Sequel to Keep It Small (you don’t have to read that one but it would probably help!); 12k; RansomxHolster
Keep It Organized
Ransom knows that, to most people, his Excel sheets are a joke.
Well, maybe not a joke, but they aren’t meant to be taken seriously. They are just a thing that Ransom does to help plan events (mostly kegsters) or if someone has a particularly big life decision and most people assume that about half the time he informs them “Excel says,” he is making it up.
He’s not though.
Not ever.
Because he knows that people think he is bad at managing stress and, to be fair to them, he does tend to miscalculate and break down at least twice a year (finals) but, really, for how anxious he is all the time, he thinks he does a pretty good job.
The lists help. He keeps track of things. He might have too much to do, but at least he keeps it organized.
In middle school, before he has his own computer, his room is a mess of post-its and lists and his family is happy chaos, always has been, but for Ransom that means his parents aren’t the type to keep track of things, are content to go with the flow and Ransom…
Ransom needs structure. So the lists become a whiteboard calendar and when he gets a laptop for high school, Ransom goes digital.
He picks Excel for many reasons. Primarily because Microsoft Word is too unpredictable (especially with bullet points) and, once he gets more advanced (figuring out his average in each class before his report cards come out, keeping track of his summer workouts so he is in shape for fall, etc), he needs the math that Excel offers him.
But also because no one in his family uses Excel. So when one of his sisters borrows his laptop (Excel says Kels borrows it the most), there is no chance they will look in the “Recent” files and see just how much Ransom relies on Excel sheets. For everything.
I blame the fact that it has rained here for like 3 weeks straight for this one. Ransom/Holster ~3K; TW: Panic attack, canon-level alcohol use, unrequited love
Keep It Small
People don’t know as much as they think they do.
Throughout this whole thing, that’s the primary fact that Holster has learned for himself: People don’t know. And they aren’t good at guessing much either.
Freshmen year, everyone “knows” that Ransom and Holster have been friends for years (not true, they’d met first day of hockey pre-season, same as the rest of the team) and everyone “knows” by sophomore year that they are always down for a threesome (they’d only done it twice actually; twice before it got to be too much) and, when Junior year comes around, everyone “knows” that Ransom and Holster are “best friends for life.”
“The closest bros,” people say. “On the same wavelength.” “Downright freaky.” “Always thinking the exact same thing.”
Also not true. Well, partly true. Most of it could be true.
If it weren’t for the other thing.
Of course, that’s where people are the most incorrect. Not even just the other guys on the team. Everyone, from what Holster can tell. The entire human race.
Because people think being in love is this huge, all-encompassing thing. They think it takes over and colors all it touches and it’s a constant stabbing, shooting pain that makes the friendship not worth it.
Bitty nervously gathers his friends one afternoon in the late winter to tell them that he and Jack are dating. Jack is planning on coming out at the end of the season, so Bitty wants to give them all some warning. They’re all happy for them of course, but a few are a little hurt Jack and Bitty had kept it from them for so long.
“I’m sorry, y’all. I hated lying to you, but it just wasn’t the time yet. I feel so bad about not telling you– something as big and as important as that!” Bitty wrings his hands and apologizes again. The rest of the team is nodding their forgiveness, but Dex looks more and more uncomfortable with each word.
“Anything you’d like to share with the class?” Lardo asks casually. Dex looks like he’s about to faint. She loves the kid, but heaven help her if he has a problem with Bitty and Jack…..
“Bitty’s right. It’s not something we should hide. And I’m sick of lying about it.”
“Wait, when did this happen?” Chowder asks, caught between astonishment and excitement (his natural state of being, but just stronger in this particular moment).
Dex flushes. “Like…..last year? After we lost the playoffs?”
“Right after,” Nursey confirms.
“Ah,” Holster says sagely. “Roadie magic. That’s when me and Rans first started hooking up.”
“WHAT?” squawks Bitty. Rans claps a hand on Holster’s shoulder. “Shit, bro, I think we forgot to tell them.”
“What else haven’t y’all been telling me?” Bitty demands, and after that, confessions start rolling in.
“I’ve had at least two drunken sexcapades with Shitty.”
“Lards, bro! Same!”
“Didn’t Johnson get it on with the other goalie that one time? Goalies are weird, man.”
“Hey, Ollie and Wicks are totally doing it, right?”
Then, amidst the increasingly loud and colorful tales of sexual exploits, Tango shouts, “I’ve thought about kissing Whiskey!”
The rest of the Haus falls silent, Ransom and Holster smothering giggles. Whiskey calmly looks Tango up and down. “Huh. Cool. Let’s do that sometime.”
–
That night when Jack asks Bitty how it went telling the team, Bitty sighs helplessly. “Honey, I don’t know where to begin.”
He hates his courses and he hates his major and he hates this competition and he hates this pressure and he hates med school. There, he said it. He hates med school. He doesn’t want to go to med school.
Each morning he wakes up and dreads going to class, each night he trudges to the library and dreads opening his books. Biology used to be fun, he thinks, but not like this. Not like this.
He feels stuck.
It was never a question of if he would go to med school, really, but rather where he would go to med school. Med school was the constant. His parents wanted a doctor for a child. He wanted to make them proud.
just moving along like everyone else 