I Thought, You Thought

Mattias’ roommate at business school is kind of a problem.

He’s constantly having people over, which is crazy because it’s the first week and no one should know anyone at this point. He tidies up after himself but he also puts his things in Mattias’ space, which should be more annoying than it actually is. They’re in all the same classes and he keeps answering all the professors’ questions correctly, which sucks because Mattias barely knows the answers to half of those questions. Maybe a quarter if you pushed him to be more honest.

His name’s Galstrod. Or, at least, his surname is Galstrod — no one refers to him by his first name, not even the professors. Mattias wonders if it’s because his first name is really hard to pronounce or something.

It’s Tuesday when he walks in on Galstrod shirtless, just out of the shower. His fur’s sticking to his body in this way that makes him look all lean and lithe and, yeah, Mattias is a little embarrassed. They’re both guys, so it’s not a big deal, but none of the guys on the ice hockey team look anything like Galstrod, delicate and wispy and bright like a stain you just can’t get out. He’s used to the stocky, bulky guys who whip you with the back of a towel. Galstrod’s a cheeky asshole sometimes, too smart for his own good, but he’s also the type who fucks you over with a smile.

Mattias ducks his head down to stare at his phone. He’s never been so glad for his fur covering the flaming blush on his ears, but he suspects his crest might be showing whatever he’s feeling. He’s too self conscious to check.

“Oh, hi,” Galstrod says, chill as anything. “Did you need the bathroom?”

It’s always Galstrod who initiates any conversation between them. Mattias makes a big show of putting his phone away and then studiously avoids looking at any part of Galstrod other than his face, which is a pretty good face, as far as faces go. It’s kind of soft, like the rest of him. Bright eyes, bright smile, even when he’s sopping wet.

“Nah,” he says eventually, even though he really does need a shower. He just finished hockey practice and he’s sure that he stinks right now in the way he always does when the sweat has time to settle into his skin, soaking into his fur. “Actually, I’m heading out.”

Galstrod blinks. “You just got here,” he points out, like it isn’t obvious to Mattias that, yes, he just got here.

“Right,” Mattias replies, a smile stitched onto his face. He can feel his lip pulling at the scar tissue, stretching over his teeth. “Well, I gotta go. Again.”

He books it out of there like there’s a fire under his ass. The slamming door behind him cuts off Galstrod’s following question, but he spends the rest of the night stretched out on his teammate’s floor thinking about what he could have possibly wanted to ask. Probably nothing important. Probably just questioning Mattias’ fucking weirdness.

He hopes it’s not that, but he’s being even weirder by spending the night outside of his room with Galstrod, so it honestly might be something along those lines.

He just can’t help it. There’s something about Galstrod that sets him on edge, his pulse quickening beneath his throat and his tongue heavy in his mouth. Maybe he’s intimidated, but it’s not the same feeling he had as a kid when his dad came home, bottle in his hand and glint in his eye. It’s something else, he’s sure, but something that still eludes him. For now, at least. He’s never one to sit back and let a problem hang over him like that — he’s a fixer.

He wants to be a fixer. This is his new life, and he gets to choose who he is. No one else.

Not even Galstrod, with his wet puppy hair and his megawatt smile.

He lopes into their shared accommodation right before class the next day, hoping that Galstrod is long gone, but he’s instead greeted with the sight of the guy stretched out on Mattias’ bed like a cat. He’s tapping away on his phone, humming along to a song under his breath, but he immediately senses the movement and glances up.

“Hey! Thought you were ditching class for a moment there,” Galstrod pipes up, way too loud and cheery. “Come on, we’ll be late.”

And that’s how Galstrod grabs Mattias by the hand, dragging him off to a lecture which they are, in fact, late for.

It’s also how Mattias realises he might be well and truly fucked.

---

In the winter, Galstrod keeps pestering Mattias about coming to see one of his games. Ice hockey is pretty big for a university that’s really just a business school, but not big enough that everyone and their mother goes to see routine games. There’s a moment where Mattias considers going pro, but he’s never been the star of the team, so it feels like a wasted idea. Besides, he didn’t come here for hockey, even if it’s nice having some guys to shove around and get drunk with.

It’s been a few months. He and Galstrod are on good terms now, not as awkward as they were before, but Mattias still finds himself getting uncomfortable sometimes. Like when Galstrod elbows him in the gut and does this loud honking laugh, it hurts in his chest more than it does in his stomach. Or when he grabs a coffee for Mattias as well as himself from the café down the street — the expensive one — and tells Mattias that he owes him one, he feels kind of touched, almost. Like they’ve got this buddy routine going on or something, but Mattias isn’t quite yet in on the joke yet. He does stuff for Galstrod too, like hanging out in the library to study together.

Now that he thinks about it, maybe he does that more for himself than for Galstrod. After all, it’s not like his roommate has any lack of study partners; everyone in class sees the guy as some sort of boy genius. And the girls go crazy for him, which is something Mattias has yet to experience himself.

There are some girls who hang around the team, but they’re mostly just girlfriends of the players. It’s not like Mattias has exactly been putting himself out there, which his teammates chirp at him about all the time, but in his defence, he hasn’t really been interested.

Anyway, he doesn’t want Galstrod to go to a game, because he’s different when he’s on the ice. Not as careful or controlled, definitely the type to get into fights when the situation calls for it, and for some reason he’s not so sure he wants Galstrod to see that side of him. He’s been polite enough to his roommate the whole time they’ve known each other — not so polite that he’s boring, but not as much of a lout as he is with his teammates. It feels odd to conflate the two identities.

After their match against the local tech school, one of his teammates calls out to him in the locker room.

“Hellström, there’s some girl here to see you!”

Everyone starts laughing and oohing like that’s something to ooh over, which it’s not. Mattias is fully prepared to send this girl away no matter who she is. He tugs on his clean clothes and runs a towel through his hair quickly, scrambling to get to the door.

Only, when it opens, it’s Galstrod, not some girl. And he’s all bright and sparkly and excited, grinning from ear to ear.

“They call you Hellström?” he starts, and then shakes his head. “Cool game. I’m not a sports nerd or anything, but I could tell you knew what you were doing.” Galstrod smacks him on the arm hard.

“Ha. Thanks.” God, why is he freezing up now of all times? “You didn’t, uh, tell me you were coming?” He’s saying it like a question. Why is he saying it like a question?

Galstrod raises an eyebrow at him and he suddenly feels very, very small. “Do I need your permission or something?”

Tension’s crackling in the air. Galstrod seems pissed off by something, but Mattias isn’t really sure what, and he’s not the best at apologising.

But he’ll do it. If he needs to. Which he probably does, judging by the squinting glare that Galstrod is sending his way, one step from his thin little scowl.

“Uh, no. Obviously not,” he says with an awkward laugh, scratching the back of his head. His hair’s still wet, flopping into his eyes, and he keeps shaking himself like a dog when it pokes into his vision. “Thanks for coming.”

He’s clearly said the right thing because Galstrod’s suddenly beaming again. “Yeah?”

Mattias is just about to reply when someone comes barrelling into him from behind, knocking him right into Galstrod’s space. When he turns to yell at whoever it was, they’re gone, already running off after their girlfriend. It’s probably one of the older guys, they’re always attached at the hip to their partners. Whipped, they call it.

“Sorry,” Mattias begins, but then cuts off at how close they are. Galstrod is looking up at him quizzically, as if he’s confused as to how they got into this position, and then Mattias realises that he’s got a hand on Galstrod’s fucking waist.

He jumps back like he’s been burned. “Sorry!” This time, it’s more high pitched.

“It’s fine.” Galstrod actually seems fairly unruffled by the whole exchange, which just makes Mattias feel like he shouldn’t care either. “Do you want me to wait for you? We can get cocoa.”

Mattias is barely back in the locker room before his remaining teammates start jeering at him, creating dramatic reenactments of the way that he fell into Galstrod’s arms. Which really isn’t how it went, so he ends up chasing them around the room with his stick until he sees the time and has to cram his stuff into his locker, rushing out to meet Galstrod for that cocoa they were talking about.

One of the younger guys says he’s whipped for Galstrod. Mattias can’t bring himself to deny it.

---

It’s a hot spring, sunny and rainy and all the things that it should be. Mattias and Galstrod get drunk under the sunlight and then again under the moonlight, pilfering Chance’s stash of moonshine. The guy makes it himself in his bathtub, apparently, which should be gross but isn’t when he considers how fast it gets him drunk. Galstrod doesn’t seem to have any issues with the source, either.

He’s lying with his head pillowed in the grass, staring at the way Galstrod wraps himself up in a cloak like it’s a blanket and looks up right at the sun, searing his eyeballs. He doesn’t realise he’s stuck in some sort of trance until Galstrod starts talking.

“That’s gonna be us someday, you know?” he says, pointing up at the sun.

Mattias looks away. “What do you mean?”

He feels Galstrod shrug next to him, their arms pressed together from shoulder to wrist. “Someday we’re going to be the ones lighting up the galaxy.”

We? Mattias allows himself one second to savour that glorious thought.

“Or not, I dunno. It sounded cooler in my head.” Galstrod takes another swig of Chance’s bathtub vodka. “Just that someday, we’ll be out there. No more classes, no more essays. No more stupid fucking parties where people throw up on you.”

Mattias cringes. That had not been a good night.

“We’ll be where we want to be. Everything we worked for? That’ll be ours.” Galstrod rolls onto his side, looking at Mattias intently. “You think we’ll still be friends?”

Fucking damn it, Mattias, it’s now or never. “No.”

Galstrod furrows his brow, and that’s when Mattias leans in and kisses him. It’s fumbling and amateurish and not really hot at all, but his heart is beating out of his chest like he’s run a mile and Galstrod is reciprocating, at least to some degree, though he seems surprised by the sudden action.

Mattias draws back. “Sorry, uh. Never done this with a guy before.”

And Galstrod fucking laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

That makes him stop short. He wants to laugh with Galstrod, but suddenly it feels like he’s missing something important.

“What do you mean? We’re both, uh. You know.” He gestures between them with one hand.

Galstrod stops laughing.

“Aren’t… we?” Mattias feels something twist within him.

“Oh god. Did you think I was— Ohmygod.” Galstrod’s shifting to sit up properly now, his cloak pooling around his shoulders. “Dude. Mattias. I’m a girl.”

What.

“I’ve been called a girltwink before, but um. Nobody has ever really thought that I was— ha. Well. Until now.”

What.

Mattias scampers backwards, his head swimming at the sudden change of angle, and tries to speak. No words come out. Internally, he’s reassessing everything that they’ve been through over the past few months, every little interaction. And now he’s looking at Galstrod again inquisitively, examining every detail, and there are things he’s noticing now that he didn’t before: the way that her cheek curves softly against the sun; the way her eyelashes glitter in the light. He noticed it, but he just thought she was a feminine guy.

And another thing: he suddenly really does not want to kiss Galstrod anymore.

“Sorry,” he stammers eventually. “I really didn’t know.”

Galstrod stares back at him for a second, and then leans forward and headbutts him really fucking hard. And then she’s cackling, that really loud dridgeon honk of a laugh that gets her kicked out of places for being too loud, and Mattias is falling back to the ground with stars in his eyes and he’s laughing too. It’s just so painfully absurd that he can’t not laugh at it, not when his best friend—

His best friend.

He feels like he has to say it, now.

“Galstrod,” he wheezes when they’re done with their laughing fit. “You’re my best friend.”

Okay, not very eloquent, but then again, he’s drunk enough that it doesn’t matter.

“Whatever,” she replies, smacking her palm over his face like she’s feeling around for something or maybe patting him reassuringly. “You thought I was a guy this whole time.”

Mattias grins into her hand. “No, really. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

The only friend, his mind supplies.

Galstrod pauses, squinting at him with one eye. “You mean it?”

Mattias nods, not even capable of speaking at this point. The moment feels too heavy, even through the haze of alcohol and confusion and god knows what else.

She smiles slightly back at him. She’s got dimples, which used to drive Mattias crazy, but now they just feel like a part of her face.

“Are we still gonna be friends after we graduate?” she murmurs, eyes all big and wide.

“Of course.” It comes out a whisper, genuine and quiet and meek and all these things that Mattias is not.

The sun’s high in the sky and there’s a grass stain on Galstrod's bright red coat. To any passerby, it would be just another Saturday, but to them, it feels eternal. It feels like a promise. Galstrod squeezes Mattias in the tightest hug ever and he thinks he’d be a fool to give this up for anything.

But he ends up giving it up for nothing at all.