#breakaway was the goodbye | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lumosinlove · 2 months

Text

Vaincre

June part iv

I’ll tell you the truth

But never goodbye

Remus thought about practice and all the sounds he wouldn’t be hearing again for a couple of months now. A din he desperately hoped would come again in the Fall.

The quiet bustle of the boys arriving. Yawns and some early morning groans. Bags being tossed down into stalls. Velcro and stick tape. The skate sharpener across the hall. The shivery sound of a bucket of pucks being scattered onto the ice. The slap of pucks and bodies on the boards rebounding in a high-roofed, empty rink. The ping of the goalposts. Bursts of laughter between drills. Showers stuttering into a hard, hot spray and the echo of voices off of tiles.

He wanted it all again. The crowds and video tape sessions. The signings and the chance to meet fans. The wins—even the losses. Even the press conferences. He wanted to see his best friends every day. He wanted to win.

They didn’t have a destination, but neither Remus nor Sirius tried to change that. They walked through the New York streets, downtown, where everything felt a little bit like a movie set. Most places were shut tight for the night, but it still felt alive.

Sirius looked handsome in the city lights. In his jeans and t-shirt. More importantly, he looked relaxed. More relaxed than Remus had expected, anyway.

“You’re calm.”

Sirius didn’t look over at him, but a small smile appeared on his face. “Maybe I just look it.”

“Okay, fair.” Remus squeezed their tangled fingers together. “I just meant that you don’t seem…”

“Miserable.”

“Well, sure. That word works.”

“I’m just…” Sirius looked down at him. “Not sure if it’s sunk in yet, maybe. You?”

“No. Not really.”

Sirius squeezed his hand back and Remus felt his engagement ring press into his skin. If anything good came out of this, it was that he would not be taking of his ring any time soon. He caught it glinting in the passing lights.

“New York really never sleeps,” Remus said.

“Neither do we, apparently.”

It was helping more than sleep, though—the walking. It was starving off the soreness they were bound to feel soon. He’d already glimpsed a bad bruise forming near his knee.

“Either way,” Remus said. “I like these walks of ours. It feels different than Gryf.”

“Ouais,” Sirius agreed. “At least we both have rivers.”

The next street they turned onto was not asphalt, but cobblestones. It wound and bent, going against the grid of New York that Remus had become accustomed to. He leaned his head back to look up at the lit apartments above. It might have been two AM, but he could see shadows moving around, or the colorful flickers of televisions.

“Did you talk to Logan?” he asked.

“Non, not really. I mean, on the ice I did. But I don’t know. I wanted to get out of there.”

“Yeah.” Remus sighed. He fought the urge to start talking about the game. Part of him wanted to know each and every single one of Sirius’ thoughts. The hit in the second. The odd, sloppy breakaway in the third. That last buzzer attempt.

“You want to talk about it don’t you,” Sirius said.

Remus laughed, then groaned, hiding it in Sirius’ shoulder. “Yes. No. I don’t know.”

It was something special, to have someone who could read his mind. He closed his eyes, inhaling Sirius’ familiar scent and trusting him to guide him on the street. Sirius’ hand disappeared from his and wrapped around his waist instead. A kiss was pressed to Remus’ temple.

“Curb,” Sirius said softly, and Remus stepped down to cross the street then opened his eyes.

“Magnetic,” Remus said. “Do you remember them calling us that?”

“No one needed to remind me.”

Remus tightened his arms around Sirius’ hips and pressed a kiss over his shirt. “I know. I was just remembering.”

Their passes had connected so thoroughly this series. So well. It was awful, almost mean that the passes that stuck in their minds the most were the ones that had missed.

“How about we keep remembering…” Sirius began. “But how about we do it with fries and milkshakes.”

Remus looked up. The idea made his mouth water. “Yes. What made you say that?”

Sirius just smiled and jerked his chin forward. “Là.”

There was a diner on the corner. Many of the booths in the window were filled—Other people in search of late-night snacks. The neon sign out front read 24 HOURS and Remus could see a group of girls with milkshakes and a basket of fries in front of them.

He reached up to wrap his arms around Sirius’ neck and pressed a hard kiss to his cheek. “Love of my fucking life.”

He felt Sirius smile. Sirius reached for his hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing his ring. “Ouais, it’s true.”

He held the door open for Remus.

They were shuffled into a leather, worn booth and given giant seemingly endless menus. Remus found that he could hardly sit still. He kept laughing to himself. At one point, when Sirius gave him an amused, dazed look, he’d had to cover his mouth.

“You’re wild on adrenaline,” Sirius laughed.

Remus wondered if that was it. If adrenaline was what this was. These weird, surprising tight bursts of joy bubbling over in his chest. Surely he should be feeling low. He had just lost part of his childhood dream yet again.

Was adrenaline fueling the smile Sirius gave him when their two chocolate milkshakes and order of fries arrived? Did adrenaline cause Sirius to skeptically watch him dip a fry into the thick chocolate? Did it make them both laugh when Sirius tried it, made a face, and quickly switched back to ketchup?

Or maybe something had changed.

“You know, I always wanted to talk about games with you,” Remus said.

“Always?”

“You know. Before.” Remus brought the straw of his milkshake between his teeth. “I always wondered what you were thinking. Even when you were mean to me.”

Sirius groaned and covered his face with his hands. “Arrêt.”

Remus reached across the table and tried to pull his hands away. “I did! Sirius, don’t hide, come here.” He laughed when Sirius wouldn’t. “Sirius.”

Sirius let out an exaggerated sigh and pushed himself up from his side of the booth, only to slide into Remus’, arm along the back behind him and tight against his side.

“Wh…” Remus began.

Sirius leaned forward and stole the fry from Remus’ fingers with a short tug of his teeth. “You said come here.”

“That was my fry.”

“Too late.”

“Meanie.”

Sirius just made the sound that Remus associated with both him and Logan—a very Quebecois sort of tisk of disapproval (in Logan’s part, mostly jokingly aimed at Finn). Sirius’ arm slid from the booth to Remus’ shoulders and he kissed him. Remus tilted his chin up into it and let himself relax.

“Chocolate and potatoes?” Sirius asked as he dipped to kiss Remus’ jaw. “Really?”

“Sweet and salty,” Remus replied, trying not to let his eyes slip closed. They were in a diner.

“Weirdo.”

Remus hissed at a playful nip to his neck and Sirius pulled back. Sirius dragged his milkshake over to their side of the table and took a long sip. Remus could tell he was thinking. Remus had always been able to tell when he was thinking. Even when he hadn’t been able to figure out anything else about Sirius.

“Tell me,” Remus said.

“I wish I hadn’t broken that stick,” Sirius said quietly. He dropped his head back and closed his eyes. “Re…”

“I know,” Remus said. “I know.”

Sirius let out a frustrated sound and rubbed at his eyes. “Merde…I don’t know what gets into me. Well, I do…”

They had both been expecting them, but as the clouds of loss edged back into their peripheral vision, Remus sighed. Sirius tightened his arm around Remus and tilted their heads together. Remus closed his eyes as they took each other’s weight.

“Julian said it best,” Sirius said. “I wanted this for you.”

“And you.”

Sirius pressed his lips together. “I—yes.”

Remus arched a brow, confused by the conflicted look on Sirius’ face. “What, what’s that look?”

Sirius sighed. He smiled, just a little. A bewildered sort of smile. He hooked his fingers into the plastic fry basket mindlessly, the greasy paper crinkling at his touch. His eyes went a little unfocused as he thought. Their blue-gray looked so fair in the diner’s light. “I keep wondering why I’m not as upset as I usually would be. I keep trying to, like…” He moved his free hand outward in a small sharp motion, palm forward. “Push myself towards being that upset. Which is insane. Why do I feel guilty for feeling slightly okay about this?”

“I…” Remus nodded slowly. “I get that. I do. Hey, but that’s good. It’s good you feel okay, you wouldn’t have been okay other years. That’s why I said you seem so calm I’m…I’m fucking proud of you for it.”

“Ouais. I guess…” His expression turned almost shy. “I guess me too.”

That made Remus smile.

“What I mean is…I’m gutted.” Sirius picked up a fry. “I want to throw something, I want a do-over…I want to be angry at Logan.” He tossed the fry back, turning to look at Remus. “But the thing that I keep thinking about isn’t the game. Isn’t the Cup. It’s you.”

Remus’ smile faltered. He looked down. “Yeah? Well… you keep catching yourself feeling guilty?” Sirius nodded. “Well, I keep catching myself thinking that this was it. That I’m finished.”

“You’re not. Re.” Sirius’ hand cupped his shoulder and Remus turned his head to look down at it. He could have drawn his scar in perfect alignment even while not being able to see it. Sirius’ fingers, over his shirt, traced it perfectly, too. He watched Sirius do it once, then twice. It was so much apart of him that even Sirius could map it into his skin.

“Loops.”

“You almost never call me that anymore.”

“Well, right now you’re my teammate as much as everything else and I’m telling you you’re going to get there.”

Remus smiled. He felt the waver in it and so did Sirius. “Telling me as my Captain?”

“As your Captain,” Sirius confirmed. His fingers traced the scar again. “As your friend and teammate who watched you…watched you take every part of your life back from Fenrir.”

Remus surprised himself with a laugh and tears springing to his eyes. “Fuck. I did, didn’t I?”

“Ouais.” Sirius kissed a tear away. “You fucking did.”

“Oh my God,” Remus whispered as the tears pressed harder at him. He tucked his face into Sirius’ neck and Sirius wrapped him up tight. His voice was warm and familiar in his ear.

“I’m telling you as all those things, and I’m telling you as someone who loves you more than anything. Ever.” Sirius’ hand spanned his back, rubbing gently. “D’accord. I think that was most of my English for tonight.”

Remus laughed tearfully again, and then let out a quiet sob, shoulders hitching. “I don’t know if I’m crying because I’m sad or relieved or what.”

“I don’t know either,” Sirius said. His voice held a teasing note. “But our waitress looks like she’s going to bring us free pie.”

Their next laughs were realer, and Remus pulled back. Sirius made a soft sound and thumbed away the tear tracks on Remus’ cheeks. Sirius still looked tired. The strain of the game was still there, but there was a happy, weightless flush to his cheeks that Remus had never seen before.

Sirius dipped a fry in his chocolate shake and held it out to Remus. “Sweet and salty night.”

Remus let Sirius feed him the chocolatey fry. Sirius dipped his own in ketchup and popped it into his mouth. Remus looked over his familiar profile. He’d seen it in shadows and bright lights…he would see him soon in the lake house’s sunset.

“Next year, mon loup,” Sirius said. “You and me. It’s not the end.”

Remus nodded and let Sirius tuck him back under his arm. “You and me.”

Logan was leaning against the side of the rooftop bar between Luke and Alex, listening to everyone swap stories and enjoying the warm wind on his back. It was good to be with Percy and Will again. He was glad now, basking in the New York night, that he hadn’t ruined this year for himself—at least not the entire year. He was glad he could stand here laughing with them about old times. The desperate fog of sadness from his first month still haunted him, but it was easier now. That was all he could hope for.

His rum and coke was sweet, but not as good as it was when Finn made it for him. The chicken wings on the table were spicy, but not as balanced as Leo’s. What had started with promises of a big, wild night had mellowed out quickly. It seemed like the team was content to simply be together, basking in the high of the win. Logan was basking with them. Just a little. Even when part of his heart, part of his mind, part of everything that was him, was at home with Leo and Finn.

It was close to three in the morning and Percy was in full form, joking with him about all the girls trying to get his attention. It was true—their group had been clocked the second they came in.

“I swear that’s the sixth one,” Percy sighed, looking over at the bar. “We’re just stars in your galaxy huh, Tremzy.”

“It’s the eyes. Nothing’s changed since college,” Will added. “Thank God Finn isn’t here.” Will had stayed out with them, which was rare. Usually he went home to his family before long. Logan was happy he was here. He’d always loved how loud his laugh was. It reminded him of Freshman year, hanging out in the kitchen of OKN house with Finn and Percy, watching Will cook the house dinner. He’d been such a good captain. The best, besides Sirius.

“What would happen if Finn was here?” Saint asked. He was standing at Luke’s side. Luke kept stealing sips of his whiskey—and narrowing his eyes playfully when Logan smiled at him.

“He, ah, sort of forgets what flirting is,” Logan explained and Alex nodded, pointing at Logan like it would enhance how true that was.

“I mean, maybe it’s more like he’s too good at it?” Percy offered.

Logan laughed. “He talks to everyone and it’s only when they ask him for his number after like, twenty minutes of talking—”

Alex laughed. “Then he’s like, oh no.”

Logan tried for a Finn accent. “Oh, shoot, sorry, I’m actually…”

Will threw his head back with that wonderful, infectious laugh. “Wait, that’s so dead on.”

Logan smiled. “But it was so so wonderful getting to know you! Those pictures you showed me of your dog—Man, they made my night.”

“All right,” Saint held up a hand. “I get it.”

“Yeah stop, it’s creepy now,” Alex said. “That’s scary good. Maybe better than mine.”

Luke scoffed. “Dude, you can’t have a Finn impression. You are a Finn impression.”

“Whoa, whoa.” Alex held up a hand. “If anything, Finn is an impression of moi.”

Logan smiled. He glanced at his phone. One new message, but from Noelle telling him he was coming to lunch tomorrow. It was late.

“Hey, hey,” Percy said, making Logan look up. “I know that look…Nu-uh. Not yet.”

Logan raised his eyebrows, smiling. “Perc.” He put on the Finn voice again. “C’mon, give me a break.”

Percy shuddered. “Okay, I didn’t mean to open this can of worms. This terrifying can of worms.”

“Perc, he beat his boys out today,” Will said. “If he wants to go home, let him.”

Percy put his hands against his chest. “But I haven’t even gotten to the best part of my day yet!”

“How could we ever guess,” Saint said flatly.

Percy winked at him. “Sebastian…Cassie Baker smiled at me today.”

Logan laughed and finished his drink. “Ouais, I’m out. You can moon over my ex-girlfriend without me.”

Alex finished off his drink, too. “I’m done, too. This was fun, boys.”

Percy spluttered. “What? It is young. The night. The earth—is young!”

“I have two boyfriends in my bed, warm and asleep,” Logan said, pushing up from the wall. “And my bed is usually very cold and very empty. So. This was fun. Goodbye.” He looked over at Luke, knocking him lightly in the shoulder as a way of saying goodnight. Luke jerked his chin in reply.

“Tremzy.” Percy actually pouted. “No, non, no.”

“Ouais, yeah, ouais,” Logan said. Percy grabbed onto his arm and made a show of putting most of his weight on Logan to keep him in place. Logan did nothing to help him and Percy began sliding towards the floor.

“Oh for fuck’s sake.” Will dragged Percy back to his feet with a fond shake of his head. “You’re so embarrassing.” he nodded to Alex and Logan. “You two have a good night. Don’t beat yourselves up too hard. It was a good game.”

“Yeah.” Alex sighed but nodded. “It was.” He looked up and called over to the bar. “A round for these guys, Hank!” He tussled Percy’s hair. “My parting gift, Perseus.”

Percy sent them a mournful look, but looked willing enough to accept the drink. “Fine.”

Even Saint cracked a smile.

“That really was a good Finn,” Alex said as Logan followed him down the stairs to the main restaurant and out the door. A breeze picked up on the dark street.

“Merci.” Logan shivered a little in his thin shirt. “Are you calling an Uber?”

Alex sent him an unimpressed look.

Logan sighed. “You’re walking, aren’t you?”

“What do you take me for?”

“Fuck,” Logan said, but followed him.

It was like walking with Finn—Logan didn’t have to think about directions or finding his way around. He knew they lived near each other but would have to split up at some point. Alex would tell him when they did. For now, the air felt good against his skin and the silence was gentle. Sometimes he still felt like he could hear the game in his head.

“Finn asked me once to try and take the shot for you if I could,” Alex said.

Logan wasn’t surprised. Alex touched his elbow briefly to get him to turn left.

“Luke offered me the same,” he said. “It…it is what it is.” But that wasn’t quite right. “Non. It fucking hurts.”

“I know,” Alex said. “I’ve had that with Kasey. You want to apologize when there’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Logan half nodded, half shook his head. “I don’t know. I wish I had gotten to see Le before we left. I thought he needed space. I thought I needed space…I guess we did. I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” Alex said.

“Adrenaline’s wearing off,” Logan said. “I miss him.”

“You’re walking home.”

“I know,” Logan said, eyes down. “But I miss him.”

Alex’s hand appeared on his back, rubbing gently.

“Is Kasey doing okay?” Logan asked.

Alex was quiet for a long time. When Logan looked over, he was frowning down at the ground and fiddling with the small, dark diamond he wore.

“Alex?”

Alex guided him right. The light was red but not a car was in sight. “It’s…really hard for me to tell right now actually.” He stepped up onto a low wall and balanced for a few steps before jumping off again. The temperature had dropped. Logan thought it felt like rain.

“You’re the one who told me to talk to Finn when I was worried about us,” Logan began carefully, and frowned when Alex sort of flinched. “You’re not the type to not take your own advice.”

“I don’t know,” Alex said. “Sometimes I am.”

Logan supposed that was true enough. No one always practiced what they preached. Logan watched their feet as they walked, waiting for Alex to say more. They had fallen into sync. They were quiet for a while again. Alex lead him straight, then left, the straight on again. Logan knocked their shoulders together at one point. Alex knocked back.

“I’m not…worried about us,” Alex said suddenly. “Exactly… I just wonder—I wonder if I’m…” He rubbed a tired hand across his face as they avoided a puddle at a curb. Logan was beginning to think this was about the wedding. He didn’t blame Alex if it was. If Leo and Finn suddenly decided to get married, he’d crawl out of his fucking skin.

“You should tell them,” Logan said softly. He realized he was replying to unsaid things, but if anyone might understand even a sliver of Alex’s situation, it was him.

Alex’s face tightened. “Tell them what?”

Logan thought for a moment. “Whatever you want. Whatever you need to.”

“What I need to?” Alex repeated. “What I need is to show them—show them that I…” Alex gave a sharp shake of his head. Just as suddenly, Alex switched topics. “Thanks for coming out tonight.”

Logan looked up at him. “Alex—”

“I hope—did I force you? I’m sorry, Tremz.”

“What? Non, non. I…I’m glad I came. Really, I am. But—”

“Okay,” Alex said. “Just checking.”

The streets turned to cobblestones and took on curves. There were still a few apartment glowing. Logan liked that. It felt like Gryffindor. There was always a light on. Finally, Alex stopped.

“You’re right,” Alex said. “I’m left.”

“Oh, I thought you were agreeing with me.” What he meant was you can talk to me. “Al, can I do anything?”

Alex smiled. It was a little tight, but he gave Logan a playful shove in the right direction. “No. Thanks, Tremz.”

Logan didn’t believe him, but he didn’t know how to push either.

They stood there in front of each other for a moment. Alex huffed out a laugh and hugged him hard. A hug Logan associated with Finn, with Finn’s parents. They both did the little shoulder pat that their mom hugged with, too. It made Logan smile.

“We’re gonna be okay,” Logan said.

“Yeah,” Alex replied, muffled by Logan’s shoulder.

When Logan had crossed the street, he turned. He felt like he hadn’t tried hard enough, and he’d already made that mistake once tonight with Leo.

“Mais—I’ll say one thing?”

“What’s up?” Alex nodded, waiting on the corner.

“What you said earlier,” Logan said. “In the locker room and just now. About showing them. That we can be both lovers and—” He almost said enemies. “Opponents.”

“The…oh. Yeah?”

“I think…I think I won a hockey game today,” Logan said. "And I love my boyfriend. If I had lost a hockey game, I would still love my boyfriend. When there are no more hockey games, I’ll still love Leo. And if someone, some fucking reporter wants to link those two things, then they can go to hell.”

Alex was shades of blue and silver across the narrow street.

Logan shifted, a little nervous now. “I don’t think…I don’t think we have to show anyone anything. If it’s okay for me to say…”

Logan thought of the hell this year had been. He thought of Leo, holding him when they’d found out he was going to New York. Leo, tumbling into their living room in the middle of the night when Logan had come home from All-Stars. Leo and his soft kisses in the bright hospital hallway while they waited to see if Finn was okay. None of that was a show. Leo might like to put on a performance on the ice for the fans, but everything else about him was instinct, real and pure. Logan admired that. He’d put up fronts for Finn for so long, fronts that he was still tearing down.

“You don’t have to show Kasey and Nat anything. Not, like, a happy face or that you’re okay. That’s not…” Logan shook his head. “That’s just a bad habit, Alex.”

Alex tilted his head up to look at the faint moon over the city. It wasn’t full, but it was getting there.

“Tremzy…” Alex said slowly. When he smiled, the moonlight lit up his face. “You know what?”

“Quoi?”

“You’re fucking right.” Alex put a hand to his chest. The necklace glinted between his fingers. “You’re so fucking right.”

Logan let out a breath. He smiled back. “Yeah? I don’t know if that made sense in English.”

“Yeah.” Alex’s voice cracked, his brown eyes were bright with tears, but when Logan made to step forward he waved him off.

“Well,” Alex said. “I’m going home now.”

There was a lot of relief in that word. So much that it made Logan smile and feel choked up, too. “Me too.”

Logan tried to open the door as quietly as possible, going slow and expecting darkness.

Only, the lamp above his couch was on, turned down to the dimmest setting, and Finn was looking at him from just below it. He was wearing his faded NASA t-shirt and sweatpants, socked feet crossed on top of a pillow. His sling was draped over the back of the couch, his arm resting easily atop another pillow which also propped his book up.

Sleeping against his chest, was Leo.

Logan wanted to crumble to his knees.

“Oh,” Logan mouthed. He kept perfectly still.

Finn folded the book closed silently. He had his glasses on. Hi, his soft eyes said, and then with a glance down at Leo and a palm on his back: Don’t worry, I’ve got him.

Logan set his keys into the bowl by the door as quietly as he could. Leo. He toed his shoes off. Leo. He walked over to the couch and knelt beside them.

“You are so bad at sneaking,” Finn whispered—so quiet. “Did you have a good time?”

“Ouais,” Logan whispered back. He settled a palm beside Finn’s on Leo’s back, eyes trained on his sleeping face. He looked so peaceful. Logan leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss over his t-shirt. He looked up at Finn so he could read his lips more than hear him. “Had a good walk with Alex.”

Finn’s eyebrows raised, surprised. “Oh? Alex…is very good to walk with.”

Logan nodded. He would tell Finn he was a little worried tomorrow.

“Is he okay?” Finn asked softly.

“He will be,” Logan said. He nodded towards Leo. “And ours?”

Finn rubbed a slow hand down Leo’s back with a sigh.

“Lo…”

So far, Leo hadn’t stirred, but at Finn’s touch Logan felt the change in his breathing. Logan could always tell when Leo was awake. Slowly, Leo’s eyes opened. His cheeks were flushed. He regarded Logan sleepily for a moment. Logan felt Leo’s muscles tense as he remembered.

“Hi,” Logan said softly. “Hi, Le.”

“You—” Leo began, but his voice was hoarse and he had to begin again. “You should be out celebrating.”

“I did,” Logan said. “But I want to be here. Merde, Le, I wanted to be here fucking hours ago, I…” Logan shook his head. He was upset with himself, more so than he’d allowed himself to realize earlier tonight. “I should have come and see you. Soleil, I didn’t know…I didn’t know if you’d want…God, I love you, what can I do? Is there anything?”

Tears filled Leo’s eyes. He gave his head a small shake.

“Okay,” Logan said. Was he allowed to reach out to him? Did Leo want that? “Okay…”

“I’m going home with my parents tomorrow for a couple days, Lo.”

Everything in Logan froze. He looked up at Finn, whose eyes told him that this was what he had been about to say.

“Quoi?” Logan breathed. All the tension came right back into him. The fizzy, heavy quiet drained right out of his head.

“Lo,” Finn said, slightly warning.

It knocked him off balance, sitting back on his knees, but Finn reached out and grabbed his hand. His brown eyes were firm, clouded with racing thoughts and emotions. Relax. Think. Wait. Finn’s fingers squeezed around his own. Think. His thumbs made slow tracks across Logan’s knuckles. It’s okay. Think about him. Think about why.

Slowly, slowly, Logan pulled himself back towards Leo, who was watching him with exhausted blue eyes.

Logan let out a breath, he squeezed Finn’s hand then dropped it and combed his fingers through Leo’s hair. “I…okay. Okay. Whatever you need, Soleil.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to see you play—”

“Shh,” Logan whispered. “Le. Leo. It’s not about me. I know I just—um. Freaked out for a second. I’m sorry. We’ve had enough of that this year, ouais?” He leaned down to kiss Leo’s temple. “Home is always good.”

Finn closed his eyes at that, tucking his nose into Leo’s hair. “He’s right, Le. I…he’s right.”

Leo’s first sob was quiet, just a hitch of his chest, but the second came out in a harsh breath. He turned his face towards Finn’s chest, eyes squeezed shut.

Logan felt Leo’s pain right in the center of his chest. “We love you. So much. Le…” Logan wrapped an arm around his back, and Leo reached out a hand to hold his.

“We do,” Finn whispered. “We’re right here.”

“Always,” Logan said. “And—Le, you played so well tonight.” Logan’s throat closed up and he had to pause before he could talk again. “And I’m so fucking proud of you. You’re so talented and this year has been shit. It’s been absolute shit, Le.”

“I really—love you, I just—I need…” Leo gave up trying to talk, just pressed closer to Finn.

“You don’t have to explain,” Finn said soothingly. “We understand.”

“Ouais.” Logan nodded. “I also would—would want Eloise’s chicken soup.” Logan wiped his eyes clear of tears so he could see Leo better. “Even with full spice.”

It startled a laugh out of Leo, crying and blocked-nosed as it was. “Full spice?”

“Ouais, I would. I swear it.”

“Me too,” Finn said. “It’d make me cry but me too.”

Outside it started to rain. A crack of thunder and the force of the drops doubled. Logan didn’t realize he’d hardly looked up until the second clap of thunder.

“The storm,” Leo said.

“Can’t hear it,” Logan replied.

Leo took a few breathes, then picked up his head from Finn’s chest and looked at him.

“Hi, pillow.”

Finn laughed softly. “Very happy to be of service.”

“Didn’t think I was going to be able to sleep at all.” Leo pressed a kiss to Finn’s chin and groaned a little as he pushed himself into a sitting position, like he hadn’t moved in ages. He let out a long breath, rubbing at his eyes.

“I love you guys, too,” Leo said. He reached out for Logan. “The ice…Seeing you on the ice…”

Logan shook his head. “I know.” He pushed himself up onto the couch when Leo made free the space on his other side. Finn sat up and slipped his sling back over his head to cradle his arm. He sat facing them criss-crossed and Leo touched his face. Finn kissed his palm.

“Did you guys eat after the game?” Logan asked.

Leo shook his head. “Finn wanted to get me something but…I really just didn’t want anything.”

“You should have something,” Logan said, then he leaned forward for a quick kiss. “Wait.” This. This was something he could do. “Don’t move, either of you.”

Logan moved around in the yellow light of his kitchen with hard-fought for ease. He cracked eggs into a bowl. He poured a splash of milk in, the way Leo had taught him. In the pan, he kept the heat on low, turning the eggs slowly so their soft curl didn’t break. He turned the heat off while they were still just a little runny, slid them onto the toasts—which he had managed to time perfectly—to let them finish cooking while they melted in butter and a few passes of shaved cheddar. Four shakes of chili flakes. He went to the fridge and found the fresh mint that Leo had bought for him. He waited a moment for his kettle to boil, then clumped the mint into three mugs and poured the hot water over them. A little drizzle of honey in Leo’s, a big drizzle in his, none for Finn.

In the living room, Finn and Leo were dozing together. Outside, the sky lit up with lightning and both of their eyes opened. Leo held out his arm.

“You’re back.”

“Of course,” Logan said.

Leo looked over at Finn. “See?”

Finn shuffled Leo closer under his arm. “I do. I do.”

Logan braced himself, setting the tray of Leo’s eggs and the three teas down just in time for the thunder to make him flinch. Leo’s eyes were clearer now. He smiled when they saw the food.

“Aw, Lo…”

“It’s nothing like you can do,” he said. “But I love you.”

I love you, love you, love you.

He settled the plate on Leo’s lap and watched as he took a bite, humming as he chewed. He held out the toast for Finn. Another crack of thunder rang out, but Logan hardly heard. He was warm in one of those softly glowing apartments he’d seen from the street. The sun was going to rise soon and Leo and Finn were tucked close to him. Their faces were tear-streaked, noses still sniffling, and it wasn’t quite their summer. Not yet.

Outside it was raining and thundering, but inside it was beginning to feel to Logan like their storm was passing by.

#vaincre lumosinlove #coops #hockey au #finnlo #sunfish #lelo #o'knutzy

157 notes · View notes

devilsupdates · 2 months

Text

Devils vs rangers

My moms word of the game is fuck

PK = penalty kill

Second period

Let’s go devils

Smith going to the box.

#NJDevils to the PK.

#NJDevils playing with fire as Smith goes to the box

#NJDevils Smith's penalty is now offset by Fox taking an interference penalty.

Fox negates the PK.

4on4 for 1:30. #NJDevils

Fox evens it up setting a pick kn Lazar at the blue line. 4v4 for 90 sec

Nico saving the day with a sweep of the puck on the goal line.

1-0 NYR.

Rangers make it 1-0, not quite strong enough puck play in the corner there

Jesper Bratt denied on the breakaway.

Hughes-Hischier-Meier

Palat-Haula-Bratt

#NJDevils going to the power play.

Lafreniere off for boarding Luke Hughes.

Lafrenière is going to go off for boarding on Luke.

Shoulder to shoulder

Nemec goes to have a few words with Lafrenière afterward.

Let’s all hope Luke will be ok

We got Mercer and fox fight!!!

2-0 NYR. (Fuck)

Jonas is injured

MacDermid B-lines for Rempe after a very not clean hit by Matt Rempe.

Jonas Siegenthaler just got slammed into the boards and is leaving the ice with a trainer. Headed to the #NJDevils locker room (there's only 29 seconds left)

Rempe elbows Siegenthaler in the head. Wow.

Rempe sent to the room waving "goodbye" to the #NJDevils bench.

Rempe is thrown out of the game, he gets a game misconduct (among other penalties).

MacDermid gets a 10-minute misconduct.

End of two.

#NJDevils trail the Rangers 2-0.

#new jersey devils #hockey imagine #jack hughes #nico hischier #luke hughes #hockey #timo meier #john marino

15 notes · View notes

judgementdaysunshine · 10 months

Text

Breakaway

Pairing: Dominik Mysterio x Fem reader

Description: You and Dom find each other at your low points and breakaway together

Grew up in a small town and when the rain would fall down I'd just stare out my window dreaming of what could be and if I'd end up happy I would pray trying hard to reach out but when I tried to speak out felt like no one could hear me

You never felt like you fit in or belonged anywhere in your life but when you found wrestling through your uncle, it changed you from that moment on and you were determined to become a wrestler, always training and working out in between school and despite how everyone around you was telling you were crazy for wanting to go after your wrestling dream which made you feel like you weren't good enough to be a wrestler ever, which changed when you were taken under the wing of Damian Priest, who taught you that despite all the inner demons and self doubts, as long as you fought back and willing to stand your ground no matter anything that happened, you will survive and be much stronger than anyone ever thought.

Wanted to belong here but something felt so wrong here so I prayed I could break away I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly I'll do what it takes til I touch the sky and I'll make a wish, take a chance, make a change, and breakaway out of the darkness and into the sun but I won't forget all the ones that I love I'll take a risk, take a chance, make a change, and breakaway

You slowly felt the happiest you ever had and all of it not only changed but it made you happy than you thought you ever would, you met Dominik when he started wrestling not too long before you, and soon the two of you were best friends and always showed support for each other then later on when he and you both turned heel and joined the Judgement Day together, all the feelings between the two of you changed and amplified as time went on and you both had felt your lives change in a way neither of you expected, that you both not only achieved your dream of wrestling after working and proving everyone wrong so many times but that you two had found each other in the process but it only made your lives and journey of the dream even more better.

Wanna feel the warm breeze sleep under a palm tree feel the rush of the ocean get on board a fast train travel on a jet plane far away and breakaway I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly I'll do what it takes til I touch the sky and I'll make a wish take a chance make a change and breakaway out of the darkness and into the sun I won't forget all the ones I love I gotta take a risk, take a chance, make a change, and breakaway buildings with a hundred floors swinging round revolving doors

Everything finally came out when he stayed the night with you at your home, you ate dinner together, watched a few movies, and were watching CSI in your bedroom until you suddenly felt his hand caress the side of your face, "I'll show you how much I have loved you and how much I do love you, if you want me to" you smile as you share a kiss which soon leads to caressing and kissing each other's body, igniting a warm burning feeling throughout your skin but you both laugh a little bit in between all the gentle touches, every soft kiss on your body, and both of you just holding each other in the quiet after pouring out everything that had been kept in and finally showing all the feelings and affections you had for each other, you fall asleep in his arms as he runs his fingers lightly and slowly over your spine that makes you slightly shiver as he giggles with his other hand holding yours.

Maybe I don't know where they'll take me but I gotta keep moving on, moving on fly away, breakaway I'll spread my wings and i'll learn how to fly though it's not easy to tell you goodbye I gotta take a risk take a chance make a change and breakaway out of the darkness and into the sun but I won't forget the place I come from I gotta take a risk, take a chance, make a change, and breakaway, breakaway, breakaway

You both open up but everything you had both went through and all the feelings and things you've both never told anyone but each other, it made you both just fall harder for each other even more, you both told your three friends and teammates, Finn laughs and congratulates both of you, damian hugs you both affectionately truly happy that you had each other, and Rhea hugs you saying she was proud of both of you as she laughs hugging dom, you both always show all the loves you had for each other in everything you did for and to each other and it never failed to make the other emotional that you had each other even when either of you felt like you didn't deserve to be happy but you always reminded each other that you both deserved each other after everything that's happened in both of your lives.

#wwe x reader #dominik mysterio #wwe #dominik mysterio x reader

33 notes · View notes

lovesongbracket · 1 year

Text

Reminder: Vote based on the song, not the artist or specific recording! The tracks referenced are the original artist, aside from a few rare cases where a cover is the most widely known.

Lyrics, videos, info, and notable covers under the cut. (Spotify playlist available in pinned post)

Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy

Written By: Freddie Mercury

Artist: Queen

Released: 1976

The song was the eighth track on their album “A Day At The Races” which was released in 1976. The song also appeared on “Queens First EP” released in 1977. The song is about how Freddie is an old-fashioned lover, taking his partners on old-school dates such as dancing or dinner, also hinting at the fact that he is a good lover.

[Verse 1] I can dim the lights and sing you songs Full of sad things We can do the tango, just for two I can serenade and gently play On your heart strings Be a Valentino, just for you [Chorus] "Ooh love, ooh lover boy What're you doing tonight? Hey boy" Set my alarm, turn on my charm That's because I'm a good old-fashioned lover boy [Verse 2] Ooh, let me feel Your heartbeat (Grow faster, faster) Ooh, can you feel my love heat? (Ohh) Come on and sit on my hot seat of love And tell me how do you feel, right after all I'd like for you and I to go romancing Say the word, your wish is my command [Chorus] “Ooh love, ooh lover boy What're you doing tonight? Hey boy” Write my letter, feel much better I'll use my fancy patter on the telephone [Bridge] When I'm not with you, think of you always I miss you (I miss those long hot summer nights) When I'm not with you, think of me always Love you, love you Hey boy where do you get it from? Hey boy where did you go? I learned my passion in the good old-fashioned School of lover boys [Guitar Solo] [Verse 3] Dining at the Ritz, we'll meet at nine (One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine o'clock) precisely I will pay the bill, you taste the wine Driving back in style in my saloon will do quite nicely Just take me back to yours, that will be fine (Come on and get it) [Chorus] Ooh love (There he goes again) Ooh lover boy (Who's my good Old-fashioned lover boy?) (Ooh ooh) What're you doing tonight? Hey boy! Everything's all right, just hold on tight That's because I'm a good old Fashioned (Fashioned) lover boy

youtube

Careless Whisper

Written By: Andrew Ridgeley & George Michael

Artist: George Michael/Wham!

Released: 1984

Although officially released by Wham!, this was George Michael’s first breakaway single. The song explores the guilt felt by George after he cheats on a partner, and his inability to “dance” with them in the same way after this betrayal. Despite the song’s ubiquity in pop culture since its arrival on the scene in 1985, George Michael has confessed to having no particular connection to the situation this song portrays. He wrote the song to pass the time on a bus, when he was just seventeen. In his 1991 memoir, Bare, Michael admits he regrets that it “was not an integral part of my emotional development… It disappoints me that you can write a lyric very flippantly—and not a particularly good lyric—and it can mean so much to so many people. That’s disillusioning for a writer.” Later in an interview with People magazine, he made similar remarks about the song. “I’m fed up with ‘Careless Whisper.’ I don’t know why it made such an impression. Is it that so many people have cheated? I have no idea. But it’s ironic that I wrote it when I was 17 and didn’t know much about anything. Certainly nothing much about relationships.”

[Intro] Time can never mend The careless whispers Of a good friend To the heart and mind Ignorance is kind There's no comfort in the truth Pain is all you'll find Should've known better, yeah [Instrumental] [Verse 1] I feel so unsure As I take your hand And lead you to the dance floor As the music dies Something in your eyes Calls to mind a silver screen And all its sad goodbyes [Chorus] I'm never gonna dance again Guilty feet have got no rhythm Though it's easy to pretend I know you're not a fool Should've known better than to cheat a friend And waste a chance that I've been given So I'm never gonna dance again The way I danced with you, oh [Verse 2] Time can never mend The careless whispers Of a good friend To the heart and mind Ignorance is kind There's no comfort in the truth Pain is all you'll find [Chorus] I'm never gonna dance again Guilty feet have got no rhythm Though it's easy to pretend I know you're not a fool Should've known better than to cheat a friend (Should've known better, yeah) And waste a chance that I've been given So I'm never gonna dance again The way I danced with you, oh [Post-Chorus] Never without your love [Bridge] Tonight, the music seems so loud I wish that we could lose this crowd Maybe it's better this way We'd hurt each other with the things we want to say We could have been so good together We could have lived this dance forever But now who's gonna dance with me? Please stay [Chorus] And I'm never gonna dance again Guilty feet have got no rhythm Though it's easy to pretend I know you're not a fool Should've known better than to cheat a friend And waste a chance that I've been given So I'm never gonna dance again The way I danced with you, oh [Outro] (Now that you're gone) Now that you're gone (Now that you're gone) Was what I did so wrong, so wrong That you had to leave me alone?

youtube

#good old fashioned lover boy #queen #freddie mercury #careless whisper #george michael #wham!#polls #poll tournament #poll bracket #tournament #bracket #lovesongbracket #round3

52 notes · View notes

stardustndreamsofsilver · 1 year

Text

Missed You

Jake x Reader (gn)

Warnings: angst, mention of alcohol consumption

"Hello?" You say as you answer your phone.

"Hey baby. My flight just landed I'll be over as soon as I can." Jake says, you can hear the excitement in his voice.

"Okay, I'll see you soon."

"Alright, I love you." Jake says.

You hang up the phone without saying it back.

About twenty minutes later, you hear a car pull up outside your house. Going over to the window, you see Jake getting out of the Uber and getting his bags from the trunk. Leaning over, he waves goodbye to the driver before walking up to the door. You open it before he has a chance to knock.

"Hey!" He says as he walks in. Throwing his bags down, he wraps you in a tight hug. "God, I missed you."

"I missed you too. How was your flight?" You say as you breakaway from him.

"It was good. There was the cutest little baby sat across the aisle from me. Little thing just kept wanting me to play and talk to 'em. Kinda made me want one of my own." He says, pulling you back to him.

With a breathy laugh you push away and say, "I think that might be a ways off."

Clearing your throat, you walk away from him and toward the kitchen. "Are you hungry? I can make you something really quick. I know you hate airplane food."

"That would be great. Thanks babe." Jake says as he stares at the back of your head, wondering what was wrong.

You were usually a lot more excited to see him after he got back from trips out of town. You'd normally meet him at the airport because you wanted to see him as soon as you could. He couldn't seem to shake the feeling that something wasn't right. But, he tried to ignore it as he followed you into the kitchen.

You made him his favorite pizza and poured him a glass of wine. Sitting the plate in front of Jake, you go and sit across from him. Placing your arms on the table, you rest your chin on your hand and watch him as he eats.

"This is so good babe, thank you." He says.

"It's no problem, I'm glad you like it." You say with a weak smile.

The two of you sit in silence for the remainder of his dinner. When he finishes you take the plate and take it to the sink. After rinsing it off, you go back and sit with him.

"Can I ask you something?" Jake asks.

"Sure." You say.

"Did something happen while I was gone? You've been distant since I walked in the door." He says, eyes filled with worry.

Heaving a deep sigh, you say, "Let's not talk about it now. You just got back. It can wait."

"No, please, I don't think I can wait. I want to know." He says, his breath shallow and quickening.

"Jake, really. It's better if we do this tomorrow."

"Please. Just tell me." He begs.

"Jake—"

"You're really starting to scare me. Just tell me!" He says, fear twisting his features.

Sighing, you think of what to say. How to tell him. There wasn't a gentle way to say this.

"Jake, while you were gone, I had some time to think. I was able to really think about me and what I want from life. And well, before you left, I thought I loved you. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized. I don't want a life where I have to be without the person I love more than I'm with them. I want something steady and consistent. I realized that with each time you left, a part of me fell out of love. Until little by little, I wasn't in love with you anymore. Jake, I haven't truly loved you in a long time."

#jake kiszka #jake gvf #jake kiszka gvf #jake kiszka greta van fleet #jake angst #gvf jake #gvf blurb #gvf imagine #gvf fic #gvf angst #greta van angst #greta van fleet #greta van fic #greta fic

37 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 8 months

Text

A major new work, weaving together historical anecdote and the author’s family history, laments the slow erasure of centuries of linguistic, ethnic and cultural diversity in an increasingly homogenised region.

In Goodbye, Eastern Europe, a major new work “chronicling a thousand years of strife, war, and bloodshed” from Vienna to the 14 time zones of the Russian Empire, Jacob Mikanowski weaves a rich and amusing tapestry of historical anecdote (and personal family history). His aim is to explode conceptions of Eastern Europe as a grey, featureless bloc – but also to suggest that millennia of tolerance, cosmopolitanism and cultural, linguistic and ethnic variety are slowly being erased. While his epilogue links this diagnosis to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mikanowski’s thesis has perhaps even greater relevance to the Western Balkans.

His historical vignettes are delightful – thieves in the finicky Austro-Hungarian Empire handed four-hour sentences for stealing an onion, elderly Romanian communists leaving Kent Cigarettes on graves to pay black-market bribes in the afterlife – but also serve a larger purpose. This tissue of anecdote is the perfect way for Mikanowski to demonstrate Eastern Europe’s “defining characteristic is diversity”. Each page revealing another “little island of heterodoxy”, down to the ultra-fine level where each village has its minority and each minority its particularities, as in the exhaustive account of a Ukrainian settlement where even the cabinetmakers had their own culture: “As Filippians and Old Believers, they spoke Russian, but with a Novogorod accent.”

To Mikanowski, the phrase “Eastern Europe” is an “outsider’s convenience”, a lump term of little practical application to locals. His argument here recalls Maria Todorova’s “Imagining the Balkans”, which powerfully demonstrates the negative, politically-loaded role of the term “Balkans” – as implied by the always-pejorative neologism “Balkanisation” – applied by outside observers and commentators to a shifting set of states and territories while many of those states try to escape the charge.

As with, for example, Romanian writers claiming a Latin identity to evade the “Balkan” label, Mikanowski notes that particularly in the post-Communist era, many Eastern European countries prefer to consider themselves in “Central Europe”, the “Nordic Community”, and so on, thus distancing themselves from the Eastern Bloc. The Balkans are, perhaps, another such an exception, but with the difference that the term is applied from the outside. Rather than a breakaway clinging to Mitteleuropa (Hungary) or Russia (Belarus), they’re isolated and abandoned – the last island of Eastern Europe.

Mikanowski does sketch the deep diversity and (sometimes uneasy) tolerance which has long characterised the Western Balkans – as well as pointing to the mushrooming of latter-day nationalism and ethnic homogenisation. For example, he takes a fascinating trip to Moschopolis in Albania, the “city of the shepherds”, which was for centuries the heart of the little-studied Vlach culture, but whose Christian churches are now largely shuttered.

Overall, the book has less to say about the Western Balkans than other regions. States are covered in the expected proportions, with Poland mentioned around 230 times, but Bulgaria 50 times and Serbia 40, with Montenegro and Kosovo only just reaching 10. This reflects Mikanowski’s Polish-Jewish origins, personal research interests and certain geopolitical realities, but also suggests the extent to which the Balkans represent Eastern Europe’s own East, encoding the same values for other Eastern Europeans as Eastern Europe itself does to the West.

Nonetheless, his arguments can provide a key for understanding the region, for example when claiming polities like the Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth (represented here as the avatar of its contemporary, fledgling US) and the Ottoman Empire were not “nuclear winters” for culture. Rather, they “tended to accentuate difference rather than suppress it”, in the latter case particularly by fostering the “largest and oldest concentration of Muslims on the European continent”, whose contributions are often overlooked when set against Umayyad Andalusia. As with Christopher Clark’s recent effort to rehabilitate the much-maligned Austro-Hungarian Empire, to Mikanowski there is much to commend these vast and unwieldy institutions, which discriminated against minorities while simultaneously allowing for unprecedented religious toleration on the basis of recognized differences.

With these arguments, Mikanowski aims to push back against simplistic, atavistic nationalisms which have defined the post-Communist era – as when he derides the phalanxes of nationalistic statuary in Skopje, or critiques post-ideological, third-way museums in Hungary for implying communism was “just as bad” as Nazi fascism, in a charge equally applicable to contemporary nationalist ideologues in the Western Balkans. At the same time, he cautions, it’s “easy to fall into nostalgia” when discussing Eastern Europe’s pre-World War 1 diversity. Most cities were not “melting pots”, but characterized by mutually suspicious, if tolerant, communities – as in Albania’s Elbasan, once partitioned in sharply-defined concentric circles of Christian Albanians, Muslim Albanians and Christian Vlachs.

Mikanowski’s anecdotal style is less suitable for identifying other meta-historical trends or making political claims. As with the genealogy craze, everyone finds their own great-grandfather’s story fascinating – but what can this tell us about the course of history?

In such a grand narrative, something is always downplayed, and Mikanowski’s focus is on the personal and local. Understandably, the writer is more concerned with tracing the miserable fate of intellectuals under Stalinist communism than any deep-searching assessment of Communist political economy. He has sympathy for Hungarian “Goulash communism” and respect for Tito’s Yugoslavia as the sole anti-Stalinist “exception” and bane of Stalin’s life but doesn’t delve into how it was that Tito could by and large preserve inter-ethnic diversity and solidarity, instead somewhat simplistically presenting the Yugoslav project as an “act of mutual forgetting”.

Rather, the full impact of Mikanowski’s string of personal anecdotes is revealed when he turns to his family’s experiences in the Holocaust. Pushing back against representations of the slaughter of six million Jews as solely an “impersonal, mechanized process”, marked by German efficiency, Mikanowski argues that in Eastern Europe, “the Holocaust was an intimate slaughter”, as neighbour turned on neighbour in an exhaustive, hand-to-hand massacre. Thus, the author, in the book’s most profoundly affecting passage, can trace his great aunt Rosa’s scream as she was executed in the Warsaw ghetto via a secret milk-can archive, preserving the memory of her murder to the present day, where it “haunts” him yet.

Long-term persecution of the Jews and Roma notwithstanding, cataclysmic 20th-century violence was in part so horrific precisely because minorities had lived cheek-by-jowl with their persecutors for so long, in what Mikanowski calls a “ramshackle utopia”, weathering prejudice and the rise and fall of empires.

Mikanowski’s warning over the dangers of homogenisation and decline of this long-standing cosmopolitanism is particularly germane to the Balkans – all the more so in the neo-liberal free-for-all which followed the Socialist collapse. The Jews are gone, the Islamic presence is much diminished, and regional capitals are an increasingly indistinguishable blur of co-working spaces and Starbucks, masking empty rural hinterlands left to the impoverished, the elderly and the ghosts. But so too is his celebration of a “constellation of parochialism… bigger than the sum of its parts”, traces of which still endure in those same hinterlands, despite all efforts to eradicate it.

7 notes · View notes

this-is-ally-and-im-confused · 2 years

Text

Senior Failure|| N.Patrick

Summary: it's your last game at University. How does Nolan comfort his Goalie!gf after failed shutout in OT? (With help from an old friend of course)

Warnings: fighting, loss of important game, angst but turns into fluff.

Taglist: @snugglyducklingbrewhouse @cartahhart79 @hockeyboysarehot @ethancale @quietblues

OT. You had just come onto the ice after another switched shift with your alternate. Her gives tapped yours and you knew that now was time to give the game everything you had. Just as you take the ice and skate to your crease–you glance into the stands. Nolan’s smiling face greets you. At this moment, everything is perfect. You've got your team, you've got your boyfriend, and you've got the game you have loved since you were a little girl. It seems like the first few minutes in overtime go by in an instant. You’re playing smart, never leaving your crease unless to grab a far-out dumped puck.

The last thing that anyone wanted was for this to go wrong. It feels daunting that no matter what someone has to lose. You’re not gonna be the ones to...right. your hand rubs the goal post beside you, and your knees fell to the stance that they’ve held thousands of times before. The game is mostly being played offensively for your team. Meaning that you get essentially no action. Just enough time to glance over at your family, friends, and coach. “Keep your head in the game.” You mumbled to yourself.

Until, the breakaway. You had trained for this a plethora of times. The petite forward skated towards you with speed and grace. need your defenseman skated just behind her. You knew you were on your own. That didn’t stop you from reading her shot like a book. Left fake then high glove. But you were right there. Nothing got in. You could finally exhale. Family and friends cheered your name behind you. And if you tuned in you could hear Nolan’s chants of “that’s my girl.”

This game was going your way. Then it wasn't. The players had crossed the center line and skated into your defensive zone. You were ready. Your eyes never left the puck. But your defenseman's eyes did. The next thing you knew, you had blocked 5 shots. A penalty was called on your team’s center for hooking. Shit. That means a power play. You stood strong for as long as possible. Easily taking 16 or more shots but somewhere along the line a defenseman came and tipped the puck right behind the back of your pad.

That was a goal.

Just like that, the game is over. And you had lost. It felt like your world had ended. Your triumph had quickly turned into a mortifying loss. This was the last game you’d ever play with these girls, and it's your fault that the game went so wrong. Quickly, you skated off the ice. The tunnel was silent until you made it to a steel support bar for the stands. Angrily you smashed your stick into the bar. It felt good to let out the rage and sadness by smashing your stick to pieces. This was the last time you could achieve a win.

Quickly, your teammates hurried to hug you. Tears were shed, screams were released, and bonds were strengthened. Most importantly, your team assured you that it wasn’t your fault. But still, every goalie blames themselves. You walk out, freshly showered, and still awfully sad. Nolan smiles at you. He was never really great at reading the room.

“Hey.” You said to him. He grabs you and pulls you into his chest.

“I’m sorry you let in that puck.”Said like a true center.

Your eyebrows pulled together. Partly in confusion, and partly in anger. Deep down, you knew Nolan was trying to be comforting, but his words didn’t help. You didn’t just nonchalantly “let in” the puck. It was forced in. Plus you had no defense there for you.

“I didn’t let that puck in on purpose, Nolan.” You grumbled.

“Well, it didn’t go in magically!” Nolan tried to joke with you.

You just huffed and walked faster to the car. Your friends and family waved goodbye. To which you replied with a “we can get together later, right now I’m exhausted” and a few hugs goodbye. If they understood,

why didn’t Nolan? The drive home was mostly silent. You knew that Nolan knows you are upset because he tried to play your guy’s favorite songs, but he got little response from you. His hand grazed your knee but you just shrugged him off. The two of you pulled up into your driveway. You quickly hopped out and grabbed your things. When Nolan entered the house, you were locked away in your bedroom.

Nolan (for once in his life) knew how to fix this. Buzz…buzz…buzz…

“Hello?” A familiar Albertan accent filled his ears.

“Hi hartsy, I think I just fucked up with my girlfriend.” Nolan shyly admits.

The pause on the other end of the line was amusing yet terrifying to Nolan. He found himself clutching the phone like a little kid.

“Okay? How can I help, dude?” The goaltender asked confused.

Now, Nolan had to explain everything. Words weren’t his strong suit on the best of days. “Okay, so my girlfriend is a goalie-“

“Oooh makes sense!”

“-as I was saying. She’s a good one too, but it was the last game of her senior year. And she let in a puck. So I said sorry to her that she let in that puck but then she got all mad at me.”The Flyer waited on the other end of the phone. Carter’s tongue clicked as he thought.

“Did you say it exactly like that?”

Shit. Nolan must have said that stupidly.

“Uhh yes?”

“Congrats bro, you just goalie-shamed your girlfriend.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

The boy on the other end of the line laughed. It was a dry laugh but he also found it endearing that his old buddy needed his help. Hart would never admit it but he missed Nolan very often.

“It means that you just blamed the person that has the hardest job on the team. It was probably an impossible save. And she probably feels like she let everyone down. It’s a hard feeling. I bet she just needs some love and reassurance.”

“Stop being smart. But yea, you might be right.” Nolan answered. “

“I know”

“Anyways I gotta go make it up to her.”

“Let me know how it goes, talk soon.”

And with that Nolan ended the call.

He carefully got up off of the couch where he sat and walked towards your shared room. Gently, he knocked.

“Come in.” Came your muffled voice.

His eyes landed on your bundled-up frame. You looked so tiny. Even tinier than normal.

“Hey, I’m sorry honey.” Nolan began.

“For what?” You grumbled.

He hummed as he leaned down to press a soft kiss to your lips. Your eyes started to water. Nolan quickly laid down and pulled you into his chest. It felt good to be in Nolan’s arms. It also felt good knowing that the world wasn’t completely against you. His fingertips danced along your back. They traced gentle patterns.

“I wasn’t trying to blame you, I forgot how hard your position is to play-“

“it’s fine”

“-let me finish, love. I was talking like an idiot. You played so well today, and you left your heart on the ice. I’m so proud of you. And I promise to never goalie-shame you again.” “Awww, Nols. You just made my day so much better. Who the fuck taught you the term goalie-shame?”

“Hartsy…”

“of, course”

Nolan snuggled into you, but this time you didn’t push him away. You knew he was being stupid before. Everything hurt from your workout and the loss. The boy softly gripped the top of your scalp as he rubbed smooth circles into your hair. It was subtle but it was the start of an apology. The rest of the night was filled with compliments and Nolan doing his best to make you feel better.

Even Hartsy sent you a text telling you not to be hard on yourself and to not overly blame the stupid center that is your boyfriend.

#send in requests #send anything #ally loves hockey #ally is bored #nolan patrick x reader #my amazing moots <3

40 notes · View notes

griefpersevering · 1 year

Text

the ripples they cause

Read on AO3 🕷 Playlist 🕷 Buy me a cup of tea ☕

Chapter Fourteen: Don't Fear The Reaper

Notes:

hiii everyone!! I can't apologise enough for how long it's been, but I'm back!! I'm still updating the earlier chapters, but I thought I'd start uploading some of the new ones I've written as well, so I'll probably alternate between the two. the title of this chapter comes from the song (Don't Fear) The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult!

Sneak peek:

They don't waste time standing on the train platform, mulling over their goodbyes. Natasha barely knew Ben and May, and although Tony is more subdued than usual, he's probably more concerned about Spider-Man than his aunt.

The platform melts into a sidewalk without warning, and as soon as they cross the threshold, the train tracks that ran parallel to their path vanish. Nat glances upwards at the skyscraper that sits in its place. The entire building is dark, save for one light shining through a window about ten stories up.

"So, where are we headed?" Tony asks, rubbing his eyes with his hand.

Nat spins in a slow circle, trying to find her bearings. The Train attracted Ben and May like moths to light, but without their guides, she has no idea which way to go. The City is an ever-changing labyrinth; every time she looks away, the buildings morph into something new and the roads change directions.

"Why don't we just continue in one direction until the scenery changes?" she suggests. From what Ben told them, the only places they could end up are the Countryside, or the relative safety of the Beach.

Tony pulls a face at her plan, but doesn't comment. Maybe he isn't feeling as well as he keeps insisting. His right hand is trembling, and beneath the layer of ash and sand that covers him, his face is ghost-pale.

"You don't have to come," she offers. "I can bring the book back to the Beach and we can read it together."

A stop light that hadn't been behind Tony a second ago changes from amber to green. "Fat chance," he says. "Besides, there's no way we're getting separated."

If they were still alive, she would have pointed out that his health, combined with his stubbornness, could be the reason they get killed. But since they're already dead, the point is moot, so she just nods.

She starts walking in what she hopes is the opposite direction to the Train, slowing her pace enough so that Tony can keep up without him noticing. After passing two blocks, she spots another soul on the other side of the road, but they don't acknowledge her or Tony. Their pale orange skin suggests they aren't from Earth anyway, so there's no reason for them to stop and chat to random civilians who can't even give them updates on their friends.

With all the Blipped people here, it must have been chaos. Perhaps Yelena walked these same streets, searching for a way back to her. Nat hopes that someone explained what was happening to her, because without Ben, she could have convinced herself that this is some kind of twisted dream.

Yelena. They always seemed to miss each other, didn't they? In 21 years, they never crossed paths until they took down the Red Room together. And after that, in those two years before Thanos, they only met up once.

Nat asked Yelena whether she would like to join the breakaway Avengers — her, Steve, Sam, and Bucky. She laughed at the suggestion.

"You don't get it, do you?" she said, but she never explained.

Nat wanted to spend more time with her. She wanted a normal relationship with her sister. But she was on the run, and then there was Thanos, and then there was Vormir. Barely enough time to catch her breath, nevermind arrange a meeting towards two spies.

She's alive now, at least. The thought isn't that comforting, when Nat isn't there to check.

They are passing two apartment buildings with a skyscraper wedged between when Tony stops walking. Nat glances back to see they have turned into one long row of shops.

"I need a break," he says, and he sounds out of breath. He is clutching one hand to where the arc reactor used to sit, and his face is pinched with the effort of walking. For him to admit he's in pain, it must be bad.

Nat sits down on the edge of the curb, spreading her legs into the empty road. She leans back, splaying the fingers on her left hand in the direction they are walking so they don't start walking in circles.

Tony sits down next to her, tilting his head back and letting his eyes close.

"What made you change your mind?" Nat asks.

"About what?"

"Time travel." In the reflection of the shop window across the street, the building behind them stretches and warps, adding windows and removing rooms. "You seemed set on not risking your life because of your family, but here you are."

He hesitates. "I told you I couldn't risk losing Pepper and Morgan, and that's true," he says, his hands gripping the edge of the sidewalk. "I hate I might never see her grow up. I wanted to be there for her — I wanted to be better than my old man."

"But?"

"But... after you guys came, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I was doing the washing up, and I saw a photo of me and Peter, and I knew I couldn't let it drop. I could save him, but I'd risk losing everything I had in the process. There was only ever one answer."

"Peter?" Nat prompts.

Tony looks over at her, meeting her gaze for a long moment before continuing. "Spider-Man."

So she had been right. The new Avenger Tony roped into their fight in Berlin was a child. She can't blame him — he was so clever, so hopeful and excited... it isn't surprising Tony grew attached so quickly.

May's words pop back into her head. She'd left the cave to give Tony and her some privacy, but that didn't mean she hadn't been eavesdropping. The tale of what Spider-Man had gone through after Tony's death hadn't sounded like anything a young boy should deal with by himself, superpowers or not.

"You'll see him again," she promises, placing her hand over the top of Tony's. "We can fix this."

Her reassurance isn't just for him. Tony misses his family, of course he does, but Nat's heart longs to see her sister again, and she will do anything to have that opportunity.

Tony moves his hand from under hers, clapping them onto his thighs before struggling to his feet. Nat follows suit with a tad more grace.

"We better get going, then," he says. "We'll never make it if we sit here on our asses all day."

Continue reading on AO3!

#marvel #mcu #tony stark #iron man #natasha romanoff #black widow #peter parker #yelena belova #my writing #the ripples they cause #lina lore #nwh #endgame

5 notes · View notes