you are the artist and i am the paint - quinn hughes
One week with Quinn in the offseason reveals several truths (aka best friends to lovers with a dash of mutual idiocy)
pairing: quinn hughes x reader
warnings: the ush (drinking, angst, etc. etc.), could be an artist au if you squint
words: 4.6k
a/n: this is the canucks thanksgiving video's fault. also @hotanddistraught's fault. big ups to @antoineroussel for making me a custom gif and also proofreading the hell out of this thing love you. currently stuck in a calgary airport hotel because canadian airlines suck, but the canucks nabbed a win so ya'll get a treat <3
Summer is bittersweet.
For every positive feeling you have over taking a break from your schooling and having the opportunity to make some cash at your summer internship, there are ten more negative ones that revolve around the end of the hockey season taking your best friend away from you.
It’s silly, likely, to let one person’s presence, or lack thereof, dictate the general tone of your four month break from school. A bit ridiculous, really, to miss someone terribly when you saw them just last week when you dropped him off at the airport and leaned into the hug at departures for a minute too long. And pathetic, most definitely, to watch his private instagram story more than once for the brief glimpse of a real, genuine smile.
Passing on the opportunity to go out for drinks in Yaletown—on a Wednesday in May for no reason other than the majority of your friend group was free of academia for the next few months—was not at all typical behavior for you. Your friends liked to joke that there wasn’t a happy hour in the metro Vancouver area that you hadn’t personally shut down.
The teasing didn’t really bother you; what was so bad about mixing your frugal nature with yummy cocktails and appetizers? That blasé attitude was likely at least 90% responsible for the confusion in the group chat. The other 10% related to your friend Daniel’s confirmation that he would be showing up and using his ‘family credit card’ to get the first round. If there was nary a happy hour you met that you didn’t like, there wasn’t a free round of drinks you didn’t love.
Regardless, they finally leave you alone almost 45 minutes after arriving at the first club, other than the occasional shaky photo of someone’s drink every now and then.
The silence is kind of nice without your loud mouthed roommate and the rest of your friend group who had spent the better part of the late afternoon pregaming. Nice, but lonely, and it only reminds you that your best friend is on the other side of the continent. Luckily for you, the true reason behind your uncharacteristic skipping of girls’ (+ Daniel) night out makes itself known by the erratic vibration of your phone somewhere in your duvet cover.
Less luckily for you, you can’t find the damn thing until you grab the bottom corners and shake out the heavy blanket and send your phone flying onto the floor. It’s a struggle to grab it before the phone call ends and flop back onto your now half-made bed, and it’s obvious by the way you struggle to catch your breath while also muttering a greeting into the phone.
“Were you working out?”
The question has you doing some strange combination of a laugh, wheeze and choke that takes a solid minute to pull yourself out of before you reply, “Nope.”
You can almost picture the exasperated yet fond smile that might be taking over Quinn’s face as he asks, “You doin’ alright without me?”
“Never,” is your answer before you quickly shift gears into recapping the latest roommate boy drama and how much you hate your manager.
It’s a long conversation, the kind you have with a friend you only catch up with once a year despite only being away from each other for a week. You love hearing about the shenanigans Quinn’s getting up to with his brothers; love the feeling of relaxation and relief that practically radiates through the phone and his tone as he speaks about home. When he tells you about thinking about maybe taking a class at UMich this summer, you only encourage him—which is a far cry from the taunt Jack threw at him when he had first brought it up. The skin of your cheeks grows warm when you overhear his mom asking who is on the phone followed up by a sweet “My mom wants me to tell you she says hi.”
At some point throughout the night you turn off the big light and turn on your salt lamp, jump into your pajamas and tuck yourself deep under the covers. It’s easy then, in the warmth and comfort of your duvet and with Quinn’s voice lulling you to sleep to close your eyes.
“So, uh, I was wondering if you maybe wanted to come stay here for a week or two in July...?” You think you maybe hear him ask.
Unfortunately for Quinn, your only answer is the rustling of sheets and a soft snore.
-
The beginning of summer passes a lot like it began, although with you partaking in more after work drinks with friends than not. You work and you don’t study and you certainly don’t mope around downtown Vancouver counting down the days until September.
Quinn starts taking a class that fits in with his schedule of spending as much time as he can with his family and friends back home while also keeping up his offseason training regimen. He’s pretty tight lipped about it all, secretive and reserved in a way you’re not quite used to from your friend of several years, answering in half truths and changing the subject when he can. It’s not really your business anyway, and so you let him get away with terrible segues that you would normally tease him for.
He does ask you again a few weeks later if you want to come down to Michigan for a week or two, turning your protests about not being able to afford it into not wanting to intrude or let him pay your way into conceding that you can give him a week in mid July.
That’s about the time Jack grabs the phone from his older brother’s grasp, turning the regular phone call into a Facetime that gives you the gift of watching Quinn chase after him, his awkward little run having no right to be as endearing as it is.
“I’m glad you’re coming,” he says later, having locked himself in the master bedroom of the house he shares with Jack (and sometimes Luke). His hair’s a mess and his cheeks are flushed
“I’m really glad, too,” you smile. “Now tell me what class you’re taking.”
“Would you look at the time, sorry we gotta head to my parent’s house.”
You roll your eyes, but let him go with the explicit promise that he’ll call later.
-
Somehow May and June simultaneously fly by and drag all at the same time. Each eight hour shift takes a hundred hours to pass, while your days off come and go in the blink of an eye. Every day you get closer to the date circled in red ink on your calendar; no indication of what the date means other than the word Michigan written in bold, capital letters.
When July hits, it really hits you that you’re getting to see Quinn
There’s a giddy sort of feeling in your stomach, the kind that usually pops up right before Quinn comes home in September. You’ve never been to Michigan before, it didn’t work with the mix of your serving job and classes you’d regretfully chosen to take the last couple of summers in an attempt to get ahead in your degree, and the first year you hadn’t really known Quinn well enough for him to take you home to meet the parents.
Not that that was what this was, of course. You weren’t Quinn’s girlfriend or anything, nervous to earn his mom and dad’s approval, gain the acceptance of his brothers. It wasn’t like that at all with you and Quinn. Besides, you already had it from the times the family had flown to Vancouver—it was just a fact of life, parents loved you. And Jack and Luke loved to team up with you to embarrass Quinn.
You were just excited to see a friend two months earlier than you would normally see him, that’s all.
Super casual, super platonic, super friendly. Super.
Which is why you’ve had your bags packed since you flipped over the Canucks calendar Quinn had jokingly gifted you for Christmas to a picture of Thatcher.
Kimmy graciously offers to drive you to the airport, even if you could totally take the skytrain if you had to. “Just remember I’m your favorite roommate,” is the only explanation she gives, ignoring the fact that she’s your only roommate.
“You know you’re only going for a week,” she says bright and early Monday morning, eyebrows raising high above the line of her sunglasses.
“Shut up,” is all you can manage, tossing your luggage in her trunk and skulking over to the front seat where you buckle in and immediately make a grab for her coffee mug.
“Thought you’d be more excited,” she mutters, pulling out of the parking garage.
“I am excited,” you reply, downing half of the mug even if it isn’t made exactly the way you like it. It’s black and bitter and doesn’t have an ounce of sweetener or cream in it, but it’s caffeine and you feel like the human embodiment of Quinn’s eye bags right now.
Kimmy has the grace to keep her mouth shut for the entire car ride, only turning up the radio a little when a Taylor Swift song comes on. She keeps quiet even as she pulls into the departures lane and hops out to help you with your luggage and wrap you up in a big hug.
Quiet, until she opens her mouth at the last minute that is. “Bye babe, say hi to your boyfriend for me!”
It makes you want to toss your personal item at her, but you refrain from making too large of a scene in the last place you want to be making a large scene, settling for scratching your nose with your middle finger and offering a rebuttal of “he’s not my boyfriend!”
“Sure babe, see you in a week.”
Rolling your eyes you walk into the airport. Security and customs are an uncharacteristic breeze, leaving you time to grab another coffee and try to become more of a human before the six hour flight to Michigan. Quinn’s blowing up your phone, the consequence of a three hour time difference and his career requiring many early mornings that yours did not.
“Quinn’s lucky I love him,” you grumble angrily later, attempting to shove your overstuffed carryon into the overhead bin. The thought gives you pause and you freeze with your hands against the piece of luggage. It’s true, you really do love him.
Luckily a flight attendant pops up behind you and one well timed shove gets the bag into place and you’re able to continue your moment of crisis in your seat. It’s not like you didn’t know you loved him—he’s your best friend, of course you love him. You love all your friends, freely and openly and purposefully. But you love him love him. Like, wanna wake up with your head on his chest love him, want to plan your future around him love him, want to wear a hideous jean jacket with his name and number on a patch love him.
Crisis is probably too harsh a word, it’s more of a gentle realization, the slow pulling of a train into a station after a long journey.
“You love him.”
Startled, you turn to the older woman in the window seat you weren’t willing to pay $50 to switch to. “What?”
“I know that look on your face,” Chatty Cathy continues. “Same one I had on my wedding day.”
Just because you’ve had the realization on your own doesn’t mean you’re ready to have the conversation with someone else. Not Quinn, not Kimmy, not your mom, and definitely not someone else’s grandmother. “I’m just visiting a friend.”
She gives you a knowing look. “No one visits just a friend in Michigan.”
It’s enough to have you putting in your headphones and turning the volume up on your favorite playlist.
You don’t escape Chatty Cathy after you deplane, she’s right behind you all the way through the terminal.
There’s a message from Quinn when your phone finally connects to the wifi at Wayne County Airport that simply states “Here” which leads you to believe he’s probably waiting in his car at the pick up area just outside and so you’re not looking for him as you walk.
The woman finds who you presume to be her husband first, sinking into an embrace that makes even your cold heart melt a little.
And then you hear your name being called and Quinn’s standing right in front of you. Realistically it’s been a couple months but it kind of feels like you’re a military wife and your husband has finally returned from war. Abandoning all pretenses, you drop your bags and fling yourself at him.
He catches you easily with a chuckle in your ear. “Missed you too.”
After what you know is an inappropriate amount of time, you finally disentangle yourself, dragging your hands down from his shoulders to his chest. “You look good, Q.”
Before you can grab your bags, Quinn’s grabbing them with an “I got it.” You follow along like a lost puppy, passing by the woman who raises her eyebrows and smiles. “Who’s that?”
“No one, I just sat by her on the flight.”
He shrugs. “C’mon let’s drop off your bags at home and then my mom really wants to see you.”
-
“You don’t have to help with dishes,” Ellen tells you after supper as she washes a large pot in the sink.
“My mom raised me better than that,” you laugh, drying the dishes she’s already cleaned.
“She certainly did.” A pleased smile takes over your face and your stomach warms at her words. “You know, I used to worry about Quinn the most. Jack’s never had issues making his feelings known, and Luke’s still close to home. Plus Jack’s got Dani in Jersey. But my Quinn has always been such a quiet boy with his heart on his sleeve and I worried about him being all alone in another country.”
“You don’t worry anymore?” you ask, thanking her for handing you the pot.
“No,” she stops and looks at you. “He has you.”
You don’t quite know how to respond to that, or to tell her that you have him too, so you don’t.
Quinn enters the kitchen a minute or two later and shoos his mother out. “Let me finish those, mom. You go sit.”
It’s oddly domestic, doing the dishes side by side in his family home. Almost like it was the home you shared together as part of a joint life you’d built.
Except not, because you can hear his brothers arguing in the next room until their mom shushes them both.
When you’re finally done with the dishes, there’s a movie set up in the living room, with the only option of seating the small loveseat.
The look on both Jack and Luke’s faces tells you it was on purpose.
-
Quinn and Jack are both too tired after supper to drive home, and so everyone stays the night in the Hughes’ home. Quinn’s old bedroom became the spare room, and the spare room became a sewing-storage-office room hybrid, and so you find yourself in the same bed as your best friend.
It’s no big deal, really, you’ve done it before. Just, not before finally giving into the realization that you were in love with him.
You try to sleep, but your mind and heart are racing.
“Are you sleeping?” you ask into the darkness. Quinn’s close enough that you could conceivably reach over and touch him, but you keep your hands to yourself.
“Trying to,” he grumpily grumbles back, bringing a smile to your face.
Your flip onto your side so that you’re facing him in the dark is far less graceful than you’d planned it to be in your head, but you manage. “Why did you decide to take a class this summer? I’m sure you could have found a million other ways to fill the time.”
It’s quiet for so long that you wonder if he really did fall asleep, until his far more dignified roll over signifies that he’s as awake as you are. “I’m only a couple semesters away from my degree,” he says like it explains everything, and maybe if you were someone else it would. But this is your best friend and you kind of want to know everything about him.
“I mean, same, but if I was making several mill a year I can’t say that I’d be rushing to finish my degree.”
He’s quiet again and you wonder if you’ve said the wrong thing again, shoved your whole foot in your mouth when you should have left well enough alone. “I know, but it could all go away in a second. One bad hit, or an accident, or something else outside of my control.”
His tone of voice nearly breaks your heart at the same time as the words he speaks plunges your heart into ice cold water. The thought of Quinn hurt, of him losing everything scares you. “Don’t say that, you’re going to be like Jagr, still playing at 50 years old.”
“I hope not,” he laughs, and it settles the feeling in your chest. When he yanks you closer, it all but dissipates. Tentatively, you sling an arm over his abdomen and rest your head on his chest.
You mull it all over in your head, distracted by the way he plays with the ends of your hair until you speak up again. “You’re more than hockey, Quinn.” He hums out a non-committal answer and you figure humor is the way to move forward. “Besides, you can always just bum off Jack and Luke.”
He tugs on your hair in response, but doesn’t say anything else.
-
“Ta-da!”
Jack’s a real smart ass from the backseat that he’d insisted on sitting in as Quinn pulls into the driveway of a very nice house. House might be putting it lightly, as a kid you’d called this kind of residence a McMansion.
“Shit this is nice,” is your initial reaction.
It makes Quinn smile, which is exactly what you were going for. “It’s alright.”
You shove him and then unbuckle your seatbelt. “Shut up.”
The grand tour Jack promised is pretty lackluster, a handful of guest rooms that mean you won’t have a bed buddy tonight, a kitchen you’re certain neither of them have used on their own and enough bathrooms that you don’t have to worry about how long Jack takes to do his hair in the morning.
There is one door that catches your attention. It’s one of the only ones that is shut, and when Jack shakes the handle it doesn’t budge. “This is where Quinn keeps dead bodies.”
Quinn’s somewhere else in the house but he hears all the same and shouts back, “I don’t keep dead bodies!”
Jack nods solemnly and stage whispers, “That’s actually true, they’re buried in the backyard under the pool.”
Super human hearing Quinn shouts again, “there are no dead bodies!”
You roll your eyes but continue the tour until you end up in the living room where Quinn’s reclined in the lazy boy, texting. It’s too tempting to pass up, and so you plop on the arm of the chair and peer over his shoulder. “What’s Petey up to?”
He drops his phone quickly, a blush beginning to form at the top of his ears. “Wasn’t Petey.” It’s a strange reaction, one that has you suspicious—not that you have a reason to be. But if it wasn’t Elias then who? Was it a girl? The thought makes your stomach hurt.
Shoving down the conflicted feelings, you ruffle his hair a little to be a nuisance until he slaps your hand away. “What’s in the locked room Quinn?”
“Nothing.”
You poke him hard in the upper arm once, then twice. “Don’t make me poke it out of you.”
It institutes a little poking war that has you giggling until Jack breaks it up. “Get a room, you two.”
It’s a little awkward then, and so you slide off the chair’s arm. “I’m gonna go change and then lounge by the pool if anyone wants to join.”
As you walk away, you hear the unmistakable sound of a slap and then Quinn’s voice muttering “Idiot.”
-
The week flies by way too fast. Between meeting all Quinn’s friends and drinking them under the table, spending time with his family, and being shown around the places that meant so much to him. It has you wishing you’d found a way to make two weeks work, but it had been hard enough getting your shifts covered for the time you were here.
“Quit your job and stay here,” Quinn tells you when you say as much.
Huffing, you move from laying on the deck chair to lean on your elbows so that you can glare at him. It’s a moot point, since your sunglasses are covering your eyes anyway. “Quit being stupid. Some of us have tuition and bills to pay.”
“I could pay your bills,” he says quietly. Sincerely, even.
His gentle disposition is no match for your sarcasm, however. “Oh yeah? And what would I have to do in return? Be your kept woman? Do your laundry? No thanks.” Although, the thought of returning to school in the fall while balancing your jobs means the idea isn’t as horrific as it could be. Plus you’re pretty sure Quinn’s one of the least disgusting people you know…
“Nah, we can hire out someone to do the cleaning.”
You relax back into your chair because frankly your upper arms were getting sore. “Okay so in this hypothetical scenario, you’re gonna share your vast fortune with me with nothing expected in return?”
“Yep pretty much.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“Maybe.”
Lounging around doing nothing gets boring as the sun beats down on you both. It’s your last day in Michigan and you kind of don’t want it to ever end.
“Let’s go for a drive?” you blurt out impulsively.
“Okay.”
Quinn takes you for the highlight reel, showing you around various places that mean something to him, including a stop at his parents so you can say your proper goodbye to them and Luke.
And then you end up at a cozy little diner where you order a large fry to share and two milkshakes.
“You’ve got a little something right there,” he says, pointing to the corner of his mouth. “Nope, you missed it. Still missing it.”
It takes you a full minute to realize he’s messing with you. “Shut up!” you laugh and kick him under the table. He captures your leg, pinning it between his own, nonchalantly picking at the fries on the table while you visibly struggle to free yourself. “Jerk!”
“I like having you here,” Quinn admits a beat or two later.
The dramatic indignation leaves your body at his admission and you slump a little in the booth. “I like being here… jerk.”
He smiles, but doesn’t let your leg go and for some reason you don’t seem to mind.
When the bill comes, he’s a lot faster to slap down his credit card than you are. Probably because you were expecting them to bring a machine that you could use your card at rather than let a random stranger take your credit card to the back for whatever nefarious purposes they so chose.
The debate of the security of tap versus having your credit card taken from you carries over from the table into the car, and by the time you get back to Quinn’s, you’re satisfied you’ve won this round.
“I don’t want to go to bed yet, if I go to sleep the morning will come quick,” you say softly when Quinn asks if you’re headed to bed when you get back.
“Yeah, I know.” He’s quiet again, an inner conflict raging across his face until, “Come on, I wanna show you something.”
It’s like you know before he’s even led you towards the stairs that you’re finally going to see what’s going on in the locked room. “Are you about to show me your dead bodies, Quintin?”
His exasperated sigh is more fond than annoyed, “There are no dead bodies!” When he pushes the door open, you quickly come to realize it’s a makeshift painting room, with various colored paints scattered around the room and a sheet covering the floor. At the far end of the room lies an easel with a finished painting set on it.
“She’s beautiful, Quinn,” you say, taking a step closer to admire the artwork in front of you. You barely manage to stop yourself from trailing the delicate lines of her face with your fingers.
“She’s you,” he admits shyly, head ducked down and rose flush spreading across his cheeks and down his neck. “You’re beautiful.”
“I didn’t know you saw me that way,” you whisper, eyes locked on the physical representation of Quinn’s vision of you.
“You never asked.”
Finally you tear your eyes away from the canvas, spinning around to face him. “Quinn—“
“It’s not—I don’t expect anything from you or anything. It’s the final project for my class. I didn’t tell you I was taking an art class at first because I was worried it wouldn’t work out, but then we were given our assignments and the final project was to paint something you, well, something you love.”
You say his name again but he keeps talking, almost a man possessed as if he can’t stop the words from falling from his tongue.
“I love you, like, Capital L love you. I have for a long time. Maybe since the night we met, I don’t know. One conversation and I knew you were it for me. But, like I said before, I don’t expect any—“
You can’t take it anymore, you’re impossibly endeared to this man and his awkward rambling and his slightest hint of a lisp, and you press your lips to his.
Quinn doesn’t reciprocate at first, frozen in place and so you wait, counting the seconds until he finally moves, gripping your face in his hands and kissing you like he means it.
-
You don’t stop kissing.
You kiss and you kiss and you kiss; that night you kiss as you strip each other of your clothes, the next morning you kiss morning breath and all when you wake up together. You kiss over breakfast and you kiss at red lights on the way to the airport and at departures.
“Stay,” he says, kissing you again much to the displeasure of the pretty college coed who’d asked for a photo and his autograph not five minutes ago. You lean into it, tilting your head and sliding your hand through the hair at the base of his neck.
“Can’t,” you reply when you pull back. “Bills to pay, remember?”
“Let me take care of it for you.”
“As if.” You laugh and pat his cheek. “I gotta go, I’ll see you in a couple weeks. Love you.”
The words are enough to have him let you go, but not before reciprocating and one last, lingering kiss. He stands to the side with his hands in his pockets, determined to watch you leave until he can’t see you anymore.
“Told you so,” a voice sounds from behind you in the security line.
Spinning around you see Chatty-although-not-incorrect Cathy. There’s no mistaking the look on your face this time, no amount of deflecting would ever be seen as anything less than extreme deception and so you shrug. “Guess you did.”
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