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snelbz · 3 years

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Light Up the Ice - Chapter 10

Summary: Aelin Galathynius has never really been into sports. Yes, she likes to keep in shape, and she works out, but watching people run up and down a field, trying to keep a leather ball away from each other? It’s always seemed a bit childish to her, and decidedly NOT a way for a grown adult to make a living.

Rowan Whitethorn has recently been drafted by the Terresen Staghorns, one of best teams in the EHL (Erilean Hockey League). And since he moved to Terresen from Wendlyn, it’s been hard for him to get more than 30 seconds alone from someone demanding a picture with him. Getting drafted straight out of college wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but he’s not complaining. Until he accidentally meets a girl. More specifically, until he accidentally meets his neighbor. She seems to have no idea who he is and for some reason, that’s refreshing. But will she still want to be with him once he shows her the truth?

Light Up the Ice Masterlist

My Masterlist

Tara’s Masterlist

Co-written with @tacmc.

Warnings: language, smut - this chapter is 18+.

Rowan’s phone rang for the third time since he’d made it home from practice less than an hour ago. He had two papers due in the morning and his professors didn’t give a shit if the Warriors were heading to the finals in less than a week. They cared about the history of Wendlyn and its allies.

His girlfriend, however, clearly didn’t give a shit about either.

He answered, his tone clipped. “Hello?”

“You never called me when you finished up.”

He pulled the phone away from his ear and sighed, before returning it and saying, “I’ve only been home for about fifteen minutes. Coach made me spend some extra time in the weight room.”

“You’re going to put on too much bulk if you keep going to the gym,” she said, pointedly. “You won’t get drafted into the EHL if you don’t have the speed, babe.”

Another heavy sigh. “I’m just doing what my coaches say, Maeve. They’ve gotten me this far-.”

“No, Rowan, you’ve gotten yourself this far, with your ability, not your coaches,” she said, and he could hear her getting into the car. “You need to quit going to the gym and focus on your puck-handling.”

When Rowan had met Maeve his freshman year, after Lyria’s accident, he thought dating someone in the sports medicine program would make his life easier. A good distraction from life and his feelings, but the longer they stayed together, the more Rowan regretted ever asking the dark-haired beauty out to dinner.

She’d been great at first. She was as interested in hockey as he was, so he didn’t feel like he was bothering her by asking her to come to his games. But as she inserted herself into his life in more and more ways, Rowan knew that they weren’t going to last.

“I’m leaving my apartment now, I’ll be there in just a bit,” she said, completely ignoring his lack of reply to her suggestions.

He sighed. “I’ve got a lot of homework, Maeve, I really think I should-.”

“You’re in college to play, baby,” she replied with a scoff. “You need to focus on your future, your studies are just a stepping stone.”

This was becoming a frequent conversation between the two of them. Maeve was adamant that Rowan should drop out and see if he could get drafted as soon as he could. Rowan knew that even if he was to get drafted early, one game, one bad hit, one concussion, one injury could end his career. He didn’t just study to ensure he could play for the University of Wendlyn.

He studied because he wanted a backup plan.

Maeve, as single-minded as she was, didn’t understand that. She didn’t understand a thing, not about Rowan, anyway. All she saw was a man that made her look good, a guy that was well-liked around campus and in his hockey community and their group of friends.

“I need to-.”

Maeve was already interrupting him. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

She hung up.

With one last heavy sigh, Rowan closed his laptop and prepared for her arrival.

Rowan pulled out his phone the moment she left. It was on his ear, ringing, as he checked the stovetop clock to see if it was too early to be drinking.

Brello answered on the third ring. “Whitethorn.”

“Hey,” Rowan began, hesitantly. “I-.”

“Did you see the new therapist?” Brello interrupted. “Havilliard mentioned you were planning on getting started today.”

“Aye, coach, I did, but there’s a minor problem-.”

He was cut off again. “You can’t get back on the ice for at least two games, Rowan, I’m sorry. Those are the rules. Just follow the at home therapy routine Dorian left you and you can come back to practice on Sunday.”

“The problem isn’t me not getting to play.” He rushed the words out, not meaning to sound disrespectful, but wanting to speak before Brello hung up the phone. “It’s with the new sports therapist.”

Silence met him on the other side of the phone. “Give her a couple weeks, Whitethorn. I know you were used to Sorscha, but even she says Maeve is highly qualified, and highly recommended.”

“I’m sure she is, but it’s more of a, ah, personal conflict,” Rowan said, pacing around Aelin’s apartment. He’d come back after Maeve was done. Dorian had left a note on top of the stack of paperwork he assumed was his therapy, letting him know he’d headed back to the arena and to call him with any questions.

Another pause. “A personal conflict?”

“Maeve is my…” Rowan cleared his throat. “Maeve is my ex, sir.” Brello was once, again, quiet on the other line. “Sir?”

Brello sighed, long and heavy. “Look, Whitethorn. I respect you, and you and I have never had any real issues. You’re a great player, and a great asset to the team. Because of that, you need to get the hell over your personal issues and keep your eye on the end goal here.”

Rowan closed his eyes. “But-.”

“You need to take the treatment being given to you or you won’t be playing any time soon and that’s final,” Brello said, his voice conveying one thing: that his words were very much final.

When Rowan didn’t answer, Brello’s voice filled the silence, yet again. “Is that clear?”

Rowan’s voice was strong but quiet when he replied, “Yes, sir.”

Brello hung up without another word, which left Rowan standing there, his phone still held up to his ear. After a moment, he pulled it away and looked down at it, at the ridiculously adorable selfie Aelin had set as his lock screen . He wasn’t sure when she’d done it, but he couldn’t help but smile as he looked into her gorgeous eyes.

He froze.

Shit. How was he going to tell her?

Good news, babe, I called the team therapist. Bad news, she’s my ex.

His phone lit up in his hand, taking Rowan by surprise. “Hey, man,” he answered, falling back on the couch. Which was a mistake. He immediately groaned.

Lorcan snorted. “I take it you saw Maeve. I have the same reaction when she puts her hands on me.”

Regardless of the fact that he loved Aelin, regardless of the fact that he could hear the joking tone in his teammate’s voice, Maeve was still his ex. And Rowan hated the feeling that rose in him at the thought of her hands on someone else’s body.

When Rowan said nothing, Lorcan followed, “That was a joke, asshole.”

Rowan cleared his throat. “I know, I was just thinking of how I’m going to tell Aelin.”

Lorcan snorted. “Tell Aelin? Tell her what?”

Rowan blinked, even though Lorcan couldn’t see him. “About Maeve.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” Lorcan asked, without missing a beat.

“Because I’ve learned my lesson about keeping things from her,” Rowan snapped. “Last time it didn’t work out so well for me.”

“Didn’t it?” Lorcan chuckled. “You got the girl, I think it worked out alright.”

Rowan was about to reply, about to tell him that Aelin wasn’t a prize to be won and that he was lucky as hell she decided to forgive him. But Lorcan cut him off. “On top of that, all it’s going to do is make the princess pissy and jealous, which is only going to make her hate hockey more. And I don’t see that working out well for you in the long run.”

Lorcan had begun to call Aelin the princess and Rowan sighed as he used the nickname. “Shit. I didn’t think about that.”

“Exactly. You gotta think long term. You tell Aelin that your ex is your massage therapist and she’s going to be so jealous, she can’t see straight,” Lorcan said, and Rowan could hear the beeps of the treadmill as he picked up the pace.

“Are you at the arena?” Rowan asked, praying that they weren’t having this conversation while Lorcan was around the rest of the team.

He sounded offended when he replied. “Hell no, I’m at home. You know I don’t run at the rink. But speaking of being at the arena, we need you there. Not in the box, not suspended on the bench, and sure as shit not on the injured list. You need to quit this dumb shit with the fighting.”

They’d had this conversation once before but rather than over the phone, they had been in person.

It ended in a fist fight.

Rowan sucked on his teeth. “I promise, it’s done with. Now that I have Aelin back, I just-.”

“Stop, stop with the mushy shit, I don’t want to hear about it.”

Rowan frowned. “You’re a jackass, you know that?”

“I do,” Lorcan said, between heavy breaths. “A fact that I’m proud of.”

Rowan just shook his head. “Of course, you are.”

“Be at the game tonight?” Lorcan asked.

“Yeah,” Rowan replied. “With Aelin.”

“Good,” Lorcan huffed. “Bond, keep her happy up in that box of yours. Keep Maeve to yourself. Trust me.”

Trust me. Those words from Lorcan Salvaterre typically didn’t sit well in the pit of Rowan’s stomach, but Rowan had to admit that this time, Lorcan had a point.

He just got Aelin. He didn’t want to ruin it with petty jealousy coming between them.

Besides, it was just a little, white lie.

Right?

When Aelin got home, she found Rowan on her couch, wearing a very nice suit, that was tailored to immaculately accent his muscular form, watching highlights from the games the night before. Her eyebrows rose as she took him in. “I already feel underdressed and I haven’t even changed yet.”

Rowan chuckled as she set her purse down on the kitchen counter. “If I didn’t have to wear this to games, I wouldn’t. Unfortunately, I don’t get much of a choice.” He stood and met Aelin in the middle of the room. “How was your day?”

“Insanely busy,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist and smiling up at him. “But that meant it flew by. So it was good.”

Leaning down to kiss her, he replied, “Good.”

She raised up on her tiptoes and met his lips with hers before pulling away and heading for her bedroom. “I need to get ready, come tell me about your therapy appointment today. You look like you aren’t hurting as bad.”

Rowan rubbed at the back of his neck, but waited until she had rounded the corner to answer. “Nothing of consequence happened. Got the massage, my trainer gave me some physical therapy exercises to do at night, and relaxed the rest of the day. Just like I said I would.”

Rowan walked into her room and found her in the bathroom, piling her hair into a messy bun on top of her head. She looked at him in the mirror and raised an eyebrow. “Nothing of consequence? You sure about that?” She asked, before reaching for her makeup bag underneath the vanity.

Rowan swallowed hard, the abrupt change in her tone having immediately put him on edge.

How had she found out? Lorcan was the only person he’d told about Maeve. Rowan was fairly sure that he hadn’t said anything, since Lorcan didn’t even want him telling her himself.

“No, nothing,” he replied. “A pretty boring day, honestly.”

Aelin ran a spoolie brush through her brows, but smirked and said, “Liar.”

Rowan’s blood went cold.

The smile on her face surprised him until she said, “You didn’t tell me Dorian was your trainer!”

He released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He chuckled and scratched at the stubble on his jaw.

“We’ve known each other for years,” Aelin went on, checking herself out in the mirror. “He’s such a good guy. I didn’t even know you knew him, which is ridiculous, considering how often I talk to Dorian.”

“Yeah, he’s great,” Rowan said, nodding along. No more questions, please, no more questions.

“Maybe we’ll see him at the game tonight.” Aelin reached up on her toes and gave Rowan a kiss on the cheek. “Let me change and touch up my makeup, then we’ll go?”

Rowan cleared his throat. “Sounds good.”

Rowan had hung his jersey on the door so Aelin could wear it, but after holding it up to her frame, it was agreed that it was far, far too big.

“We’ll get you another one from the Pro Shop when we get to the arena, get one in your size, yeah?” He chuckled, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she pouted about being unable to wear his.

She tossed on a light jacket and they were out the door. True to his word, as soon as they emerged from the stairwell leading from the staff and player’s garage, Rowan took her into the Pro Shop, much to the amazement of the crowd inside. They were hardly stopped though and a handful of minutes and one Jersey purchase later, they were all alone. The privacy of the box was a nice reprieve for Aelin. She was not used to being stared at for such long periods of time and she found she didn’t much care for it.

“Is this always how it is?” Aelin asked, as she sat her purse in one of the chairs. “Everyone being starstruck?”

Rowan shrugged. “Only when I’m here. I’m rarely recognized elsewhere. You know, unless they’re diehard hockey fans.”

“Which explains why I didn’t know who the hell you were,” Aelin chuckled.

Rowan grinned. “I liked that about you.”

Aelin smiled and walked toward the open end of the small room, facing out over the ice. The plush chairs were set far enough back that unless you were standing right on the railing, you couldn’t be seen. But the railing is where Aelin ended up and she whispered, “It’s so much to take in.”

The arena opened up before them. He knew exactly what she meant, but on a completely different scale. He’d ruined two hockey games for her though, and he wanted her to enjoy this one.

“Do you want a drink?” He asked, brushing a long, loose strand of hair behind her ear

“Yes, please,” she smiled. “A Jack and Coke.”

He nodded and pressed a kiss to her forehead, before placing their order on the small iPad on the counter. A beer for himself and her drink, plus miscellaneous things they could snack on.

“So what do you want to know about hockey? He asked, after they’d sat down on one of the many plush loveseats. The box could seat as many as twelve, but Aelin and Rowan weren’t complaining about their privacy. He wrapped his arm around her and drew small shapes on her shoulder as he watched his teammates warm up.

She shrugged, snuggling into his embrace. “I’m more of an ‘ask as you go’ type of person. I’m sure I’ll think of something though.”

Rowan snorted. “Fair enough.”

It wasn’t five minutes later that someone showed up with their drink order and appetizers, then politely left them alone.

Aelin took a sip from her drink as she watched the players skate gracefully around the ice. Aelin could faintly remember the last time she had been on ice skates, she couldn’t have been older than ten.

And she hated every second of it.

She had constantly fallen down and her ankles were sore as hell afterwards. After that, she had never wanted to go ice skating again. Even if she found the sport beautiful.

Hockey players skated in an entirely different way, though. They were brutal, ruthless, but still so graceful with every glide of their skate.

“You look mesmerized,” Rowan muttered, cup of beer tipped against his bottom lip.

“It’s…intense,” she admitted, trying to follow just one of the little black pucks sliding across the ice as the players warmed up.

“It is,” he said, focusing on the activity below. He watched as his line followed through the warm ups he did with them every night. It felt so foreign to be up here, so far from the ice, instead of with them.

Aelin’s hand rested on his arm. He tore his eyes from the ice and the figures gliding around.

“You really do love this game, don’t you?” Aelin asked, smiling at him.

He paused and gazed back out over the ice. “More than I can explain, Aelin. Hockey… It may just be a game to some people, but it’s my entire life. Everything I am, everything I have, I owe to this sport.” His pine green eyes caught hers when he turned back to look at her and he cupped her face with one hand. “You have no clue how much it means that you’re here with me, darlin’. Thank you.”

Aelin melted. “Thank you for asking me to come with.” He took her hand in his and she chuckled as she ran her thumbs over his knuckles. “I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have come to a hockey game with anyone else.”

Rowan snorted. “Fair enough.”

The game began and Aelin wasn’t ashamed to say that Rowan had to explain every little thing that happened.

When the crowd would cheer, she’d try to decipher what had happened. When they’d yell and boo, she’d try to observe the game. It didn’t help that she couldn’t see the puck, sliding across the ice at ridiculous speeds. More often than not, she’d have to ask what caused the reaction from the crowd. And the goal horn nearly made her spill her drink the first time it rang out, after Gavriel scored a goal on the power play.

He never acted like her questions were a bother, though he may hold up a finger to indicate he needed to watch for a second longer to process what had just gone down. But then he’d grin and explain what happened, or if it wasn’t in the Staghorns’ favor, his brow would crinkle and he’d tell her what went wrong.

Then he’d tell her what he would have done that would have kept it from happening and wink at her, and she’d shake her head, laughing quietly.

She understood the basics of the game, but after her third stiff drink in the first period, Aelin wasn’t really worried about learning the in’s and out’s. There was time for that at a later game and the way Rowan’s warm hand was resting on the inside of her thigh had her focused on something else entirely. His calloused thumb rubbed small circles into the denim of her jeans, but even that touch was enough to ignite something within her.

All the while, her own hand was resting on his leg. Through those expensive suit pants, she could feel his muscular thighs and every time something major happened, he’d scoot forward. The first couple of times, Aelin would write it off as something from the game, but she knew what lie beneath those silk-spun slacks, beneath the boxer-briefs.

Right before the end of the second period, Aelin turned towards Rowan right as he turned to ask her a question, and she felt it.

Rowan’s cheeks were heated. He stammered an excuse out. “There’s a lot of adrenaline running through me, Ace,” he breathed.

He was rock hard inside of slacks.

It may have been because of the game, he may have not been lying, but Aelin couldn’t resist.

“How private is this box,” she whispered, brushing her fingers along the definite bulge in his pants.

Rowan hissed quietly, his pine-green eyes went wide, but his tongue darted out to wet his lips. “No one can get in unless we open the door. No cameras either.”

“Hmm.” The response was quiet and Aelin went back to watching the game, sipping on her drink.

For another few seconds, Rowan watched her, all too aware of the ridiculous hard-on straining against his slacks. The regulation clock ticked down to 0:00 and as the players skated towards the benches for the intermission, Rowan was about to suggest ordering one more round of drinks, when Aelin slid off the couch, settled on her knees, and started undoing his belt buckle.

He didn’t dare move, didn’t breathe. He was perfectly aware of every one of her movements, perfectly aware of where her eyes remained as she unbuttoned his slacks, and moved down the zipper.

Rowan’s jaw hardened as those slacks slid down, just to the tops of his thighs. His cock stood proud.

Her hands were like ice, frigid, thanks to the arena being, well, literal ice, but he didn’t care. Not when her touch made him feel like he was on fire. She stroked him, slowly, carefully, but not like the other night, when she’d surprised him after the shower.

Her grip was more firm, and Rowan could see the lust in her own eyes.

“Does this happen every game?” She crooned, spreading his legs wider and scooting in closer.

His eyes fell closed of their own accord and he nodded. “Mostly all of them, aye.”

“Hmm.” Once again, a short, quiet answer. He didn’t have to press her through. She continued, “And you usually take care of it yourself?”

His eyes opened and he looked at her. He nodded once.

“Maybe I should come to more games then,” she said, smirking. He groaned softly, and she leaned and pressed a soft kiss to the tip, before looking up at him again. She was almost sure he wasn’t breathing, but his eyes… His eyes burned for her.

He cleared his throat, and his voice was husky when he said, “I can get pretty…rough after games, baby. What we do out there, it’s a pretty aggressive sport.”

Aelin ran her tongue along the underside of his cock, from the base to the crown at the top, which glistened with Rowan’s precum. It was practically begging for her lips around it. “What if I told you I like it pretty rough?”

Rowan had to fight the urge to take her then and there.

“Nothing to say to that?” Aelin crooned, her grin wild and mischievous.

“Wouldn't be the first time you’ve left me speechless,” Rowan answered, attempting a joke, but his voice was far too rough for humor.

“I call that a success,” Aelin breathed, her breath warm against the tip of his cock.

Rowan fell back in his chair as her lips wrapped around him, and he couldn’t stop his hand from slowly reaching out and gripping the back of her head, her fingers tangling themselves into her golden locks.

Twice now, he’d had Aelin’s mouth on him, and twice now, he felt as if the blood in his veins had turned to fire. He tugged on the strands and Aelin’s turquoise-and-gold eyes opened, finding him gazing down at her. As she bobbed her head, taking him deeper and deeper with each pass, a quiet whimper left Aelin and Rowan’s grip tightened on her hair, groaning as Aelin began to work him with her hand as well.

Rowan had the vague recognition of the teams retaking the ice and roar of the crowd, but his sole focus was the woman on his knees before him, worshipping his cock.

He began to hope that his words before had been true. Hopefully no one would walk in. Hopefully, no cameras would find a way to catch them. Then again, did he truly care?

No.

The feeling that swept through his body made him not care a single bit.

“Aelin,” he breathed.

He could feel her lips curve upward as she worked him.

He growled, “Fuck the rest of the game,” and pulled himself from Aelin’s mouth.

He quickly resituated himself and Aelin, bless her, had the foresight to sit back in her seat before standing up. She adjusted her hair and grabbed her purse, asking, “You don’t have to stay the whole time?”

“Didn’t have to come at all,” Rowan said, coming up behind her. He turned her around and tilted her chin up so that she was looking up into his handsome face. “But you do, so we need to go, and we need to get home as quickly as possible.”

Aelin blinked, staring up at him for a moment, shocked by how upfront his words were. The grin that graced her lips though, was one of wicked delight.

“Who says we need to go all the way back home for that to happen?” Aelin whispered, caressing his cheek with the palm of her hand.

Rowan looked around the box, even though they were alone. “Are you saying what I think you are, Galathynius?”

Her grin only grew more feline.

Licking his lips, watching Aelin, Rowan warred with himself inside his head. But he wouldn’t fuck her in a private box at a game.

Not the first time, at least.

He leaned down, his lips at her ear, and breathed, “I want to take my time with you - to learn…every inch of you. And this box doesn’t have the thickest walls. I don’t want to have an audience,” he added as he pulled back and let his lips just barely brush against hers, “when I make you moan, Aelin.”

#snelbz lui #light up the ice #toab lui #rowaelin hockey fic #rowaelin #throne of glass #aelin galythinius #rowan whitethorn #snacmc #snelbz tacmc collab

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minor-solemnity · 3 years

Note

What's your favorite character from the golden trio era?

Oooh idk possibly this is an unpopular opinion - at least it was when I was like, properly in the fandom rather than where I am now which is firmly on the sidelines with my hands over my ears and ignoring everything that I don't like - but Cho Chang. This is probably in part because she got so much undeserved hatred (thank u fandom and author racism) and I am predisposed to like characters that people don't like.

I find her character so heartbreakingly real in a way that I think is entirely accidental on JKR's part. I don't think JK can write women. (Plz don't hate me for that, but like, it's true.) Everything interesting about the characters we are meant to like gets sanded down and ignored in the later books - Hermione's whole thing is like, book smart but not emotionally intelligent, she wants to be right and have people know she's right more than she cares about their feelings. She thinks rules are important until they apply to her. She is ruthless and vindictive and petty. These are interesting character traits that just get completely dropped in the later books. By the time book 6 ends and book 7 starts Hermione is 'wife' and 'mother' and it's kinda sad.

I digress.

Cho's boyfriend is murdered. Cho is understandably upset and heartbroken and sad af. She tries to find comfort in Harry because Harry was there, Harry must understand. Harry can help her process. Their ways of dealing with trauma are completely opposite to each other. Cho seeks emotional vulnerability and closeness from the boy who, of all people, will understand. Harry's way of processing trauma is to ignore it. It happened, it sucks, I will never speak of it again (until all my unprocessed emotions come spilling out and I end up lashing out and getting angry). Those two ways of dealing with trauma are not going to work well together. Harry is honestly a dick towards her - she's his fantasy. She's not a real person to him. When that fantasy comes crashing down he behaves pretty awfully towards her. And if you're reading critically, you come away thinking yeah, Cho's a whiny crybaby who doesn't get Harry at all. What a bitch. When in reality, it's more like - Cho is seriously fucked up and is trying to come to terms with her grief and seek comfort in someone who she thought would get it.

Imagine being like, 16 and being isolated and sad and so fundamentally misunderstood. Imagine being 18 and your friends are dead and the boy you liked is still dead and the other boy you thought you might like is a hero and the only thing you're really known for is the mess that is your grief. Imagine that the popular consensus is that your grief is something to be ridiculed.

I tend to pick and chose which parts of the extended canon I believe in, but I believe in Cho moving to America and getting hitched to an American muggle dude. (Moving to America is probably my own headcanon actually). What would motivate her to move across the world? Grief? Wonderlust? Anger? I imagine it's all three. Idk if this is a relatable feeling to a lot of people, but I get it. I have a constant itch under my skin that tells me to move on whenever a place starts to feel too much like home. To leave. To escape. Nowhere feels like home because home is a collection of broken things. It's a hall of funhouse mirrors - the wires in your brain get mixed up. Comfort and safety become synonymous with 'i will fuck this up' and 'i don't deserve this' and 'everyone will leave'.

I want so many things for Cho. I want her name to make sense. I want her to be seen as something other than 'pretty' and 'sad'. I want her in Boston slamming Sam Adams by Sam Adams grave because she finds it funny. I want her in Boston, learning to drive a car (stick-shift because the driving instructor had made a comment about how automatics are easier to learn and she is tired of people seeing her as something weak and unable). I want her road-raging and I want her to drive across the country because why the fuck not. I want her in New York and the city is so frantic and no one looks at her and she feels so small and the lights are so bright and she thinks maybe she could disappear here and no one would ever know. I want her to find a group of women rollerskating and maybe they invite her to their roller derby group. It isn't flying, but it's fast and aggressive and she's never allowed herself to be aggressive like this before. She's not allowed herself to be angry like this before. No one else has allowed her to be angry like this before.

I want her to go to California and to go to Angel Island and I want her to understand that there have been people like her before. That she is not alone in this feeling. I want her to meet a dude who's studying for an MBA - he doesn't know who she is. Doesn't know what she is. She's just this cute girl who drinks Sam Adams even tho that's a Boston thing and they're in San Diego. He's probably a frat boy. I want him to be a frat boy who takes his degree too seriously and wakes up at like 5 because he's also a gym rat. He takes her to his boxing class. She probably cries during and hey that's okay - she has a lot of shit to work through, he can tell. He doesn't ask about it. Just says her accent is cute. Maybe she starts taking night classes, maybe she doesn't. She's weirdly technologically illiterate - she sends him postcards even though they live in the same city. She says its because her school didn't let them have phones. She's never seen a Tarintino film and that's just like... not cool. They watch True Romance on his shitty box TV in his room in his frat house and she laughs (she laughs like the violence is cathartic) when Alabama completely destroys Virgil. He looks at her and she shrugs and says 'I get it.'

She says that's she's leaving soon - doesn't know where. Probably isn't coming back and again that's... not cool. She's weird about some stuff. Won't talk about home - won't say where she's from. He should be fine with it because like, it's not as if this is anything serious and his life is pretty clearly planned out. Get an MBA, work in some start-up tech company - the internet is a thing now and god, there's money to be made. He thinks maybe that she should like, stay but she also seems like the kind of person who doesn't know how to stop running. And look, he's doing an MBA. He rushed his frat. He goes to boxing every morning without fail. He's determined. He's not good at letting the things he wants go. But he lets her go because she doesn't want to stay. One night afterwards, his frat bro says, philosophical because they're crossfaded, that maybe she can't stay. Maybe she won't let herself stay. And that... That sounds about right.

So he waits. He waits and he gets postcards with no return address - in Seattle, she tries ice hockey. In Miami, she tries surfing. He almost gets on a plane to Cincinnati because she got into a fight with some dude who made his girlfriend cry in public. Apparently, she knocked him out with a punch just the way he showed her to. It feels weirdly romantic.

I want her to write a postcard to him when she's sitting in a bar in Las Vegas and I want her to include a return address. I want him on the first flight out, because fuck his classes? She included a return address. He asks her if she's ever going to go home and she looks at him and says, 'What? To San Diego?'

#cho chang #meta #oh god i wrote meta #this isn't even meta tbh - this is basically a fic #this very much got away from me #can u tell i have feelings about women being angry?#grief and anger taste the same #harry potter #asks #anon #she speaks

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hookingminor · 4 years

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three lessons - mat barzal

a/n: new series idea I just had, spoiler there is filth and the next parts will be as well also im not the best at writing smut so you’ll have to bear with me here. anyway! let me know what you think! comments/thoughts are always appreciated! also, I know it briefly mentions being the younger sister of a teammate, but I know nothing about the isles so its literally just for plot purposes don’t expect much from that and this isn’t proofread sorry

word count: 4.2k

summary: you’re tired of being a virgin, so you hit up Mat to help you with your problem and strike a deal

warnings (18+): loss of virginity, smut

PART TWO

This was by far the worst idea you’ve ever had.

In your twenty-one years of life, you’ve never had a worse idea. Your initial plan was crazy in and of itself, but adding Mat to the mix? It’s like you were asking to get your ass kicked.

The original thought came to you a year ago when you were sitting on the couch of your friend’s apartment, four glasses of wine into the night. She was complaining about her latest hookup, raging over the fact that he didn’t know where the clit was.

This is how it usually went between you two.

She was the one who got all the guys, the one who could pick up anyone from the bar and spend the night in a stranger’s bed without a second thought. You, however, were the wingwoman, the person who was left behind when your friend eventually decided to leave with a man.

It didn’t bother you that much. It’s not like you felt like you needed a boyfriend, you were secure in almost all aspects of your life, but the nagging thought in the back of your mind kept saying that you needed to get fucked. And soon.

Maybe it was the alcohol coursing through your bloodstream or the fact that you hadn’t masturbated in nearly two weeks, but you rolled your eyes at your friend before you finally snapped.

“At least you’ve had someone to fuck the past few months! Be grateful you’re not me and still a virgin at twenty!” You shouted, fed up with hearing stories about how your friend’s sex life was so terrible. At least she had a sex life to begin with.

“Oh my god. I’m so sorry,” you apologized quickly, bringing your hand to cover your mouth in shock, “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, it’s just… it’s hard listening to you talk about this when I can’t contribute to the conversation.”

“No, you’re right. I’m sorry for always talking about it,” your friend said, eyes softening when she heard how regretful you sounded, “How about we change the subject?”

She didn’t wait for your response before launching into a monologue about how classes were going and her upcoming finals. You tried listening to her, but your mind was still stuck on the previous topic. Of course it was unfortunate that you happened to be twenty and with no sexual experience, but it didn’t bother you before like it was bothering you right now.

Ideas began racing through your head of how you could rectify this, and that’s when the seed was planted.

Now, almost a year later, your carefully thought out plan was almost complete; though, ‘carefully’ could be more loosely translated to ‘reckless.’

You paced outside of Mat’s door, walking back and forth as you fiddled with your hands, working up the courage to knock. This was such a bad idea. You brought your hand up to the door, pausing before your fist made contact before bringing it back down and resuming your pacing.

After another five minutes of deep contemplation, you made your decision. You knocked on the door before you could second guess yourself, now bringing your hands to tug at the strands of your hair.

The few seconds it took for Mat to answer the door felt like a lifetime, and when he opened the door, you were met with a confused look.

“Y/N? What are you doing here?” He asked, peeking his head out of the door to glance down the hallway.

“Hi, I know you weren’t expecting me and you have to leave for practice soon, but I needed to talk to you about something,” you explained quickly.

Mat’s brows stayed furrowed in confusion, but he opened the door further to let you inside.

“Firstly, I just wanted to say that Anders doesn’t know I’m here, and I’d really appreciate it if you never mentioned it to him,” you said as he closed the door behind you.

Mat ushered you into his living room, gesturing for you to take a seat on the couch as he crossed his arms and waited for you to continue.

“This is going to sound absolutely crazy and you’re probably going to reject me but just hear me out,” you said, taking a deep sigh. He was totally going to shut you down, but there was no turning back now.

“I wanted to ask you if you’d have sex with me. You’d be doing me a favor as my friend. I’m kind of… a virgin… and I really don’t want to be anymore,” you took a breath to watch his reaction which was unreadable, “You’re probably thinking it’s a terrible idea, being that I’m Anders’s sister and everything, but I promise I won’t say anything to him. I just want to get a little experience under my belt… it’s kind of embarrassing. Anyway, I just wanted to ask if you’d give me a few lessons or something.”

You raised your eyes to meet Mat’s as you finished your rant, worrying about what he was going to say. A long silence fell between you two as he processed what you said.

“Uh… I don’t really know what to say,” he started awkwardly, bringing his hand to rub at the back of his neck, “I’m honored, I guess? That you asked me to help, but I’m just a little confused since we don’t really know each other.”

Okay, you could give him that. It was true that you weren’t the closest of friends, but you’d met on a handful occasions. It’s not like you were complete strangers, but other than knowing what you were studying in school and that you were Anders’s much younger sister, he didn’t know much about you.

“That’s fair,” you said, “I asked you because, well, you’re obviously hot which I’m sure you know. Also, not knowing each other is what makes this perfect. I’m not attached to you in any way and vice versa. Honestly? You’re one of the few guys in town that I feel comfortable around, so it was either ask you or find a random Tinder hookup and have to do this speech all over again but ten times as awkward.”

Mat didn’t like the last part of that explanation: the whole ‘random Tinder hookup to take your virginity’ part. He may not have known you that well, but he knew you were a nice girl and deserved to be more than just a notch on the bedpost of someone who didn’t care about you.

“I know you’re probably thinking I’m insane, and I get it. I felt a little insane when I thought about this too. But I really feel like you’re the best option. I understand if you think it’s too weird, though,” you said when he hadn’t replied. Your eyes watched him as he sat still as a rock across from you.

“I… I have to leave for practice soon,” was the only thing he responded with.

You felt your heart drop at his statement. Of course he was going to say no, you were an idiot for even trying.

“Yeah, totally, I’ll get going,” you said quickly, gathering your stuff and making your way to the entrance.

When you reached the door, you turned back one last time to see him still in the same position.

“Can you not tell Anders, please? I know this was a crazy, stupid idea but… just don’t tell him, okay? He doesn’t need to know about my sex… well, lack of sex life,” you added before shutting the door behind you.

Mat had lost his mind.

Truly and honestly, he had lost his mind if he was even considering your proposition. Which he was. He was really considering your proposition, and he wanted to punch himself for it.

He couldn’t possibly agree to this, could he? You were the captain’s younger sister. Sure, you two weren’t the closest of siblings, but the code still applied. And the code clearly said he was not allowed to fraternize with relatives of his teammates in any way. He hadn’t broken this rule yet, and he couldn’t believe he was even thinking about breaking it now.

Inside his head, he weighed the pros and the cons of sleeping with you. Well, teaching you would be a better phrase. If Mat was being honest, he had blacked out after the terms ‘virgin’ and ‘have sex with me’ fell from your lips. He watched you from his spot on the couch, his eyes following your mouth but not processing the words you were saying. Truthfully, he ran over the conversation a million times in his head and he wasn’t sure he was actually processing them now.

You wanted him to take your virginity. You wanted him to give you experience. You called them lessons.

You were, quite literally, asking him to be your sex tutor.

When you left the apartment, he did what he did best. He compartmentalized. Instead of thinking about the awkward conversation he just had with you, he pushed all thoughts of you from his mind and went to practice. For a whole three hours he focused on hockey. He even had the courage to look at his captain despite the weird interaction he’d just had with his sister.

But then practice was over, and Mat was left with nothing to do but think about what you said. Thinking turned into contemplating, and contemplating eventually turned into pulling up your Instagram page.

Mat typed and retyped the message a million times, deleting it before he could accidentally pressed send. He went back and forth between wanting to say yes and throwing his phone as far away from him so he wouldn’t be tempted.

What could be the worst thing that happened? He thought.

A million bad things could happen. He knew this deep in his heart that it was, for all intents and purposes, the worst idea ever to teach his captain’s sister how to have sex, but his head and desire to get laid had other plans.

So, he picked up his phone one last time and composed the same message he’d written a hundred times.

to @yourusername: does your offer still stand? text me 212-203-3849

For the second time in a week, you were pacing outside of Mat’s apartment. You’d received his message almost six days ago, and now here you were.

Your chest nearly collapsed with relief when you’d seen he wanted to take you up on your offer. And then your stomach filled with butterflies, nerves wracking your body as you now had an official plan to lose your virginity.

You eagerly liked the message, dialing his number in your phone so you could hash out the details over text. He promised you two would go over some ground rules in person, saying it felt too weird to have a written contract or something over text. You agreed to his plans and set a date to go over to his apartment that following weekend.

Feeling more courageous than you did a week ago, you knocked on the door with confidence this time. If you were going to lose your virginity tonight, you weren’t going to look like a frightened kitten when you did.

Mat greeted you with a warm smile this time, his eyes lighting up when he saw you. Same as last time, he ushered you into his apartment and directed you towards his couch.

“Do you want anything to drink? I was about to open a bottle of wine,” Mat asked, already moving to the kitchen.

“Yeah, wine would be great. Thanks,” you replied, taking a seat on the edge of the couch.

Mat tinkered around in the kitchen for a couple minutes before he joined you, handing you a glass of red. You took a long sip as he settled down, hoping the wine would work fast to calm your nerves.

“So, what did you want to discuss first?” He asked after a moment.

“Well, we should probably have some ground rules. I was thinking that since you’re the expert and all, you should decide how these lessons go. Oh, and I think that we should keep this to a three-time thing. Anything more than that will probably get more complicated,” you answered with ease. Not to say you had spent the past week thinking about what you were going to say, but you definitely did.

Mat nodded in agreement at your suggestions before adding his own.

“Yeah, that sounds good. Also, we can’t tell anyone about this because, you know, your brother and the team and all,” he said. You hummed in response, that much was a given. No one could know about this.

“So, where do we start? Should I take off my clothes or?” You asked.

“No,” he said with a chuckle, “We’re going to watch a movie.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. For now at least.”

You hadn’t known what you were expecting, but it was not a cuddle session on his couch. You imagined that maybe he would’ve just ripped your clothes off the minute you walked in to get down to business, but he was being way more casual than you were feeling. Which was probably a good thing because your heart was beating a thousand beats a minute, so at least one of you had this situation under control.

Mat had told you to dress comfortably as he didn’t plan on leaving the apartment, and he was dressed in a similar fashion as you: gray sweatpants with a dark blue t-shirt. You had thrown on a pair of leggings and a shirt from your college before leaving, making sure to wear at least a nice bralette and pair of panties underneath.

He drank down the rest of his wine before adjusting himself on the couch, moving into a position where he was laying down. Grabbing the blanket folded on the back cushion, he spread it out over his body before patting the spot in front of him. Normally, you would’ve been intimidated by a bold move like this, but the wide smile on his face indicated that he was perfectly comfortable right now, and his ease surrounded you in waves.

Slamming back the rest of your wine, you lay down in front of him, tucking your body against his while his arms pulled your chest closer.

“Anything specific you want to watch?” He asked, using his free hand to grab the remote. You muttered a quiet ‘no,’ allowing him to go ahead and choose. Mat scrolled through the Netflix options before settling on a new action movie.

“So, how much experience do you have exactly?” Mat asked once the introduction credits had finished. It was a good thing he wasn’t looking at you because your face heated up in embarrassment.

“I’ve only ever got as far as making out,” you muttered.

“No one’s ever touched you then?” He prodded.

“No,” you replied, your cheeks on fire. You couldn’t see him, but Mat nodded in response against the back of your head, letting out a quiet ‘okay.’

It wasn’t the first time Mat had been with a virgin, but that hadn’t been since high school and when he also wasn’t that experienced himself. Mat decided to let the movie play for a little bit longer before making his first move.

That time came when there was a particularly slow scene on. Slowly, he lifted up the hem of your t-shirt and slid his hand underneath, tracing small circles on the skin of your stomach. You clenched your thighs together as a warm feeling started to spread throughout your body.

It was happening.

Mat kept his hands there for a few minutes, inching up so slowly you almost couldn’t tell he’d moved at all. When the initial shock of his touch settled, you tried to refocus your attention to the movie.

Another ten minutes passed before Mat made his next move. Almost imperceptibly, he used his elbow to push his torso up before he brushed the hair covering your neck to the side. You felt his fingertips brush your ear, a shiver running up your spine. He brought his lips to your neck a split second later, placing a soft kiss against it.

Your eyes briefly shut for a second, reveling in the fact that Mat’s lips were on your neck. He kissed around your jaw a couple times before the hand on his stomach was shifting you to rest on your back. Your body followed his lead and your eyes met his hazel ones before he was leaning in to kiss your lips.

A heat unfurled in your body the second your lips connected and you eagerly moved yours against his. One of Mat’s hands had moved to the back of your neck to tilt your head at a better angle, the other hand moving further up under your shirt to rest just below your bra clasp. Your body involuntarily arched up into his hands as his tongue slipped out to part your lips. You opened your mouth and his tongue entered immediately, tangling with yours. You and Mat lay on the couch for a good while, making out heavily before you eventually had to break it for air.

“At least you don’t have to worry about kissing. You’re a natural,” Mat commended with an airy chuckle, and you couldn’t help but laugh at his compliment.

Mat’s smile brightened at your laugh before he leaned back in, the heat building in your body at double speed. You knew you were attracted to him, but you didn’t think he would be able to wind you up this fast. Or maybe it was just because you’ve never had a man touch you like this before.

Breaking the kiss, Mat began to trail more kisses down your body, pausing near your collarbone when he heard a particular breathy gasp leave your mouth. Mat continued his path over your shirt until he reached your belly button.

“Can I take this off?” He asked, looking up at you.

“You can take mine off if you take yours off,” you replied with a seductive smirk. Mat pulled back from your body, matching your smirk with one of his own as he tore off his shirt. Less than a second later, he was tugging at the hem of yours, urging you to sit up so he could take it off.

Mat’s hands were back on your body right after he tossed your shirt on the floor. This time, he retraced his path down your torso with his mouth and tongue, leaving no patch of skin untouched. His fingers danced around the edge of your leggings, teasing you until you were lifting up your hips into his face.

“Please take them off, Mat,” you said through gasps, wanting nothing more than to be rid of your clothing. He chuckled lightly against your waistband, his nose tickling your abdomen before he began shimmying off your leggings.

Tilting your hips up, you helped him slide the pants down your legs along with your underwear. Though your cheeks flamed up at the thought of being exposed before Mat, you felt oddly calm (well, as calm as you can be given the circumstances) with him.

“Holy shit, baby. You’re soaked,” Mat noted with a deep groan. He shuffled his body further down the couch into a comfortable position, lifting one leg to hook over his shoulder.

You breathed in shaky breaths as Mat placed gentle kisses on your thighs, working upwards slowly until he reached your core. And when he used his tongue to lick a strip across your pussy, your back arched into the air as you let out a loud moan.

“You gotta stay still, Y/N,” Mat chuckled darkly, wrapping one hand to steady your middle.

“Sorry, never done this before,” you replied in gasps.

Now immobilized, Mat resumed his place between your legs, repeating the same series of licks before he closed his lips around your clit. He flicked his tongue across the sensitive area. God, you would have done this a long time ago if you knew it would feel this good. You weren’t sure if it was too early to feel the heat inside you build up this quickly or if Mat was just too good at this. You hoped it was the latter.

His tongue lapped at your folds, and your hands flew down to grasp his hair in need. You didn’t think you could moan any louder, but then he brought his thumb to your clit to rub in tight circles as his tongue teased your entrance.

“Holy fuck,” you whined out, canting your hips up as much as you could. You could feel his smirk against your pussy at your exclamation, bringing his hand down to slowly enter a finger into you.

You let out a surprised gasp as you felt the first finger penetrate you. Mat kept his attention on your clit, lips sucking harshly at it. You let yourself get lost in the pleasure, focusing on how good he was making you feel.

After a few thrusts of one finger, giving you plenty of time to adjust, he added a second, feeling your walls tighten around them. He moved both fingers in and out of you, alternating the pressure between your entrance and clit. Just when he hit the right spot inside you, your hand tugged on his hair tightly, and he took the hint to curl his fingers against that spot.

“I’m so close, Mat,” you moaned, tossing your head back into the pillow.

“What do you need, baby?” He asked, pulling back for a quick breath. You glanced down to meet his gaze, taking in the way his chin glistened from your pussy. The view made you moan lowly, and his eyes darkened at the sound.

“Your tongue, please,” you begged quietly.

Mat heard the words leave your mouth and nestled his face back between your legs, tongue sliding up your slit in response. In rhythm with stroking your g-spot, he sucked at your clit, and it was mere seconds before your body coiled tightly inside. He kept the same pace and before long, you felt yourself crest the peak and then fall.

Mat removed his fingers slowly from your entrance, his tongue licking softly at your folds until he felt your breathing return to normal. It took you a few seconds to regain your sense of self, stars still whirling in the corners of your vision. When you finally felt yourself grounded on Earth again, you opened your eyes to see a self-satisfied smirk on Mat’s face.

“You’re so hot when you come,” he said when you met his gaze, and had you not been riding high on cloud nine when he said this, you might have blushed in embarrassment. But you weren’t embarrassed right now. The only thing you felt was giddy. Giddy because you were one step closer to your end goal.

And while you were blissed out, you dropped your gaze to notice the extremely visible bulge tenting in his sweatpants. Focused on a new task, you sat up quickly before leaning over Mat’s body so you could return the favor. Your lips crashed against his in a frenzy, your hands clumsily reaching down to grasp his length. However, you only got to feel it for a second before Mat’s hand was tugging it away.

“Not tonight, babe. Tonight was about you,” Mat said with a strained voice, breaking the kiss to look at you.

“What do you mean? We’re not having sex tonight?” You asked in confusion, your head still a little hazy from the orgasm.

“No, we’re not,” he laughed, noticing the wantonness in your voice, “You said I’m in charge, right? This was already a lot for one night, so we’ll put off the sex until next time.”

You nodded your head, though you weren’t really understanding. It made sense. Tonight was a very big step for you, and he didn’t want to give you too much at once. But despite that, your pussy was begging for a repeat performance and you were so far gone you were willing to do just about anything Mat would say.

“What about you, though?” You asked, glancing down to the noticeable tent.

“I’ll be fine, I promise. We still have two more lessons. There’s plenty of time for that later,” he replied, though the bulge between you seemed to say otherwise.

“Promise you’re okay?” You insisted.

“I swear, Y/N,” he said with a chuckle.

A comfortable silence fell between you after that, and you couldn’t help the wide smile that spread across your face. Your eyes sparkled with renewed purpose, and you felt satisfied for the first time in a long time. A smile of Mat’s own slowly appeared on his face as he watched you light up before him. Before you could stop yourself, you threw yourself into him, wrapping your arms tightly around his neck.

“Thank you, Mat. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” You said happily, punctuating each ‘thank you’ with a loud smacking kiss on his cheek.

When you pulled back to give him that award-winning smile again, Mat had one thought.

He was totally fucked.

#mat barzal #nhl imagines #hockey imagines #nhl smut #mat barzal imagine #my writing #isles13

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ao3-sucks · 4 years

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An Archive of Someone’s Own: my experiences being groomed in fandom circles on AO3

TW: Childhood sexual abuse, grooming, mentions of incest and rape.

I used to be a big writer of fanfiction. It was the logical choice for me. I loved to write and create bold and immersive worlds, and I craved an audience who would enjoy my work as much as I did. Since my writing wasn’t actually good, I needed a community of other amateurs who wouldn’t mind that, and by tweaking my characters and settings into ones from canonical media, I got the audience I so craved.

I started writing fanfiction online when I was 14, posting initially on FanFiction.net and then moving to AO3 a few months later. As I got back into writing original fiction towards the end of high school, I lost interest in this community, and it’s been a long time since I posted anything much on AO3.

I’ve always struggled with the fact I display a lot of symptoms of CSA, and for the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why. Throughout my teen years, I refused to get changed or bathe when anyone was even vaguely nearby, constantly paranoid about being spied on; I developed a severe touch phobia, and would have frequent panic attacks from something as small as brushing arms with a passerby; I resolutely identified as asexual and refused to get into anything resembling a relationship with others because the very concept disgusted and repulsed me.

Weird, considering I had grown up pretty normal and all of these symptoms had started around my early teens. It was only when I told my friends about my friendship with a 30 year old I had met online that the pieces started falling into place for me.

Child grooming is usually discussed in the context of one adult going out of their way to befriend a child with the goal of lowering their resistance to sexual abuse, through normalisation and friendliness. I’d like to talk about how that worked on the fanfiction website AO3. Since it’s an open website and most communication takes place between anonymous users or accounts in the comments section of a work, there is very little delineation between spaces for adults to discuss whatever dark topics they like and spaces for kids to do the same.

This frequently leads to pretty inappropriate conversations between people of widely varying ages and life experiences, which is how I ended up talking sex as a fourteen year old with people ranging from a couple of years older than me, who were generally okay, to more than twice my age. The 30 year old in question listed on her profile how many pedophilic ships she loved, and she knew my age but pushed me to keep discussing sexual topics with her. Sounds like a red flag, yeah? Well. I was 14, and very stupid.

This 30 year old woman, who I will call Aku (because it’s similar to her screen name and because it’s funny to name her after the bad guy from Samurai Jack) would start conversations with me whenever I posted anything to AO3 and would refuse to take no for an answer when I tried to back out of conversations with her, and since these conversations were public and occurring within comments, I didn’t want to be rude to her since this was taking place on content I was trying to promote.

I told her my age multiple times and she would either pretend she forgot from last time (saying her memory is super bad) or continue as though it was just trivia about me and not a sign she shouldn’t have been pushing me. My primary objection to what she would say to me (since most of it was just her being annoying) was her insistence on sexualising everything I wrote, and her determination to push me into writing pornographic content, which I eventually gave in to.

Yes, she was a terrible person. She emailed me using her personal email address, so I know her full name and place of residence, because she’s an idiot. These emails also contain sexually explicit materials. Nothing much ever happened between us except for these very creepy interactions and the fact we remained online friends for a few years. But here’s the thing: she wasn’t the only person pushing me into creating sexual content. Lots of people would comment on my writing demanding that I show explicit sexual content when I really didn’t want to.

After a while it felt like I couldn’t write a longer, romantic fanfiction without including explicit sexual content. Like my work wasn’t valid without it. Other, more popular writers were usually sexual in their content, and I wanted to be like them and bring in the views, right? So, when I look at my back catalog of works, I can see how my content moved from completely non-sexual to featuring sexual content over time, and the views usually came with. In this way, I was in an environment that was encouraging me on many levels to sexualise my own work, which impacted the way I thought about my creative process.

Here’s another example I remember. When I was a young sprout, I remember reading down someone’s list of fanfiction recommendations and seeing a work called Hug Therapy, which I promptly read. While the work is marked as explicit and containing the Loki/Thor pairing, the use of relationship and rating tags on AO3 is so poorly regulated that it didn’t really mean anything to me to see either of those. People tag hardcore material as non-explicit and tag friendships as relationships, because there’s no motivation to tag properly. Plus, someone I followed here on Tumblr had recommended it to me.

Now, you wouldn’t know from the listing, but while this piece starts out as comedy, it turns out in the end to include rape, incest, and BDSM in very explicit terms. The fact it was tagged as being explicit didn’t slow me down, because the liberal use of these tags could mean that an explicit tag was just there because sexual content was implied or mentioned, which I thought would be the case based on the rest of the listing. Out of curiosity, I recently tried to report this work to the moderators for containing no warnings about incest or rape, and I got this in response:

“Selecting “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings” satisfies a creator’s obligation under the warnings policy. Users who wish to avoid specific elements entirely should not access fanworks marked with “Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings”. Our Terms of Service note: “You understand that using the Archive may expose you to material that is offensive, triggering, erroneous, sexually explicit, indecent, blasphemous, objectionable, grammatically incorrect, or badly spelled. ….. This decision is in accordance with our policy of maximum inclusiveness; we have therefore closed this case and will not be investigating further.”

Which, yeah, I guess. The frustration comes from how ‘Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings’ is an extremely commonly used tag, and most things that it’s used on are totally harmless.

This fanfiction, which I was recommended by a friend, is hugely popular, in the top 60 most read fanfictions in the entire fandom. You wanna hear the kicker? The author, Astolat, is one of the founders of AO3. They’re not just some random author who isn’t following the rules. They’re a creator of the whole website, and they made the rules. This is pretty telling about how seriously the website actually takes protecting their users.

My final example I want to give is one of fetish content. People in fetish communities generally (not always) say that fetishes are probably something one should work up to after the onset of sexual activity, especially potentially harmful stuff like BDSM. In the circles I was running in, if you weren’t sporting a fetish or two (no matter your age) you were a boring bitch.

Maybe this isn’t true of everywhere in the fanfiction community, but I used to feel that bizarre pressure until I got out. Bear in mind that my main time in this community was from ages 14 to 17. I never made my age a secret, either. I told people outright I was that age, I was in high school, I was playing hockey and studying The Great Gatsby when I wasn’t online.

Since I was in the Avengers fandom and I liked Loki and the Asgardians, I was frequently exposed to incestuous content between Loki and Thor, and a lot of it came out of nowhere or was poorly tagged. This was considered the norm, and while I at first felt completely horrified and repulsed, within a year or two I no longer gave a shit. It’s only in the last few years as I’ve begun to unpack everything that I’ve started to get that strong revulsion reaction to incestuous content.

In the circles I was in, it was relentlessly normal. Normal to the point that people who disliked it were usually shouted down. Even to this day, debate rages on in fandom spaces about whether or not content like this normalises this kind of abuse. In my own personal experience, which I don’t usually like to talk about, it absolutely does.

In real life, this normalisation started to have serious consequences for my mental health and interpersonal relationships. In fanfiction, any occasion when you are alone with someone could become sexual, any familial relationship is possibly sexual, and it doesn’t matter if you like it or not. I became incredibly anxious around male family members for fear of being sexually assaulted, and my OCD, which I had been developing since I was a child, turned from thoughts of physical violence to thoughts of graphically sexually assaulted by anyone and everyone around me.

My fear of being touched got to the point where I would have panic attacks if anyone came anywhere close to touching me. I quit sports, fucked up my romantic relationships, and didn’t hug anyone, not even members of my family, for years. All the while, I had bought my first laptop and was consuming more fanfiction than ever before. I struggled with my sexuality growing up, as I am bisexual, and while fanfiction provided LGBT content to help me, the content was frequently so disturbing that I viewed any expression of sexuality as something evil and predatory.

The community on AO3, whether you like it or not, is often sexual, and provides no barriers between the casual user looking for content and extremely intense fetish material. It’s sometimes called the Pornhub of fanfiction, but considering the wide range of people who use it, it’s more like if you opened Youtube and saw niche hardcore fetish videos just on the front page, recommended and trending.

Sure, you have to click a little button to confirm you’re 18 before you can actually read a story, but the tags and descriptions of readily available works can be extremely explicit. Fanfiction also brings you into close contact with fellow readers and the author, and encourages you to become a content creator, which in some ways makes it more dangerous.

I was affected much more strongly by what I saw than most people would be, because I was already treading shaky ground. But I’m also not the only person out there who has been hurt in this way. Most of my friends who grew up in fandom can report the impact that fanfiction culture had on them. One of my friends from high school knew a panoply of porn terms at age 14 or so due to reading fanfiction, and another of my other friends at high school almost exclusively read rape porn because it was her favourite. I didn’t have friends who watched porn; I had friends who read fanfiction. These are just as troubling to me as any other accounts of young people consuming visual porn from a very early age.

It’s frequently cited that fanfiction gives minority groups the opportunity for creative outlet. It was a great place for me to cut my teeth as a content creator, and a source of acceptance and kindness when times were tough. Fanfiction communities have historically been the domain of women and minorities, and create a space for these people to tell their own stories.

It’s largely because of this that fanfiction communities fear censorship and strict moderation, as they have been attacked in the past on homophobic or misogynistic grounds, resulting in mass deletions of works or the shutdown of websites. But there must be some middle ground between total censorship and the kind of free rein that puts vulnerable people in danger, and I strongly encourage the board of AO3 to seek this middle ground out.

But it’s the community itself that needs to shape up; AO3 is, after all, a community-led website built by fans for fans, so the fact that this website has such issues is a reflection of the issues that run deeply within the people who created it. Aku didn’t talk to me with the intention of doing me harm, or so I believe at this time, and she didn’t pursue me as a lone wolf or in isolation.

She was simply a particularly brazen member of a community that was used to having inappropriate conversations with young people and sexualising everything they did. Even people my own age were jokingly pushing me into discussing and consuming extremely sexual content. It was just normal. That’s what I want to say here. Inside the world of fandom on AO3, the grooming of children with sexual content is normal. And that’s scary.

- Mod Daft

#mod daft post #ao3 discourse #fandom wank #fanfiction discourse #fanfiction wank #csa//#rape//#grooming//#incest//

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everwitch-magiks · 4 years

Text

dance with somebody (ch. 1)

It’s the first kegster of his senior year, the first kegster after his first fucking win as captain of the Samwell Men's Hockey Team, and Dex just-

Dex needs a moment.

The porch is empty. Dex settles down, sets aside his half-empty can of beer. Looks down the road of frat houses, all in various stages of Saturday night festivities. The water polo frat, Dex thinks, is gonna have one hell of a post party cleanup.

Inside the Haus, someone’s put on I wanna dance with somebody. Dex almost smiles.

It’s maybe a little weird, how he doesn’t even have to be in there to know exactly what’s going on.

Bully and Hops are dancing, and Louis is definitely not. He’ll be off in a corner, talking to whoever will listen (Whiskey, most likely, since he’s always off to the side if he can help it) about how he can’t understand why he hasn’t been appointed officially in charge of all kegster playlists, yet. Tango, meanwhile, is probably still trying to get Farmer and her friends to explain all the rules of volleyball, in detail, unless Ford has staged her usual intervention. Chowder will be wherever Farmer is, the Scones are still riding that sweet, sweet high of their first NCAA victory… And then there’s Nursey.

Somehow, there’s always Nursey.

He’s there in the early mornings, when Dex thinks he’ll hit the gym before anyone else, his smiles casual and his chirps gentle. He shows up every so often when Dex gets out of class, with Dex’s favourite flat white from Annie’s and a wry smile, and drags Dex along to Founders where they’ll sit together in near silence and mostly not study. Or, actually, Nursey kind of studies for real. Dex… Well.

Lately, Dex can't say he's been all that productive, when Nursey is around.

It really shouldn’t feel as novel as it does. The elements of a crush were always there. If Dex hadn’t meticulously labeled those flaring emotions as something entirely different, those first couple of years, the two of them might've gotten here a whole lot sooner.

Because they’re finally kind of getting somewhere, aren’t they? Unless Dex has been reading Nursey completely wrong, lately. Except he can’t have, not really – the way Nursey’s been staying so close to him, out of choice, those soft smiles and clearly intentional touches. Earlier that same evening, Nursey had let his hand rest on the small of Dex’s back, gently and deliberately and not for the first time. Dex isn’t actually sure what might've happened between them if he’d turned towards Nursey, just then, and met his eyes directly.

Maybe, Dex thinks, he’s finally ready to find that out. To take that leap. See where they land.

The door opens, then closes.

“Hey. Sorry if I’m bothering you.”

Dex turns around, offers a brief smile. He nods towards the empty space next to him.

Whiskey walks over, and sits down.

Dex picks up his can of beer and holds it up towards Whiskey.

“Really good game, tonight.”

Whiskey clinks his bottle against it, almost dutifully.

Dex takes a long drink. Whiskey drinks, too. He’s quiet, which is completely on brand, yet for some reason he seems a little more restless than usually.

“You baked pie,” Whiskey says, after a moment.

Which is not what Dex expected, at all. But at least it’s something.

“Did you get a slice?”

“I did, yeah. It was pretty good.”

“Tried my best.” Dex shrugs. “Obviously, I’ll never live up to Bitty’s legendary baking legacy.”

“You don’t have to,” Whiskey says, and then he pauses, as though he’s choosing his words very carefully. “You don’t have to be the same captain Bitty was.”

“Oh, I could never be.” Dex sips his beer. “We’re similar, though, in a lot of ways. I think that’s part of why I’ve come to look up to him so much.”

“That’s… Yeah.” Whiskey looks away. “I mean, I voted for him, too.”

“You got his dibs,” Dex says, and it’s not quite a question. “That’s pretty cool.”

For some reason, that makes Whiskey grimace.

“Honestly? I’m still not sure why.”

Dex looks at Whiskey, then, really looks at him. Finds that the tension he’s so used to seeing in Whiskey’s shoulders isn’t quite there, anymore. Acknowledges that the usually guarded look in Whiskey’s eyes has given way to something tentatively curious, yet still hesitant. Above all, though, Whiskey looks like he’s so, so tired, like there’s something constantly exhausting him. Like every breath of fresh air just leaves him more drained than the one before.

And if that isn’t a feeling Dex finds all too familiar.

“You know, I actually voted for you,” Dex says. “As captain.”

Whiskey startles – no, flinches. Dex has never seen him look so bewildered.

“You bring a lot to this team,” Dex continues firmly. “You make our best plays, and you always look out for everyone on the ice. You don’t make a big fuss about it, but I always know you’re going to have my back, no matter what. You lead by example.”

“Bitty led by example,” Whiskey says – argues, almost. “By being loud, and proud, and one hundred percent unapologetically himself at all times. And I’m not… That's just not me.”

“You don’t have to be like Bitty, any more than I do,” Dex says, gently. “You know that, right? There’s literally one million other versions of being proud of who you are. It’s okay to find one that you're comfortable with. It’s okay if that takes time.”

Whiskey leans back, abruptly – he looks almost as if he’d very much like to take off, running, rather than acknowledge any part of what Dex has just said. Yet then he stills. Something shifts in his expression.

“You and Nurse,” he says, simply.

Dex draws in a breath. Whiskey is watching him intently.

"I mean, yeah," Dex says. Because somehow, he owes Whiskey this. "Me and Nursey."

Whiskey nods, slowly.

"Huh."

"It's not… We haven't really talked about it, yet."

That makes Whiskey look surprised.

"Some things take time," Dex adds, completely aware of how he’s repeating himself. "And, like, there's no rush. There's not going to be a finish line. No prize for getting there first."

“But you know what you want,” Whiskey says. His voice is a little hoarse, compared to before. “You know who you are.”

“You’ll get there,” Dex says, quietly but firmly. “Whatever that means for you. It’ll be difficult, and it might take time. But you’ll make it through.”

Whiskey merely shrugs.

They’re both quiet for a long moment, after that.

Then Whiskey gets up.

“Think I’m gonna call it a night.”

“Okay.” Dex smiles towards him. “See you at team breakfast, tomorrow?”

“Sure.” Yet Whiskey lingers for a moment, almost if there’s something more he means to say. “Thank you. I mean, for the company.”

“Anytime,” Dex says, and finds that he really means it. “You can always talk to me, Whiskey. About anything.”

Whiskey nods once more, his expression unchanging, before quickly heading inside.

Dex watches him go.

He’d like to keep a much closer eye on Whiskey, from this moment on. He can’t, though. Whiskey would realize immediately. And that’s no good – it’s got to be on Whiskey’s terms, or not at all.

It's something Dex knows from experience.

The door opens again.

It's Nursey.

"Whiskey just came in, looking like, super unchill." Nursey closes the door behind him. "Did something happen?"

"He's a bit stressed, but he's okay."

"Oh. Good, then." Nursey walks over, yet he doesn't sit down. Instead he leans against the banister in a way that’s probably supposed to look casual, and glances towards Dex from the side. “Are you okay, though?”

“Of course I am.”

Nursey frowns. “You seemed a bit out of it, earlier.”

“Earlier tonight?”

“Before the game.”

“Ah,” Dex says. Because of course Nursey would pick up on what Dex had been trying so hard to conceal. On the very reason why he’s come out to the porch, all by himself, while a seriously ‘swasome kegster is still going on inside. “I guess I’m just not really used to it all, yet? The whole captain bit.”

Nursey hums. “You’re not in this alone, you know. You don’t have to go through it alone.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“And, like, if you wanted to have an alternate? You could do that. I’m sure the team would be cool with it.”

“Actually,” Dex says, “I’ve sort of been thinking about that for a while now.”

Nursey grins.

“Oh, man. Chowder’s gonna freak out so hard, when you ask him.”

“What makes you so certain I’m not going to ask you?”

Nursey turns to stare at him, abruptly.

“That’s a joke, right? God, please tell me you’re joking.”

“It’s mostly a joke,” Dex admits with a slight grin, and there’s no way he’s gonna pass on the obvious chirp. “Chill, man.”

“You do not get to use that word in this context.” Nursey still looks decidedly unsettled. “Fuck, me? The A? Do you have any idea how many papers an English major needs to churn out his senior year?”

“Yeah, you poor baby.”

“Ha, ha. God, I need another drink.”

“There’s someone else I have in mind, actually,” Dex says. That look in Whiskey’s eyes, uncertain yet somehow still so determined, is fresh in his memory. “Someone who could grow into the role, maybe? Someone who needs an opportunity to learn more about themselves, and all they can be.”

Nursey frowns. “It’s not Tango, is it? Because if our pre-game ritual turns into twenty fucking questions, I’m one hundred percent blaming you.”

Dex smiles.

“No. It’s not Tango.”

“Well. Good.”

They’re quiet for a moment. Then Nursey looks over at Dex – really looks at him, meeting his eyes directly – before slowly (and intentionally, one might say) stepping away from the banister and sitting down in the same spot Whiskey occupied, earlier. Except Nursey might be sitting a bit closer to Dex. Maybe a lot closer.

It’s a little bit ridiculous, but does it still make Dex’s heart flutter? Fuck yeah.

“So,” Nursey says, his voice strangely calm – chill, even though the way he can’t quite make himself face Dex as he speaks gives him away completely. “Are we ever gonna, y’know. Have this conversation?”

Dex takes a deep breath. Then he reaches out, takes Nursey’s right hand in his. Laces their fingers together, softly yet very deliberately.

“Yeah. I think it’s time we do.”

(ch. 2)

#nurseydex #check please #omgcp #omgcheckplease #checkpleaselastslice #spoilers #for the ending of year four #william poindexter #derek nurse #connor whisk #it's nurseydex but it's also about whiskey #not an au this time #I really needed to write this #fanfiction #evie writes #dance with somebody

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lesbianbucky · 2 years

Text

vent below the cut (cw death)

it feels so very weird and bad to have to be preparing to write a midterm tomorrow after finding out yesterday that my former resident from when i worked as an RA at my university last year just died. and nobody has said what happened yet and i don't think they're going to, but what i've heard from my residents and the way they talk about it makes me pretty sure it was suicide and i'm just...... that whole group of kids was so wonderful, in my three years working as an RA they were my best group, they were all so kind and so tightly knit because of their circumstances - they were all first years during the height of the pandemic and there were only 50 of them total in the building, and when you mix that with a lot of the traditions of that specific residence it made them all so close, they were truly like a little family, and when you're one of the people tasked with keeping them safe and taking care of them they really feel like your kids in a way, you know what i mean?

like i met this person on the very first day he moved in, i reassured his worried parents before they left him that he would be okay and we'd all be watching out for him and all the other students, i watched him transition from an awkward, gangly, barely out of high school kid to someone so much more confident, i watched him find his footing and start figuring out who he really was now that he was off on his own away from home. i watched him and all the other kids grow closer and i took care of him on the nights he drank too much, and i had conversations with my other RA friends about how he seemed like the type of kid who would be a little reckless through university but would end up growing up into someone who was really steady and really kind. and now he's just gone, he's dead at 19, and i don't really know how to cope with that because it doesn't even feel real

and i almost feel stupid for reacting so strongly because we were never really friends in that sense just by virtue of me being so much older and being in somewhat of a position of authority over him (although honestly none of us were all that strong on enforcing the rules that year), but still i knew him, we talked about music and star trek and his classes and always said hi when we saw each other around the building, i helped him find his footing in that really difficult transition period where you've just left home and you don't know how to be on your own yet, and honestly when you're in that job you feel such a responsibility for those kids even once it's no longer your job to be responsible for them, and it's just like. how can i even begin to come to terms with the fact that he will never grow up? he will never get to become that person we saw him slowly becoming?

and god, all of my other kids - they're all still so close, like even when they moved out of residence at the end of last school year most of them moved into houses together, and now they have to deal with one of their friends just dying. again. because they just went through this, they just grieved like this because in september another one of them killed himself. 6 months ago they all got together and grieved, they watched his funeral when it was livestreamed by his parents, they worked with the school and planted a tree in his honour and added his number to the residence team's hockey jerseys and they sold masks to raise money for the organization his parents set up, and they've all still been healing from that loss and now it's happened again. they have to do it all over again when none of them should ever have to worry about something like this at that age.

and it's just so hard to even stop thinking about it at all, let alone focus on anything else, but i have to write a midterm tomorrow and i need to focus because i have to study but god how am i even supposed to just keep going like that? like everything is the same and nothing happened at all? i don't understand any of it and i don't know how i'm supposed to deal with it

#i'm sorry for the vent i know i don't do that here very often i just. need to put this out into the world because i can't stop thinking #about it and it's just. god.#anyway my schedule today has been essentially - 8:30: cry / 9:00: watch clone wars / 12:30: sob / 12:45: go to shoppers #12:55: cry in shoppers / 1:30: attempt to study / 1:45: cry #don't reblog obviously i don't know why anyone would but don't #vent #personal #cw death #cw suicide #op

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zashamalkin · 4 years

Text

Translation of Anna Kasterova’s live interview on 5/29/20.

Thanks to my amazing Gino Anon, the entire interview is translated below the cut. Final word count, btw, is 2405 so like, send big thanks their way. Holy shit!

youtube

Anna got sick few days before the interview. Not covid, just a cold, that later turned into otitis. It was very painful, but now she’s feeling way better, though she still has some trouble hearing with her left ear. They talk a bit about the weather in Miami (it’s been raining there for a few days, but it’s still pretty hot). Igor asks if they’re allowed to swim during the quarantine. Anna says that the 1/

beaches were recently open, but there are obviously rules about keeping the safe distance. “Is Zhenya a good swimmer?” “Yeah, he’s great. He’s spending a lot of time with Nikita, teaching him how to swim. More in the pool though, than in the ocean.” “How do you and Zhenya feel about the latest news in NHL?” “I think, the idea is pretty good. Everyone has been waiting on some news about this season. I asked Zhenya if he preferred for the season to be cancelled. He said, he wanted to finish it 2/

properly. This season has been great for him, he’s in a great shape. And even though he hasn’t been skating for 2 months, he’s still been training pretty hard, running, roller skating and he didn’t lose his shape.” She thinks everything is turning pretty good so far and it’s great that the teams will have a time for training camps and a chance to go to playoffs.“In your opinion, were the players mentally prepared to continue the season?” “I think, those, who genuinely want to go to playoffs, 3/

have been working very hard to be ready, when the time comes. But, for sure, there are some players, who spent more time relaxing, rather than training. A lot of teams are asking their players to come back and start training on the ice and not all of the players follow their instructions.” “What are the rules about practice right now? Are they allowed to train in groups or…?” “There are no details about it yet. It haven’t even been decided yet, what cities will be chosen as Hub cities. So far 4/

the coaches are asking players to stay in shape. They have video calls together, where they go through different footage every time. But, as far as I understand, the organization and the coaching staff are ready for the players to come back.” “How do the players feel about the new rules for playoffs this season?” “No negative feelings. They’ve been under a lot of mental pressure, not knowing anything about the season and the playoffs. Everything seems pretty logical and they’re very happy to 5/

get back on ice and to have a chance to fight for SC.” “Is there any inside information about what cities will be chosen as Hubs?” “No one knows anything for sure. But I know that they’re very carefully considering epidemiological situation in the cities and will choose the safest options. ” *I SUCK at translating hockey terminology from Russian to English, so I’m sorry if anything is incorrect.* “Do you think it would’ve been fairer to include the numbers of “play-in” (I have no idea what he 6/

means by “play-in”) as well as the Robin Rounds into the statistics of regular season? Because it would give the players, like Ovechkin and Panarin, and Malkin to gain more points.” “It’s a very difficult question. But I’m sure NHL and NHLPA have gone over all the possible scenarios and have chosen the best one.” “How has Geno been handling the quarantine?” “He’s been very calm and collected. He’s been doing great mentally, smiling and cracking jokes, and keeping us safe and happy.” “Why did 7/

your family (meaning Geno, Anna and Nikita) decide to do a covid testing in early April?” “I had a pneumonia in November and wanted to find out for myself, if it was covid-induced, if I had any antibodies for the virus. But all the testing came back negative. None of us had it.” “What books did you and Zhenya read during the quarantine?” “Zhenya likes to read fantasy books. He’s been reading “Quantum Warrior: The Future of the Mind” by John Kehoe.” “Does he read in English?” “No, in English 8/

he’s mostly watching TV shows.” “I was very impressed by the story, that after his 1st season in NHL, Zhenya hired Russian language and literature teacher.” “He’s had a lot of free time these past 2 months and he’s hired 2 tutors: English language tutor to work on his grammar and Russian language tutor. (*Sorry, I don’t know if I need to explain this, but Geno obviously knows how to speak Russian. What I think Anna means here, is that the pronunciation of the words in Russian changes depending9/

on where the person is from. Every region has its own accent. I think, what Geno is trying to do, is lose his Magnitogorsk accent and start to speak clearer Russian, like ppl in Moscow of St. Petersburg do.*) He has classes with his tutors Monday to Friday. I’m very happy for him.” One of Geno’s friends in Russia has been robbed recently. Igor is asking Anna, if they ever considered buying a gun, since it’s allowed in US. Anna says no, they feel safe and they live a good neighborhood. She 10/

doesn’t think it necessary or appropriate. They talk a bit about Ovi’s second child being born recently and if Geno and Anna are planning on having a second child any time soon. “Of course, we wouldn’t mind having another child. If it happens, we’ll be very happy. I would like to have a girl, though.” “What’s the best way to describe Zhenya’s and Ovechkin’s relationships today? Are they friends or rivals” “Both. And healthy rivalry is very important in order to reach their personal goals.” 11/

“When Caps and Pens play each other, is it possible for them to go have dinner after.” “No.” “What can you say about the relationships between Zhenya and Sidney Crosby? When we talked with Zhenya last year, he said very nice and kind things about him. Even though Zhenya is in Sid’s shadow a lot of the time.” “I can talk about it for hours. They push each other and make each other stronger. But they also can step in and do more than anyone, when the other is hurt and not playing. Off the ice, 12/

they are very good friends and they support each other. Have I ever thought about what his life would be like, if he was the only star player in a team? I think, he’d be the best player in the whole NHL. He’s very intelligent in terms of building a game, always plans 2-3 steps ahead. He’s very fearless in his game, very talented and vey multilateral player. He’s very unique. They won together THREE STANLEY CUPS! No one's saying Crosby is less talented. He’s an incredible player, he works very13/

hard every day. They are 2 number 1 players in this team. If Zhenya ever asked me if I’d like him to play in New York, f/e, I’d say, no. Pittsburgh is his city, his home. And management and coaching staff are also a very important part of team success. The relationship inside the team is very important. And Pens are the best in that, imo.” “You two watched Super Bowl at Sid’s place. What’s it like there?” “It’s a tradition. Every year Sid invites the team with their wifes/gfs/kids to watch 14/

Super Bowl. His gf Kathy does all the cooking. She’s a very geart person, very hospitable. *omg, this is the first time I hear any1 talking about Sid’s gf 😀, aww* Everyone on the team is very open, very kind, they are great guys. It’s the best thing about Pens. So we’re always happy to accept Sid’s invitation and we always have a great time.” “Do you want Nikita to become a hockey player?” “We’re not gonna push him to it. If it’s something he wants, sure. But I have big plans for his 15/

education. I’d like him to know 2 languages, (English) and Russian, especially grammar, not just being able to speak it freely. I’m studying with him and for an almost 4 yo he already knows quite a lot. And it’s always very hard for a child of a parent, who has achieved so much, to surpass that kind of success. And I don’t want my son to have this kind of pressure on him. I don’t want him to be known solely as “Malkin’s son”. For me it’s very important for him to get a good education and to 16/

choose his path in life.” “Talking about the tv series about Michael Jordan, would you like a bio series to be shot about Zhenya?” “I know he wants to act, in a tv series or in a movie. He talked about it many times. As for a biopic, of course I would like that. He has a huge success story. A man from a simple, working class family. It’s very expensive to play hockey. And he was so talented even in a young age, that his coaches would sometimes bring him a puck, or a stick, or a uniform, for 17/

free. Add to that a story about him finally getting to NHL.” “Zhenya said once in an interview, that you fight sometimes about him not being open enough w/ you, not sharing his problems etc. Has it changed during the quarantine?” “Everything’s been great during quarantine. During the season, he’s under a lot of pressure and always takes it hard if the team loses or if he doesn’t score. Right now he’s very calm and happy, and everything is great.” A question about a conflict around Geno having18/

a USA passport (a lot of people in Russia, his celebrity friends especially, weren’t happy with that, and judged him for that). What does Anna think about it? “He’s a patriot. He loves his country and his city. We were in a hopeless situation, when I needed to get all the documents ready ASAP, and we needed to get married, and him having a US passport would speed that up. You could say, he did it for me. On the other hand, America is his 2nd home. He spends here more time than in Russia. He’s19/

been working here for years. Why is that such a big problem? It’s not like he turned his back on Russia or anything.” Then she talked about Geno’s donation to families in Magnitogorsk, who suffered bc of explosion that happened there in December 2018, and how much he gives to his community in Russia, that ppl don’t know about, bc he prefers not to advertise it. Then Igor keeps asking political questions and Anna is getting more and more irritated by them. Geno publicly supported Putin’s 20/

reelection whenever that was, and interviewer is asking whether him having an American passport is appropriate, considering that he’s a part of Putin team? “Why is it inappropriate? America and Russia are not enemies. Yes, there are some unresolved political issues. They are 2 huge countries, of course they will always feel threatened by each other. But I don’t see any serious political confrontation. Maybe bc we’re in US right now. But Zhenya has a great respect for his president. *bleh, I 21/

don’t like Putin. I know, she has to say nice things about him, bc as long as Geno is a part of Team Russia and wants to have a life in Russia, they can’t be openly against him. But both Geno and Anna don’t strike me as ppl, who will support Putin’s ideals. Sorry for me butting in w/ my opinion*” Question about Geno’s new diet after 18-19 season. “He never drinks alcohol during season. He doesn’t eat potatoes anymore. It’s very hard to cook him a soup w/o any potatoes in it. No sweet things,22/

no gluten. Now before games, he eats gluten-free pasta.” “Is he very superstitious? Do you try to wean him off some of them?” “No, if it makes him feel comfortable, why would I do that?” She declined to name any of them, bc it’s a personal thing for Geno. “Do you put in any work in Zhenya’s image and style?” “I think so, a bit. His sense of style has become better, his taste in literature.” “Zhenya’s favorite music?” “Russian pop-music mostly.” Question about Geno’s gaming habits. Anna 23/

doesn’t try to control him or tell him not to play, bc for him these computer games are a way to relax. She doesn’t mind. It’s his personal time. He doesn’t have his computer in Miami, so he found another way to spend time – studying with his tutors. Question about Olympics. “Yes, he’d like to win a gold medal with Team Russia, when the time comes.” He doesn’t feel jealous about Datsyuk or Kovalchuk, who have an Olympic gold. “Do you think, Zhenya’s last hockey season before retirement will 24/

be in Magnitogorsk?” “Sure, I don’t see why not. He’s very grateful for everything Metallurg gave him and it would seem logical for him to come back there before retiring.” “What is Zhenya’s biggest motivation right now?” “He’s very self-critical (she means Geno’s words about his skills in 18-19 season). He always has a high bar for himself and je always tries to reach it.” Question about Geno reaching 1000 pts. “It was a very big moment for us and a big win for him. He was very inspired 25/

by it and it gave him a lot of self-confidence.” ‘Was Zhenya mad about not making NHL’s 100 players list?” “I was. I was very angry. But he knows his value and what he’s achieved as a player. But it was very strange for me.” “Who do you think Zhenya wil be after his career ends? And how will your life together change? Will you spend more time in Russia or in US?” “It’s a tough question. I imagine a house by the lake, in Russia, with kids and, later, grandkids. With a big fireplace. I think, 26/

after finishing his career, we’d like to travel a bit. But I don’t know. It’s something you should ask him.”

#Anna Kasterova #Evgeni Malkin #Gino Anon #You're a freaking saint omg #This thing is massive

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tessisawriter · 4 years

Text

Going All Out (Cole Caufield ft. Carey Price)

Request (anonymous): I need more Poehling in my life!!!! 😍😍 The reader is Care-Bear’s (Price’s) 18 year old sister imagine please

A/N: I don’t know much about Poehling but I really like this concept so I wrote it for Cole Caufield, who is very underrated on this site and I can’t figure out why! This takes place in September 2020 and in this alternate reality, Cole left Wisco to join the Canadiens. Text messages are in bold.

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2.5k

“Hey, Y/N!” Johnny, the security guard at the door, greeted you by name.

“Hi Johnny.” You returned the greeting while craning your neck to make eye contact with the huge security guard. Then again, everyone was huge in your eyes because you were only five feet tall.

“The lineup is real good this year, I’m assuming your brother is psyched,” Johnny said.

“He definitely is. Have a nice day!”

People stared as you walked past Johnny and into the practice arena without having to show any form of ID, but you were long used to this by now. It came with the territory of being the younger sister of Carey Price, the Montreal Canadiens’ goaltender who was worshipped by practically the entire province. You were going to be around a lot more this year because you were starting university at McGill and your dorm was down the block from Carey’s apartment.

You loved your big brother, but he had a lot of rules, including not getting too close to his teammates. You had no intention of dating a hockey player; you wanted to find a nice and normal guy, if such a person existed. But what really hurt was that Carey didn’t trust you. You were going to make sure he changed his mind by the end of the season.

You were so lost in your thoughts that you walked right into someone. You felt strong hands wrap around your waist, steadying you. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” A guy with an unfamiliar voice asked.

You looked up and realized the voice (and hands) belonged to none other than prized Canadiens prospect Cole Caufield.

You were so screwed.

Cole was the only hockey player you had a weakness for. Last June, you were sitting on the couch with your family watching the draft, and your eyes were drawn to a sad-looking boy sitting in the audience. The commentators then provided a name for the face: Cole Caufield. They talked how talented he was, but that his short stature meant he had to watch his teammates and other inferior prospects get picked before him. You noticed from his soulful eyes and mouth pressed into a thin line that he was desperately trying to keep it together, and you felt badly for him. What sealed the deal, though, was his radiant smile when Shea Weber called his name at the podium, making him the newest member of the Montreal Canadiens. It was in that moment you knew you were in trouble, and you developed a huge crush on him afterwards.

You were hoping you wouldn’t see Cole today (or ever), but fate clearly had other plans.

“I…I’m fine, thanks for asking. I’m sorry, I should’ve looked where I was going,” you blushed.

“No, it was all on me. I was so busy looking at all the photos on the walls that I didn’t see you coming.”

You smiled at that. They had fascinated you, too, when you first started coming to practices here. “Yeah, they are amazing.”

There was a moment of silence before Cole broke it. “I forgot to introduce myself before, I’m Cole. And you are?”

“Y/N,” you said.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N.” He smiled at you before his cheeks flushed red, and he dropped his hands from your waist, where they had remained since they steadied you. He extended one of his hands to shake yours, and you took it. “So, are you from Montreal?”

“No, but I’ve lived here since high school and I’m a first-year at McGill,” you replied, intentionally vague about what, or rather, who, brought you here. “What about you?”

“I grew up in Wisconsin before moving to Michigan for the NTDP program, and I went to Wisco last year before turning pro and coming here.”

“That’s awesome!” You acted like you hadn’t conducted countless searches about him on the Internet in the past year.

“McGill’s a really good school, what are you studying?”

“English literature.”

He only nodded this time, and you wondered if you said something wrong because he got really quiet and looked super nervous. Or maybe he figured out your last name.

“I know we just met,” Cole began, and your heart started beating rapidly in your chest, “but I was wondering if—”

“Y/N!” Of course, at that particular moment, your brother had to come down the hall and wrap you up in his arms as if Cole wasn’t standing there. When he finally let you go, he finally noticed Cole, whose eyes were darting between you and Carey. You could tell from his face that the pieces were fitting together in his mind.

“I see you already met my baby sister,” Carey said with a note of suspicion in his voice, and he actually puffed his chest out in an attempt to look intimidating. Your brother’s behavior made you cringe.

Cole opened his mouth to speak, but you beat him to it. “I crashed into him as I was walking down the hall.”

Carey visibly relaxed and ruffled your hair, which you immediately smoothed back down. “Y/N, I love you, but you’re a klutz.”

“Hey, not all of us have superhuman reflexes like you,” you said, hands in the air.

Cole laughed out loud. “You got that right; your brother’s the best goalie I’ve ever seen. He made some wicked saves during practice today. Well, uh, I’d better get going. It was nice to meet you, Y/N,” he said, smiling shyly at both you and Carey.

“You too,” you said, but he had already put his head down and started walking down the hall.

It took all you had not to sigh out loud. You were convinced that Cole was about to ask you out when Carey showed up. Now, he was probably never going to ask you out. You were the “baby” sister of the franchise goalie, and he didn’t even find out about it from you. You were absolutely crushed. You wanted to get to know him better, go on dates with him, maybe even be his girlfriend, but you doubted that would happen now. Cole seemed smart, and there was no way he would risk upsetting your brother.

“Are you okay?” Carey snapped you out of your trance.

“Yeah, totally fine. Can I have dinner at your place?” you asked. After only a few weeks at McGill, you were starving and Carey’s wife, Angela, was an amazing cook.

“Of course, shorty.”

“I told you not to call me that!” you said indignantly.

“You’re my baby sister; I have to have at least one embarrassing nickname for you,” he responded before putting his arm around you and guiding you out of the practice arena and into the cool and crisp Montreal afternoon.

***************

That night, you were in your old room at Carey’s place because you had received a text from your roommate, Leslie, saying she was having a guy over and that you had make yourself scarce. It had taken you about a week to hate her guts, and that hatred increased every day. You already requested a dorm transfer for the spring, but you were in the lurch for this semester.

After you received the latest text from Leslie, you had called Jesperi Kotkaniemi, otherwise known as KK, and commiserated with him. He said he would’ve let you crash with him, but Cole was his roommate for the year. You quickly agreed that wouldn’t be the best idea and had now come to terms with the fact that you’d probably be staying with Carey this semester.

Your phone buzzed on the bedside table and you picked it up with a sigh, thinking it might be another passive aggressive text from Leslie, but it was an unknown number.

The text read: Hey it’s Cole, I got your number from KK.

Your heart started pounding in your chest, and you scrambled to unlock your phone and respond to the text. What were you going to say?

Then, another thought popped into your head: you never told KK about your crush on Cole. That son of a bitch had figured it out, you thought wryly.

Before you could get your thoughts straight, another text popped up on your screen: Is it safe to FaceTime?

Now you were convinced that your heart was going to burst out of your chest. You typed, Let me check, before throwing the phone down on the bed and tiptoeing down the hall. You saw Carey and Angela cuddled up together on the couch watching a movie, so you went back into your room and texted Cole: Coast is clear.

Before you knew it, your phone buzzed with an incoming FaceTime call. You took a deep breath before accepting the call.

Cole’s smiley face appeared on the other end. “Hi, Y/N.”

“Hi,” you said, only partially successful in sounding calm.

“I’m sorry our conversation got cut off earlier,” he said.

“You’re sorry? If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” you responded. “Carey is my brother, after all.”

It was very subtle, but you saw Cole’s jaw clench. You mentally kicked yourself for mentioning your brother. It was like you were trying to self-sabotage.

“Well, that’s true,” he laughed nervously before clearing his throat. “Listen, I was going to ask you something back at the arena before he showed up, so I’m going to do it now before I lose my nerve.” He took a deep breath and then continued, “Would you like to go out for coffee or something tomorrow?”

You couldn’t believe your ears.

“It’s totally fine if you don’t, I totally understand—”

“No, no, no,” you cut him off. “I’d love to! I’m just surprised you asked me after finding out about Carey.”

“That’s what KK said,” he replied. “Well, he said I had to be insane, but the connotations are the same.”

You rolled your eyes. “And he’s supposed to be my best friend,” you said sardonically, and Cole laughed.

“I’m sure most people would think the same thing, but when we met, we just clicked,” Cole said before gasping. “Oh God, I sound like a weirdo and I’m putting words in your mouth.”

“Not at all, I thought the same thing,” you reassured him. “So, what time should we meet up tomorrow?”

***************

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Y/N,” Angela said as the two of you waited outside the dressing room for Carey and Cole.

“I do,” you replied, looking at her steadily. She was eyeing your jersey nervously as if she wasn’t convinced.

It had been a month since you and Cole went on your first date, but it felt like you had been together for a year. He officially asked you to be his girlfriend two weeks ago, but this was their first home game since opening night due to a long western road trip. He had also given you his jersey that night, and you were wearing it instead of your brother’s #31.

“We can’t hide this from him forever,” you continued, “and Cole scored his first goal tonight and the team won, so hopefully Carey’s in a good mood.”

You told Angela earlier today, and while she was happy for you, she was understandably nervous about how her husband was going to react. Carey looked like a teddy bear, but he was capable of being downright ferocious if he thought someone would hurt his family, especially you.

“We’re about to find out,” she replied, angling her head toward the dressing room from which your brother had just emerged. He was smiling, which was good. How long that was going to last…you knew it wouldn’t be long.

“Great game tonight, babe!” Angela exclaimed, hugging her husband. He hugged her back fiercely, then let her go and pulled you into a hug.

“You were amazing out there, big bro,” you said into his chest.

“Thanks, shorty,” he retorted, and you let the nickname slide. Carey let go of you while simultaneously saying, “I’m always better when you guys are—”

He stopped mid-sentence, staring at your sleeve or, more specifically, the #22 on it. “Why aren’t you wearing my jersey? Whose number is that, anyway?” he asked before realization dawned on his face. “Cole.”

“Carey, I don’t want you to be mad, but—”

“Y/N and I are dating,” you heard Cole say. You looked over Carey’s shoulder to see him standing behind your brother; you hadn’t even seen him come out. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier, but we were both afraid of how you would react, so we figured it was best to tell you after the roadie.”

Carey’s expression was, for once, unreadable. You could generally tell what he was thinking, but now? Nothing. “How long?” he asked, the words clipped.

“A month,” you replied before continuing. “I’m sorry for not telling you, too, but I wanted to make sure this was going to work out before upsetting you, and then you guys went on the road, so I couldn’t tell you sooner.”

“Is that why you were glued to your phone the whole time?” Carey asked Cole, turning away from you.

“Yeah,” Cole admitted.

“Are you happy?” Carey spun around to face you again.

“Happier than I ever thought I could be with anyone.” Conviction rang clear and true in your voice.

There was a long pause before he looked at Cole, who had walked over to your side and taken your hand in his. “If you ever hurt her, I swear to God, Caufield, I’ll kick your ass,” he said.

“I won’t. I go all out to protect the people I love,” Cole replied, smiling at you. You just barely stopped yourself from gasping in response, instead smiling back at him and squeezing his hand to convey that you felt the same way.

“You scored your first NHL goal! I’m so proud of you,” you whispered. Cole grinned before looking at your lips and leaning in.

“And no PDA while I’m around,” Carey interrupted.

“We’re just holding hands!” You protested without thinking. Carey stared at you, and you looked at the ground, suddenly finding the concrete interesting.

“I know, I’m just messing with you!” Carey reached out to ruffle your hair, which you smoothed down with the hand that wasn’t holding Cole’s. “Why does everyone think I’m so scary, anyway?”

“You have got to be kidding me.” This time, it was Angela who spoke, barely suppressing a chuckle while she did so. “Do you remember the time you thought you saw Y/N’s prom date kiss someone else at the pre-party?”

You cringed at the memory, and Cole looked at you. “What happened?”

“He lunged at them and ripped the guy away, only to realize he wasn’t my date,” you replied. “The principal flipped out. If Carey wasn’t who he is, he would’ve been banned from school property.”

Cole looked at Carey, who shrugged. “I go all out protect the people I love.”

“And I love you for that,” you cut in, “but I’d prefer not to see you end up in jail one day.”

Everyone laughed, including Carey, and the four of you walked out of the arena together.

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slapshot-to-the-heart · 4 years

Text

Flatbush & Atlantic: part i

Quick note: This is taking place in the 2020-21 season, as if the Islanders still play at Barclays; I know they won’t in actuality. In the story, I’m also going to be taking some liberties with what the duties of a team’s general counsel and legal team would actually be in charge of. My understanding, as a pre-law student, is that it’s more on the corporate angle, dealing with contracts and stuff — in addition to that, Cass will also be dealing with some more immigration and employment law as well.

part i

October 1

“Adiós, mamá. Hablamos pronto. Te amo.” Cassidy hung up, breathing out a tense sigh and rubbing her temples with the heels of her hands. Talking to her mom usually helped to calm her down, bring her back to Earth, but for whatever reason it wasn’t taking. She took a brief glance at the casebook open on her dinged-up Ikea desk. Federal Indian Law. She liked the class, genuinely, but her day had started off bad and gotten worse pretty damn quickly. First she was out of her favorite tea, then her advisor cancelled their meeting, then it started raining as she walked back to her MTA stop, so she had missed the train. Another came fifteen minutes later, but the damage was already done. The only bright spot in the day, aside from calling her mom, had been the cute guy at the Polish deli down the street who had put extra peppers on her Philly cheesesteak. She unwrapped the sandwich, taking a moody bite out of the end. A caramelized onion dropped to the floor. Sighing, she leaned down to pick it up, hurtling it in the direction of the trashcan but only half-looking to see if it reached its target destination. Despite the name, Cass had never had a cheesesteak before she moved to New York, and it wasn’t even because she wasn’t a sandwich person. No, Cass loved a good sandwich, but between her proclivity towards a good BLT and her mom’s homemade Mexican food, she just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Her laptop dinged with an email notification. What now? She swiped over to the mail page, taking another bite as she read the subject line. Experiential learning requirement - unmet. Her brow furrowed. Unmet? Clicking it open, she scanned the email, clearly something automated from the registrar’s office. Yet to complete Columbia’s experiential learning requirement...We suggest you connect with professors...You have until October 8 to submit...Cassidy never finished her sandwich. “Oh my God,” she muttered to herself, feeling her cheeks heat up. “How could you do this? How could you be so stupid, Cass?” She was normally so on top of everything, never missed a date, never forgot an assignment, so how could she have missed one of the only things left to do to graduate? Her law school required all of the graduates to complete some sort of experiential learning requirement — some kind of externship, clinic, summer associate position, anything to get them “out in the real world.” That’s when it hit her. She had coached her high school’s mock trial team the summer after her first year, and interned at the Hartford County DA’s the summer after. But they paid her. Her school had a weird ‘double-dip’ policy, where you weren’t allowed to take a position for class credit and get paid at the same time. It was a confusing rule, convoluted and bizarre and probably a little bit elitist, but it was a rule. As if the day couldn’t get any worse, and then somehow it did.

Turning to her laptop, she started searching for just about anything that could possibly help her. The school’s website, the Manhattan District Attorney’s, state offices, NGOs, federal prosecutors, anyone that might have a lead. Frantically dragging over her resumé and throwing together a cover letter that probably (hopefully) looked way more interesting than it actually was, Cassidy fired off email after email after email. Two hours later, she had sent off some twenty-odd applications, hoping that at least one or two would end up panning out. Glancing at her watch, she let out an exasperated breath. 12:22 A.M. Her classes didn’t start until nine, but it took almost an hour and a subway connection to get to Columbia, and she had to eat and shower before. So, really, it meant getting up at about seven. She needed to go to bed.

Stomach reeling and feeling more resigned than anything, Cass haphazardly brushed her teeth, flossed — it didn’t matter how tired she was, she’d never forget to floss — and clambered into bed, wearing a faded, way-too-big Rangers t-shirt. I’ll be okay. She took a deep breath. It’ll be okay. It has to be. Cassidy Cabrera Shaw was tough as nails and stubborn as hell, and she wasn’t going to let everything she had worked so hard for fall apart so easily.

Whenever Cass was nervous, or anxious, or afraid, she was never able to sleep well. She ended up waking up at ten past six, sitting in her bed for fifteen minutes praying that she’d fall back asleep, and finally accepting her fate that sleep just wasn’t going to come. Rolling over, she grabbed her phone from where she had left it charging on the nightstand. Nightstand was maybe a generous term for it; technically, it was a wooden milk crate that she had spray painted white when she and the other girls had moved into the apartment two years prior. She had a little bit of money set aside from college, but every penny possible was going towards tuition and those ungodly-expensive books that she had to buy every semester. The mattress and frame were from Ikea, and Cass had brought some things like bedding and a desk from her old room. The rest of it — rugs, lighting, and decorations like her six-inch ceramic peacock (his name was Charles) had come from a combination of Goodwill runs and senior citizen yard sales.

Wincing as she did so, Cass pulled up her email, bracing herself for the inevitable barrage of rejection. After scrolling past ten or so automated “no longer hiring” and “position has been filled” messages, one caught her eye. She had sent a few emails to professors of hers, not expecting to hear anything back for a few days. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but there certainly were advantages of going to school in a city as massive as New York. All of her professors knew someone and had some kind of connection from their own education, or days in the practice, or childhood summer trips to the Hamptons with someone who just so happened to be a judge on the Second Circuit Court — that last one was last year’s employment law professor. One particular subject line caught her eye. Thought you might be interested, Professor Murakami had written. David, as he preferred to be called, was her Sports Law professor from last year. She didn’t go into the class expecting to enjoy it all that much, if she was being honest. She had gotten a crappy registration time and most other classes were filled, so it had started out as a placeholder and nothing more. Over the semester, though, it had quickly become one of her favorites, combining pieces of everything else she had studied into one cohesive course. Cass also wasn’t in a position to be turning down any potential offers, so she opened the email and started reading.

I got your email, Cassidy, and think I might be able to help. Okay, so far, so good. I happen to have a contact in the counsel’s office of one of the professional sports teams in the city. That’s exactly what Cass was talking about — where do these people meet each other? Is there some kind of exclusive speakeasy you’re given the password to as soon as you’re admitted to the state bar? Chris Cohen works for the Islanders, and I remember you talking about how interested in hockey you are. Okay, true, but the Islanders? She had practically been born with a Ranger’s jersey on. Beggars can’t be choosers, she thought. I gave him a heads-up that I’d likely be sending a promising candidate his way, so just let me know if this sounds like something you’d be interested in and I’ll send along your contact information.

Cass couldn’t respond fast enough. Yes, please!

---

Wednesdays were her ‘easy’ days, if you could say that. She had Environmental Law and Human Rights back-to-back, but anything after noon was pretty much fair game. That being said, it certainly didn’t mean that she was any less stressed. There were at least a hundred pages to read before class the next day, she had a sample essay due for bar prep, and her mind was still racing about the email. Grabbing a gyro from the cart outside of her last class of the day, Cass stress-ate with one hand while continually refreshing her inbox with the other. Food wasn’t allowed in the library, so she ate the last few bites right outside the doors, throwing away the wrapper and squeezing past the hordes of clearly overwhelmed first-years running to get to class on time.

Popping her Airpods out of their case and into her ears, Cass briskly made her way up the stairs to the third floor, crossing her fingers that her usual spot, a big blue chair over by the research desk, was open. She was in luck, pulling out a water bottle and laptop and getting to work on editing. Four hours later, she had reached some semblance of satisfaction with her work, shutting off her computer and making her way to the subway. There was about half an hour before she had to transfer to the line that would take her to the apartment; squeezing into one of the last free seats, she tugged out a textbook and a highlighter. Why her professor insisted on assigning the entire text of the United Nations charter was a mystery to her, but she’d rather jump off a cliff than be cold called on without an answer. Transferring at Grand Concourse took about ten minutes — it was rush hour, so the first train to come was entirely full — and another twenty or so minutes later, she was letting herself into her shared East Bronx apartment.

Hanging up her denim jacket by the door and toeing off her sneakers, Cass let out a not-so-subtle exasperated sigh.

“One of those days?” Alicia piped in from the kitchen. Alicia also lived in the apartment, one of the four sorority sisters-turned-roommates who had made the move from Connecticut down to New York after graduation. Cass padded into the kitchen, where she was greeted by Alicia in front of a skillet and rice cooker, intensely sautéeing some vegetables.

“You have no idea,” Cass said, hugging her from behind. “Whatcha making?” There were obviously some nights when not everyone was home — most often either Cass or Ryanne, who was in med school — but they always tried to have a few nights a week where someone would cook a meal for the whole house.

“Japchae, it’s my mom’s recipe,” she replied. “I called her and asked how much sesame oil to use, and she just said ‘until it tastes right.’ Like, I love you, Mom, but that doesn’t really help my cause, does it?”

Cass snorted. “Oh for sure, it’s the same way with me. Do you remember the first time I made tamales down here?” Cass had grown up eating and making tamales with her mom and abuela, but she had never been allowed to really take the reins. She had the recipe, though, so the first night after they were moved in, she ventured down to the closest bodega, bought the ingredients, and decided to try her hand making them from scratch. The recipe, however, left out the key piece of exactly how much water to use for steaming — Cass didn’t know, and her mom had always just eyeballed it. So she had ended up putting in way too little and setting the stove way too hot, and to make a long story short, ended up setting off the fire alarm. The one saving grace was the extremely attractive police office that came to double-check the false alarm, but even he couldn’t wipe the mortified expression off of her face.

“How could I forget?” Alicia responded with a grin. “Go put your shit down, it’ll be ready in a few.”

Cass playfully rolled her eyes, heading towards her room in the back. “Yes, mother.” Their apartment was a three bedroom; while obviously it would have been amazing for everyone to have their own, it was still New York City and none of them were exactly rolling in the dough. Cassidy and Ryanne were obviously still students, and while Alicia and Stella had actual jobs — Stella worked international business down by Wall Street and Alicia did something with satellites in Queens — none of them were exactly inclined to set out on their own just yet. So Stella and Alicia shared a room, and she and Ryanne had their own. She shrugged off her jacket, slinging her backpack onto the bed before chugging the rest of her water bottle and checking her phone. Two new emails. A 20% off coupon to Lush, and one from Chris Cohen. Chris Cohen? It took her a minute to remember, but when she did, she couldn’t read it fast enough.

Honestly, Cass didn’t read the whole thing, but got enough information to know that she had an interview Friday afternoon at the office in Brooklyn, that Chris — he had said to call him Chris — said she came with a stellar recommendation from Professor Murakami (an old law school buddy, figures) and that there was no way in hell she was going to fuck this up. She wouldn’t let herself.

---

Cass was lucky her Thursdays were so packed; if she had any extra time to stress over her impending interview, she would have, but she couldn’t. She had two ‘free’ hours in between classes, but after she had scarfed down lunch (Alicia had, mercifully, made plenty of leftovers) it was the only stretch she had to hit the gym. Coupled with the time it took to walk there, change, and shower after, there really wasn’t much in the way of downtime. After classes was her bar prep group, and the day was so exhausting that it was pretty much all she could manage to take the train home, microwave dinosaur chicken nuggets, and stumble into bed. After flossing.

---

If Cassidy lived in any other city, she would have felt wildly out of place on her morning commute. Who shows up to school wearing a suit? She wasn’t an absolute masochist, so her heels were in her bag. But for once in her life she didn’t feel so out of place among the presumably-highbrow, presumably-making-six-figures crowd surrounding her. The suit had been her first big purchase for herself — she had scraped by without one in college, but invested as soon as she had a little saved up from her summer job at a boutique in town. Her mother had always told her that it was the woman who made the clothes, rather than the other way around, and Cass always did what her mom said.

Samaira, one of her friends and another editor on the Columbia Law Review, caught up to her as they both left the twice-weekly morning meeting. “You seem kind of jumpy, Cass. What’s up?”

Cassidy wrung her hands and shrugged her shoulders. “I told you that I missed the internship requirement thing, right?” Samaira nodded. “Well, I have an internship in,” she paused to look at her watch, “two hours, and I’m so nervous I’m going to mess this up. I don’t know what I’m going to do if I don’t get it. There’s not time to look for something else, there’s no alternative, and I don’t know what to do if my own stupidity and forgetfulness is the only thing standing in between me and something I’ve worked so fucking hard for—”

Samaira cut her off. “I’m going to stop you there. That’s bull, Cass, and you know it. You are the furthest thing from a disappointment. You’re one of the kindest, sharpest, and most creative people I know, and you’re not going to let something as petty as a deadline stand in your way. Time gets away from all of us sometimes, and it’s nothing to beat yourself up over. I want you to be confident and have faith in yourself, because you deserve it, but if you don’t, it’s okay. I get it. I believe in you enough for the both of us.” She squeezed Cass’ hand.

She managed a watery smile. “Thanks, Samaira.”

“Any time,” she replied easily. “I’ve got to run to class now, but I want to hear how it went the second you get out, okay?”

“I will.”

Samaira rolled her eyes. “I mean it. You’re going to crush this, Cass. Love you!” She added, waving goodbye as she turned the corner.

There was half an hour before Cass needed to head over to the interview, and before she knew it her feet had taken her to her favorite spot on the north side of Central Park. Grabbing a bagel, she thankfully found the bench empty. After finishing the bagel — she would have preferred cheese, but they were out, so cinnamon raisin it was — and the better part of her Hozier-dominated acoustic playlist, it was time to catch the train. She jumped on with barely a second to spare, grabbing a strap and trying to avoid bumping into anyone.

A seat opened up about halfway to Brooklyn, and Cass took the opportunity to unceremoniously tug off her much more practical flats and switch into the much more professional ankle-strap heels that had been stuffed in her backpack all day. For a fleeting moment, she was worried what everyone around her would think; she was, after all, technically changing on public transportation. A man got on at the next stop who was dressed head-to-toe in neon orange while carrying a Pomeranian in his purse. Nobody batted an eye. She got over herself pretty quickly.

Getting off at the Barclays Center station, Cass pulled out her phone, opening up the camera to give herself a quick once-over. As much as she hated it, first impressions really were everything. Lipstick? Not smudged. Hair? Minimal flyaways. Teeth? No spinach to be seen. Triple-checking that she had the time right, Cass walked through the doors of the office building, Islanders logo emblazoned on the wall behind the secretary’s desk.

“Hi,” she said tentatively, catching his attention. “I have an interview with Chris Cohen at 2?”

The secretary nodded, smiling warmly at her. “No problem. I’m Josh, you can have a seat over there,” he nodded to the small waiting area off to the side, “and I’ll call you when he’s ready for you to be sent up.”

Cass didn’t wait for more than five minutes before Josh gave her the go-ahead, and she was soon headed up the elevator to Chris’ office. “Fourth door on the left. It should have his name on it,” Josh had added.

She raised her fist, knocking quickly on the frosted glass. It swung open a second later, a kind-looking man with glasses and salt-and-pepper hair answering. “You must be Cassidy. I’m Chris Cohen, so nice to meet you. Come right in,” he said, ushering her through the room, where several other associates sat at desks, and into his office.

“David’s always good at keeping an eye out for me in his courses, and I was happy he passed you along,” Chris said, pulling out her resumé. “And you’re a 3L, correct?” She nodded. “Good. So let’s dive right into it. What courses and work experience do you have that you feel best position you for success in this position?” Much though Cass was loath to admit it, if there was anything she was good at, it was talking herself up. There was a reason her high school superlative was “Most Likely to be Able to Talk Their Way Out of a Ticket.” She launched into a well-rehearsed response, making sure to lace in her love for hockey once or twice. If nothing else, it would hopefully at least get her some brownie points. He had a few questions about her resumé, asked about her work on the law review, a few hypotheticals about contract law. She was batting a thousand until he asked the dreaded final question. “Do you have any questions for me?”

Cass was wracking her brain, trying to come up with some intelligent-sounding thing to ask, but nothing came. “Uh—” she started, but was saved by the bell. Or, rather, saved by a frantic door opening and a panicked-sounding Mat Barzal bursting into the room. “Chris, I’ve got a problem.”

#hockey imagine #hockey #nhl imagine #mat barzal #mat barzal imagine #nhl #hockey writing #nhl writing #hockey imagines #nhl imagines #islanders #mat barzal imagines

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pucksnsticksnhockeyboys · 4 years

Text

answers

prompt: “Stay with me, please. Just a minute longer.” / number 17 off of this list with Carter Hart.

summary: when Carter leaves you guessing about how he feels about you, you take matters into your own hands to get answers.

warnings: swearing, angst

word count: 2.1k

requests are currently open!

Sometimes, it really sucked being friends with Philadelphia’s very own Carter Hart. He was confusing and sometimes you didn’t know whether or not even he knew what he wanted.

Firstly, you weren't exactly just friends with him. You had a rather flirty relationship and spent a majority of your free time together so you felt like the two of you were just a bit more than friendly. Always touching, cuddling on the couch, and just all around doing relationship stuff without the actual title. The other guys on the team noticed it, and they would make jokes, calling you his girlfriend. Hearing the term made you happy, but Carter would dismiss them immediately you were left wondering just why you had let your hopes get so high. You desperately wanted something more from him.

You scheduled your evenings around him, and if you didn’t have a class or a project you needed to finish for school, you would find yourself watching the Flyers play. Even if Carter wasn't playing, he wanted you there, and because you would’ve given him the world, you went.

You sighed, rolling your shoulders as you stood up. You were two hours into cramming for a test and you could feel it in your muscles what staying in the same position for so long was doing to you. As if he could sense your movement, there was a knock on your door and before you could even reply, Carter was in your apartment having used the spare key you gave him.

“At least you knocked.” You sighed, grinning despite your mocking tone. Carter rolled his eyes, but pulled you into a hug nonetheless. You hide your blush, you headed into the kitchen to get a glass of water.

“Shouldn't have given me a key if you didn't want me here whenever I wanted.” Carter mocked, and you spotted from the corner of your eye as he flopped down onto the couch. You weren't actually annoyed, but you enjoyed giving him a hard time.

“It’s for emergencies, Carter.” You explained, walking back into your living room. “Like, you’re pretty sure I’ve died because I didn't answer your pre-game phone call.” On away games when he doesn't get to see you before the team plays, he would call you. He claimed that your voice stabilized him and let him focus. You had received hell from not only him, but also half the team, when you had missed his call once and they lost. TK said everyone was so upset because you messed with a goaltender’s superstitions, and that was apparently a big no-no. Since then, you made it a point to call him first if you weren’t sure you’d be available pre-game.

“This is an emergency. I wanted cuddles.” He teased and although you readily agreed, your mind wandered back to what you had been thinking about before he arrived. With your head tucked under his chin and his arms wrapped around you, you thought about how easy it would be for you to just kiss him. No matter how physically affectionate the two of you were, neither had crossed that line—of course, cheeks, foreheads, and fingers weren’t out of bounds, leaning you further confused on just what the rules were to this game you seemed to be playing.

It almost made you angry, all the back and forth. You put your romantic life on hold once you met Carter, holding out hope that maybe some of your feelings were returned. You were pretty sure that he hadn't been seeing anyone else, so you wondered just what was holding him back.

“What are we?” You were so caught up in your thoughts that you didn't even register the question as coming from you until you felt him tense underneath you. As much as you wanted answers from him, you hated confrontation.

“What do you mean?” He started cautiously and you decided it was too late to back out now. Your confusion was out in the open, so you had to address it instead of letting it simmer until it was the only thing you could focus on. You scooted out of his hold, putting a little distance between the two of you. If you were going to have this awkward conversation with him, then you needed to be focused and just his touch had you feeling lightheaded.

You needed answers. And you wanted them now.

“I mean, we’re not just friends, right?” As you spoke, you focused your gaze on anything but him. After he didn't reply for a moment, you cracked, glancing to him to try and gauge a reaction. Your heart clenched when you realized he wasn't even looking at you, instead studying his hands with a conflicted look.

He was thinking of a way to let you down easy.

“So we are just friends.” You spoke, swallowing thickly was the words tasted bitter on your tongue. Your face burned red, you didn't know if it was from embarrassment or anger at yourself for your closest friendship. You put a little more distance between yourself and Carter, watching for the first time as his head snapped up and he finally met your gaze. The look of pure pity in his eyes made you want to throw up, and you had to look away. “I think... I think you should leave.”

He didn't even say anything. He just got up and left. You heard him hesitate by the door, turning back to give you one final look but you couldn't bring yourself to meet his parting gaze. And then he was gone. And you were left with the mounting thoughts about the friendship that just walked out the door with him.

Three days later and you were still throwing yourself a pity party. Your days were all the same, you’d wake up, force yourself to eat, go to class, go home, and order takeout. You felt pathetic, you were acting as if you had broken up with your boyfriend when it had been made very clear that was not what you were. He hadn't even tried texting you, and that night he even played a game without your doing your ritual. You had thought that maybe he would reach out to you for that, but the game came and went and Carter let four goals fly by him. The Flyers had lost, and no matter how poorly things had ended between you and Carter, you still cared for him and wanted to comfort him.

When your phone started ringing at half past one in the morning, the name that flashed on the screen was really the last one you had expected.

“Nolan?” You started, rubbing your eyes in a desperate attempt to wake you up. When you were still close with Carter, he had introduced you to some of the guys on the team, and you had become friends with Nolan and TK in particular.

“Shit, were you sleeping?” There was a slight slur to his words, and you assumed the boys had gone to a bar after their loss. That probably meant Carter was with him.

“Are you good?” You pushed away the ache in your heart and ignored his question when you heard Travis yelling in the background. There was some shuffling on the line, and you heard Nolan whisper a ‘fuck’ before he responded.

“Can you come pick up Carter?” Your eyes widened but before you could interject, he continued. “Please? He’s a mess without you.” Your chest hurt at the thought of Carter being upset, and as you were making up your mind on what to do, there was more shuffling on the line and unintelligible yelling. During this, you had climbed out of bed and started to throw on a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt. As you pulled the material over your head, a new voice joined the conversation.

“He keeps asking for you. He’s like a sad little puppy.” Travis spoke, and you pictured Nolan and Travis fighting for the phone while Carter sat on the curb, outside a bar, pouting. Which was exactly what was happening. Though the phone, you heard Carter ask if it was you that TK was talking to, and when he received confirmation that it was you, a soft ‘she hates me’ fell past his lips. His words had you stilling, leaving you with a sneaker that was half on.

“I don't hate him.” You told Travis, who relayed the message. You didn’t hear Carter’s reaction because you told the boys you would be there in fifteen and hung up promptly after that.

The bar was probably twenty minutes from your apartment, but in your desperation to get to the boys, to get Carter, you cut five minutes off your journey. When you rolled up in front of the bar, all three were waiting for you. You avoided Carter’s gaze as he climbed into your car, and you made sure Nolan and TK had a ride home. They were already climbing into their Uber, though, and suddenly you were left with the boy you had yet to talk to since you asked him to leave.

You turned the radio on to fill the silence in the car. You were positive things had never been so awkward between you and Carter and it felt so unnatural. But that had been when you thought that maybe there could be something more between the two of you.

On the elevator ride up to your apartment you concluded that he wasn’t that drunk. just enough so that he wasn't in control of what he said, which was probably why he had asked for you to come get him. When you were finally inside your apartment, it became obvious that Travis had been right by calling him a sad puppy. He definitely looked the part as he sat on your couch, unable to meet your eyes and a noticeable pout on his lips.

“M’sorry you had to come get me.” He apologized and you couldn't help but make your way over to him. It broke your heart that that was the first thing he has said to you in days.

“Don’t be.” You sighed. Oh how you wished to go back in time and slap yourself for even thinking about confronting him with your feelings. Things were awkward now, and you didn't want them to be. Suddenly, it felt too stifling to be there with him as you remembered how embarrassed you had been after he left your apartment last time. You stood up, ready to get him extra blankets to use when his hand grabbed your wrist. Silently, you cursed his hockey reflexes.

“Stay with me, please. Just a minute longer.” Your lips parted in shock momentarily as you heard the hurt in his voice. You nodded, sitting back onto the couch. He let go of your wrist, only to slide his hand down to interlocking your fingers.

How did he manage to make you this confused on how he felt?

“I was scared. Still am.” Carter’s confession made you furrow your brows. You didn't know what he was talking about—or what could have possibly scared him. “Of losing you, I mean.”

“You’re not going to lose me.” You assured him, studying his face incase this was all a dream and you were going to wake up any minute. Though, with the amount of stress he’s been putting you under as of late, it was more like a nightmare.

“I was afraid that if we put a label on us, that I would somehow fuck it up and you’d leave.” He explained, using his free hand to push his hair back. You squeezed the hand that was joined with his as a way of reminding him that you were there. “And then I still fucked up by not putting a label on us.”

“Carter, I just wanted to know how you felt. And then you didn't say anything so I thought I ruined things by reading too much into it and—” Your rambling was cut off when Carter surged forward, pressing his lips to yours. Your free hand shot up to cup his jaw, making it so he couldn't pull away until you were ready.

“Sorry I was so confusing.” He mumbled, nose pressed against your cheek as he couldn't bring himself to pull away any further. This drew a laugh from you, and you kept giggling as he poked your side.

“Sorry I kicked you out of my apartment the other day.” This time, it was Carter’s turn to chuckle. “Though, you still haven’t put a label on us.”

“I thought I made it obvious I did?” His response to your tease had your brows tugging together in thought. He just apologized for being confusion, so you were pretty sure he was being vague on purpose. Though, you never know with him.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

#hockey #hockey imagines #hockey imagine #Carter hart #Carter hart x reader #carter hart imagine #Carter hart imagines #Philadelphia Flyers imagine #Philadelphia Flyers imagines #philadelphia flyers

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