor makes a surprisingly good parmesan chicken and Ryan's almost out of clean socks and doesn't want to wash them himself on principle.)
--
what has a season pass in their DVR?
They've got all the hockey stuff of course: games, That's Hockey, all the Sportscentre specials - you name it, they have it. They also have all the classics on Comedy Gold queued up - the fact that Fresh Prince and 30 Rock and HIMYM are now all retro now make both of them feel ridiculously old. Sometimes, they sit there and complain about how kids today just don't have the same quality program as the good old days.
--
who controls the netflix queue?
The conversation about who gets to control Netflix goes a little something like this:
"Me," says Ryan, grabbing for the controller.
"What?" Taylor blinks. "Fuck you! Why you?"
"Because you have terrible taste," Ryan informs him and queues up an Adventure Time marathon.
--
who calls up the super/landlord when the heat’s not working?
Since Ryan's usually the one at home anyway and more likely to have the grave misfortune to be stuck in Edmonton winters with no heat (he keeps threatening to move back East, down South maybe, but Taylor, that bastard, usually just laughs at him and pats him on the shoulder like he's fucking humouring Ryan), he's usually the one who calls the repair people. However, he's absolutely not going to go down without a fight, so it's definitely not without a running internal monologue about how fucking useless Taylor is and how terrible Albertan winters are, and the vague desire to move back to Florida when the temperatures dip to forty below.
But that would probably mean that he's prematurely aging and it's not like he's that old, no matter what Taylor says, so Ryan supposes he'll stick around for a while longer, just to prove him wrong.
--
who steals the blankets?
Ryan doesn't care how much ridiculous money the Oilers are paying Taylor these days, how many goals he scored last season, how many All-Star appearances he's had: despite it all, at the end of the day, Taylor Fucking Hall is a fucking Blanket Stealer. It doesn't matter what time of year it is, or who goes to sleep first: inevitably, every morning, Ryan wakes up with Taylor's sleep-heavy limbs wrapped around him and all the blankets on the other side of the bed where they had not been just hours before.
On the mornings when the Oilers are still on the road, Ryan's blankets always stay tucked carefully around himself just the way he likes it, and yet more often than not he finds himself waking up at five a.m. on these mornings in a bed that feels too big and empty and strange, and has to haul himself downstairs to the couch where he naps with Frank until it's time to get up to go to work.
--
who leaves their stuff around?
There was this year in his life when Ryan had lost his goddamned mind and actually agreed to move in with Taylor and Ebs, which was really stupid because living with the idiot twins meant that he was constantly ganged up on, two against one on most decisions - and often three against one when Lauren was around - and while neither of them was too disgusting, for all the chirping that the two of them kept doing about how was messier, both of them left things lying around and would forget about it. Ryan remembers being particularly disgusted with Taylor using the dishwasher to keep clean dishes and Ebs not talking him out of it: Ryan distinctly remembers being thisclose to punching one or both of them in the faces for that one, because number one: unsanitary and number two: what the fuck.
Now, almost a decade later, both of them are pretty much better about all of this - Ebs now spends a lot of time cleaning up after his kids, and Taylor stacks the clean dishes in the cupboards. Sometimes, Ryan leaves stuff lying around just to see what Taylor will do.
(Mostly, he just picks it up, drops it into a pile beside where Ryan's sitting and demands a handjob.
Ryan can roll with that.)
--
who remembers to buy the milk?
Here's the thing: it's not like either of them ever forget to buy the milk - both of them are keenly aware of the fact that they are most definitely out of milk, but who inevitably ends up buying the milk always comes down to who cracks first. Ryan has a longer attention span and also more years of practiced trolling gifted to him by his two younger brothers and usually wins, because Taylor will go to the store for dog food and forget that he was waiting for Ryan to buy the milk. Then he sees Ryan, remembers that he wasn't going to buy the milk, and writes TAYLOR'S MILK on the carton in a messy Sharpie scrawl, shoving it into the back of the fridge with a scowl.
(Ryan's other favourite pasttime is taking the TAYLOR'S MILK carton out of the fridge and drinking directly from the carton in Taylor's line of vision. Mostly, it just makes Taylor laugh: Ryan suspects this is because Taylor thinks he's tricked Ryan into drinking skim milk without complaint. Let him think what he wants - it still means that Ryan wins and didn't have to go buy the milk.)
--
who remembers anniversaries?
Taylor's absolutely terrible at remembering dates that aren't hockey related: for example, he remembers the date of Ryan's last game and the night of Ryan's five hundredth game, but he can't remember birthdays and he certainly won't remember anniversaries, especially for things that are just kind of a thing, you know? And that's fine by Ryan, it really is, but he likes Taylor's mom and feels kind of bad that her only kid keeps forgetting her birthday, so he just steals Taylor's phone and programs in all the information: it's not like it's hard to hack into his phone either, Ryan gets in on the third try (his password is the last four digits of Ebs' cell phone number. Of course it is) and proceeds to program in important dates like birthdays, and just for shits and giggles, a few random non-watershed moments from their stupid time together, and sets obnoxious reminders and pop-ups to make sure Taylor never-again forgets things like his parents' anniversary or Ebs and Lauren's oldest kid's birthday.
Ryan realizes he's created a monster when he gets a call from his own mother ecstatically thanking him for the birthday bouquet "from us," and cooing about how thoughtful and sweet Ryan's boyfriend is, and then another five minute commentary on how she knew he was going to find a good one and settle down and why don't they come visit more often and how about they all Skype tonight so she can thank them properly and on and on it goes.
That evening, Ryan yells at Taylor for a solid thirty minutes. Taylor just smirks.
("My mom likes you more than she likes me," Ryan mutters tragically from where he's lying with his head in Taylor's lap, tired out from his tirade.
Taylor pets Ryan's hair sympathetically: "That's probably true.")
On the seventh anniversary of Ryan losing his goddamned mind and taking a red-eye up to Edmonton from Ohio (programmed as a joke into Taylor's phone as "stupid bullshit day - i hate you"), he gets a text that says "Happy whatever. Still dunno why you were in edm though" followed by a collection of weird emoticons (jesus, he's a thirty-two year old man and still types like a fifteen year old girl), and it suddenly strikes Ryan that he's happy, so fucking happy, and Ryan would never admit it out loud, but he can't imagine wanting anything else.