then we do it again

The plane lands in LA in mid-afternoon. It’s all bright sun outside the tiny airplane windows as the other passengers lift their shades, leaving Mike squinting and wishing he hadn’t put his sunglasses in the overhead compartment. It was drizzling in Winnipeg when Mike had boarded, gloomy and gray.

He checks his phone. There’s a text from Jeff there asking him how his flight went, as carefully polite as all their communication has been up until now.. Mike texts him back to say that it was fine.

He scratches at his forearm, where Jeff’s name has come back in, in the same blocky capital letters that they did at fourteen: JEFF CARTER. For the longest time, it was an assurance, a reminder that Jeff would always have his back, and now it feels like a ball and chain, a tether to a life that Mike no longer has.

It had been a relief when the name faded during that first long winter in Kenora, a vicious sort of satisfaction that Jeff was out of his life for good, a sign that Mike couldn’t-- wouldn’t be able to rely on him. But now, two years later, the name is back, as bright and as vivid as it was when it first came in.

Everyone knows that soulmate names can fade -- the most common reasons are death and divorce. They aren’t supposed to come back.

The plane finally taxis to the gate and parks, allowing Mike to stand up and shake the flight out from his legs. He grabs his things and waits in line to exit the plane. He texts Kopi to let him know that he’s back in town for a little while, because while Mike’s been close with plenty of the guys on the roster right now, Kopi’s the one who he trusts the most out of the guys who are left. (Jeff’s different. He’s always been different.)

Everything about LAX is familiar. These are the shitty seats that they’ve all fallen asleep on more than once. These are the windows and skylights that are letting in the omnipresent California sun. This is the electronics store that sells overpriced earbuds.

Jeff’s not picking him up from the airport, since he’s busy with some media thing today. Mike doesn’t mind grabbing a rental, though. The last thing he wants is to have to rely on Jeff to get around the city.

He pulls onto the One towards Hermosa Beach, pulls the cap lower over his eyes, as much of a barrier against the bright sunlight he can get. The traffic is shit, the way it always is, but there’s comfort in that, too. And besides, Mike’s not in any sort of rush. All that’s going to be waiting for him is an empty house.

Jeff’s house looks the same as it did the last time Mike was here, same paint, same windows, same roof. Mike parks in the driveway and lets himself in with the key he never bothered to return. Inside, a few rooms have been redecorated, but the layout is familiar. He dumps his bags in a guest room. Jeff’s dogs, alerted by the sounds or the smells of a new human, wander into the room as well. Mike scratches Miley’s (or is it Mack’s?) head until they get bored, and then he heads outside.

Hermosa Beach is all white sand and blue-green waves. Tiny swimsuits and tanned skin. Mike always forgets how LA is entirely populated by disgustingly attractive people. It had taken Jeff all of a month to fit in here, while Mike had counted down the days before he could go home to Kenora. Just more proof that whoever was responsible for matching up soulmates was terrible at their job. Is still terrible at their job.

He walks the distance towards Manhattan Beach, and the memories are bitter in his mouth. Here’s the place on the pier where Arnold ran off after a seagull and Mike had to chase him for half a mile. Here’s the ice cream stand where Jeff bought Mike an ice cream cone and then chirped Mike for picking a boring flavor like vanilla, even though the stand only had boring flavors to pick from. Here’s the bushes that Stollsy vomited into after their first post-Cup beach party. Here’s the spot where Mike had tackled Jeff into the sand and then kissed him, laughing into his mouth as Jeff had tangled his fingers in Mike’s hair.

If he keeps going, Mike might even see the house they used to live in, the one they moved out of when Jeff wanted a bigger place with more bedrooms -- for billeting rookies or, you know, children. When they got to that point.

Mike’s phone buzzes with a new text message. Jeff is done with his media stuff, which means he’s heading back to his house. Mike isn’t sure he wants to be, but he should be back at there when Jeff gets home. This is the first time they’ll talk face-to-face in almost a year. He turns around and starts walking.

---

He gets back to the house in time to hear Jeff’s car pull into the garage. Mike ends up in the kitchen, staring at the refrigerator, which is still decorated with a mishmash of Kings and Flyers magnets, game schedules, take-out menus, pictures of Jeff’s dogs. Mike doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

“Hey,” Jeff says as he walks into the kitchen. His eyes go straight towards Mike’s forearm. That’s what Mike’s here for, after all, so that they can figure out why they’re soulmates again.

Mike resists the urge to tuck his arm behind his back. “Hey,” he says.

The silence that stretches out after that is tense and awkward. Their breakup hadn’t been loud. In fact, it was driven almost entirely by silences. Missed calls and ignored texts. Their physical distance feeding into their emotional one. Until one day, Mike woke up, took his morning shower, and noticed that the name was gone. He assumed something like that happened to Jeff, too. He never bothered to ask.

“Uh, do you want anything to eat?” Jeff asks. He’s in a Kings t-shirt and gym shorts. Mike can see the letters MIC curling around Jeff’s shin.

“I ate on the plane,” Mike says.

Jeff makes a face at him, because they’ve spoken to each other at length about how much they hate airplane food, but Mike also doesn’t want to be subjected to Jeff’s carefully polite manners. All Jeff says is, “Sure.”

Mike grits his teeth. “If you’re making something, I’ll eat some as well,” he says.

“Okay,” Jeff says.

Jeff reheats some leftovers instead of making anything new, and he doesn’t insist on eating at the dining room table, the way Mike’s parents still do. The meal is stiff and awkward and silent. The only sounds are of metal utensils on ceramic plates, Bo waddling through the kitchen to the water bowl so that he can sip at it. It’s fine. Both Mike and Jeff can handle not-talking to each other, which probably explains everything about their relationship, up to and including this moment.

Afterwards, while Mike is helping to load the dishwasher, Mike says, “So, I’m here now.”

“Yeah,” Jeff says. “Thanks for flying out.” He’s mumbling the way he does when the conversation is so awful he thinks if he makes himself incomprehensible, he can get out of having it. Mike’s pulled that trick a few times as well, so he’s pretty familiar with it.

“We haven’t figured jack shit out about why the names are back,” Mike continues. They’ve had some of this conversation already over the phone.

Jeff glares at Mike and says, “I’ve been busy all day. I don’t know anything either.” He’s halfway into a full-blown sulk, and at this rate, they’re going to spend the rest of Mike’s trip ignoring each other entirely.

“What were you doing when it came back?” Mike asks, huffing out an annoyed breath. “I was cooking dinner.” He had been thinking about the next day’s weather, about how the expected drizzle might affect fishing conditions. While he was chopping vegetables, he noticed that the letters had come back in like they weren’t ever gone in the first place, and he stared at the name for a full minute to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. At the time, he hadn’t thought about Jeff in weeks.

Jeff shrugs. “I didn’t notice until I was getting ready to go to bed. I think I went for a swim or something that day, but that’s about it.”

Mike runs a hand through his hair. “So, nothing?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Jeff says.

“Jesus, it was just a question.”

“Whatever,” Jeff says. “I’m going to my room.” Which was just defeating the purpose of this entire trip, but Jeff in a sulk was still going to be Jeff in a sulk. He stands up and heads out of the kitchen, Mack-or-Miley trailing after him.

Mike shuts the dishwasher door a little more aggressively than necessary and starts it up. He can hear Jeff moving about in the floor above him. Maybe once it would have been comforting, but now it’s just a low-grade irritation. Fuck Jeff. This was his idea in the first place.

---

Mike knew Jeff was his soulmate the moment they met each other. Not in one of those rom-com love-at-first-sight things, but because Mike had seen the team roster beforehand, and it didn’t seem likely that the name on his arm would be some other Jeff Carter.

They met in the locker room before their first practice. Mike made a beeline towards Jeff’s stall. “Jeff, right?” Mike had said to the awkward looking, gangly, blond-haired kid who was sitting there. He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt to show Jeff the name written on his skin.

Jeff had blinked at him a few times. “Oh,” he said. “You’re Richards, then?” He pulled up the the cuff of his sweatpants, so that they could both see where Mike’s name had been etched in a spiral around his calf: MICHAEL RICHARDS.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “That’s me. Lucky you.” He smirked, and Jeff had snorted before smirking back, and Mike had maybe fallen in love with him a little right there.

“I was a little worried it was the Seinfeld guy,” Jeff said.

“I get that a lot,” Mike said, and they both laughed so hard that everyone else in the locker room gave them funny looks.

---

In the morning, most of Mike’s irritation has melted away. The house is quiet, peaceful. There’s some sun peeking through the blinds Mike lowered last night. He feels settled after a good night of sleep. For all that Mike’s mom warned him to never go to bed angry, it always seemed to work for them. Mike’s anger burns bright but fast, and Jeff is always mellower in the mornings. More than one fight between them had been resolved by the time they sheepishly dragged themselves into the kitchen for coffee the next morning, and maybe this one is no different.

The universe decided that Jeff was his soulmate again, and Mike needs to deal with it. He’s had a year to deal with his hockey issues: the pain and frustration of being done before he’s ready, the looks of pity he’ll get from time to time when he meets other hockey players, the stretches of free time where he feels like he should be figuring out something -- anything -- to do with himself.

He’s moved past most of that. What was one more insult to injury to add to the list? Jeff would just have to learn how to deal, too.

The smell of eggs and bacon filters all the way up the stairs. Mike follows it into the kitchen where Jeff is at the stove, making omelets as the bacon sizzles away in another pan. He did always get up way too fucking early -- about half the time, he ended up waking Mike as well -- but it did have some perks, like getting some breakfast out of it. It’s even Mike’s favorite, peppers and onions and spinach folded into the omelet, a glass of orange juice on the table.

“Hey,” Mike says.

“Morning,” Jeff says, looking up. “Look, sorry about yesterday. I just--” He half-shrugs.

“Media shit,” Mike finishes. Jeff has gotten better about dealing with the demands of media obligations and talking to reporters over the years, but it can still put him on edge and make him testier than usual.

“Yeah,” Jeff says. He pauses. “I’m glad you agreed to visit.”

“Missed me that bad, eh?” Mike asks, putting just enough into his voice that Jeff knows he’s not being mean about it.

“Fuck off,” Jeff says back. His voice has none of the bite it does when he’s actually angry.

“So…” Mike starts.

Jeff sighs. “I’ve just got practice this morning, and then I should be free this afternoon.”

“Okay,” Mike says.

Jeff smiles at that, wide enough to show a little bit of teeth. Even with the gap in front where he got high-sticked during the 2013 playoffs, he smiles the same way he did at sixteen. Mike feels his traitorous heart flip over in his chest. He doesn’t do anything about it, though. There isn’t anything to do.

---

Jeff comes back home after Mike’s eaten lunch -- ordered from his favorite local Tex-Mex place, because he doesn’t have a diet plan to follow anymore and can eat whatever the fuck he wants. He’s keeping in shape, because there’s a comfort to the routine, to the feel of his body getting strong, staying strong. But he doesn’t have to be obsessive about it (not that he was ever particularly was). He’s not going to have any trainers lecturing him at weigh in afterwards if he doesn’t get enough protein.

“Hey,” Mike says as Jeff walks into the living room. Jeff’s hair is a little damp from his usual post-practice shower. His eyes are a little sleepy, the way he gets when he wants a nap.

“Kopi asked about you during practice,” Jeff says. “Mentioned that he might stop by tomorrow.”

Mike knows this because Kopi texted him about it a couple of hours ago. “Yeah,” he says. “It would be good to see him.”

“You find anything out?” Jeff asks

Mike shrugs. “Did a little bit of googling.” Most of the information was useless, just stuff about how to handle the legalities of removing a soulmate from all your legal documents even if the name hasn’t faded. And parenting advice about how to talk to children about disappearing names. Mike might just be using the wrong keywords. It’s not like he’s trying very hard.

“So, nothing then,” Jeff says, eyebrows raised.

“Go take your nap,” Mike says.

Jeff snickers at that, in kind of a mean way, but it’s also nice, hearing that from him again. “Don’t leave your dirty shit in the sink,” he says over his shoulder as he heads towards his room.

---

Jeff is in a sunnier mood after his nap, wandering down the stairs while rubbing the sleep from his eyes. It reminds Mike of their rookie apartment, lazy afternoons sacked out on the living room couch with the low murmur of the TV in the background, drifting in and out of sleep.

Mike’s been a little restless but not restless enough to go anywhere. He spent the time that Jeff was conked out exploring the house. Seeing which bathrooms are in use and which ones are not. The corner of the giant walk-in closet where Jeff shoved all of Mike’s left behind things: clothes, books, fishing equipment. The ridiculous bunkbeds, which look as though they’ve been used recently -- probably drunken teammates and not rookies.

But now he’s back in the kitchen, raiding Jeff’s fridge for leftovers. “Hey,” Mike says. He shuts the refrigerator door and scratches at his arm, where the name is. It doesn’t itch or anything, but he can’t seem to stop himself from worrying at it. Jeff’s eyes zero in on the spot.

“After mine faded, one of the reporters asked me why your name was gone,” Jeff says. It had never been a secret, that they were soulmates. It was even on Mike’s scouting report, listed right underneath his brothers and cousins and above every team he’d ever played on. They were chirped about it every which way, on the ice, off the ice. Everyone thought that knowing this one thing meant that they were entitled to know everything else about their relationship, no matter how much Jeff cursed them out about it.

“What did you say?” Mike asks. He wasn’t reading any hockey press at the time, much less Jeff’s hockey press. When the Caps played the Kings, people wanted to ask him about what it was like, playing against his old team. No one asked him what it was like playing his former soulmate, and Mike was grateful for that bit of kindness.

Jeff shrugs. “That I didn’t want to talk about you.”

Mike snorts. “You never want to talk about me.” There’d been tons of questions about them being soulmates. They were hardly the first pair to enter the NHL and they definitely weren’t the only ones playing -- not even the only ones playing together. But after the fiftieth time Mike was asked about how he felt about not scoring, he realized that they asked because they wanted a cute soundbite about their relationship. He never quite figured out how to give it to them. Jeff was even worse at it.

“It worked, I guess. No one asked about it when it came back in,” Jeff says.

What reason would they have, when Mike wasn’t even playing anymore? His legal situation was cleared up. He’d given the Caps a shot and didn’t get resigned. No more juicy drama to mine out of Jeff’s changed (or not-changed?) status with Mike being a non-entity in the hockey world.

There’s a long pause, a lull in the conversation.

“I didn’t believe it at first when I saw that it came in,” Mike says, “but then I was pissed.” He glances up for a moment to meet Jeff’s stare, but he can’t hold it for too long before he has to look away. “I just-- I was done. And then it was you all over again.”

“I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it either.” Jeff says. He tries to play it off as teasing, but he can’t quite hide the bitterness lurking underneath.

Mike bristles a bit at that. “Maybe I should have just stayed at home. We could have ignored it until it went away again.”

That makes Jeff’s face twist up so suddenly it takes Mike by surprise. “No, fuck-- that’s not what I meant.” He sighs. “This was easier the first time.”

“We were idiot teenagers the first time,” Mike reminds him.

“Were you seeing anyone?” Jeff asks. “When it came back in?” This time he’s the one who looks away, like he doesn’t want to see Mike as Mike answers.

“No,” Mike says. There’d been a few flings here and there, but Mike never did figure out how dating worked, and besides, most people who were available were waiting until they found their own soulmates or harboring bitterness over the fact that their soulmates didn’t work out. Mike was firmly in the latter category. “But I wasn’t exactly sitting around waiting for you.”

“I wasn’t either,” Jeff says. Mike’s stomach twists uncomfortably at that, even though it’s stupid and hypocritical. But he hates the idea that Jeff had hockey and gets to keep hockey and also had time to fuck his way across LA while Mike was trying to get his shit together in Kenora.

“Right,” Mike says. “I’m going to go call my parents.” He wants out of this conversation ASAP, and it’s not like talking to his dad about what sort of fishing he’s done today is any sort of hardship.

Jeff doesn’t try to stop him.

---

When Jeff got traded to Columbus and Mike was traded to LA, they talked every day. Phone calls, Skype calls, text messages.

“It’s just weird,” Jeff said, still deep in an ugly sulk over his broken foot. “I used to be able to see you every day.”

“We’ll have the summer,” Mike promised, but he also felt the bone-deep ache of Jeff not being there. He knew how Jeff got when he was injured, especially with foot injuries, and he wanted to do his usual things -- to doodle his name on Jeff’s cast in a way that matched the name on Jeff’s leg, to elbow Jeff in the middle of the night and tell him to stop being a baby, to drive him to doctor’s appointments and make sure he was being fed and record whatever stupid TV shows he was watching on the DVR.

Jeff grimaced, his face a little blurry over the Skype connection. All Mike wanted to do was run his hands through Jeff’s hair and make him sit outside in the sunshine until he smiled again. “Summer’s a long ways away,” Jeff said.

“Think of it this way: once we retire, it’ll be the rest of our lives,” Mike said. It was easy to believe that, then. That they’d been chosen for each other, and there was no reason to question it.

Jeff didn’t smile at that, but his frown softened, and his eyes grew fond, and Mike loved him so fucking much. “Yeah,” Jeff said, and it was like he carried the whole universe in one simple word.

---

“I’d almost forgotten that you did that when you didn’t want to talk about something,” Jeff says after Mike’s done with his phone call. He’s out on the back porch, sitting at his quiet little picnic table, in the shade cast by an umbrella. Mike’s outside past the sliding glass door, not sure about venturing further.

“Fuck you, too,” Mike says.

But Jeff just stares out towards the ocean, “I just-- I wanted to say that after I was done being pissed about the name being back, I was relieved it was you.”

That does take Mike by surprise, because he’s had a lot of feelings about seeing Jeff’s name all over again, but relief had never been one of them. “Really?”

“I was glad it was still you. I missed you.” Jeff says things like this sometimes, and he doesn’t say it any differently than he says anything else, but they always fuck Mike up, because Jeff doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean. Not away from the cameras, anyway.

“Probably shouldn’t have,” Mike mutters. He remembers the first time Jeff had straight up told Mike how he felt, during Flyers dev camp, so exhausted they could barely stand up as they left the rink. Jeff had leaned his forehead against the back of Mike’s neck, had wrapped one arm around Mike’s torso, had mumbled out all sorts of rambling, earnest bullshit that had made Mike’s heart feel soft all over.

“Yeah, well. You’re a fucking asshole,” Jeff says, “but I still missed you.”

“I had enough of my own shit to deal with to miss you,” Mike confesses. His legal shit. His career shit. His family shit. It was a lot of shit.

Jeff breathes out, his throat working. “Yeah, you did.”

The thing that’s on the tip of Mike’s tongue, the thing that Mike wants to say, is that he’s standing maybe two steps away from Jeff, and he misses Jeff more right now, in this moment, than he ever did in Kenora. In Kenora, Mike managed to shape his life so that there wasn’t a Jeff-sized hole in it. LA is a different story, and that’s probably why he’s felt off-balance since the moment he landed. Mike looks over at Jeff, who is not the boy he met at sixteen, half a lifetime ago, the boy that Mike had fallen helplessly in love with. But he is the man who is still, somehow, Mike’s soulmate. Mike clears his throat, gathering his courage. “I miss you now,” he says.

Jeff reaches out. His fingertips brush against Mike’s elbow. Mike feels caught, reeled in by Jeff’s intent. He makes the last two steps. “You don’t have to,” Jeff murmurs. “I’m right here.” His fingers linger at the hem of Mike’s t-shirt, on Mike’s hip.

Mike meets his gaze. He thinks of the last time they were here together. It was probably after Mike was called back up from Manch, as Mike was packing up to drive Arnold back up to Kenora. Mike had been fuming, pissed. Jeff had been trying to give him space. Every time Mike looked at him, a dark, angry bitterness lingered in the pit of his stomach, because Jeff-- Jeff was doing what he was always meant to do, and Mike was the one who was fucking up, who was falling behind.

When Mike looks at Jeff now, he still sees some of that, but the anger has faded. Mike’s not going to play hockey again, not in any sort of professional capacity, and he’s accepted it. Now he has to figure out how he feels about the rest of everything that came with it.

“Hey,” Jeff says. The corner of his mouth twitches upwards, and Mike leans over to kiss it, getting more cheek than mouth. He used to do this all the time, whenever he wanted, just because Jeff was there and Jeff was his. Jeff tugs Mike closer, one hand resting on Mike’s hip.

Mike kisses him properly this time, and Jeff kisses back. Jeff’s mouth is warm, steady, and familiar. Mike can admit to himself that he wants this, that even this tiny bit of Jeff can make him ache.

When he pulls back, he can’t read Jeff’s expression past his sunglasses. “You can sleep in my room,” Jeff says, “if you want.”

Mike licks his lips, chasing a taste that doesn’t linger. “Okay,” Mike says.

Jeff lets out a long, slow breath, like he was afraid of what Mike’s answer would be. He curls his fingers around Mike’s hand. Mike lets him.

---

Dinner falls into old rhythms. Jeff cooks. Mike cleans. Jeff catches Mike up on some of the local happenings. New businesses that have opened up. Old ones that have closed down. The pets their friends have acquired.

It could be any of the other nights they’ve spent together, domestic and easy. Jeff keeps sneaking these small smiles in Mike’s direction, so openly pleased that Mike is here that Mike can’t look away.

After they’re done, Mike half-expects Jeff to go straight to the TV, put on something trashy about the lifestyles of the rich and famous, but Jeff just looks at Mike and tilts his head towards the stairs, an obvious invitation.

Mike nods and follows Jeff into the bedroom. It’s pretty much the same as it’s always been. There’s the alarm clock Jeff bought their second year in Philly and has carted around the country with him ever since. There’s the picture of the two of them that their parents took on draft day, awkward and smiling in their jerseys. There’s the floor-to-ceiling window that Mike once fingered Jeff against, just pressed him against the glass and left dark hickeys on Jeff’s chest until he was a writhing mess with the sun streaming in all around him. It took them half a bottle of Windex to clean off the sweaty smear Jeff left on the window afterwards, but it was definitely worth it.

Jeff looks at Mike now, inspecting Mike’s face. He must approve of whatever he sees there, because he nods, once, before leaning over to kiss Mike. He’s careful about it, almost gentle, like he’s afraid that Mike is going to spook. Mike presses in closer, wraps one hand around the back of Jeff’s neck. They know how to do this. Jeff hunching a little bit to get his lips on Mike’s. Mike using every bit of leverage he has to draw Jeff closer.

He kissed Jeff earlier, but this still feels like an ice bath, a shock to Mike’s system after so long. Jeff makes a soft noise against Mike’s lips, and Mike wants-- He yanks at Jeff’s t-shirt, trying to get it over Jeff’s head. Jeff helps, kind of, and then there’s all this bare skin, tanned and smooth and pulled over thick muscle. Mike bites at the jut of Jeff’s clavicle, digs his fingers into Jeff’s biceps.

“C’mon,” Jeff mumbles against Mike’s hair, tugging at Mike’s shirt. “You, too.”

Mike pulls his own t-shirt over his head and kisses Jeff again, drags his hands along the smooth, broad planes of Jeff’s back, feels Jeff’s bare chest pressed against his own. Jeff leans down, presses his teeth against the place on Mike’s neck that always makes him shiver.

“I wanna--” Jeff says, his voice gone a little strangled, the way it always does when he gets too turned on to be articulate.

“Yeah?” Mike asks, just to be a dick.

Jeff responds by wrestling Mike onto the bed, and Mike could fight him on this -- he’s done it before, to excellent results -- but this time he doesn’t. This time, he just lets Jeff’s weight settle down on top of his own.

Mike drags Jeff’s head up for a kiss as Jeff’s hands skim up Mike’s sides, just light enough to raise goosebumps everywhere he’s touching. Jeff hooks his fingers inside the waistband of Mike’s shorts and boxers, shoves them down Mike’s hips. Mike slides his hands down Jeff’s back, slips his hand into Jeff’s boxers, grabs a handful of Jeff’s ass.

Jeff makes a noise into Mike’s mouth. Mike squeezes again, and Jeff’s hips grind down, the hardness of his cock obvious through the thin layers of cotton. Jeff’s hands settle on Mike’s hips. “I wanna--” Jeff says again. He licks his lips as he looks Mike right in the eye, and Mike knows exactly what Jeff’s saying.

“Yeah,” Mike says. He leans back as Jeff makes his way down Mike’s body, leaving wet kisses on Mike’s neck, Mike’s chest, Mike’s stomach, Mike’s hips.

The first press of Jeff’s lips against Mike’s cock causes Mike to shiver, and Mike can feel Jeff’s smirk against his skin. Mike would curse him out, but then Jeff wraps his lips around the tip, his tongue teasing Mike’s foreskin, and all his words fail him.

Jeff knows exactly how to suck Mike off. When to press forward and when to back off. How much teeth to use. Where to put his hands. It’s been years, and Mike had forgotten what it was like to fuck someone who knows his body half as well as Jeff does.

He comes embarrassingly quickly, his fingers gripping Jeff’s shoulders.

Afterwards, Jeff just grins at him, pressing light kisses to the inside of Mike’s thighs. “As good as you remembered?” Jeff asks, the smug bastard.

“Fuck off,” Mike says. And because he knows Jeff pretty well, too, he manhandles Jeff onto his back, because Jeff likes being pushed around almost as much as he likes pushing Mike around.

He gets Jeff naked and sucks Jeff down without preamble, reacquaints himself with the taste and texture of Jeff’s skin. Jeff makes a sound that’s half-whimper, half-groan. He likes it when Mike takes his time with him, but he always goes a little crazy when Mike just goes for it. So that’s what Mike does: jerking off the base as he relaxes his throat as much as possible. He’s out of practice with this in particular. It took him years to figure it out the first time, and maybe he can relearn it if he and Jeff-- but that thought’s too thorny, too complicated, when all he wants is to make Jeff come his brains out.

Jeff doesn’t seem to have any complaints. He makes these pleased noises every time Mike takes him deep, every time Mike’s tongue curls against the head of his cock. And because Mike’s okay with cheap tactics, he digs one knuckle against Jeff’s perineum, where he’s always been extra sensitive when Jeff gets close.

It does the trick. Jeff comes with a shout loud enough to startle his dogs, flooding Mike’s mouth with the familiar salt-sticky taste of his semen. Mike swallows it down, not letting up with the pressure until Jeff’s done, until the shudders wracking his body switch over into over sensitive twitching.

When Mike pulls back, he licks his lips, gratified to see the way Jeff can’t seem to stop staring at his mouth. Jeff’s smiling, though, a goofy grin on his face. “How was that?” Mike asks.

“Competitive fucker,” Jeff says, but his voice is fond and his smile doesn’t dim one bit.

He’s so fucking happy. It’s the first time in a while that Mike’s been the one who could make Jeff this happy. Mike’s chest hurts from all the things that he can’t quite contain inside it. “Yeah,” Mike says, and he presses another kiss to Jeff’s smiling lips.

---

After the arrest, after Mike was released on bail, Jeff called, because of course he called.

“What the fuck, Mike?” he hissed.

Mike was at his parents’ place, sleeping in his childhood bedroom, because no one wanted to leave him alone for too long. He stared at his shelf full of his mite, squirt, midget hockey trophies, and all he felt was empty. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he said.

“Mike--” Jeff said. “Just-- are you okay?”

It was the stupidest fucking question Jeff could ask, because of course Mike wasn’t okay. Mike was feeling like garbage and everyone was tiptoeing around him, even his brothers. Instead of answering, Mike just sighed out and tried to ignore the way his throat hurt.

Jeff continued on without waiting for Mike’s response. “I can-- I can be there in a day or so,” he said.

“Don’t,” Mike bit out, because he didn’t want Jeff here. He missed Jeff like a limb, like a piece of himself, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to have Jeff around to remind him of-- everything.

“Come on,” Jeff said.

And that wasn’t fair, because-- because Mike loved him, but that didn’t mean Mike could stand to be around him. Jeff’s presence would only make things worse.“Don’t,” Mike said again, and then he hung up.

---

Mike wakes up to the jingle of tags around a collar. One of Jeff’s dogs has wandered by the bedroom door. Mike blinks his eyes open, takes stock of the situation. Jeff is still sleeping, one arm thrown over his eyes. In the night, Mike had rolled onto Jeff’s chest, curled one hand around Jeff’s hip. One of Jeff’s arms had curled around Mike’s back. They slept like that sometimes when they were younger, but only when their beds were so small they barely held the both of them.

He disentangles himself from Jeff’s body and sits up, pulls on some sweats and t-shirt before making his way downstairs. He catches sight of Bo at his water bowl, his black fur a stark contrast to the pale kitchen tile, and it reminds him of Arnold, who’s always thirsty and hungry at the beginning of the day.

The homesickness crashes over him all at once. He wants to look out the windows and see his lake, not the Pacific Ocean. He wants his boat, the familiar sound of birds chirping. He even wants some clouds, a bit of rain. The thought of staying here for a whole season, of being the nice househusband while Jeff goes off and plays hockey for the Kings-- well, Mike would rather have his face bashed in by Zdeno Chara repeatedly than go through that. He and Jeff are soulmates again, but all that means is that the universe has a fucked up sense of humor.

The walls of the house-- Jeff’s house-- feel like they’re closing in, and Mike wants-- he needs to get the fuck out of here. He pulls on a pair of trainers and goes for a run. The morning sun is warm but it isn’t quite scorching yet, and Mike misses the bite in the air back in Kenora, the first sign of summer fading into autumn.

He allows himself to focus on his breathing, on the steady pace of his feet hitting the pavement ground. Running never made Mike feel zen the way it did for other people he knew, but it did tend to even things out after a while, gave his body something to do while his mind was whirring away. He goes out to the very end of Hermosa Pier, and the ocean smells all wrong and it sounds too different, and all he wants is to grab the first flight back to Winnipeg, to get as far away from LA as possible. He scratches at his arm, where the name still is, where the letters are still dark and vivid on his skin.

Even after Mike is done with his run, he stays out, away from the house. It’s not that difficult. He pets a few dogs, runs into a few old neighbors. He knows when Jeff is going to have to leave at some point in order to get to practice on time, and he knows Jeff doesn’t like being late for that sort of thing. Mike can wait him out. He’s done it before.

True to form, the house is quiet when Mike gets back. He checks his phone, only to discover that his older brother had sent him a link to an article about second names, a subset of people who have had new names appear on their bodies after their first one fades. It’s a human interest piece, about the stigma of hiding the fact that they’ve had multiple names from their friends and coworkers and about the support groups they’ve formed around it online.

Most of it isn’t relevant to Mike, but he thinks about it, the idea that your soulmate can be a different person at different times, that maybe people can change and their soulmate can change with them. But Mike isn’t any different and Jeff isn’t any different, and the two of them are right back where they started.

---

Mike braces himself for Jeff’s ire when a car pulls into the driveway. Another sulk, maybe. Or one of Jeff’s few outbursts of emotion, the kind he usually bottles up and lets loose on the ice.

But it’s Kopi who rings the doorbell, who waits for Mike to open the front door.

The first thing Kopi does is pull Mike into a bear hug. “It’s good to see you,” he says. The last time was the Caps at Kings game. Mike had stuck around after with Stick to greet their old teammates, and there was a lot of back-slapping and laughter and cheerful chirping. He and Jeff didn’t look at each other once.

“Yeah,” Mike says, hugging him back. He leads Kopi into the kitchen, offers him something to drink.

“How’s it been?” Kopi asks.

Mike shrugs. “Fine,” he says. “It’s weird being back.”

“Yeah,” Kopi says. He pauses, eyes assessing. Playing the role of captain, responsible for the emotional well-being of his team. Mike remembers what that was like. “Everything cool with Carts? I know you two are trying to work things out.”

Mike bites his lip. “Maybe,” he says, even though the more honest answer is probably ’no.'

“He’s been quiet about it at practice, but he’s always been quiet about it at practice,” he says. “I can tell he’s been working through some shit.”

Jeff can get like that when he has something he can’t let go of, just run himself ragged in near total silence. He only really ever did that when the Philly media was being extra awful or when he and Mike had a giant, ugly fight. Which happened plenty. Mike is under no illusions that he’s easy to deal with, and Jeff is a fucking dickbag when he doesn’t get his way. But even then, it hadn’t mattered how pissed they were, because they always came home to each other at the end of the day.

“We’re--” Mike says. “--it’s still-- we haven’t gotten very far.”

Kopi says, “You don’t have to justify anything to me.” And because he’s kind, he changes the subject. “Getting a chance to enjoy the LA weather, at least?”

Mike shakes his head. “It’s too fucking hot.”

That startles a laugh out of Kopi. “Compared to Canada, everywhere is too fucking hot.”

“True enough,” Mike says.

They end up talking about Kopi’s wife and kid, who is now up and walking around and talking in a bilingual mess of Slovenian and English. She’ll probably pick up some Spanish at some point, too. The topic shifts around to all of the other team kids, and while Kopi is careful not to step on too many land mines, he does slip up at one point and mentions how much Jeff dotes on all of them. Mike can just imagine it, too. Jeff grinning and glowing under the attention. For a good part of their time together, Jeff had only been interested in kids in the abstract sense, as something they would do when they both retired, but once they both landed in LA, it set off some sort of biological clock. More than once, Mike had to physically drag him away from small children and babies.

The conversation turns to fishing next, which is also a safe enough topic. Kopi is casual about fishing at best, willing to go on team trips but not interested in much else, but he makes appreciative noises when Mike talks about the sort of trout and Muskie he’s caught this year.

When there’s a lull in the conversation, Kopi looks at Mike with serious, dark eyes. “I know things ended badly for you here,” he says, “but that’s not a good reason to take that out on Carts.”

“We’re just-- I’m done with hockey, and he’s not. He’s here and he’s staying here, and I can’t--” Mike’s mouth goes heavy and awkward. He can’t find the words for any of it. He still loves Jeff, still wants him, but he’s not sure if he can deal with all of the baggage that comes with that. He remembers those last few weeks on the Kings, the way he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at Jeff without getting angry. That’s not true anymore, but how long until it becomes true again?

Kopi snorts, not unkindly. “Hockey isn’t forever,” he says. “LA doesn’t have to be forever.”

“And soulmates are?” Mike asks. There was a time when he believed it, when he could believe it, but it turns out that the universe is not that simple.

“They can be,” Kopi says, which is a lot coming from someone who is currently happily married to his soulmate -- Ines’ name is written across Kopi’s left shoulder blade. She’s the kind of hockey wife who cooks and cleans and looks after the children and pets while Kopi is on roadtrips. Mike would hate every moment of that sort of life. Any joy would curdle into resentment after the first month.

“Right,” Mike says, and he knows he sounds sarcastic despite his best efforts.

Kopi goes and empties and rinses his cup in the kitchen sink. “He was happy when your name came back in. He was really happy to hear that you were coming. The guys all chirped him about it for days.”

It’s nothing that Jeff hasn’t said himself, but it’s different, hearing it from Kopi’s mouth. It cuts deeper, leaves a more lasting mark. The tiniest flare of hope ignites in Mike’s chest. It leaves a strange taste on Mike’s tongue.

“Thanks,” Mike says.

Kopi smiles. “It’s the least I could do,” he says.

---

The first time Mike kissed Jeff, they were both sixteen and stupid, covered in acne and not quite at their full heights yet. But Jeff smiled when Mike touched his face, and Mike laughed when Jeff accidentally smacked his teeth into Mike’s lips.

“You’re such an asshole,” Jeff had muttered into Mike’s mouth, keeping his face close so that they could keep kissing, like he didn’t want to stop for anything.

“You’re going to love it,” Mike promised, because his name was on Jeff’s leg and Jeff’s name was on Mike’s arm, and that was a promise in and of itself.

At the time, Jeff just snorted and rolled his eyes, but it did-- somehow it still became the truth.

---

Jeff gets home fifteen minutes after Kopi leaves. Maybe they coordinated it. Mike doesn’t ask.

“Hey,” Jeff says. He looks a bit surprised to see Mike still in his kitchen, like he had assumed Mike had packed his bags and bolted as soon as Jeff had left for practice. Not the worst assumption he could have made. Mike had definitely considered it.

“Hey,” Mike says. “I know I freaked out earlier.”

Jeff raises one eyebrow, because he doesn’t bother to say things when a facial expression will do.

“I don’t know how this can work. I don’t know how to make it work,” Mike says.

“But you want it to work?” Jeff asks.

Mike breathes out. “Yes,” he says. He wants Jeff’s stupid laugh and his stupid dogs and his stupid baby fever, and it hurts to think that he might not get to keep them.

The tension melts out of Jeff’s shoulders. He smiles, tentative but warm, and it reminds Mike of after-after parties on Sea Isle, when it was just the two of them again and everything got really quiet, almost peaceful. “Okay,” Jeff says.

“I just--” Mike says. “I can’t stay here and be your fucking WAG or whatever the fuck I’d need to do. I need to go home at the end of the week, because I miss my dog and my brothers and my parents and my house. And I can’t go to your games or deal with the media or any of that bullshit.”

“Okay,” Jeff says again. His eyes are crinkled in the corners.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Mike asks.

Jeff takes a few steps forwards, crowds Mike against the kitchen island, bullying Mike with his height. He curls his body around Mike’s, his breath warm and wet on Mike’s neck, raising goosebumps on Mike’s skin. “I don’t need you to be my WAG, and I don’t need you to live here. I just need--” He breathes and breathes and breathes. “I just need you. However I can have you.”

Mike swallows around the lump in his throat. He reaches up, digs his fingers into Jeff’s hair. Jeff makes a pleased noise at the back of his throat, the way he does when he feels easy, happy, content. Mike wants to make him sound like that all the time. “Okay,” Mike says.

“We’re soulmates,” Jeff says. He gets hold of Mike’s wrist, lifts Mike’s forearm to his lips, presses a kiss against his own name there.

“Haven’t always been,” Mike reminds him.

Jeff pulls back just enough to meet Mike’s eyes, and Mike almost wants to turn away from everything he sees there, but he can’t back down from this, can’t back down from Jeff. “But we are now.”

“It could go away again,” Mike says, because someone here needs to be the pessimistic one. They’ve had to deal with distance before, when it was their OHL years or Columbus or Manchester, but this feels different. This means that they can’t count on being bound together by hockey. Maybe this is a cycle that repeats itself, the names fading in and out over the decades. Destined to break each other’s hearts over and over and over again.

“Yeah, it could,” Jeff says, “but we don’t have to let it.”

Mike breathes in that certainty that it’s that simple, that easy. But maybe Jeff’s right. They can figure out how their relationship works now, even when they’ve grown up and apart. They just have to be willing to try. They’re back where they started, but that doesn’t mean they have to end here. They can be each other’s first and second soulmates all at the same time. Mike draws Jeff in for a kiss, and Jeff melts into it.

When Mike pulls back, Jeff’s eyes are closed, his breath deep and even. Mike presses kisses against each of his eyelids. His throat feels tight. His eyes sting, but in a good way. “Okay,” Mike says again.

---

Mike’s flight from LA leaves mid-morning. He has to get up ass-early to make it through the bullshit security in the internationals terminal, early enough to catch a bit of a Pacific sunrise, deep blues blurring into purples and oranges and pinks.

Jeff gets up at the same time Mike does, even though he has an off day and can sleep in if he wants to. He drapes himself all over Mike’s back as Mike makes himself coffee and murmurs nonsense noises into Mike’s shoulder. For a moment, Mike considers just canceling his flight and dragging Jeff back into bed, but he does have his house and his lake and his dog and his family waiting for him. He tangles his fingers with Jeff’s instead and presses a sloppy kiss to Jeff’s cheek.

Jeff finally lets Mike go as Mike drags his bags out the door and to the rental car he barely used while he was here.

“You’ll call me when you land and when you get back home, right?” Jeff asks. He’s lingering at the front door, like he’s unwilling to let Mike out of his sight.

“Yeah,” Mike promises as he shoves his luggage into the backseat. He looks over at Jeff, who’s leaning against the doorframe. His hair is shining bright in the morning sun. Mike’s name is visible on his bare calf. Mike says, “Love you.”

Jeff smiles at that, gap-toothed and ridiculous. “Love you, too.”

Mike really has to leave at that or he’s going to do something stupid, like stay. He takes the One back to the airport. The traffic is slightly less terrible at this time of day. Slightly.

The sun rises higher in the sky and pours in through the front windshield. Mike reaches up to pull down the shade while he’s waiting at a light, and he catches sight of the name again on his forearm -- JEFF CARTER -- still in the blocky capital letters they’ve always been.

He runs his thumb over the name, thinks of Jeff at home, feeding Miley-or-Mack and watching some terrible reality television show about the Kardashians and maybe running his fingers over Mike’s name, too. The thought of it makes Mike smile.

The light turns green. Mike presses down on the gas. He doesn’t look back. He doesn’t need to.

FIN.