#with the exception of maybe that last blue line one shot

[ghstyles]

Birthday Girl | H.S

Friendrry | Fluff | One shot | Fine line Harry | Masterlist

a/n: It's my birthday, therefore, it's also Y/N's birthday. Hopefully I'm not stood up like her

· · ─────────── ·H.S· ────────── · ·

The restaurant is upscale without being pretentious, exactly the type of place where a group of twenty-somethings might gather for a special occasion without completely emptying their bank accounts. Soft lighting casts a warm glow over polished wood tables and leather booths, while ambient music plays at a volume that allows for easy conversation.

Y/N sits alone at a large table set for twelve, feeling increasingly conspicuous as the minutes tick by. The birthday headband she'd bought on a whim, silver with "Birthday Girl" spelled out in glittering letters, is stuffed into her bag, her initial enthusiasm for wearing it having evaporated around the fifteen-minute mark of sitting alone.

She checks her phone again, scrolling through the mounting collection of last-minute cancellations and excuses. Work emergencies, sudden illnesses, family obligations, all perfectly reasonable individually, but collectively forming a pattern that's impossible to ignore. A few haven't even bothered to text, their silence speaking volumes.

The waitress approaches for the third time, her sympathetic smile barely masking her pity.

"Are you still waiting for the rest of your party?" she asks gently.

Y/N forces a smile, though it feels brittle on her face. "Just a few more minutes, if that's okay. I'm sure they're just running late."

The waitress nods, clearly not believing it any more than Y/N does, but kindly playing along. "No problem. Can I get you another drink while you wait?"

"Please," Y/N agrees, sliding her half-empty cocktail glass toward the edge of the table. "A stronger one this time, if you don't mind."

As the waitress retreats, Y/N slumps slightly in her chair, the carefully applied makeup and styled hair suddenly feeling like wasted effort. She'd been so excited about tonight, her twenty-fifth birthday, surrounded by friends in a nice restaurant, maybe even making a better impression on Harry Styles if he actually showed up (which he clearly wasn't going to).

It had been impulsive, adding him to the invite list. They weren't really friends, more like friendly acquaintances who shared a social circle. They'd met a handful of times at parties and gatherings, exchanged pleasant conversation, laughed at the same jokes. Nothing special, except for the way her heart seemed to beat a little faster whenever he walked into a room, or how she found herself paying more attention when he spoke.

But that was normal, wasn't it? He was Harry Styles, after all. Harry Styles. Everyone reacted that way to him.

Still, she'd sent the text invitation, trying to sound casual: Having a birthday dinner on Friday. Nothing fancy, just food and friends. You're welcome to join if you're around.

He hadn't responded, which wasn't surprising. He was probably on tour, or in a studio, or on a yacht somewhere with a supermodel. The invitation had been a shot in the dark, nothing more.

The waitress returns with a significantly stronger cocktail, setting it down with another sympathetic smile. Y/N thanks her and takes a long sip, the alcohol burning pleasantly down her throat.

Thirty-five minutes now. This is officially pathetic.

She reaches for her bag, ready to settle the bill for her drinks and slink home to salvage what remains of her dignity, when the restaurant's front door bursts open with enough force to draw every eye in the place.

Harry Styles stands in the doorway, slightly out of breath, his hair wild as if he's been running his hands through it repeatedly. He's wearing black jeans and a partially unbuttoned silky shirt in a shade of blue that makes his eyes look even more vibrant than usual. Most strikingly, his face is covered in what appears to be remnants of glitter and stage makeup, as if he's come straight from some kind of photoshoot or performance without taking time to clean up.

For a moment, Y/N thinks she must be hallucinating, perhaps the second, stronger drink was a mistake on an empty stomach. But then Harry's eyes lock with hers across the restaurant, and his face breaks into a relieved smile that sends her heart into an irregular rhythm.

"Y/N!" he calls out, loud enough to draw more stares as he weaves through tables toward her. "Thank god you're still here. I'm so, so sorry I'm late."

He reaches her table, slightly breathless, and Y/N can only stare up at him in shock, her planned departure forgotten.

"Harry?" she manages, her voice embarrassingly small. "You...came?"

"Of course I came," he says, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. He pulls out the chair next to hers and sits down, leaning toward her with an earnest expression. "I'm really sorry I didn't respond to your text. I wasn’t sure what time the photoshoot was and didn’t want to say yes and then bail the day of." 

Y/N is still trying to process the fact that Harry Styles is sitting at her birthday dinner, apologizing to her as if his presence was expected, even guaranteed.

"But...how did you know where to come? And when?" she asks, confusion evident in her voice.

Harry's expression softens, a slight blush coloring his cheeks beneath the remnants of makeup. "I, uh, asked Mia for the details when I saw her last week. After I got your text." He runs a hand through his already disheveled hair, looking uncharacteristically nervous. "I meant to reply, I really did. But then I got busy with work, and...well, I'm here now."

He glances around the table, his brow furrowing as he takes in the empty chairs and untouched place settings.

"Where is everyone else? Mia, Zack, the others?"

Y/N feels a fresh wave of humiliation wash over her. It's one thing to be stood up by all her friends; it's another to have Harry Styles witness it.

"They, um, couldn't make it," she says, aiming for casual but landing somewhere closer to mortified. "Last-minute things came up."

Harry's expression shifts, confusion giving way to understanding and then, surprisingly, anger. His jaw tightens, a muscle working in his cheek as he glances around the empty table again.

"All of them?" he asks, his voice low and controlled. "Every single person had something 'come up' on the same night?"

Y/N shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant despite the lump forming in her throat. "It happens. People are busy."

"No," Harry says firmly, a hardness in his tone that Y/N has never heard from him before. "No, that's not okay. It's your birthday, Y/N. They RSVP'd, yeah? They committed to being here?"

Y/N nods reluctantly, not meeting his eyes. "Most of them, yeah. But honestly, it's fine. I was just about to head home anyway."

"Absolutely not," Harry declares, his tone brooking no argument as he settles more firmly into his chair. "It's your birthday dinner, and we're going to have a proper celebration."

Before Y/N can protest, Harry flags down the waitress who's been hovering nearby, clearly curious about the unexpected arrival of a pop star at her station.

"Hi there," Harry greets her with his signature charm, his earlier anger carefully masked behind a warm smile. "We're ready to order now. Just the two of us."

The waitress, whose nametag reads 'Sophie', blinks rapidly, visibly star-struck but maintaining her professionalism. "Of course, sir. Would you like to hear the specials?"

As Sophie recites the day's offerings, Harry turns to Y/N with a conspiratorial smile. "What are you hungry for, birthday girl? Order anything you want. It's on me tonight."

Y/N shakes her head, embarrassment coloring her cheeks. "Harry, you don't have to do this. Really, I understand if you want to leave."

Harry's expression softens, his green eyes holding hers steadily. "I don't want to leave, Y/N. I want to celebrate your birthday with you. If you'll let me."

There's something in his gaze, a sincerity, a warmth, that makes Y/N's protests die on her lips. She nods slowly, a small, genuine smile finally finding its way to her face.

"Okay," she agrees softly. "Thank you."

Harry's answering smile is brilliant, lighting up his entire face. "Brilliant. Now, what shall we order? I'm starving."

They place their orders, Y/N choosing her favorite pasta dish, Harry opting for the steak, and settle into conversation that starts slightly awkward but quickly becomes surprisingly easy. Harry asks about her job , her family, her plans for the future, listening with genuine interest to her answers. In turn, he shares stories from his recent tour and the photoshoot he just came from.

"That explains the..." Y/N gestures vaguely at his face, where flecks of glitter still catch the light when he moves.

Harry laughs, rubbing at his cheek and examining the sparkly residue on his fingers. "Yeah, sorry about that. They had me in full makeup and glitter for this avant-garde fashion spread. I tried to clean up before leaving, but they were taking forever, and I was already so late..."

He trails off, looking suddenly shy. "I didn't want to miss your birthday entirely."

The simple admission sends a flutter through Y/N's chest that she tries desperately to ignore.

"Well, you look good with glitter," she offers, then immediately feels her cheeks heat at the compliment. "I mean, it suits you. The whole rock star aesthetic."

Harry's dimple appears as he grins at her, clearly pleased by her flustered state. "Thanks. Though I'm more partial to a classic suit these days."

Their food arrives, momentarily pausing the conversation as they arrange plates and napkins. As Y/N reaches for her water glass, Harry suddenly snaps his fingers, as if remembering something.

"Oh! I almost forgot." He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket, which he'd draped over the back of his chair, and pulls out a small, neatly wrapped package. "Happy birthday, Y/N."

Y/N stares at the gift, surprised and touched that he'd thought to bring something. "Harry, you didn't have to get me anything."

"I wanted to," he says simply, pushing the package toward her. "It's nothing fancy, just something small I thought you might like."

With slightly trembling fingers, Y/N unwraps the package to reveal a delicate silver bookmark. The top of it is shaped like a crescent moon, with tiny stars dangling from fine chains attached to it. It's beautiful in its simplicity, clearly chosen with thought rather than expense in mind.

"I remembered you mentioning how much you love reading," Harry explains, watching her face carefully for her reaction. "And how you hate dog-earing pages. Thought this might be useful."

Y/N runs her finger over the smooth silver, deeply touched by the thoughtfulness of the gift. It shows that he's actually paid attention to things she's said in their brief interactions, that he's remembered details about her that most people wouldn't.

"It's perfect," she says softly, looking up to meet his eyes with a genuine smile. "Thank you, Harry. I love it."

His answering smile is warm, relief evident in his expression. "I'm glad. Now, " he glances toward her bag, his eyes twinkling with mischief, "I’m pretty sure that is supposed to go on your head. What’s it doing in your bag?"

Y/N groans, covering her face with her hands. "No way. I'm not wearing that thing. It was silly enough when I thought I'd be with a group of friends, but in public, with just us? Absolutely not."

"Come on," Harry coaxes, his voice taking on a playful wheedling quality. "It's your birthday! You should wear the headband. I bet it's sparkly and fabulous."

"It's ridiculous," Y/N counters, though she can feel her resolve weakening under his charming insistence.

Harry leans forward, his expression suddenly serious. "Y/N, as someone who has worn some truly outrageous things on stage, feather boas, sequined jumpsuits, that one unfortunate experiment with leather chaps, I can assure you that a birthday headband is extremely tame by comparison."

A laugh escapes her despite her best efforts. "Leather chaps?"

"We don't talk about the chaps," Harry says gravely, though his eyes are dancing with humor. "The point is, you should embrace the birthday spirit. Wear the headband."

With an exaggerated sigh of surrender, Y/N reaches into her bag and pulls out the sparkly "Birthday Girl" headband. Before she can change her mind, Harry gently takes it from her fingers and stands up, moving behind her chair. With surprising tenderness, he carefully places the headband on her head, adjusting it so that the glittering letters are centered.

"Perfect," he declares as he returns to his seat, his voice softer than before, his eyes lingering on her face in a way that makes her stomach flip. "Beautiful birthday girl."

The compliment, delivered with such quiet sincerity, sends a wave of heat to Y/N's cheeks. She drops her gaze to her plate, suddenly finding it difficult to meet his eyes.

"Thank you," she murmurs, not just for the compliment but for everything, for showing up, for staying, for making what could have been a humiliating disaster into something unexpectedly special.

Harry seems to understand the multiple layers of her gratitude, his expression softening as he raises his glass in a toast.

"To Y/N," he says, his voice warm with genuine affection. "Happy 25th birthday. May it be the beginning of your best year yet."

Y/N raises her own glass, clinking it gently against his. "Thank you for salvaging it."

"The night's still young," Harry points out with a grin. "We haven't even had dessert yet. I heard the waitress mention something about a chocolate lava cake that sounds absolutely sinful."

As they continue their meal, Y/N finds herself relaxing more and more in Harry's company. There's something about him that puts her at ease, the way he listens intently when she speaks, the genuine interest in his questions, the complete lack of pretense despite his fame. By the time they're sharing the aforementioned chocolate lava cake (which is indeed sinful), Y/N has almost forgotten the initial heartache of being stood up by her friends.

Harry, however, has not forgotten. As they near the end of their meal, he brings the subject up again, his tone careful but firm.

"I still can't believe none of them showed up," he says, stirring his drink thoughtfully. "That's really not okay, Y/N. Friends don't do that to each other."

Y/N sighs, the hurt she'd been successfully ignoring for the past couple of hours resurfacing. "I know. It's just...I don't think I'm a priority for any of them. Not really."

Harry frowns, clearly troubled by her words. "Then they're idiots. All of them."

The vehemence in his voice surprises Y/N. "You don't even know them all that well."

"I know enough," Harry counters. "I know that anyone who would bail on your birthday dinner without a genuinely emergency-level reason is not someone who deserves your friendship."

He hesitates, then adds more gently, "You deserve better friends, Y/N. People who show up for you the way you'd show up for them."

Y/N nods, a lump forming in her throat at his kindness. "Maybe you're right."

"I know I'm right," Harry says with a confidence that would sound arrogant from anyone else but somehow just sounds caring coming from him. "And for what it's worth, I'm really glad I got to be here tonight. Even if the circumstances aren't what either of us expected."

There's something in his tone, a hint of something more than friendly concern, that makes Y/N look up sharply, catching an expression on his face that she can't quite decipher before it's replaced by his usual easy smile.

"Me too," she admits quietly. "It's been...nice. Really nice."

Harry's smile widens, his dimple deepening in that way that makes her heart skip. "Good. That was the goal."

When the check comes, Harry smoothly intercepts it before Y/N can even reach for it.

"Harry, no," she protests. "You've already done so much. Let me at least pay for my part."

"Not a chance," Harry says firmly, already sliding his credit card into the leather folder. "It's your birthday dinner. Besides, I didn’t even RSVP, remember? Technically, I'm crashing your party."

"Some crash," Y/N retorts with a small laugh. "You're literally the only guest who showed up."

Something flickers in Harry's eyes, a brief shadow that's gone almost as quickly as it appeared. "Their loss," he says softly. "Truly."

As they prepare to leave, Y/N carefully placing her new bookmark in her bag and reluctantly removing the birthday headband (at Harry's insistence, she'd worn it through the entire meal, even when the waitstaff brought out a complimentary slice of cake with a candle and sang to her), she finds herself not wanting the evening to end.

"So," Harry says as they step out into the cool evening air, standing awkwardly on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. "Can I call you a car? Or are you close enough to walk home?"

Y/N hesitates, torn between not wanting to impose further and not wanting to say goodbye just yet. "I'm not far. Just a few blocks."

Harry nods, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Right. Well, I could walk you? If you want. Just to make sure you get home safe."

There's an uncharacteristic uncertainty in his voice, as if he's genuinely unsure whether she'll want to prolong their time together. It's this hint of vulnerability that gives Y/N the courage to be honest.

"I'd like that," she says with a small smile. "If you don't mind."

Relief crosses Harry's face, followed by a warm smile. "I don't mind at all."

They fall into step beside each other, walking in comfortable silence for a few moments before Harry speaks again, his voice casual, almost too casual.

"So, this might be a bit forward, but...would you maybe want to do this again sometime? Without the birthday headband, I mean. Just...dinner. Or coffee. Or whatever you like, really."

He's rambling slightly, which Y/N finds endearing coming from someone usually so composed and confident. It takes her a moment to process what he's actually asking.

"Are you...asking me out?" she clarifies, unable to keep the surprise from her voice. "Like, on a date?"

Harry stops walking, turning to face her directly. In the soft glow of the streetlights, with flecks of glitter still catching the light on his cheekbones, he looks almost otherworldly, a fairy tale prince somehow transported to a London sidewalk.

"Yes," he says simply, his green eyes steady on hers. "I am."

"But..." Y/N struggles to make sense of this unexpected turn. "Why? I mean, you're you, and I'm...just me."

Harry's brow furrows slightly, a flash of frustration crossing his features. "Do you really not know?"

When Y/N just stares at him blankly, he runs a hand through his hair, messing it up even further.

"Y/N, I've wanted to ask you out since the first time we met, at Tom's birthday thing last year. You were wearing that green dress, and you were arguing with someone about books, and you were so passionate and smart and beautiful that I couldn't take my eyes off you."

Y/N's mouth falls open slightly in shock. She remembers that night, remembers being introduced to Harry Styles and trying desperately to act normal while her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. She remembers getting into a heated debate with Tom's pretentious cousin about the literary merits of contemporary fiction, completely forgetting about Harry's presence until she looked up to find him watching her with an amused smile.

"But you never said anything," she manages finally.

Harry shrugs, a rueful smile tugging at his lips. "I tried. Several times, actually. But something always got in the way, you'd leave early, or someone would interrupt, or I'd lose my nerve." He laughs softly, shaking his head at himself. "Not very rock star of me, I know."

"So when I texted you about tonight..." Y/N begins, pieces starting to fall into place.

"I nearly dropped my phone in excitement," Harry admits with a self-deprecating grin. "Asked Mia immediately for all the details, made sure I'd be in London, even rescheduled some studio time."

He reaches up, rubbing the back of his neck in a gesture that seems almost shy. "I was planning to play it cool, you know? Just show up with the group, maybe sit next to you if I could manage it, see if we hit it off properly."

His expression darkens slightly as he continues, "Then I show up and find that all of our so-called friends have bailed on your birthday. Which, by the way, made me want to call each of them personally and give them a piece of my mind. But it also gave me the chance to spend time with just you, which was...well, it was perfect, actually."

Y/N stares at him, trying to process everything he's saying. Harry Styles has had a crush on her for a year. Harry Styles rearranged his schedule to attend her birthday dinner. Harry Styles wants to date her.

It's too much to take in all at once.

"You don't have to answer now," Harry says quickly, misinterpreting her silence. "I know it's a lot, and you've had a weird night, and I'm probably not making it any less weird by dumping all this on you. We can just–"

"Yes," Y/N interrupts, surprising herself with the firmness of her answer. "Yes, I'd like to go on a date with you."

Harry's face lights up with a smile so bright it could rival the streetlamps illuminating the sidewalk around them. "Yeah? You're sure?"

Y/N nods, a matching smile spreading across her own face. "I'm sure. Although I have to warn you, it'll be hard to top tonight. Not many first dates involve a birthday headband and abandoned dinner reservations."

Harry laughs, the sound warm and genuine in the quiet of the evening. "I'll do my best to make it memorable in other ways."

They stand there for a moment, smiling at each other like idiots beneath the streetlight, before Harry offers his arm in an old-fashioned gesture that somehow doesn't feel out of place coming from him.

"Shall we continue, birthday girl? I believe I promised to see you safely home."

Y/N slips her arm through his, feeling a warmth that has nothing to do with the mild evening air and everything to do with the man beside her.

"Lead on, Styles," she says with a teasing smile. "And for the record, I'm glad you were the only one who showed up tonight."

Harry's answering smile is soft and intimate, just for her. "Me too, Y/N. More than you know."

As they continue down the sidewalk, arms linked and conversation flowing easily between them, Y/N thinks that perhaps being stood up on her birthday wasn't such a disaster after all. In fact, it might just be the best thing that's ever happened to her.

Taglist: @triski73 @angeldavis777 @ivegotthecinemaa @bethiegurl19 @sstylezzz @spargelhund @myfavefanficsever @spinnic @catmomstyles3 @mads3502

[misshoneyimhome]

oh yes! i second the request for dad william! maybe a family skate or going to the first game of the season? 🥹

Oh, we’re really on a Dad!Willy roll here, and it’s melting my heart 🥹 I’m absolutely obsessed with it right now—literally any little moment between William and his son (because yes, we’re sticking with Eliot here, sorry, not sorry!) is just pure sugar for my brain 🤗❤️‍🔥

Tropes & warnings: no warnings, except once again overload cuteness! Dad!Willy x reader, baby!Eliot, season opener

Word count: 1.7K

➼｡ﾟ

Daddy 88 - A First Season | dad!willy x reader ✐

The air inside the arena buzzed with excitement as fans returned for the season opener, anticipation running high after a long summer break. For you, though, tonight felt different. Holding Eliot in your arms, now seven months old, you couldn’t help but feel both pride and joy seeing him here for his first full season opener. Last year, he’d been so tiny, barely a month old when you’d first brought him to a game during the playoffs. But tonight, he was older, more aware, and it was clear he was beginning to take in this incredible part of William’s world.

Finding your seats in the family section, you settled in, adjusting Eliot so he could see the rink more easily. He was dressed in a mini version of William’s jersey, with “Daddy 88” printed on the back in bold letters. It was still a bit big on him, which only made him more adorable. The crowd around you was vibrant with blue and white, and Eliot’s eyes went wide, taking in the sea of fans, the lights, and the booming excitement filling the arena. Occasionally, he babbled, his little hands reaching out to touch the jersey fabric, his tiny fingers exploring its texture with curiosity.

“Big night for you, huh, little one?” you whispered, smiling down at him as he looked up with those bright blue eyes, his face full of wonder. “Your first home opener. You’re going to love this.”

The stadium dimmed, and the cheers rose as the players made their way onto the ice, William among them. You spotted him quickly, and so did Eliot, who squealed with excitement, kicking his legs in your lap. William skated by, scanning the stands until he found you both. His grin spread wide as he caught sight of Eliot’s jersey and his bright, eager expression. He waved up at you with a quick, playful salute before turning his focus back to the game.

The music blared, the lights flashed, and Eliot was absolutely captivated. Every time the crowd cheered, he joined in with squeals of delight, his face lighting up with joy. It was as if he knew he was part of something big, even if he couldn’t fully understand it. Watching him react to the excitement around him made your heart swell—you could already see the beginnings of his own little love for the game.

Midway through the second period, the crowd’s anticipation grew as William made his way toward the goal. You held your breath as he manoeuvred past the defenders, lining up his shot. Then, with a swift flick of his stick, the puck sailed past the goalie and into the net. The arena erupted, and Eliot, sensing the excitement, let out a delighted squeal, clapping his hands along with the crowd. He didn’t fully grasp what had happened, but he could feel the energy all around him.

You lifted him a little higher, bouncing him in your arms as the cheers swelled, letting him join in as if to say, “That’s my dad!” William skated past, throwing a quick glance toward the stands, his grin widening when he saw Eliot, cheering him on with you.

Throughout the game, William’s focus stayed on the ice, but you noticed he’d steal glances up toward the stands, his gaze always finding you and Eliot. Seeing the two of you there seemed to fuel him, adding an extra fire to his game, and you could feel his pride radiating even from afar. Every so often, you’d lift Eliot up a little higher, letting him wave as if to say, “Look at me, Dad! I’m here for you!”

As the game unfolded, Eliot remained mesmerised. His eyes darted from the players to the big screens, and his little hands clutched onto your fingers as he bounced slightly with the action on the ice. He seemed especially fascinated when the puck moved quickly or when the players crowded around the goal, watching intently as the game unfolded. It was almost as if he knew that this was his dad’s world—a world that he, too, was now a part of.

By the third period, the Leafs were in the lead, and the crowd was on its feet with every play. Eliot joined in, clapping his hands along with the fans, letting out little cheers that made everyone around you smile. When the final buzzer sounded and the home team had won, the arena erupted, and Eliot squealed with pure delight, his laugh blending into the roar of the crowd. You couldn’t help but laugh along with him, caught up in his joy and the thrill of the moment.

After the game, you waited for the crowd to thin before making your way down to the tunnel entrance, where William would join you. When he appeared, still in his gear but grinning with satisfaction, Eliot’s eyes lit up, and he reached his tiny arms out towards his dad.

“Hey, champ,” William said, lifting Eliot from your arms with a smile that was all pride and love. He held him close, brushing a hand over Eliot’s white hair. “What did you think? Did you enjoy watching Daddy play?”

Eliot responded with a babble and a big grin, patting William’s shoulder as if to say, “You were great!” 

William laughed, glancing over at you with a look that made your heart skip a beat.

“Thank you for bringing him tonight,” he said softly, reaching over to squeeze your hand. “I know he’s too young to remember this, but…I will. Seeing him here with you… it means everything.”

You smiled, reaching up to adjust Eliot’s little jersey. “I think he loved it, Will. Look at him—he’s your biggest fan already,” you teased, watching as Eliot clung to William, his head resting comfortably on his dad’s shoulder.

William looked down at Eliot, his eyes softening as he adjusted him in his arms. “Looks like we’ve got a future fan on our hands. Or maybe…” he paused, glancing at you with a playful gleam in his eye, “…a future player?”

You laughed, nudging him playfully. “Oh, don’t get ahead of yourself, Nylander. We’ll let him decide when he’s older. But if he takes after you… well, I’d say the Leafs better watch out.”

William chuckled, pressing a gentle kiss to Eliot’s forehead. “Deal,” he agreed, a warm smile spreading across his face. “But until then, we’ll just keep cheering together.”

As the three of you walked out of the arena, you felt the magic of the night settling around you. Eliot was snug against William’s chest, his tiny hands clutching at his dad’s shirt, his eyes starting to droop with sleep. This season opener had been more than just the start of a new hockey year; it had marked the beginning of a new tradition, one you’d share as a family for many seasons to come.

_

The rink felt familiar yet intimate in the quiet morning, just a couple of days after the excitement of the season opener. The stands were empty, and only a few team families were on the ice, creating a peaceful atmosphere that felt worlds away from game night’s electric roar. You held Eliot close, bundled in his little jacket, hat, and mittens, as he took in the sights, mesmerised by the smooth expanse of ice that seemed to sparkle under the arena lights.

William skated over, a huge smile lighting up his face when he saw the two of you waiting by the boards. “Alright, ready for another adventure, little man?” he murmured, ruffling Eliot’s hat gently. Eliot babbled, eyes wide with fascination, as William held out his arms to take him.

“Go easy on him,” you teased, passing Eliot over. “The poor kid just survived his first home opener a few nights ago!”

William laughed, cradling Eliot in one arm as he skated in a gentle circle, keeping a steady pace to give Eliot his first real taste of being on the ice. “Oh, he loved it. Didn’t you, bud?” he murmured to Eliot, who responded with a delighted squeal, his tiny fists reaching out, wanting to touch the ice.

With Eliot securely in his arms, William glided back and forth, moving at a slow, soothing rhythm that had Eliot giggling. He occasionally tilted him closer to the ice, just enough for Eliot to feel the cool air beneath his feet. His eyes were bright, taking it all in, already as mesmerised by the ice as he had been by the roar of the crowd on game night.

After a few rounds, William skated back towards you, an excited look in his eyes. “How about we take him for a little family lap?” he suggested, holding out a hand.

You stepped onto the ice carefully, and with William’s arm wrapped securely around you, the three of you began gliding together. Eliot nestled between you both, looking from you to William with a big grin. Every so often, he reached for William’s jersey, his tiny fingers clutching at the fabric as if anchoring himself to this new world.

“He’s a natural,” William said proudly, gazing down at Eliot. “Look at him. He’s already got that Nylander focus.”

You laughed. “Oh yeah? You think he’s already scoping out future plays?”

William smirked, winking at Eliot. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

As you reached the other end of the rink, you took a break, sitting with Eliot by the boards while William skated a few laps to warm up his legs. Eliot watched him with wide eyes, fascinated by every move his dad made—the graceful strides, the spins, the playful stops. William, noticing his audience, turned to give Eliot an extra little spin, sending him into fits of laughter that echoed through the empty arena.

When he finally skated back, William took Eliot’s tiny hand and held it gently, a playful glint in his eye. “See that, bud? Someday, you’ll be out here too, skating like that.”

You smiled, nudging him lightly. “Careful, Nylander. You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

William chuckled, shifting Eliot in his arms. “Maybe, but look at him—he’s already a natural on the ice. Give him a few years, and he could be the next big hockey star.”

You rolled your eyes with a laugh. “Alright, future hockey dad. But remember, we’ll let him decide.”

William grinned, leaning in to press a quick kiss to your forehead. “Yeah, I know. But I’m just saying—I’ve got a good feeling.”

As the three of you lingered together, the quiet rink around you, it felt like the perfect start to the season, a moment of family magic before the demands of the season picked up again.

[bigdumbbambieyes]

for @thissortofsorcery, who wanted more Billy with a belly button piercing (hehe) and inspired by @robthegoodfellow's amazing tags!!

nsfw

The first time he sees it, it's on accident, and he's not entire sure what he sees.

He's about six beers and two shots deep, so his eyes aren't really focusing as he catches a glimpse of Hargrove's stomach, perfectly toned because he's a fucking asshole, but the peek of silver around his belly button had caught Steve's wandering eye.

They're in Tommy's backyard with a dozen of other people he can't remember the names of, but Billy had invited him so he had gone, and Tommy had glared at him the entire night but also hadn't approached him because the guy clearly doesn't care enough. Which, admittedly, hurts Steve because they had been friends for forever, but not anymore.

But, it's whatever. Hargrove has taken a liking to him and Steve's not about to pass up on someone he can have decent conversations with - even if the guy irritates him to no end.

And, apparently, intrigues him.

Billy had raised his arms in a stretch once he stood up from his chair by the campfire, groaning out a soft sound as Steve had eyed him from above the rim of his cup, the beer catching in his throat as he saw the quick reflection of something shiny on Billy's belly button.

There was no way, right? He's seen plenty of girls with their belly buttons pierced. It was a girl piercing. No guy he's ever known has ever had one.

Until Billy, it seems.

And Steve, as he coughs up a lung and tries to soothe the burn with more beer, thinks back to the times where Billy wore his shirt unbuttoned almost down to his navel, and he'd never seen them before. He's met up with Billy after his shift at the pool, when he wore his cropped Everlast shirt, and there hadn't been anything there except a dark blond happy trail.

It has to be new. Recent.

"You good, princess?" Billy asks him suddenly, his brows furrowed.

His eyes watery from coughing, Steve nods and waves him off, watching the blond roll his eyes and go back inside for another drink.

There's no way, right? 🖤 It's been a week and Steve can't stop thinking about it.

He has to make sure he wasn't just seeing anything or else it'll eat him alive.

So, he calls up Billy that weekend, asking, "You wanna come over for a swim? Maybe some beers, too?"

"I worked at the pool all day, the last thing I want is to fuckin' swim, Harrington. How about we just have some beers? Maybe take them over to Heather's?" Billy offered cooly, like he wasn't ruining Steve's perfectly laid out plans.

Pursing his lips, Steve covered up his indignant huff by palming the bottom of his phone before transferring it to his other ear, saying, "Yeah, I suppose we could."

Because he was a sucker for Billy. He couldn't help it.

"I'll pick you up in twenty, be ready."

The line went dead and Steve huffed again.

🖤

A couple days later, he's finally got Billy at his house, but his parents are home. Not that they're going to ruin his plans or anything, but his parents actually enjoy Billy's company, so they ask him to stay for dinner and who is Billy to decline such a generous offer?

His dad's barbecuing in the back and he and Billy are chatting about something regarding sports while Steve helps his mom prepare the table. He had immediately noticed Billy's new shirt when the guy arrived, a soft light green t-shirt, tightly fitted - and if Steve could only get a damn glance at his stomach, he might be able to see the shape of it through the fabric.

It's almost comical how much stuff gets in the way: Billy's standing behind the barbecue, his dad is in front of him when they come in with food, his mother passes his father the salad bowl just as Billy goes to sit at the table.

He kinda wants to scream.

And again, Billy asks him, "Everything alright, Steve?" Because he's Steve in front of his parents.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he smiles tightly, their eyes locking for a moment, and there's something shining in Billy's blue eyes.

After dinner, when they've had their full and it's time for Billy to go, he watches the blond pat his stomach and keep his hand there as he stands, thanking the Harringtons for the meal.

Steve manages another tight smile as his parents tell Billy to come back soon.

🖤

A couple guys they know from school are playing basketball at the park when he and Billy drive by a couple days later, and Billy glances over at him with a grin, saying, "Wanna join them?"

Steve stares at him for a moment before flicking his gaze over to the guys on the court, noticing that they're shirts vs skins. And knowing Billy, he'll want to take off his shirt.

Oh, yeah. This will work.

"Sure," he hums, playing it cool.

They park and head over, standing on the sidelines until Patrick stops dribbling the ball and asks them, "You two come to join?"

"Yeah, thought maybe you'd want some actual competition, McKinney," Billy smirks, grinning when Jason gives him a glare for his smart mouth.

"Alright," Patrick nods with a smile, "Harrington, you're skins."

Steve feels his shoulders drop, and he glances at Billy, figuring he'd say something like 'nah, let's switch' but Billy just looks at him, quirking an expectant brow.

"You gonna strip or what, Harrington?" Billy asks with a leer.

Sighing, Steve rolls his eyes and pulls the bottom of his shirt over his head.

🖤

It's gotta be on purpose, right? Steve's suffering from some kind of karma that he doesn't deserve. How fucking hard is it to catch Billy Hargrove without a goddamn shirt?

He has Billy's aviators from the other day and he's on his way to Cherry Lane to return them, his thumb tapping his steering wheel as he replays the memory of that simple little lift of Billy's shirt that started all of this. It's honestly infuriating how unlucky he's been.

And he knows he could just ask, but there's no dignity in that. Billy would just tease him about it and never show it.

When he pulls up to the Hargrove house, Billy's outside mowing the lawn, in shorts and a white tank top. He's sweating a bit, his face so unfortunately attractively flushed. His lips go red whenever he's working out too hard and Steve can't help but to stare at them.

He shuts off his car and gets out, calling, "Billy!" over the sound of the mower.

Billy looks up, squinting in the sunlight, and shuts off the mower. He smiles at Steve, in that mean way he does, and shouts back, "Miss me so bad you had to come and track me down, Stevie?"

He's Stevie when Billy's teasing him, when they're alone.

Steve leans against his car and holds up the aviators, "Figured you'd want these back, asshole."

The smile that blooms on Billy's face is beautiful and he actually says, surprisingly without sarcasm, "You're a goddamn lifesaver."

But, it's not what he says that has Steve freezing in place - it's his hand, going down to the bottom of his shirt, like he's going to lift it to wipe away the little beads of sweat on his forehead, and Steve's breath catches in his throat.

Holy shit. Finally.

His stomach clenches in anticipation, his jaw dropping a little, until he hears a sudden familiar voice screech, "Billy!"

It's Max, on the front porch, with anger written across her face, and Billy's immediately turning to face her, his hand falling to his side, sweat forgotten.

Steve lets out a groan and rests his forehead on his car, closing his eyes as he half listens to the step siblings yelling at each other over something petty.

Goddammit.

He's really at his wit's end.

🖤

It's been two weeks and Steve finds himself at a party on a Friday night, at his wit's end about the whole stupid thing. He can't even talk to Robin about it.

Well, he could, but he doesn't really want to see the look on her face and the deadpanned 'you're such a dingus' she'd say to him.

He knows he's being a dingus, but it's not like he can stop.

What he can do, though, is shoot back some vodka with Carol like they used to in freshman year.

"What, no Billy tonight?" She hums, words just a touch slurred, and he gives her a shrug as he reaches for his half-drunk beer.

"Dunno where he's at," he replies, glancing around the busy room, "Assumed he'd be here."

"You two are, like, attached at the hip these days," she smirks, giving him a look, "What's the deal?"

"No deal," he shrugs again, feeling the vodka warm his belly, "He's just...nice to hang out with, I guess."

"Hm," she hums, giving his arm a pat, "Well, if you wanna know where he is, I saw him go down to the basement like, five minutes ago."

Steve's eyes widen and he immediately looks towards the door leading down to the basement of her house, which is cracked open a little.

He eyes it for a moment before asking, "He take a girl down there?"

"Nope," Carol shakes her head, "Probably went to get more beer, or something."

Maybe he should go check on him.

"Maybe you should go check on him."

He turns and looks down at her, eyeing the impish look on her face, and he doesn't know why it's there or why she's saying that, but he nods anyway.

"Yeah, 'kay," he slurs softly, pushing himself off the counter, his beer left behind there as he makes his way to the door.

The basement is cool, and dark, except for the warm glow of a lamp that he can spot at the bottom of the staircase. He pulls the door closed behind him without meaning to, and slowly descends, hearing the rustling of bottles in the fridge that he knows is down here. Carol's dad had the basement fully finished and furnished for his poker nights a couple years ago, and the fridge in the corner is always fully stocked.

He steps down onto the landing and sways, holding onto the railing as he watches Billy compare two bottles of beer, as if he really prefers either. The best beer is a free beer, and the only thing better than a free beer, is a cold one.

Steve breaks the silence first, saying, "You didn't tell me you'd be here."

Billy glances over at him, surprised, before he recognizes him and then he's smirking, "I didn't tell you because I knew you'd be here anyway, pretty boy."

He's pretty boy when they're alone and Billy's flirting.

Steve feels his face flush, from the alcohol (he tries to convince himself), and he quietly watches Billy put one of the bottles back in the fridge before bringing the other one to his mouth, opening it with his molars, and it makes Steve cringe every single time.

"You're gonna wreck your teeth doing that shit," he mutters, like he does every time.

Billy flicks the cap away with that smug smile still on his face, and like every time, he replies, "Haven't yet."

He watches Billy come over to him, to probably go back upstairs now that he's invaded Mr. Perkins' stash, but he can't help the way his eyes flick down Billy's body.

And his eyes stop at the bottom of Billy's Metallica shirt, which might've shrunk in the wash or something, because it's short than Steve remembers and that's when he sees it.

A shiny metal ball, just peeking out from under the dark fabric.

His heart skips a beat and he doesn't even hesitate to step off the landing and push Billy back against the nearest wall, listening to the soft rush of air as the blond's back hits it a little too hard, but he's smiling like the prick he is, staring down his nose at Steve as he tilts his head back.

"Mm, Stevie, that wasn't very nice," he purrs, and that's when Steve smells the alcohol on his breath, but he doesn't care.

He grabs the bottom of Billy's shirt and rucks it up, his jaw dropping as he breathes out a rush of air, like he's just been punched in the gut.

He wasn't seeing things. He was right.

A silver curved barbell, pierced through Billy's navel, sitting so pretty and perfect just above his happy trail.

"You like it?" Billy hums, arrogant, because he already knows Steve does.

His mouth is too dry to answer, and he can't help it when he begins to touch the skin of Billy's stomach, his dark eyes trained on the piercing as his fingers dance around it, his thumb daring to draw closer and closer until he strokes the barbell, giving it a little tug that has Billy making this sound that goes straight to his cock--

"Fuck," Steve breathes, feeling his cock throb in his jeans, so fucking turned on and he hadn't even known it until he heard Billy make that sound, and now he's arching into Steve's touch, seeking it out, and...and...

He flicks his eyes back up to Billy, sees this look on his face, like he kinda wants to eat Steve alive but also wants to be kissed, so Steve does.

He surges forward and Billy meets him halfway, their mouths meeting in a frenzy, like they can't get there fast enough or close enough. He can hear glass break, knowing it's the beer bottle, but it's forgotten because it's dizzying - the way Billy pushes his tongue into his mouth, not wasting a single moment, groaning into his mouth and it goes straight to his cock again.

His hands go to Billy's waist and he pulls himself against him, tilting his head to suck at Billy's lower lip as he grinds his hips into the blond's, revelling in the choke moan he receives for it.

"Knew you'd be into it," Billy breathes, when Steve kisses down his neck and licks at the cologne there, his skin bitter and salty, and he bites down on the junction between neck and shoulder just to hear Billy moan again.

"Shut up," Steve pants, pouting as he sucks on Billy's neck, and then pauses because--

He pulls back just enough to look at Billy, admires the flush on his face before he says, accusingly, "You knew."

"Of course I knew," Billy chuckles low, his teeth flashing as he grins, "I couldn't help it. It was fun watching you lose your mind over it."

"You're such a fucking brat," Steve growls, fisting a hand in Billy's hair and pulling him into a hard kiss, hearing Billy's chuckling hums turn into soft moans as Steve slides his tongue against Billy's.

He can't help but to imagine a stud there, sliding against his tongue, against his skin, against the tip of his cock--

Billy hooks his leg around Steve's hip and reaches down to grab his ass, pulling their hips together until there's a delicious but restricted friction, the blond growling into his mouth, "Yeah? You gonna do anything about it?"

It's enough of a taunt for Steve to pull them away from the wall and turn them, once again pushing Billy back towards the poker table in the middle of the room, a fire in his blood that Billy notices in his eyes and it has him grinning, flushed and pleased as he crawls back onto the table, letting Steve push him down onto his back.

"You gonna suck my cock like you've been wanting to, princess?" Billy breathes, cocky as always.

"Maybe," Steve hums, pushing Billy's shirt up again to get another look at the piercing there, thumbing over it and giving it a playful little tug that has Billy hissing.

"That hurt?" He asks gently.

"S'fine," Billy hums, licking his lips, "Just got it caught on something this morning, kinda tender..."

"Good," Steve says, pushing the shirt higher with both hands, until he's thumbing at Billy's nipples, feeling them harden under his touch and he watches the pleasure cross Billy's face as he squirms under it, sensitive.

"Wonder how sensitive they'd be if you pierced them, too," he murmurs, feeling his blush spread down to his chest as he images it, silver barbells through each nipple, playing with them until Billy had tears in his eyes, begging him to stop or make him cum.

"Maybe we should find out," Billy sighs, moans when Steve gives them a little pinch, arching into the touch like a girl.

"Maybe we should," he agrees, thumbing over them again as he lowers his mouth, pressing and sucking kisses into Billy's stomach, unable to help himself as his mouth wanders lower, his tongue peeking out to guide the metal ball of the barbell into his mouth, groaning as he closes his mouth around it and gives it a little suck, feeling Billy's hips buck under him as he gasps out, "Steve!"

"Yeah, baby? Feel good?" Steve murmurs as he flicks his tongue over it again, sliding his hands down from Billy's chest and to his jeans, tugging his belt open and kissing lower and lower, nuzzling that happy trail with the tip of his nose as he tugs Billy's jeans down, lower and lower until his cock is out and Steve can feel it bump his chin.

He's like a man starved, opening his mouth wide and taking Billy's cock onto his tongue, moaning at the taste of him, salty and bitter like cologne and he still fucking puts it on his dick, the freak, but it's too good and he doesn't even care at this point, not when Billy's grabbing a fistful of his hair and gasping his name.

It's messy, because he's kinda drunk, but he does his best, sucking and minding his teeth, swirling his tongue over the tip before taking Billy as deep as he can, gagging on it gently because Billy makes the prettiest sounds when he does.

"Fuck, Stevie, so fucking pretty like this," Billy moans, watching Steve bob his head up and down on his cock, and he glances up at the blond, their eyes meeting as he slurps at the tip like a fucking slut, and it makes his cheeks burn red.

"Shit--I'm close," Billy gasps, his face twisting in pleasure, which is honestly a compliment because Steve knows he can blow him better than this if he were totally sober, but it's not exactly the time to drag things out, so he sucks harder and brings his hand down to fondle at Billy's balls, giving them a little tug and pressing his knuckles to his taint, enraptured as he watches Billy's eyes roll back as he cums, gripping Steve's hair hard.

It makes him whimper, feeling a streak of cum in his mouth, and he pulls off Billy's cock with a soft gasp, feeling another streak or two paint his chin and cheek.

"Holy fuck," Billy laughs quietly, going limp on the table, but he's still staring down at Steve, humming, "You got a lil something there, Stevie..."

He doesn't even care, too turned on to fucking think as he straightens and goes for his own jeans, yanking them down and pulling out his cock with one hand while the other goes to his face, spitting Billy's cum out onto his palm while he wipes the mess on his chin and cheek with his fingers, bringing that hand down to wrap around himself with a moan.

It's gross but it's worth it to see the stunned and awed look on Billy's face, his jaw slack and blue eyes wide as he looks down to watch Steve stroke himself, clearly admiring his cock.

"Jesus, Stevie," Billy sighs, "You've been holding out on me."

"You've seen it before," he grunts, stroking over the tip and feeling his balls tighten in response.

"Not like this," Billy hums, licking his lips, and Steve's locked in on his mouth then, imagining it stretched around his cock, knowing that it eventually will be.

He feels his stomach tense and he whimpers out a quiet 'fuck' as he cums, aiming right for Billy's stomach, sighing happily when he watches it cover Billy's piercing.

"Oh, you fucker," Billy chuckles, breathless and almost fucked out, looking up at Steve with annoyed amusement.

"Pay back, for the two weeks you put me through," Steve pants with a grin, triumphant.

But, like he knows, he's a sucker for Billy and he doesn't leave him like that. He goes over to the couch against the wall and grabs the box of tissues there, pulling a few out to clean himself with before taking a few more to Billy, who grabs them from him.

He watches Billy carefully wipe away at his piercing, smirks when he hears the annoyed grumbling as he wipes the cum from his belly button, and he grins when Billy shoots him a look.

"You had it coming," he chuckles, scrunching his nose when Billy throws the crumpled up tissue at his face.

"Asshole," Billy hums, tucking himself back into his jeans, slow and unhurried.

Steve does the same and watches his best friend push himself up with a wince, until they're face to face again, although the table has Steve looking up at Billy a bit.

They stare at each other for a moment, in that warm lamp light, until Steve leans in and presses a sweet, chaste kiss to Billy's mouth. Way too sweet for what they just did.

"So," he hums against Billy's mouth, "About those nipple piercings..."

He feels Billy smile against his mouth, his chest rumbling with a chuckle as he mutters, "I'll think about it."

They both know he's definitely doing it.

[melbatron5000]

The Big Damn Kiss

Buckle up, my fellow Good Omens Ineffable Mystery Puzzlers, Crackpotters, and Assorted Brainrotters, because I learned something HUGE yesterday.

This will be a bit of a long post, because I want to show you exactly how I got where I am. I want you to understand. I want to put all the naysayers to bed (ha! But I'm still gonna try), and settle this once and for all.

I know (almost) exactly what Crowley gave to Aziraphale during the kiss.

DO NOT TAKE ANY OF MY THEORIES TO NEIL! PLEASE!

Okay? Okay. Thanks. Shall we begin?

Ahem.

Firstly, whether you believe me or not, I am 100% certain that Crowley did, indeed, give something to Aziraphale in his mouth during The Kiss. I've covered that in the link previous. Okay? Okay.

I did not know what it was. I've now heard theories that it was a bullet (nope), a ball bearing (nope), hellfire (nope), and no one, NO ONE has suggested what I see. (If you have, hello! Talk to me!)

Here's our first foreshadowing Clue:

And here's our next foreshadowing Clue:

And the next:

And our last Clue:

With me so far? Well, that first GIF is a bit off, I couldn't find one of Crowley actually spitting out the flies. But he does. When Beelzebub first drags him to Hell, he actually goes "Pleaugh!" and spits out four or five flies. Edit: Found it!

Moving right along, we come to Crowley in Heaven with Muriel, looking at the trial. We learn two important things here:

One, Gabriel doesn't have a desk.

Two, Muriel does. Where they keep the records. And it's a bit lonely. Every few hundred years, someone comes and asks for something. Muriel can't access the sensitive ones, you have to be pretty high up. A throne, dominion, or higher. Like, maybe Supreme Archangel?

So if Gabriel doesn't have a desk, whose desk is he at when he's getting ready to leave Heaven? Of course I can't find a damn picture of Gabriel at the desk, but it's Muriel's. Where they keep the RECORDS.

Gabriel puts his memory into the fly, then gets on the elevator to go to Earth.

Now, when Gabriel opens the fly with his memories inside, we find out that it's a container. Bigger on the inside. You can put thing(S) in it. The bit we see of him remembering is shot in two parts, one where he's flying down a red tunnel, one where he's flying down a blue. If you slow this scene down and watch, you can see that he is NOT looking at just his own memories. There is more going on here, more that he was not present for. @embracing-the-ineffable put up a great meta about that here. Go look!

Now I figured Gabriel must have taken something else. Something important. Something useful. Something he meant to give to Aziraphale, except he forgot.

I also figured he must have left whatever it was in the fly when he took his memories out. Crowley must have realized while watching the trial footage that Gabriel also grabbed something else. I don't know when Crowley grabs the fly, but he does. And that is what he gives to Aziraphale in the kiss. Why? Well.

I had no idea what Gabriel took until I started working on the chiastic structure of season 2. I'm not done with that analysis yet, but let me show you one thing that I have found so far:

(The numbers are just to try and help me navigate the story and its events without time stamps)

My note #357 of what happens isn't quite right, but when I saw the only two times Aziraphale says "I forgive you" are towards the beginning of Season 2 and towards the end, I realized I had something.

Rephrase line 357: Crowley's kiss is forgiven IN EXCHANGE FOR RECORDS.

(Not that I think Crowley's kiss needs to be forgiven. It's just what Aziraphale says, and had to say at that moment, because the Metatron was listening in.)

What does Heaven in Good Omens remind us of most of all?

A big corporate entity. And what do powerful people do when they get fired from a big corporate entity? They download all their emails while they're cleaning out their desks. Damning emails. Emails that can be used to black mail or even destroy big corporate entities. Or, ya know, maybe they swipe some sensitive RECORDS?

Oh yes.

Records that Gabriel meant to give to Aziraphale, but he forgot. Records that Crowley realized Gabriel had put in the fly. The fly that Crowley grabbed once Gabriel had his memory out. The fly that he gave to Aziraphale when he kissed him. The fly that no longer held Gabriel's memory, but did still contain those damning records.

Here's Aziraphale reading the records:

Here's Aziraphale being horrified and outraged by what he's reading:

And here's Aziraphale realizing he has got some GOOD DIRT on Heaven. Maybe enough to bring them down:

That's it folks. I have no idea what the records actually say, and maybe we're not meant to know until season 3, but whatever it is, it's GOOD.

That's my story, and by God Herself, I'm sticking to it.

[hils79]

Hils Watches Pit Babe - Ep 6

I'm finally home and can continue watching this. It's not that my parents would be particularly bothered about me watching a gay drama, it's more that my dad is incapable of not interrupting me regardless of what I'm doing. He gets bored and restless and makes that everyone else's problem.

It was just easier to wait until I was back home and could watch in peace and quiet.

Of course this does now mean I can't remember what happened in the last episode that I watched over a week ago.

Oh yes, Babe is apparently going to race the people in line to take his place because he's too injured to race. I still don't understand how that works but who needs logic in a live action omegaverse drama

I mean he has a valid point

Ouch

Pretty sure Charlie ships his boss and his brother

Smooth

Oh my god Alan has gone full Love Actually

See, this is why Jeff is my favourite

Okay, yes, I'm old. There's no need to rub it in.

Ooh look at Alan shooting his shot

Two common date locations in dramas that would 100% work on me, an aromantic asexual. Going to an aquarium, or going stargazing. Just looking at that sky has me half in love with Babe already.

When Charlie asked Babe if he wanted to have kids I, for one glorious moment, was in a world where there was going to be canon mpreg on my tv screen. Alas, since neither of them is an omega I guess that's not possible. Wait, does this mean mpreg CAN happen just not between two alphas?

Is that a typo or are they called enigmas in this universe instead of omegas? Also, this is a very out of the blue conversation. They literally just agreed to be boyfriends instead of fuckbuddies and Charlie is already talking about having babies.

Yes, exactly

He has definitely been thinking about this a lot. But come on, Charlie. Just because you're both men one of you doesn't have to be 'the mother'. Say no to gender stereotypes.

Oh, well, apparently Babe is into it. Well, if Park Seonghwa can be mother then Babe can be mama.

What sorcery is this? Babe looks hotter with Charlie's glasses on, and Charlie looks hotter with them off.

Wow, Dean is acting like a total dick now. Bet anything he's going to betray them and go and work for Babe's dad

Alan: Well, if I can't call you kid the only other option is 'darling'. No one in this drama is normal. Except maybe Pete the handsome CEO. Where is he I haven't seen him for a while.

I love him

Time for more car advertising

Oh god are they going to call each other mama and papa for the rest of the drama?

I legit forgot that Jeff has powers. And didn't Babe lose his after he got hurt in the crash? Is that what Jeff is sensing here?

God, Way looks so heartbroken I just want to hug him

I can't work out if Babe genuinely doesn't understand that Way is in love with him, or if he just doesn't want to hear it. Like short of saying 'Babe I am in love with you' he's been about as clear as he can be.

God this is so heartbreaking. Why are all the saddest scenes in this drama people crying in their cars

[manias-wordcount]

Hello, I'm the one who requested Mikage Ryu, and yes I mean Mikage Reo from Blue Lock, sorry for the inconvenience, and thank you for caring enough to check.

Thanks for Playing (Reo Mikage x Reader)

𝗔/𝗡: 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲! 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗶 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘀𝗸 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗶 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲'𝘀 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗻'𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝘁 𝗯𝗰 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆'𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗮 𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗳 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀. 𝗲𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘆, 𝗶 𝗱𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻! 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗵! 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗼 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶 𝗵𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆!

𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚? ⇒ 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧?

𝙗𝙪𝙮 𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚?

𝙒𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚? ⇒ 𝙈𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩

𝙟𝙤𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙨𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙧?

𝙗𝙪𝙮 𝙢𝙚 𝙖 𝙘𝙤𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙚?

If he were any other boy, you know your parents would be furious.

In fact, you know if he were any other boy, he wouldn’t have been able to get this close to you. He would have ended up like all the other boys you had a crush on throughout the years. He would have been scared away through the thinly veiled threats of the bodyguards your father hired. Or maybe he would have been a victim of the chaperones your mother hired. The ones that keep you so busy after school that all the relationships except for the ones that they deemed important would end up fizzling off before you even knew what happened. If he were any other boy, you would your parents wouldn’t have allowed this to happen. If he were any other boy, your parents would have been aghast- absolutely outraged at the idea. But instead?

They’re just standing there. Standing off to the side- right off of the field and chatting with another set of parents. His parents.

Because he’s not just any boy. If he was, your parents would have intervened and he wouldn’t be standing here, with his chest pressed to your back and his hands around your hips. Fixing your stance all so he could teach you how to kick some silly soccer ball into a goal.

While your mothers talk about how many grandkids they would like and when.

While your fathers talk about the logistics of one day merging their companies.

While your cheeks burn with every little word of instruction he whispers right into your ear.

“Now just point your toes down a little more and…that’s it. You’re doing great, sweetheart.”

But that’s okay. Because you like him. You like Reo Mikage. You like him a whole lot. 

Way more than you did when you first met him. Way more than you did when you first found out you were set to be married off to each other in less than two years. And way more now than ever. You can only hope he feels the same way about you.

“Like this?” You ask him quietly, tilting your head to the side to try to see him is expression. He nods slightly, a small smile playing on his lips as he eases your worries.

“Exactly like this,” He confirms, and you swear for a second, your heart just swoons with the amount of attention that you’re getting. “Let’s line you up so you can take a shot, okay?”

You nod your head excitedly, as Reo reaches around your body to move you to a position that must be better suited to make a goal. To be honest, it’s a miracle the two of you even got to meet here. Last you heard from Reo, his parents weren’t happy about his desire to play soccer. So you were surprised when you were allowed to visit him after soccer practice one day, just to say hello. But somehow, a quick hello turned into him asking your parents if it were okay if he was allowed to show you a few things about the sport that he loves so much.

You were certain your parents were going to say no. They’ve always would have said no to something like this. The parents you know would have for sure said no to this. But perhaps it was the way you looked at them, so hopeful and full of adoration for the boy they promised you to. Or perhaps it was the fact that Reo’s parents were also there, and they didn’t want to look bad. Or maybe it was because this was one of those rare opportunities for busy people to slow things down and remember what it's like to be a parent. A parent who sometimes cares for what their children want too.

Whatever the reason was, you found yourself here. Standing on one of the many lines of the soccer field that you can never remember the name of (no matter how many times Reo tries to explain it to you), a good couple of feet away from the goal. He’s still in his practice uniform and he apologizes all the time for being so sweaty. You’re still in your school clothes, and you apologize all the time for not being able to move around as freely as you know soccer player. But it doesn’t stop him from wanting to teach you a few things and share with you the sport he loves so much.  Just like it doesn’t stop you from wanting to be close to him and learn all that he has to teach you.

It is just a bit hard though. Not just because you like him. Not just because it’s your first time playing soccer.

But because this is the closest thing to a date you’ve ever been on…and both of your parents are less than a hundred feet away, doing nothing but observing the two of you as they talk and talk and talk.

“I don’t know how you can focus like this,” You murmur softly, tilting your head to the side to try to see his expression as you make light conversation to save yourself from the awkward feeling of being picked apart by your further parents-in-law. 

You’re ashamed to admit it, but it gives you a good view of his side profile whenever you look at him like this. Especially now that most of his hair has been tied up and pulled out of the way to not get in his eyes. Although you’re not able to spend a whole lot of time admiring his features. Because the minute his curious purple eyes slide over to you, promoting you to continue, you feel the blood rush to your cheeks again and suddenly you find it even harder to focus.

“I don’t know how you’re able to focus like this with our parents watching, I mean…” You clarify, voice wavering a little. A lifetime full of your parents keeping your romantic life under lock and key hasn’t exactly made you the most romantically well-adjusted person. Though you suppose anyone would start to feel a little hot and bothered if the boy they’re really attracted to is standing this close and is holding and touching like this. Especially if they’ve never experienced anything like this before. “Aren’t you…like…?”

You trail off quietly, feeling embarrassed now that you realize that you don’t exactly know what you’re trying to say. If it isn’t obvious already, you can’t really focus right now. There’s a lot going on and you can’t help but try to tune into all of it. Sometimes, you want to eye your parents and his as they talk to each other from way off of the field. It’d be nice to know exactly what they’re saying. Sometimes, you just want to lean back into Reo and just listen to the sound of his voice and enjoy just how close you’re finally able to be with a boy you really like for once.

And sometimes, you really, really, really want to focus on getting the ball into the goal without embarrassing yourself. But that’s easier said than done when your whole life has been dressing blacks for piano recitals rather than running shoes and athletic wear.

But Reo doesn’t allow you to sit and stew in your embarrassment for long. Instead, he lets out a light little laugh and leans his head over your shoulder to look at year a little better before beginning to speak.

“They really like you. They think you’ll be good for me,” He explains, his gaze holding your eyes as he gives you another smile. You feel your heart start to speed up at the look he gives you, but you ultimately find yourself sharing in that smile of his easily as he gives your hips an encouraging and grateful squeeze. “The fact that I’m playing with you is the only reason why they’re even letting me touch a soccer ball right now. I suppose they think I’ll be easier to marry if I can impress you by being a good leader or something.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that. And for a second you’re tempted to share the fact that you feel like the only reason why parents are even allowing you a chance to even mess up your nice, expensive school shoes is because they think you’ll be easier to marry the more you have a chance to play the helpless little fiancee, lost without the love of their life. As if Reo even had an ego you could feed with behavior like that.

But before you can even open your mouth, you realize that Reo’s smile has been replaced with something a little more serious. It’s still genuine- or at least, it’s as genuine as you feel all the other looks he has given. But it’s…softer. A bit more vulnerable. 

But appreciative all the same.

“So thank you for that,” He tells you gently as a few seconds of silence pass between the two of you. “Thank you for playing with me.”

There’s something else there, you realize. It’s more than just the fact that his parents don’t want him playing soccer. It’s more than the fact that soccer is something he enjoys. It’s more than all of that. But the more you look at him, the more you wonder if he’s ready to share this with you. The more you wonder if he can even share this with you while his parents are so close. 

But it’s not your place to make that decision for him. It’s not your place to ask. It’s not your shot take. 

So you smile and you nod and you give him a look that you hope he understands the meaning behind. You hope he understands that you’re on his side with all of this. That you understand his position. That you know where he’s coming from. Whatever it is. Because you have a funny little feeling that you’ve been there too. Not with soccer, no. But something else your parents tried to keep you from doing.

But you’re not alone now. And neither is he.

“Thank you for teaching me,” You end up telling him earnestly, instead of pressing further. But when he gives your sides another appreciative squeeze, you know you’ve made the right call. Besides, the two of you have spent enough time talking. It’s about time that you finally pay attention to what’s important. To what’s in front of you.

After all, you have a goal to shoot. And great, great teacher (and his parents) to impress.

[madlori]

You guys, the end of this hockey season is taking months off my life.

So this is the final week of the NHL season. It's pretty common that by this point, all the playoff berths have been decided.

WELL NOT THIS FUCKING YEAR. This year we have a last minute contested spot - the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. And one of the teams vying for it is MY TEAM, the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Right now Ottawa and Montreal have the two wild card spots in the Eastern conference. Columbus is the next team in line. Note that both Montreal and Columbus have one game remaining. Columbus is two points back.

Two games ago? Columbus was FIVE points back and everyone assumed it was over even if they weren't mathematically eliminated.

Then they won two in a row, acquiring four points, and Montreal lost two, one in overtime, acquiring one point. That brings us to the 89-87 situation we have now.

You see the pickle we are in.

For Columbus to make the playoffs, Montreal must lose their final game, and Columbus must win theirs. In addition, Montreal must lose in regulation (as in, not in overtime) and Columbus must also win in regulation. See that column labeled RW? That's regulation wins, the first tiebreaker. Because if Montreal loses in regulation (for zero points) and Columbus wins (for two points), they'll be tied for points - but Columbus will have 30 RW to Montreal's 29 and they will get the playoff berth. If Columbus wins in overtime, they'll still only have 29 RW. The next tiebreaker is ROW, regulation-and-overtime wins (which excludes wins via shootout). Montreal wins in that case.

Montreal plays tomorrow, Wednesday the 16th. Columbus plays their final game on Thursday the 17th.

A game to which I have tickets.

If Montreal wins tomorrow, it's over, and our final game will just be for the vibes.

Here's the bad news.

Montreal's final game is against the Carolina Hurricanes. Now, the Canes are safely in the playoffs, and have no reason to exert themselves. They will probably sit some of their best players (so as not to risk any of them being injured right before the postseason) - I've heard they've called up 4 players from their minor league team. The game is also in Montreal at the Bell Centre, one of hockey's spiritual homes and one of the most intimidating arenas for visiting teams. On the other hand, in their last 15 meetings, Montreal is 2-10-3 against Carolina. And sometimes the minor league call-ups really step up when they get That Call to come play in the big show and really surprise everyone. It's a shot for them to distinguish themselves and maybe make the NHL roster next season.

Still, I don't feel super optimistic that the Canes will win. But Montreal is somewhat known for choking when the pressure's on. We'll see.

If they lose, hoo boy.

The entire league will be watching Thursday's Blue Jackets game. They are playing the New York Islanders, who were eliminated from the playoffs a few weeks ago and have nothing to play for - except maybe spite as spoiling CBJ's playoff hopes.

No matter what happens, CBJ has had a hell of a season, much better than anyone predicted, and the future's looking bright. TWO of our young players had 30 goal seasons (for hockey forwards, 20 goals in a season is a good, reliable goal scorer and very valuable; 30 goals is phenomenal, 40 is a superstar and 50 is a generational talent). And because of reasons they had to call up our minor league starter goalie last week -- and in three games he has allowed ONE goal and pitched two shut-outs. So, yeah.

If Thursday ends up being a "we win this and we're in the playoffs" game, I don't know if my body can handle the stress.

[alwayssassydreamer]

The Boss' Daughter - Evening

Day 24 of Kikitober

Part 1. Part 3

Plot: Kid is taking you to your father to get the promised reward but he and Killer don't like your attitude and the way you treat the crew.

Warnings: mention of torture i guess (though it's made up), swearing, captive reader, p in v, voyeurism nsfw, MDNI 🔞⚠️, not proofread

Characters: KillerxF!Reader x Kid (Kid has a minor role in this part)

You had to admit that maybe it wasn't so bad saiking with the Kid pirates actually you found it quite entertaining.

Your favorite thing was to mess with the pirates. Everytime they were around you asking you questions or just trying to talk to you, you would tell them what happened the last time someone tried to have a conversation with you.

Telling them how your father had skinned someone alive just because he asked you the way to the hospital, or the one time he cut someones eyes out just because he looked in the same direction as you did.

It was hard not to laugh at the frightened looks of the crew and the way they carefully and slowly moved away from you. All because you made up the most horrific and brutal stories.

Your lies were so good that by the time almost all of them avoided you. Taking over whatever duty Kid wanted you to do, since he told you that your ride home wasn't for free. You had them all wrapped around your finger - except for Kid and Killer.

The captain and his first mate tried to convince their crew mates that your stories where nothing but some made up bullshit. But you were pretty good at manipulating others and knew exactly what lie was perfect for which crew mate.

Kid and Killer both shot glances at you everytime you took advantage of a crew members fear for you and your father.

You were told to mop the deck but you had no intention to do so. Bubblegum and Pomp were the unlucky ones who ended up doing this for you after telling them that your father had broken every single bone of the last person who had you do this while hanging the rest of his crew in front of his eyes before getting back to him cutting every body part off of him. Slowly and deliberate.

The sheer shock in their eyes was so satisfying to you. But you had to admit your stories were so good you almost believed them yourself.

Unfortunately for you Killer did not miss on this whole scene. As you made your way down to your cabin a strong hand grabbed your arm and pushed you to the wall.

"The fuck" you cursed the blue and white mask just inches from your face.

"Who do you think you are" he snapped. There was definitely rage in his voice.

"Well I'm the one who will definitely not mop the deck" you smiled cockily. if arrogance was a person it would look just like you.

The smile was wiped from your face the moment Killer hit his hand against the wall right next to your face, the grip of his other tightening around your arm.

"You're walking on thin ice, kitty" he growled and for the first time you felt intimidated.

"What the fuck is going on here" a low voice shouted as heavy footsteps came closer.

"Nothing, Kid. We just had a little talk" Killer replied his gaze never leaving yours.

"What did I tell you about causing trouble" Kid asked leaning on the wall right next to you, trapping you between him and Killer.

"You told me not to cause trouble and be a good girl, cause good girls get a nice reward" you paused looking into his eyes a smug smile slowly spreading on your lips. "But i told you that I'm not a good girl and i don't want your reward"

Bad idea.

Kid grabbed a fistful of your hair yanked you roughly out of Killers grasp and close to him. You let out a painful groan. His metal hand grabbed your face the cold steel stining your cheek.

"Better drop that bratty act. I'm running out of patience with you mouse" he hissed his voice low and dangerous, staring at you fire in his eyes. You knew that you crossed a line. Your heart beating faster and faster.

"Captain we need your help" you heard Heat shout from the top of the stairs.

"Killer take the brat with you." His eyes were still onto you. "You're going to assist him with whatsoever you hear me" he ordered squeezing your cheeks before pushing you into Killers arms.

Secretly you thanked Heat for interrupting this scene. The look in Kids eyes and the way Killer shoved you into the wall made you feel uncomfortable. But it wasn’t fear that stirred within you.

Your previous partners, if they were brave enough to stay at your side, were always so intimidate by your father that they always did and said what you wanted, never disagreeing with you nor stating their own opinion. That was so frustrating.

But this was different. Whether Kid nor Killer were intimidated by you. Never afraid to argue with you. For the first time you weren't treated any different just because of your father.

It was already evening when Killer took you into the room where their briefings took place your eyes fell onto the map on the table. While Killer was rummaging for something you looked closer. It showed the way to your home island. But something seemed strange.

You jumped when Killer snatched the map from your gaze. "That's none of your business" he said putting it on the desk behind him.

"I think it is, especially if you're taking the worst route possible."

Killer looked at you confused. "What do you mean"

You motioned for him to give you the map. He hesitated but unfolded it back onto the desk. You explained him the best way to reach the island.

"Here" you said pointing at the map while Killer stepped closer stopping close enough so you could feel his hair brush your arm lightly and leant his body forward.

God the ways you thought of him taking you right here right on the table caused your cheeks to blush slightly. You cleared your throat before you continued.

"There are some hidden passages that could lead to trouble and result in a destroyed ship" You pointed out turning to face him only to be startled. When did he get that close to you.

"So what do you suggest then" he asked slowly turning to look at you.

"This one" your finger pointing at the map. "It won't take that much longer and it's safe. Hardly anyone knows of this so there will be no distraction"

"You stay here. I'll be right back"

The moment he left you took a deep breath. You could see your blushing cheeks in the reflection of a small metal thingy. Fuck. Hopefully he didn't see that.

A few minutes later Killer came back bringing Kid along.

"Killer said you had a problem with the route we've choosen" Kid said walking towards you. the moment he reached you you turned around finger on the map explaining to him what you just had explained to Killer.

"Then show us what route we shall take mouse" Kid said suddenly standing right behind you leaning forward and into you, pushing your hips slightly into the table in the process. you gasped.

"Ever heard of private space." you hissed turning your head slightly to look at him.

"Shut up and keep going" . his face was right beside your cheeks almost touching as you inhaled his scent. a mix of sweat, metal and oil.

it took you a few seconds to collect yourself before you repeated what you had told killer just moments before.

You were still trapped beneath Kid's strong posture and that made you nervous.

"Seems like you're finally giving up" Killer said calmly.

"Give up what?" you asked confused.

"Your act" Kid barked.

"I have no idea what you're talking about"

"stop playing dumb. you pretend to be an innocent little girl that needs daddys protection but we know that you're far from this" he continued his fingers running down your back.

You were not expecting this. The whole time you thought you had the upper hand, believing you were the one playing with them. but the truth was that the two of them saw long past your facade.

but how could they see through you but not read a map properly. Wait did they?

"That was a test." you blurted out looking from Killer to Kid both of them chuckling lightly.

"Wanted to make sure that we could trust you" Kid said lips brushing over your ear. Your body jolted at his low voice while his muscular body pressed against yours sent shivers down your spine.

"what would have happened if i didn't say anything about the passages"

"i would have thrown you overboard" Kid said biting your earlobe. you squealed and shoved him away. Making the captain laugh at your reaction.

"Now that this is settled I'm going back to my workshop." Kid said still a shit eating grin on his face.

"I'll go prepare dinner, Reck's probably already waiting" Killer added.

"Seems like you won't need me anymore" you said and quickly made your way out of the room. That was intense. You didn't expect that you'd be so drawn to them.

You enjoyed the warm evening on the deck. Taking in the smell of the sea. You decided to skip dinner knowing this was the only time you could be alone out here. Leaning against the railing you closed your eyes.

When you felt a warm hand on your lower back. You jumped almost falling off the railing. But the hand wrapped around your waist steadying you.

You were once again face to face with the blue and white masked man.

"Why so jumpy" he teased as his second hand joined the first around your wait. Aaaand you were trapped again.

"Didn't expect anyone out here, dinner can't be over already" you said as calmly as you could.

"No, that's why I'm here." he pulled you closer. you put your hands up and on his chest to create at least some space between you. the feeling of his muscles under your hands and his hands around your waist had you blush immediately.

He removed one hand and put a finger under your chin to make you look up at the mask. how you wanted to pull that thing off and taste his lips.

"nervous?" he asked tauntingly. You tried to wiggle out of his hold but to no avail.

"You're not getting away this time" he whispered before turning you around and pushing you against the railing.

You squealed. "Shhh don't want the others to hear us" he mocked as he leaned you over it. you wanted to say something but every word was caught in your throat.

"I've seen the way you looked at me today with your lustful eyes. Seemed like you wanted me to take you when i pushed you against the wall or at the table in the briefing room"

His hands moved to your front to unbuckel your pants and with a swift move he pulled them down together with your panties. The cold air on your exposed skin made you shiver.

"What a nice view" he said before giving your ass a slap. You let out a surprised scream. "What did i tell you about keeping your voice down" he scolded as he leaned forward. Again you were unable to say something. Excitement and arousal taking over your body.

"If you keep making noises i have to gag you" he warned one hand moving underneath your shirt. calloused fingers roaming around the tender flesh.

"sorry, but you could've said something. you startled me" you finally managed to say trying to surpress any moan that threatened to escape your lips.

He chuckled lowly before taking your shirt off and removing your bra. One hand gripped at your tit and squeezed it while the other moved down your body stopping on your inner thigh - fingers drawing lazy circles.

"oh god" you moaned trying to keep your voice low clawing your nails into the wood of the railing.

"last warning kitty" Killer whispered in your ear. What was he expecting. his hands felt just too good to just stay there making no sound.

He kicked your legs open wider before he removed the hand on your thigh to unbuckel his own pants and pull out his cock. His other hand now circling your nipple sending goosebumps down your arms.

You couldn't contain the squeal that escaped your lips when you felt his cock tease your entrance.

"you know i wanted to keep this a sceret between us but it seems you're eager to have the others know. Then i guess i should make them hear you loud and clear." he growled as his hand moved between your legs while his other kept tormenting your nipple.

"Fuck Killer" you moaned as one finger skillfully played with your clit. your whole body tensed as he pushed one finger inside you causing you to scream.

"Such a loud one" he taunted adding another finger.

"Shit, please stop playing" you whimpered. Already feeling like you're about to explode.

"Such a needy kitty" . finally feeling his cock inside you another loud moan escaped your lips. This time you were sure that the others have heard it. But you couldn’t care less.

His pace was slow too slow for you. "Faster" you hissed you wanted to turn around face him - see him. pressing your lips onto his. but he didn't let you.

"Tell me how much you want it and maybe I'll go faster"

"Fuck Killer pleaseeee," you begged. "Need it faster, need you" you said breath hitching.

"Good girl" he cooed and picked up the pace adding one finger to rub your clit. That was too much for you. You were crying, moaning and screaming his name till you could feel your climax approaching.

It didn't take long until you felt him fill you up, grunting, his grip on your hip tightening sure to leave a mark. The sensation inside you caused you to orgasm yourself.

You were a panting and sweating mess when he pulled out.

"What an entertaining show" a voice shouted over the deck. You turned around only to see Kid standing there cocky grin on his face.

Out of instinct you grabbed for your panties and your shirt putting them back on as fast as you could as he stepped closer.

He stopped next to Killer and looked at you. "I bet that I can make her scream louder than you" he said to Killer, a devilish smile on his face.

"Doubt that" Killer replied smugly. You suddenly felt like prey being circled by two handsome but also dangerous predators.

Before you were able to say something Kid had already thrown you over his shoulder walking towards his cabin.

So much for a quiet evening.

to be continued

[wingedblooms]

I am a fan of Elain and azriel but I really want to ask why azriel was holding Bryce hands for a long time. We all know he hates physical contacts, but that part has been on my mind for a while

Thank you for sending this to my inbox. 🫶 You’re right, he doesn’t often initiate physical contact so it is worth noting when he does. When I read the scene below, though, I laughed because it reminded me of when I hold my child’s hand as we’re crossing the street. My child will run off, straight into danger, without my guidance. I know that Bryce is an adult, but Azriel acts a bit like a parent in this whole sequence. He does not trust Bryce to walk on her own or do what she says she will do and tries to exert control (for everyone’s safety) as a result. And to be honest, his suspicions are valid: she lied and drew a wyrm to them with her bleeding hand before this, and distracts him and runs for it in this specific scene.

“There are caves and doors throughout the land,” Azriel said, “that open into distant places. Maybe that was one of them.” His gaze flicked to Bryce, noting how closely she was listening to all that, and said, “Let’s go in.”

He took Bryce’s hand in his broad, callused one, pulling her toward the chamber beyond. His face was a mask of cold determination in the light of the golden orbs floating over them, his hazel eyes darting around to monitor the gloom.

This close to him, hand in hand, she could feel the sword and dagger again thrumming and pulsing. They throbbed against her eardrums—

The hilt of the Starsword shifted in her direction—she could have reached out and touched it with her other hand. One movement, and its hilt would be in her grip.

Azriel shot her a warning look.

[…]

Bryce sucked in a breath. “I’m going in. Keep a step back,” she warned Azriel.

“And miss the fun?” Azriel muttered. Nesta chuckled behind them.

“I mean it,” Bryce said, trying to tug her hand from his. ��You stay here.”

His fingers tightened on hers, not letting go. “What do you sense?”

“Wards,” Bryce replied, again scanning the arena-sized cavern ahead. And there, right in the center of the space…

[…]

Azriel scanned the chamber, still not letting go of Bryce’s hand as he said to Nesta, “We don’t know what else might be kept at bay in here.”

“I didn’t sense anything except the Harp last time,” Nesta replied, but she still assessed the chamber with a warrior’s focus.

“We also didn’t sense that there was a second entrance into this place,” Azriel countered. “We can assume nothing right now.”

[…]

Bryce’s fingers tightened around the amulet. Then she looked over Azriel’s shoulder, and her eyes widened. “Watch out!”

He dropped her hand instantly, whirling to the unseen, unsensed opponent. The nonexistent opponent.

Bryce moved with Fae swiftness, and by the time Azriel realized there was nothing there, she’d already crossed the ward line.

Cold fury tightened his features, but Nesta was smirking with something like approval.

“You’re on your own now,” Azriel said, blue stones glimmering at his hands with a cold fury that matched his expression. (hofas)

This does not carry a hint of romance to me. It’s even more noticeable when we compare specific scenes:

He took Bryce’s hand in his broad, callused one, pulling her toward the chamber beyond. His face was a mask of cold determination in the light of the golden orbs floating over them, his hazel eyes darting around to monitor the gloom. (hofas)

He took Bryce’s hand and pulled her. But Elain?

“Can I set you up in the garden? The herbs you planted are coming in nicely.”

“I can help her,” said Azriel, stepping to the table as Elain silently rose. No shadows at his ear, no darkness ringing his fingers as he extended a hand.

Nesta monitored him like a hawk, but kept silent as Elain took his hand, and out they went. (acowar)

He offers his hand, she accepts it, and they walk out together. Offer and permission.

Similarly, Bryce takes Truth-Teller from Azriel.

There were two blades practically screaming for her to use them. Bryce again reached out a hand, her will, toward Azriel. And as surely as the Starsword had done, Truth-Teller flew from his grip. He tried to grab it, but even his swift lunge wasn’t fast enough to stop it. To stop Bryce as the knife soared for her fingers.

The dagger’s hilt landed in her palm, cool and heavy.

Her body began to hum. Like having one blade in each hand—the Starsword and Truth-Teller—electrified her.

And proceeds to leave with it despite his panic and pleading (🥺).

“Please,” Azriel said, his gaze now on her hands. On the Starsword—and on Truth-Teller. Something like panic filled his hazel eyes.

Shaking her head, Bryce backed toward the hole she’d made in the world. In the universe. She could only pray it would lead her to Midgard. (hofas)

But he offers Truth-Teller to Elain and she accepts it. Azriel has never allowed anyone to touch his dagger, but he chose to give it to Elain…amid the sighing meadow grasses, poetry once again dripping from his lips in her presence. This act required deep trust and care. He could have offered her a different dagger, but he didn’t. He gave her the one that meant the most to him.

And now, standing amongst the sighing meadow grasses in his Illyrian armor, all seven Siphons gleaming…

Elain’s eyes widened at the obsidian-hilted blade in Azriel’s scarred hand. The runes on the dark scabbard.

“It has never failed me once,” the shadowsinger said, midday sun devoured by the dark blade. “Some people say it is magic and will always strike true.” He gently took her hand and pressed the hilt of the legendary blade into it. “It will serve you well.”

“I—I don’t know how to use it—”

“I’ll make sure you don’t have to,” I said, grass crunching as I moved closer.

Elain weighed my words…and slowly closed her fingers around the blade.

Cassian gawked at Azriel, and I wondered how often Azriel lent out that blade—

Never, Rhys said from where he finished buckling on his own weapons against the side of the wagon. I have never once seen Azriel let another person touch that knife.

Elain looked up at Azriel, their eyes meeting, his hand still lingering on the hilt of the blade. (acowar)

And she immediately returns it to him, most likely grasping its importance and proving his instincts and trust are well placed.

But Elain had given it back—had pressed it into Azriel’s hands after the battle, just as he had pressed it into hers before. And then walked away without looking back. (acofas)

Sarah made the dynamics very different for a reason. There’s a reason the shadowsinger would only give up his dagger to and spout poetry for the lovely fawn, and I am excited to learn more about that in the next book. ✨

[kitsune024]

Jujutsu Kaisen Fic Recs

My Hero Academia

Crossover : Harry Potter

Hyakki Yakō by Nyanko13 I Chapters 10/? I Getou Suguru-centric, Eventual Gojo Satoru/Getou Suguru, BAMF Getou Suguru, BAMF Gojo Satoru

Time's Curse by The_Jade_Samurai I Chapters 20/? | Time Travel Fix it, Dark Yuuji, Alive Geto, Yuuji is not the vessel, Bamf Yuuji

Everyone is dead. Yuji is the last one standing, but even he eventually falls to Sukuna. But instead of dying, Yuji wakes up in the middle of Shibuya… in the year 2005. Lost and alone, he seeks out the only person who he knows is alive at this time: Gojo Satoru. However, he finds Gojo as a simple first year at Jujutsu High, alongside the infamous Geto Suguru, who has not yet fallen down the dark path that made him the most dangerous special grade sorcerer of the modern era. Yuji must navigate through a time before everything went to shit, in order to save his friends, family and all of Japan from Sukuna’s return and Kenjaku’s machinations. Can he do it while also hiding his true identity?

A Gentler World by SunglassesCat I Chapters 35/35 I Completed Self-Insert, Sikuna fic, Good Sukuna, Soft Sukuna, AU - Canon Divergence, Fix-It

An unknown Jujutsu Kaisen fan becomes Sukuna. He tries to change the future, but will anyone trust the King of Curses?

You have everything, but not anything that matters by NotoriousSagacity I Chapters 10/? I Tired Sukuna, AU - Canon Divergence, Yuuji can't suppress Sukuna but Sukuna pretends that he can, Sukuna's obession with eating

If Sukuna was changed by his time sealed away. Oh, that doesn't mean that he's a good person, he's just less likely to massacre thousands at a time. Pookie is a little OOC, but oh well.

Carry Me Home by @valleykey I Chapters 11/11 I Completed Getou Suguru-centric, Getou Suguru/Gojo Satoru, AU - Canon Divergence, Time Travel Fix-It

The boy shifts on his feet. “The year is two thousand and eighteen? Common Era?” Slowly, smile still plastic on his face, Suguru faces Satoru. This fucking dumbass. “Satoru,” he says, dangerous edge to his voice, “what did you do?” Satoru makes some bastardization of a sound, half between a laugh and a cough. “...Whoops?” “I,” Suguru grits, pinching two fingers together, “am this close to mass murder.” He’s joking. Probably. ///OR: Shortly before Getō would have massacred a village, he and Gojō are thrust eleven years forward into a would-have-been future that Getō is conspicuously absent from.

vessel of greatness by karmauh I Chapters:1/1 I one shot Angst, Tragedy, Character Study, merging

“There’s a separation.” Yūji says, he asks, he begs. Sukuna doesn’t do anything⎯ except smile, maybe, “Two sides,” he says, like he’s in mourning too, “one coin.” or— The line between Itadori Yūji and Ryōmen Sukuna blurrs.

In Search of That Blue Sky by SunglassesCat I Chapters: 45/45 I Completed Sikuna fic, Yuuji & Sukuna are Twins, Childhood Friends, Good Sukuna

Itadori Ryou wasn’t supposed to exist. Yet he was born as the older twin brother of Itadori Yuuji. He knew this wasn’t where he was supposed to be. After all, he had seen the future of this world, and he had lived twice. In his first life, which he had almost forgotten completely, he was just a normal person who read this story. In his second life, he became the dreaded King of Curses. He remembered he had split himself into twenty fingers, so why the hell was he still reincarnated as a human again? Also, how the heck did he just meet a wild gremlin child named Gojo Satoru?

[raleighrador]

Torturing myself with ways Disney changed Star Wars - Strength, power, purity

Follow up to this https://www.tumblr.com/raleighrador/775298293951561728/torturing-myself-with-ways-disney-changed-star?source=share

Again, if you like Rey you might want to skip this.

Disney's treatment of strength, power, and purity is very different to Lucas. This is most evident in the treatment of the main Jedi/Force sensitive characters across the 3 trilogies.

I think the key theses of Lucas are: the Force can do a lot but it has clear limits; accepting those limits is key to being a "just" user of the Force; learning to use the Force takes a long time & any short cuts are both leading and lagging indicators of evil (ie want to short cut is of the dark side, and the dark side is the only element that provides short cuts).

This is evidenced "in text" in 2 basic ways: we get told this repeatedly through various explicit lines of dialogue across both the OT and the PT; and the world building and context very clearly explicates the notion of training, there is a special Jedi school, you need a master etc.

The entire plot of the PT is that a) Anakin is "too" powerful in a way that is somehow unnatural (or certainly worrying) b) he both progresses too fast AND continuously attempts to progress faster in a vicious feedback loop and c) refuses to accept that he cannot ever be strong enough to defeat death.

The OT set's Luke up to follow a pretty typical fantasy/action plot and he goes through various training and trials before he comes into his own, and his powers. Importantly, he learns the lesson his father did not - sometimes acceptance is the only answer. There is a point where strength no longer matters.

(and acceptance sometimes creates the opportunity for the universe to bend towards natural justice).

The ST just... totally overwrites all of this.

Rey starts hyper competent and scales from there. She faces no meaningful set backs. There are no real negative consequences for any of her choices or actions. She develops mastery of the Force and demonstrates a level of power & totally new abilities that exceed anything we see Anakin or Luke do.

What is especially frustrating is that we are so obviously SUPPOSED to read it that way.

Many people have written a lot about how you can actually reconcile all of this because actually the Force isn't about lifting rocks or whatever.

And sure fine.

The issue is that these are movies, movies by their nature rely on visual metaphors to express information about characters, themes, the universe etc. This is in many ways specifically essential to Star Wars.

Jedi use Blue swords and Sith use Red. Fascists wear faceless helmets, Rebels have faces.

The first time we are given any sense of "scale" to the Force is in ESB. Luke is tasked with lifting some rocks and fails. Of course he does! Floating things with your mind is impossible! And yet - holy cow - after some intense training he is actually doing it! He is straining and sweating but he does it!

And then Yoda asks him to lift the x-wing out the swamp. Can he do it? Maybe? Holy cow even Yoda is astonished - Luke seems on the brink of something even Yoda didn't expect!

But no, of course not. Yoda asks the impossible.

Except of course he doesn't. The last Grand Master of the Jedi Order, the being who (as people knew at the time) trained Obi-Wan (and as we later came to know, basically every Jedi for 1,000 years) then lifts the ship.

This is a clear piece of visual story telling. Lifting one rock is hard but doable, lifting a ship is really really hard and you need to be very strong and or experienced to do so.

Anyone who tells you that the lingering shot of Rey lifting hundreds of rocks so effortlessly that she can look around and laugh is not meant to be understood as "Rey > Luke" needs to also commit to the idea that Red lightsabers mean nothing.

Anyone who tells you it doesn't matter that Rey pulled Luke's x-wing out of the sea on Ach-To (vs Luke's inability to pull it out of the swamp on Dagobah) needs to commit to the idea that storm troopers wearing faceless skull masks means nothing.

The absolute pinnacle of this is of course Rey (and then Ben) learning to use the Force to heal life threatening wounds and even bring people back from the dead.

It goes beyond that though - and I think is most egregious in TFA.

We are consistently explicitly given the opportunity to make a direct comparison between Rey and Luke & Anakin, and then are hit over the head with the idea that Rey is better.

Even contrasting her with Kylo is interesting. Kylo has training, lots of it, and yet consistently loses to Rey (an uno reverse card mind reading and 2 different lightsaber tug o' wars the most obvious examples; the notable absence of Kylo ever using Force lightning vs Rey kinda just accidentally yolo-ing it).

What then does any of this mean?

As ever - nothing, just buy the Lego, stop wasting your time writing hundreds of words on Tumblr, please god stop clogging the timeline with this crap, look how cool the posters are).

But I persist.

The obvious (and what Disney seemed to be aiming at) meaning is that Rey IS better than Anakin or Luke or anyone else, Rey is in fact the actual real Chosen One.

Ok fine I guess but I hate it.

It also begs the question of "why"? Like what is the metaphysical logic?

Lucas very heavily centres personal agency in his metaphysics - yes, Anakin has the innate ability to be the chosen one, was foretold in prophecy, but it is always his choices that determine the triumph or defeat of the Light. He chooses wrong until the very end but it is always choice that matters.

Rey never chooses wrong. Maybe it's that simple but it begs the further question of why?

Anakin is given the most traumatic childhood imaginable and it never stops. He is damaged - physically and psychologically - and put into impossible circumstances and then he breaks.

Rey basically breezes through adversity. She never really seems to feel any loss, she is never really tempted by the dark side, and she certainly never gives into it. Even when she does give in to anger (and uses force lighting in TROS) it has no consequences, turns out Chewie is fine. She makes it through the entire sequel trilogy with no real loss - personal, physical, psychological, until the very end when we are meant to read Ben's death as meaningful (but given that the death happens AFTER the good guys have already one, it doesn't work as a narrative exchange).

The point about exchange is consistent - Luke and Anakin face real costs for their choices.

Beru and Owen die when Luke seeks adventure and pursues R2. Luke loses his hand (and innocence) when he chooses to confront Vader on Bespin. He almost loses his soul when he fights Vader on DS2 (and in choosing to forgo violence he suffers physical torture but achieves metaphysical victory).

Anakin loses his mother when he leaves Tatooine but gets to be a Jedi. He loses (part of) his soul when he chooses to kill the Tuskens but gets revenge. He loses his arm when he attacks Dooku. He loses his wife, his children, his limbs, his friends when he chooses the Dark, when he chooses power.

Rey chooses adventure and to go with BB-8 and loses... nothing she gains a saber and unlocks her Force abilities such that she uno reverse cards Kylo. She chooses to fight Kylo and she loses... Maybe Fin but he doesn't die, and she wins the duel. She chooses to confront Kylo and Snoke and she loses... what, exactly? Snoke dies and while she doesn't get Ben Solo back she still doesn't lose anything. She chooses to give in to anger and uses force lighting and accidentally... doesn't kill Chewie so actually it's fine.

The theme that does emerge is essentially one of purity. Rey is pure - pure of heart, pure of intention, not because of any choice or lived experience but because she just is. And that is why she makes all the right choices.

This is explicit in the finale - if Rey kills Palpatine out of impure intentions evil wins. But she kills him and evil loses - so she must have done it with a pure heart.

Anakin then doesn't fail to fulfil his destiny (until much later) because he made bad choices, he made bad choices because he is impure and it was never his destiny anyway.

Turns out Anakin never worked out the right way to murder someone.

Anakin's mistake was not seeking a short cut to power which was always bound to fail. His mistake was not refusing to accept that some things are beyond him, that death comes for us all, and that all we can do is embrace it.

Anakin's mistake was being impure, was reading the wrong books. Turns out, the Force could save Padmé, Anakin was just too weak/stupid/impure from the start to do so.

It not only recasts the entire 9 movies, it is also just really boring.

[realmadridgirlll]

Beyond the Lines

Chapter 3 ~ Fingertips on the Horizon

Later that night, with the empty pizza boxes piled high and the laughter fading into a comfortable hum, Jude dozed off on the couch, controller still in hand. The game's menu screen looped silently on the TV as its blue light flickered across the living room.

Y/n came back down from brushing her teeth, only to freeze when she saw Kylian still there—sitting on the edge of the balcony just outside the sliding glass doors, his phone forgotten beside him. The air was cool and laced with summer's fading scent, and the moon cast sharp silver lines across his face.

Without overthinking, she slid the door open and stepped out.

He didn't look up. "Couldn't sleep either?"

She shook her head. "Too much sugar. Or adrenaline."

His lips curled slightly. "Adrenaline, huh?"

They sat in silence, side by side, not touching but closer than before. She could hear her pulse drumming in her ears.

Then he spoke. Quiet, careful. "You remember when we first met?"

She blinked, caught off guard. "You mean when Jude forced me to bring him his boots and you were standing there with your whole World Cup medal aura, looking like a Greek statue?"

He laughed—a soft, genuine sound. "That dramatic, huh?"

"I was sixteen. It was traumatic."

Kylian tilted his head, finally meeting her eyes. "You didn't even look at me."

She shrugged. "That's not true."

"It is. I noticed."

The words hung there for a second too long. Her breath hitched again, uninvited and inconvenient.

And then—because tension only simmers so long—he reached out, fingers grazing hers. Barely a touch. But it was enough to make her forget how to form words.

Before she could respond, before the moment could spill over into something irreversible, the door creaked open behind them.

Jude stepped out, bleary-eyed and scratching his head. "You two still up?" He yawned. "It's like 2 a.m."

Kylian pulled his hand back so quickly it was like it had never happened. Y/n cleared her throat, suddenly very interested in the horizon.

"Just getting some air," Kylian said coolly.

Jude looked between them, and something flickered in his gaze—uncertainty, suspicion—but he said nothing. "Alright. I'm crashing upstairs. Don't stay up too long."

As he retreated inside, the tension didn't dissolve. It thickened.

Kylian stood, brushing imaginary dust off his pants. "Maybe I should head home."

"Okay," she said, trying not to let her voice betray her. "Goodnight."

He looked at her one last time, the weight of whatever-that-was still between them.

"Goodnight, Y/n."

The next morning, sunlight cut through the curtains and danced across Y/n's floor, but she'd already been awake for hours. Her brain hadn't shut up since Kylian's fingers brushed hers beneath the stars. She kept replaying it like a highlight reel—except this wasn't just a game. And now everything felt... charged.

Downstairs, Jude was unusually quiet as they had breakfast. He offered her a slice of toast, asked a few generic questions—but every so often, his eyes lingered too long, and his mouth twitched like he wanted to ask something but didn't.

Just as she was convincing herself she might be imagining it, Jude casually said, "So, Kylian stayed pretty late."

She froze mid-bite. "Yeah. We were just talking on the balcony."

"Mm-hmm." He took a sip of coffee, eyes unreadable. "Looked cozy."

Her pulse thudded. "It wasn't like that."

"Didn't say it was," he said too quickly, standing to rinse his plate. "Anyway, Brian texted. Said he's back in town."

Y/n blinked, caught off guard. "Brian?"

Jude shot her a knowing look. "Your partner-in-crime? Your ride-or-die since year four? That Brian?"

A smile crept onto her lips despite herself. "I haven't seen him in months."

"Well, he's coming over in an hour."

She leapt up. "What?! You invited him without telling me?"

"You don't get surprised enough," Jude said with a smirk, but there was a mischievous edge to it she couldn't quite place.

When Brian arrived, everything felt familiar in the best way—his bright eyes, that easy laugh that filled up rooms, the way he hugged her like they hadn't missed a day. They were already finishing each other's sentences over inside jokes when Kylian messaged Jude asking if he wanted to kick around at the park.

"Can I come with?" Y/n asked instinctively.

"Sure," Jude said with a shrug. "Bring Brian too."

And just like that, the complicated threads began to tangle.

At the park, Kylian's smile faltered just slightly when he saw Brian with them. He kept it subtle—just a quick glance, a slight narrowing of the eyes—but Jude saw it. And so did Y/n.

"This is Brian," she said quickly, introducing them. "We've known each other since we were kids."

Brian extended a hand with a grin. "Heard a lot about you. Mostly from Jude, though."

"Right," Kylian replied, shaking his hand, eyes flicking briefly to Y/n. "Nice to meet you."

The tension was silent but thick. Jude stayed suspiciously quiet. Brian, blissfully unaware, stayed close to Y/n's side, looping an arm around her shoulders whenever he made a joke or nudged her to laugh.

At one point, Kylian kicked the ball a little too hard during a casual drill, and it flew past Brian's head with just enough force to make him duck. "Damn, Mbappé," Brian said, half-laughing. "That's how you treat friends?"

"Didn't know we were friends yet," Kylian replied, deadpan.

Brian blinked, surprised, but didn't press it. Y/n shot Kylian a look—but he had already turned away.

---

Later, as they all walked home, Jude hung back beside Kylian.

"You alright?" Jude asked.

Kylian didn't answer at first. Then: "Is that guy her boyfriend?"

Jude shrugged. "No. But maybe you should've asked that yesterday—before you started playing balcony games."

Kylian didn't look at him. "I didn't—"

"You think I'm blind, bro?" Jude cut in. His voice was calm, but there was an edge now. "I see the way you look at her. Just remember who she is."

Kylian's jaw clenched. "She's not a kid anymore."

Jude stopped walking, face unreadable. "Exactly."

They walked the rest of the way in silence. But nothing was quiet anymore.

[mistysconcilium]

murder halloween.ᐟ house

day 4 of seven days of halloween .ᐟ 👻

pairing - ghost!violet harmon x ghost!reader

synopsis - you and violet decorate murder house for halloween

tags - one shot • fluff • slight angst • present tense • english is not my first language • not proof read

୨୧ note - i waited until the last minute to write this so it is a bit rushed and maybe not well written lol. i’ll proofread it later! idk if this counts as a drabble or one shot bc it is short but im just gonna call it a one shot bc there is different ‘scenes’

carved pumpkins and spooky decor lined the street outside. every house on the street was decorated for the holiday, except for one, the one that you were stuck in for eternity.

alot of your days in murder house are spent like this, staring out the windows watching the people live their lives.

“what are you thinking about?” violet hugs you from behind and puts her chin on your shoulder.

“just thinking”

“about halloween?” violet always has a way of knowing what you’re thinking. it’s like she can read your mind, she is able to read every thought and emotion.

“yeah” you pause for a moment, “everyone on the street is decorating for it but we can’t, cause y’know we’re dead”

“i mean there might be some decor in the house somewhere” she turns you around “there should at least be something we could decorate the house with”

- ఇ -

since most people who have lived in the house don’t make it out alive, most of their stuff is still in the house packed away somewhere. which is why violet convinced you to go up to the attic to see if there was some halloween decor.

“violet i don't know about this” your brows are knitted in worry. even though you have been dead here for a while you have never dared to go to the attic.

“don’t worry nothing will happen. what are you scared about? ghosts?” violet chuckles

the attic is full of all different kinds of boxes with a lot of dust on top.

“i think i found something” you say as you dig through one of the boxes.

the box, which is marked with a drawn-on pumpkin, is full with halloween decor. everything from some fall themed garlands, to fake cobwebs and skeletons

“great let’s bring it downstairs!”

- ఇ -

you start decorating in one of the living rooms on the first floor and then you move further into the house. since there wasn’t that much decorations in the box you decided to only decorate the rooms that’s used the most.

currently, you and violet are in the kitchen placing different ceramic pumpkins decorations on the table and the counter.

“i noticed you decorating for halloween” moira had appeared out of the blue “ and so i gathered some leaves for you to decorate with” she hands you a bag filled with red, orange, and yellow leaves.

“thank you moira!” you open the bag and starts placing the leaves in a pattern on the kitchen table.

- ఇ -

you’re sitting in one of the rooms that you decorated with violet laying in your lap.

“i can’t wait for halloween”

“why’s that?” you twirl a lock of violets hair in your fingers

“because then i can finally take you on a real date and not just in this fucking shithole” she laughs

“wait what do you mean?”

“ cause every halloween we ghost get to leave this property and do whatever we want”

violet looks up at you when you don’t respond

“what didn’t you know”

“uhhh no!” she chuckles at your response

“well since it’s your first halloween since you died i think we need to make it special” she sits up and pulls you in for a kiss.

you reciprocate the kiss and nuzzle your hands in her hair.

love, elisabet <3

reblogs and comments are always appreciated . ᐟ

tags; @angel-decoy @purple-cinematic @fear-is-truth @d3adarling

dividers by @/strangerpraphics

[puckpocketed]

squeezing out the second part of the d-men podcast transcripts I started a while back. the fear of losing media compels me <3 here's part 1 if you missed it, but it's not essential to understanding what's being said here. (all episodes are available if anyone just wants to listen to them) transcript + edits done by me, all mistakes are mine.

Topics of discussion:

shorting the zone and the evolution of the game

point shots and why they suck

the carolina hurricanes being a wacky exception

Lane Hutson, Zach Werenski, a few others, and how modern defensemen create and score.

Published 13th November 2024, Hockey IQ Podcast: Modern Defensemen (with Will Scouch) Ep #2 - by Hockey's Arsenal, hosted by Greg Revak (apple / spotify / youtube)

[START Transcript]

Greg Revak: Alright, welcome back to episode two here. We've got Will Scouch and myself, Greg Revak, here on the Hockey IQ Podcast. Now we're going to be talking about point play.

So last week, we talked about modern day defending; what does that kind of look like? We looked into Lane Hutson, some Rasmus Ristolainen, some other players, talking about controlling speed, getting good gap control, position before possession, et cetera.

A lot of powerful stuff there, but today we want to talk about point play. We ended last time talking about shorting the zone. So: getting down off the blue line, especially if the puck is in a corner, getting down into the zone. Instead of standing at the blue line, maybe we're at the top of the circles. [There’s] a lot of reasons we talked about why that's good for defense, gap control, et cetera. but let's start with thinking about point play.

The space from the top of the circles to the blue line up top in the zone, that, generally, is what we're going to call the ‘point’. When we're talking about defensemen or talking about point play, that's the area we're living in. With shorting the zone, we're already starting on top of the circles — [the] blue line is behind us. I love it, [shorting the zone, just from a tactical standpoint] you have so much space to go into, you can make someone chase you and you can do some shimmies.

Lane Hutson is a great example. You start low, bring the puck up, throw one fake one way, go the other. Or a little double move where now the opponent's feet are just completely messed up.

So just from an idea of saving space; I am in this space so I can go to that space, rather than starting at the blue line and now I don't have any space to go backwards — the only options I do have are laterally, left or right. And if I'm on the wall, I only really have one option, which turns into two: either I chuck a terrible point shot — and we know point shots suck — or l've got to move to the middle. You're really limiting yourself. Shorting the zone gives you a lot more space up top.

Will Scouch: Yeah, I agree. I mean, we kind of talked a little bit last episode about offense and defensemen, and I said something along the lines of, “I don't really think about point production a tremendous amount,” but it is interesting when you watch a lot of defensemen who do score a lot and how many, especially outside the NHL, [are] literally peppering the net with point shots.

And at the junior level, when you're facing goaltenders who can often have save percentages down in the .870s, .880s, some of these shots are going to go in, right? Some of them are going to be rebounds in front. That's just so much rarer in the NHL in this day and age. Rebound control is better, defensive zone control is better, positioning is better, they're stronger. It's just tougher to do that.

And so point shots — I mean, it's good to have as a weapon. If you have a defenseman who can really shoot the puck and hammer one on net from 60 feet out, cool. It's not a bad thing, but it's not a great thing to rely on. Goaltenders are getting better and better and better at seeing the puck, tracking the puck, making sure that they can stay on top of these kinds of plays. 

To me, it's more about having a defenseman who can juggle multiple options; a guy who may have a point shot to play around with, but [also] the skill and the creativity and the vision to see what's going on and make a play, rather than just going, “Alright, my job is to put it on the net from here, that's what I do.” Because you also run the risk of someone blocking that shot, it goes out into the neutral zone, maybe you're caught a little bit up the ice and you just wasted an offensive zone possession and you're chasing the puck coming your way.

There's a lot of risk that comes from that in a potentially dangerous area of the ice. I'll cherry pick a really bad example of this, but I remember at the World Juniors when Connor Bedard was there. I think it was a semifinal game or a quarterfinal game, but Connor Bedard was just carrying and carrying and carrying the puck, flying around the perimeter of the ice, and just turned and lobbed one on net from the middle of the ice right from the blue line.

[A] guy, I think it was the Czech Republic, blocked it, Bedard fell down or something, was just caught at that blue line, and they went the other way and scored a goal. And so that kind of thing is something where I always note it down and go, “Yeah, that's just not an option,” that's just not going to work in the NHL. Guys are going to know, guys are going to be able to figure it out.

So yeah, [a point shot is] something that I think is important to know that you have with your defensemen, but [it’s also] important that your defensemen know when to and when not to deploy it, if that makes sense.

GR: I also laugh because anytime you see a team practice and we work on offensive specific stuff and defensive specific stuff, it always seems like somehow the defense ends up working on point shots. It's kind of getting archaic at this point, maybe we should work on other things? That’s kind of, like, the last option.

You know, there are times [they’re appropriate] but a lot of it is at the higher levels [where] maybe we have the strength for those point shots. At the lower level half the time those pucks are barely getting to the net. There's a lot of issues there, but to your point: point shots suck, and I will continue to say that until everyone understands it.

There's increasing goal scoring in the NHL. There is a decreasing save percentage in the NHL. And all the studies I'm continuously reading and finding, the work that's being done out there, seems to point to the same thing: people are no longer settling for crappy shots. 

You may see them every once in a while, but it's more of a change of pace to the usual, to mix it up, more than, “This is our go-to strategy,” like you saw in the dead puck era or the mid 2000s.

WS: Yeah. I think the only real exception I can think of off the top of my head sitting here is the Carolina Hurricanes sometimes seem to really deploy a point shot, a more [chaotic] style of offense. But it kind of works for them in a way because they have the skill and the intensity level from their forwards to gain possession back, or cause tips or crazy plays in front, chase play into the corner.

That's just their style of play. It just seems to be the system that they're deploying, and it does lead to good results, but just saying, “Oh yeah, our defensemen will put it on net and we'll tip it, or we'll catch a rebound or something,” it doesn't generally work out in that way.

You and I, we talk a lot about Lane Hutson, and I think Lane Hutson is probably the most extreme example of the opposite. Where, yeah, once in a while, you'll see him shooting the puck from the point, but the big thing with him — and everybody, it's a meme now, people are pointing it out as a meme of, like, that shimmy shake he's got at the offensive blue line, that ability to bait and switch guys from one way to the next.

I know some people are already pointing at that and going, “What a silly thing that he's doing out there, he's looking like PK Subban!” But number one, PK Subban won a Norris Trophy. And number two, it works. Lane Hutson is a guy who can create, that's how you create space for yourself nowadays, right? You use your feet and your hands and your body in conjunction to create room, to drag pressure around.

Half the name of the game with the puck on your stick is dragging pressure around, right? Manipulating your opponent, making them put themselves in positions that they don't want to be in, and gaining pockets of space and exploiting it.

That's really the name of the game, and point shots can kind of eliminate those opportunities, so I love seeing players who think outside the box, and work off the offensive blue line, and can get a little bit creative, and have systems and support from their forwards that can step up and help them out, help them engage in the offensive zone. It just is the way the game is going, whether you like it or not.

GR: Yeah. Well, first, we'll start with the Carolina Hurricanes example. They also have a puck recovery strategy that they play with, their weak side defenseman is shorting the zone and already heading to the corner as a puck is being shot from the point. They know they're not getting the pass, so they're already playing for the rebound. Which, there's an opportunity there for the other team; if they get the blocked shot that weak side winger is going to [be a step ahead of] the weak side defenseman.

But the Canes get so many pucks back just by activating that weak side defenseman, because most of the time you're not really creating a rebound, you're creating a loose puck. So now you've got to be thinking about loose puck recoveries rather than rebounds. And [shots] from the point, it’s 22 to 24 percent of the time [they] actually create a rebound. Rebounds actually come from shots from the inner slot.

Editor’s note: he said “rebounds” here twice, which makes ZERO sense in context. I have changed it to “shots”. There are a few wonky sentences through this where I’ve reworked the syntax or added a word where they clearly misspoke within the context of the sentence, just trying to make this readable </3

WS: Oh, yeah. Scoring areas, right?

GR: Yeah. From actual scoring areas, so why are we taking so many? So get rid of [point shots] and then we’ve got to find ways to create offense from outside of there.

I did a study with Zach Werenski, he led the league, I want to say it was the 2019-2020 or 2018-2019 season. And he was the number one scoring defenseman, he had the most goals. 20 goals, two were empty netters. so he had 18 actual goals. How did he go about scoring those? If you had to guess, how many do you think were point shots?

WS: All of them. Hard flat bombs from the blue line, 120 miles an hour, easy. No. I honestly have no idea. I'd love for you to enlighten me, because I'm fascinated.

GR: So he scored [on] one point shot, which was basically he got handcuffed with a bad puck, and he was like, “Well, don't really want to turn this one over. So let's just get it in deep.” In which case this one was ‘in deep’ towards the net. Wasn't even a purposeful, “I'm just going to hammer this [one-timer] from the point.” It was literally, his defense partner went d-to-d, basically handcuffed him, and he just tossed it at the net.

WS: Nice.

GR: That was his best option at the point because he just got a suicide pass, defense-style. The other 17 were from within the house. Like, he's getting off the blue line, he's activating into the zone. He's not just standing out there.

Editor’s note: ‘the house’ is slang for the prime scoring area in front of the net, in the middle of the zone. Defenders are often taught to “protect the house”

So you've got [18] different goals which, the fascinating part is, you would think a lot of that might come from the rush before the defense gets set up, but only one of the goals came from the rush. The other 17 were in-zone. CBJ got into the offensive zone, worked it around. He was able to activate, find better spaces to get into the house and then shot and scored.

We have 11 one-time shots, six wrist shots and one backhand, those were [the] distribution. You would think it might just be like, oh, a quick point shot, like a boom one-timer, but there's a lot of wrist shots. There's even a backhand in there. He’s finding ways and finding good pre-shot movement to get himself into a better spot to score. [It was more so about] “How does he find ways to get into scoring places?” rather than having the world's best point shot.

WS: Yeah. And I think that that's — when you look at some of the best offensive-defensemen in the league nowadays — that's what that's like. I'm looking at Evolving Hockey right now, so shout out to the Evolving Hockey boys, but the leaders and individual expected goals by defensemen over the last two seasons… Werenski is number four on that list, which makes a lot of sense, but the only guys ahead of him? Rasmus Dahlin, Cale Makar and Roman Josi.

And those are all similar, all of those guys are pretty similar, to me, especially Josi and Makar. Behind them, you've got guys like John Carlson, Victor Hedman, Erik Karlsson, Evan Bouchard. I would be very curious about individual expected goals per shot on net, but regardless we don't need to get that much into detail. It also involves math that I don't want to do right now.

But a lot of those really good premier offensive defensemen are the ones who are generating those kinds of results; the guys that are getting into the offensive zone, getting their hands a little dirty and jumping in and playing like a forward.

I remember we did work a while ago. I sent you information on some of the trends that have changed in terms of scoring and why the NHL is scoring so much [more] now than it did when I was younger or when both of us were younger. And the main — the only real difference — it's not that forwards were shooting more, it's not that goaltenders were just worse, it was that defensemen were getting more involved offensively. 

Out of everything out there, the only real significant change was that there were more defensemen in the NHL who can score, right? Before, there were way more defensemen [whose] job was just not to play offense. They're just not allowed. Just cross the red line, dump it in, go for a shift; cross the red line, dump it in, go for a shift.

And now it's very different. To me it goes back to this discussion I have all the time with people where I'm just sort of going, “I want every single player on my team to be,” to use an oversimplified word, but, “good!” right? I want every single player on the ice, regardless of position, to be able to play in the offensive zone and create and be creative, and put pucks on net and generate scoring chances, and have forwards who can cover for defensemen who want to do that.

I think there's been more and more of that in the NHL just because it's good hockey. Now you're seeing a lot more defensemen who are generating a lot more of these individual chances, and Werenski is definitely a good one.

GR: It leads to winning. You definitely can't win a war by sitting in a foxhole, and you can't win a hockey game without scoring goals. If you can find ways to increase that offense, to your point, that's where all the offensive improvements that we've seen in the last decade plus have come from, is just defensemen being more than defense. They're hockey players, they're not just defense.

It's been good to see, there's been a ton of improvement. There's still a lot of detail, I think, that we can flush out within this. I was talking with Seamus Casey (NJD prospect) and I ended up writing about what we were talking about, which is some of the finer details up top.

One of the big ones is just catching within movement. Don't get the puck, then move; be having an idea of movement where you're constantly shifting. Again, offense is about movement: you're constantly shifting the angles and the positioning that the defense has to cover and respect. That's a common mistake I see, a common issue I see at the lower levels.

I was working with a junior-age player, now he's got a freshman year in college this year, [and this is] the number one thing I told him: “Every time you get a puck, you're standing flat. There's no movement. So now you're just putting yourself in a terrible spot where you're easily closed down. The same thing as a moving target versus a stationary target, which one's harder to hit? That's the idea here. So making sure we're catching within movement, even if it's just a step or two, that's a step in the right direction of where you want to go.” Just, have a little bit of movement.

It's one of the reasons I'm a big believer in Ryan Healey out of Harvard.

WS: Oh yeah.

GR: Quite the defensive depth chart to climb in the Minnesota Wild organisation, but I have good feelings about that kid.

WS: Yeah, I remember Ryan Healey. He had some fun moments. And yeah, that's definitely a good example of a player who brings that brand. It’s something that I am always looking for, It's something that you're always trying to get.

At the youth level, it can be hit or miss. I think that there's a lot of — and again, I'm in Canada — and I still think there's a lot of differences between programs in the CHL. How they kind of coached defensemen to be this way, or how they try to bring them along in order to play this brand of play that I think is more and more important into the future.

I mean, there are definitely Canadians who are among some of the most creative and intelligent and skilled offensive defensemen in the world. Cale Makar is a great example of that. But it is, I think, still something that is being explored and figured out and I think there is a perfectly legitimate discussion to be had about the balancing act of all of these things and how you coach your players to recognise opportunities and how to exploit those opportunities.

Like we've said many times in this series, it's a rabbit hole. You can go down deep and these kinds of things can be a long-term process. You take time, work through the good and the bad with the players.’

I don't know, at the end of the day I just love when hockey is creative, skilled, exciting. To me, in the offensive zone especially, I think there's a lot of room for defensemen to be that way. It's changing for the better, in my opinion.

I was just looking in terms of the number of expected goals out of defensemen. I believe there were 10 — ten years ago, there were 10 defensemen with 10 expected goals or more. Last season there were 30, and that's at 5-on-5. There's just a lot more of this going on, and I think we're all better for it. Everybody loves goals, right?

Yeah, everybody loves fights, but fans also get out of their seats when there are goals, and it's always exciting. I love a game where, when you're down 3-1 you have a better chance of coming back because you're really good at scoring goals. That's just what I love.

GR: Yeah, so the other detail I'm thinking about as we're going through this is just positioning, right? We've talked about positioning and just [like] anything in life, positioning makes your life easier. If you position yourself — anything, X, Y, and Z — better, you're playing life, or the game, on a much easier mode. 

For point play here, we want to have some movement, but whether that be into the puck or away from the puck, I'm always talking about positioning and where we are relative to the blue line and relative to the boards. If we can get inside the zone — so getting some depth, like shorting the zone — great.

The other piece is just; from East and West across the rink, making sure that we're getting pucks within the dots. We can take the puck outside if we want to, but we don't want to start there, particularly from the weak side defensemen.

So, one, you can skate towards your partner, catch the puck as it's coming to you and be inside the dots, which is fantastic. Or, if that's maybe not a good option, that space is closed off, making sure that you're giving yourself to the outside. Take a step into the dots or even further in, not just on the dots, but slightly in so now you catch that puck and you can actually fan out

A lot of weak side wingers struggle to get in that shot lane, so even if you want a point shot or you see a passing lane, it's going to open that space towards the net in general. So, just making sure that you're giving yourself good positioning to start your puck touch, you can decide, “Do I want to go inside, do I want to go outside?” and having those options available.

The most common mistake I see is players start in wide open spaces, and they feel so comfortable, “Oh, I've got all this time and space because I'm in space!” Rather than what's better, which is actually putting yourself closer to your opponents where you have, quote unquote, less time and space — but really, you have now opened up space that you can potentially use.

It's not comfortable maybe immediately, but it will become comfortable as the puck touch evolves, rather than the opposite, which I see a ton, which is players start in open space, they feel comfortable like, “Oh, I've got more time and space because I'm physically further apart,” but then their options are so limited.

WS: Right. It's a game. Hockey a lot of the time is a game of creating space. It's a game of finding ways to get out of situations like that. I think that if you are in motion, quick little chips, quick little puck touches can do that for you. Obviously, you want to make yourself a pass target, but little tricks on pass receptions are probably just as important as what goes into that in the first place.

It's something that I still feel like I might be a little bit behind on in that world, listening to you talk about it. It's something that I haven't fully considered exactly, but I totally see where you're coming from, because, yeah, it is a thing where, just because you have space and you're waiting for a puck in that area, doesn't always mean you're going to have it when that puck hits your stick. It doesn't always mean you're going to have it the whole time when you want to have it.

Being able to problem solve and figure out how to create opportunity for yourself whether or not you’re under pressure, it's such a great thing to build on. And again, it goes back to what we talked about last week a lot of the time, with that footwork, the ability to pivot, make quick changes in where you're oriented and where you're headed on the ice. So even those defensive skills that are out there, it also is quite important in the offensive zone as well.

GR: All right. I think, point play, we've opened up a Pandora's box for people to explore, so we should probably end here and we'll head back next week talking about defending the rush.

[END Transcript]

[goldielia]

when ethan met celly

a part of: fuck it i love you au

if there was any game that they didn’t worry about this season, it was the one happening this friday. which ethan thinks might’ve been their first mistake. every year the umich men’s hockey team plays one game against the women’s. every year they win. sometimes they win higher, as high as 9-0 even. sometimes they win barely. it’s never a question really, though, because “women’s hockey is just slower and less powerful”.

it’s different this year. the girls seem to be dancing around them in their navy blue jerseys, most trailing a braid behind them. they’re faster than most boys, easily dodging anything physical and playing beautiful hockey.

the only thing they’re missing is luck. he stopped counting how many shots were miraculously deflected that every player on the ice had practically seen hit the net already. whenever he’s on the bench, he tries to make sense of the girls’ team, never quite getting the hang of their tactics. everyone seems to play everywhere, offense and defense mixing and changing swiftly around stiff boys in yellow jerseys.

he doesn’t know many girls on the team, they run into each other at practice sometimes and there’s been the rare occasion they’ve been at a party the other team was throwing but except for dylan’s on-off-girlfriend and a few of her friends he doesn’t really know anyone.

the more he watches, the more he wishes their number 18 would play for the men’s team. she centers her line easily, puck never leaving her stick when she doesn’t want it to. he doesn’t think he’s seen her make a single mistake this whole game. and she’s fast. circles around him and precisely picks the puck off of his stick like he’s a toddler skating for the first time.

he’s almost glad when it’s still standing 1-1 nearing the end of the last period. their 18 set dukers ex up with a filthy assist somewhere during second period and all she had to do was hold her stick for it to be a goal. mark’s goal a few minutes later looks like pure luck next to that, and it kind of was. the women’s goalie had it out of the dangerous zone already when he hits it clumsily with nearly not enough power and it just makes the line for it to count.

during the last few seconds of the game, ethan meets number 18 center ice for a faceoff and instantly wishes he never looked at her face.

he doesn’t see the insanely good hockey player. he sees the girl he had under him at a party just about two weeks ago. the girl he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. maybe the best fuck of his life. scratch that. definitely the best fuck of his life.

her pretty blue eyes are fixed on his already, nothing hinting that she remembers him. he finds a twinkle in them though, a little competitiveness showing behind her stoic facade. he’s suddenly really pissed at himself about not making more of an effort to find her.

she left his bed that morning before he, or any of the boys for that matter, were up. she hadn’t left a single thing, not a note, not anything of hers. he didn’t even know more than her last name, written across the navy of her jersey in their usual maize. and he couldn’t stop thinking about her, maybe that was the worst part of it. he desperately wanted to see her again. searched on instagram, anywhere, but couldn’t find her.

he’s ready for this faceoff though, more ready than for any faceoff in his life, probably. they need this win. he needs to win this. especially against her. he’s played like shit tonight and he wants to show her he’s actually good. that he’s a prospect for a nhl team for a reason.

the puck drops. he sees it fall, is ready to get his stick in there and the puck behind him. she’s faster though. before he can process anything else, she’s moved past him, puck already back on her stick. he can’t tell if their defense just isn’t ready or if she’s that fast but before any of them reach her she’s hit the puck, let it bounce off the side of the goalpost and tumble into the net.

the buzzer signals the end of the game. they lost. he can’t wrap his head around that. the yellow players are like statues, frozen on the ice and soon swamped by a sea of navy blue, girls happily giggling and throwing themselves onto their game-winning-scorer, celebrating under the lights of what was supposed to be their victory.

and then number 18 frees herself from the arms of her team, taking her helmet off and shaking her messy, blonde braid out of it. the smile on her face is blinding as she takes in the arena, the noise. for a second ethan thinks he’d happily lose every game if he could see that smile again.

when the boys walk out of the locker room, moping and brooding after they got their ears talked off with criticism by their coach, they pass by the girls still partying in the hallway. they’ve abandoned their gear, most of them in either shorts and a sports bra or their jerseys. dukers ex (he now thinks she might still be a girlfriend?) skips up to them on socked feet, grinning at them with so much enthusiasm and genuine happiness, ethan’s almost happy for the girls. after all, the boys not only lost for the first time ever but the girls have won for the first time ever.

“we’re partying at celly’s tomorrow, you’re all invited. we’d really like for you to show.” the hallway goes quiet when the girls slowly but surely notice the boys and turn their music down. it feels like an olive branch, women and men’s hockey teams at umich never really were anything more than acquaintances.

“oh, come on” another girl yells at the back. “you can’t pass up a party anyway. besides, if our number 18, our match-winning-scorer, our very own celeste st. james throws a rager, you’re missing out if you’re not going.”

the blonde grins from her spot between the girls, completely swamped by her jersey now that she’s not wearing gear underneath, long legs bare except for white tennis socks. he can’t stop his brain from imagining what she’d look like in a maize jersey with his 73 and last name on her back and nothing else.

there’s a challenging look in her eyes when they meet ethan’s. “beer pong. you pick a team, we pick a team. winner gets to choose practice times for a month. then we have a rematch monthly until the end of the season.”

ethan’s confused. why would they want to change practice times? the boys around him don’t look like they know either. except for duker. “you just want to not have saturday morning practices anymore so you can take people home” he grins at the girl.

“and if i do?” she challenges again, briefly meeting ethan’s eyes, which widen in understanding. before he can think about it, he already hears “you’re on” come out of his own mouth. she giggles at him, the other girls around her squealing and whooping and turning their music back up to continue celebrating.

[akwolfgrl]

LFT PART 43

They all sat on the drying deck after escaping Loguetown, except Sanji who got up to make snacks/lunch for everyone. Sanji's cat crawled into his lap making itself comfy kneading at his leg. He felt eyes on him. He looked up to see Usopp's confusion, Luffy was just staring at the cat maybe with hunger? And Nami was cooing at the cat.

“Ummm when did we get a cat?” Usopp asked.

“Zoro got it for Sanji as a courting gift, while an odd gift. I suppose though it would be useful, they are considered to be good luck,” Nami explained. “Luffy he's not to be eaten, Sanji would be very hurt if you ate his pet,” she wanted their captain.

She had a point unfortunately, he was looking at the little black cat as if he would make a nice snack. Zoro stroked the cat's back, it arched under his hand purring.

“Fine, can I touch him?” Luffy asked, reaching out a long arm.

“Sure, if he lets you,” The cat would just do whatever it felt like doing, sometimes they were friendly and other times they were selective about who they would allow to touch them.

The cat reached out with one paw to bat at Luffy's hand. Luffy wiggled his fingers causing him to go after the rubber digits with both paws standing on his back legs as he attacked their captain.

“Awwwwww he's so cute!” Nami cooed.

“Look at him go! So ferocious you get those fingers kitty cat!” Usopp cheered the cat on.

Luffy laughed and continued to wiggle his fingers as the cat made little growls as it batted away until he took a worng step and tumbled out of Zoro's lap. He got up with his back arched, fur standing straight up. He lets out a soft chuckle as the cat begins to hop sideways towards Luffy.

“Jungle cat vs rubber, who will win!?” Usopp began to narrate as the scene began to unfold.

The cat countired to attack luffys hand as luffys hand incited the cat into action. The cat warped its paws around Luffys wirst and kicked its back paws agaist his arm and bit at luffys fingers not drawing blood. Both luffy and sanjis cat were having a great time.

“Lunch time! I made sushi and cocktails! Also Luffy like I promised for not eating Mt fish you made you seared tuna steaks eatch one a different seasoning,” Love cook came over Laden with trays. He eve had one a top his head. “Luffy the top is yours,”

“Yosh!” Luffy stopped playing with the cat a reached for the plate on Sanji's head. He imditly shoved a steak in his mouth. “Oooo it's kinda sour and lemony! I like it!”

“Hey shit-cook, I think you burned one,” Zoro pointed to the next one Luffy was swolling whole.

“I most certainly did not, it's call blackened it's a type of seasoning,” He responded handing Nami an orange looking cocktail with a sparkly looking peel. “For you my dear it's a screwdrive granshised with a candy minka peel,”

“Ooo,” Nami took a sip. “Mmm delish thank you sanji,”

“You welcome Nani swan,” Zoro watched as he passed out the other cocktails. “Usopp this is a Pina colda, luffy a blue lagoon. And for the moss a sake bomb,” Sanji handed him a glass of beer with chopsticks and a sho glass of sake on top. Zoro pulled the chopsticks away and the sake shot feel into the beer. “Eat up!” Sanji placed the large platter of sushi on the ground int he middle of everyone takeikg a small plate of just raw fish. “Mr. Noodles here kitty,” Zoro snorted into his drink luckily not spilling a thing. The cat now dubed Mr. Noddles imidlty ran to sanji and the fish.

“Mr. Noddles?” Nami questioned while Luffy laughed his ass off. “What kinda name is that?”

“What's wrong with the name? I think it's cute, and its to late to change it I've made up my mind,”

“But why food?”

“I'm more worried about if the cat, Mr. Noddles is even gonna be safe!” Usopp worried.

“why wouldn't it be?” Zoro asked. “the lady said it was a good gift for a ships cook,”

“Zeff had one, her name was Clementine. She even went to the grand line with them; she only recently died of old age. She was almost thirteen years old, she lasted longer than Zeffs crew who all drowned in a strom,”

“Yah Usopp the cat will be fine,” Zoro used his chopsticks to take some sushi before Luffy ate it all.

“Mr. Noodles is our new member!! We need to have a party!” Luffy declared before shoveling sushi in his mouth.