#and the night she ate poison and slowly died her thoughts latched on to that and dreamt of the night the boat sank

[comixandco]

thinking about little molly finch, the baby on a boat that tugged a house across the ocean

who grew up hearing bedtime stories based on tales from her family’s old country, of shapeshifters and seamonsters, and the story of the night the sea rose up around them and dragged that boat down to bottom of the sea bed

who could see that giant house and boat at low tide at night

who drew a picture of a princess in a castle at the bottom of the sea besieged by a sea monster

and died sure it was coming after her

[ijustwanttoexist]

An Almost First Date

This is a sequel to LIJAWITP, just a small little something I wanted to do because I haven’t written in a while and I thought it would be cute in a “I like to make my muses suffer” kind of way.

Also, I have a ko-fi. If you like my writing, please consider sending a bit of financial support my way.

Pairing(s): Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin

Warning(s): Geno gets food poisoning in this, descriptions of throwing up past the break

Their first date is almost tragically bad. Geno imagines he’s in a movie as it happens, because in what other universe except one taking place on film would so many almost comically bad things in confluence.

It takes them nearly a month to make it happen. Sidney has playoffs, and spring is--for some reason--the time of year when people start getting dogs en mass so they’re both stupid busy.

They talk on the phone when they can. They text back and forth throughout the day, and have a few actual phone conversations, but they can never seem to get their schedules to match up for any meaningful time together in person.

The day of the date starts poorly. Geno’s phone charger had apparently died in the night and had taken his phone’s battery charge with it, so his alarm hadn’t gone off. He was two hours late two work, because he’d had to stop at an electronics store to get a replacement charger.

He’d apologized profusely to Angela, but she’d said it was no big deal. She’d looked a little wild-eyed from dealing with pretentious and asshole customers though, so Geno had given her a two hour lunch.

Geno doesn’t know how it happened, but he gets food poisoning at lunch. It’s a place he goes to quite often, and he’s never had any problems with them before, but about a half hour after he eats his lunch it’s making a disgusting return in the employee bathroom.

Angela tries to convince him to go home early, but he refuses to do that to her. She has her own schedule and her own life outside of work, and he refuses to let her take on extra hours when she’s already had a hectic day thanks to him. He sends her home on time, and makes it through most of the last few hours feeling gross and kinda sweaty and nauseous enough that moving too fast makes him gag.

He closes up a whole hour early after he gives all the animals their food and ensures their environments are clean and any bathroom breaks have been taken care of.

He takes some pepto and takes a nap when he gets home, because he still feels tragically awful. He feels better enough when his alarm goes off that he feels perfectly fine not informing Sidney of his early mishap and continuing on a date he’s pretty desperate to actually have happen.

His good slacks don’t fit anymore, is the problem. He hasn’t really gained weight, but he has lost some muscle mass since he doesn’t really work out a lot anymore, and the pants hang off him pathetically. Two of his remaining pairs of slacks smell slightly musty from being left to hang in his closet for who knows how long, and somehow his third pair has a large, dark stain around the crotch.

He goes with the good slacks, and hopes he doesn’t look like a child playing dress up in his dad’s clothes.

And when he goes for a button up, he realizes that he’s got two clean ones, having meant to do laundry for the past week and never quite getting to it. His choices are an off-white one with slightly grey pit stains or a pea-green one that he’s sure will make his slightly sick looking complexion even more washed out.

He settles for a baby blue polo and hopes Sidney doesn’t mind that he’s not dressed super formal.

He thanks his lucky stars that his dress shoes are still in good condition and still fit him.

Geno puts on his fanciest watch, and swears when he looks at it. Is it really that late? He checks his phone and swears again, because it is that late. Even with his usual speeding habit, there’s a good chance he’s going to be late.

He sends a text to Sidney letting him know, then jumps in his car. And gets pulled over for doing ten over. He tries to sweet talk his way out of a ticket, or at least get the man to write faster than his mother types, but by the time he gets to the restaurant he’s a full half hour late.

He has five glorious minutes of peace and quiet. The waitress kindly leads him to a semi-isolated table in the back. Sidney looks bored and a little put out in the moment before he lifts his eyes and sees Geno approaching, and then his face lights up and Geno can forgive the frankly awful beard when it surrounds a smile that beautiful and sweet.

He gives Geno an appreciative up and down look, and Geno preens.

Sidney stands as he approaches and pulls him into a hug, which Geno returns happily. He just wants to stand there in the arms of this wonderful man and never leave, but they’re in public and the waitress is still standing close by--presumably to get Geno’s drink order--so the hug is just shy of perfunctory and then they’re both sitting.

Geno gets water, and then they’re left alone. Geno finds what he wants, and when he looks up Sidney is watching him with a soft smile on his face. Geno reaches a hesitant hand across the table to him and Sidney takes it and laces their fingers. It makes Geno’s chest feel fit to burst with happiness.

And then someone passes the table with a tray of plates full of steaming food. The smell of food wafts over to their table and Geno can feel himself go green as he breaks out in a light sweat.

“Be right back,” Geno says, and nearly jumps to his feet. He walks as fast as he can without seeming frantic to the nearest bathroom, then locks himself in the first open stall to dry heave until he pukes bile.

At this point he can tell that he’s sweated through his shirt and his hair is soaked. He’s sure the only color in his face right now is grey.

He must be in the bathroom for longer than he thinks because he hears someone enter the bathroom and then a tentative, “Geno?”

Geno groans, partly because he feels like shit, and partly because he can’t believe he’s ruined their first and long awaited date because he ate some bad chicken. He kind of wants to curl into a ball and die.

“Yeah, Sid,” Geno asks from his stall, and he knows he sounds rough. He hears Sidney walk over to his stall, and reaches behind him to undo the latch on the door.

“Oh, buddy,” Sidney says, and then he feels a hand on his back, rubbing soothing circles, “Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling bad?”

“Wanted...” Geno gives a shallow burp-gag, and spits more bile into the toilet, “was so excited for date with you. Knew you were excited too. Didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Sidney is silent for a moment, still rubbing gently at his back.

“How about,” he said slowly, “you head home--“ Geno groaned in protest. “Hold on, G, let me finish.

“You head home, and get into something comfortable, and I’ll meet you there.”

“No fun when I’m sick,” Geno said sadly.

“Look, whether we go to some big fancy restaurant, or go to a movie, or we stay in and watch Netflix and cuddle on the couch, I just want to spend time with you.”

“Me too.”

Geno stands with help and washes his face with a damp paper towel. Sidney guides him to the front, and apologizes profusely to the waitstaff. And then Geno is deposited into his car with the promise that Sidney will be over soon.

Geno drives carefully home, afraid that if he doesn’t he’ll throw up in his car. He leaves a trail of clothes to his bedroom, then puts on his most comfortable sweats and a t-shirt. He grabs a heat patch from the box in his bathroom because all that heaving has left his back twinging, and then drags his duvet from his bed to his couch.

Sidney shows up twenty minutes later with takeout chicken noodle soup, in beautifully tailored jeans and a soft looking cardigan. Once they’ve both eaten, Sidney lays lengthwise on the couch and pulls Geno until he’s laying mostly on him, practically swaddled in his blanket. Sidney sets an alarm on his phone for the morning, presses play on some boring documentary sure to put Geno to sleep, and then runs his fingers through Geno’s hair.

“Sorry I ruin our date,” Geno says as he begins to drift off.

“This is still good,” Sidney assures him. Geno falls asleep with a small smile on his face.

[fuckyeahalexjo]

can you please do a fic where alex tells jo how he became an intern at the hospital by writing an essay saying that he had testicular cancer?

The wind seemed to be picking up again as Jo nestled closer to Alex. Her hand ran up and down his chest as she nuzzled his jaw line with her nose, occasionally placing kisses on his neck. He chuckled low in his chest, “I need another minute.”

Jo ran her leg up between his, her foot pressing up again his calf as she moaned, “You said that five minutes ago. What happened to the second honeymoon?”

He chuckled louder this time and bent to kiss her hair, “Jo, some married couples don’t have this much sex in an entire year. I’m getting old, I need a break.” He pulled back to see her looking at him with doe eyes, her hand inching lower as he rolled his eyes at her, “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

“But what a way to go right?” When he gave her patient grin, she rolled her eyes at him and started to get out of the bed, “Guess I should check the weather.”

Alex reached for her arm and pulled on her playfully, “You don’t have to go.” Jo turned to smirk at his exaggerated pleading, “I mean, we could just lay here and talk for a bit.”

Her brows knotted in question, “Talk about what?”

“I dunno. We just…we don’t get many days like this and I’m sure there are…things. You know…”

Jo sighed as she lay back down, “What is it?”

“Why are you mad?” he asked as he propped himself up on his elbow.

Jo laughed up at him as she laid flat on her back, his eyes wide at her reaction, “I wasn’t mad. You just seem to have something specific in mind so spit it out already.”

“It’s just…why don’t we each tell the other something we don’t know. You know…just to pass the time,” he suggested timidly, his eyebrows raised pleadingly.

“Ooookay,” Jo agreed hesitantly, still not convinced about his motives. “I hate carrot cake.”

“I already knew that.”

“Okay, I hate carrot cake cause it’s the last thing I ate before I got sick this one time. Stupid stuff came out through my nose. It was terrible.”

Alex gazed at her in disbelief, “Wow, I feel like I know you so much better now.”

She looked on in surprise as he lay back down, seemingly agitated, “Alex? Alex, come on. What did you want me to say?”

“Something….meaningful.” Jo propped up on her elbow to be able to look at him better and arched a brow in question. She could see his walls crumbling as he sighed and rubbed his face, “It’s just…Linc pops up and you’re all ‘he’s like a brother’ and you’ve never mentioned him once. It just sometimes feels like there are these huge gaps with you that I know nothing about.”

“Wow, okay. Well to start with, I have mentioned Linc before. Maybe I didn’t use his name or maybe I did and you just didn’t latch onto it.”

Alex shook his head, “No, no I would have remembered…”

“I told you about spilling the coffee on that rude woman right? When I was waitressing?” When Alex nodded slowly, “Yeah, Linc’s all in that story. Maybe I didn’t call him by name and only called him my friend, buddy, or fellow peon, but I talked about him. But come on Alex, you can’t possibly expect to know every detail of my life before you.” When Alex sighed and averted his eyes, Jo bit her lip anxiously, “Is this about Paul? Deep down? You’re scared of what secret may be next?”

At this, his head snapped around to show a look of complete surprise, “What? No!”

“It’s not that big of a jump. To be honest, it always amazed me that you took that so well, but maybe you just shoved it down and it’s been festering?” He continued to look at her in bewilderment as Jo reached for a shirt to put on, “It’s fine.”

“Jo, Jo wait,” he tried to stop her, but kept himself from touching her, instead rolling out of bed on his side and throwing on some boxers, “Stop for a second will you?”

Jo pulled up a pair of athletic shorts as she looked at him in amusement, “Where exactly am I going to go in this big of a wind storm?” When he gave a lopsided grin she shrugged and went to the refrigerator, “I’d just prefer to not talk about him while naked if you don’t mind. You want a beer?”

“Yeah, thanks,” he tossed over his shoulder as he went back to his closet to pull out a shirt and jeans, “And for the record, I don’t…I don’t dwell on that, I guess for lack of a better way of putting it.”

Jo snorted as she sat his beer on the coffee table and curled up on the cushions, her back to the arm of the chair, “I would hope not, it’d make you crazy. Besides, you’d have to be a pretty big asshole to pursue me to start things up again if that was bothering you. And you’re not an asshole.”

“Good to know my wife does not think I’m an asshole,” he smiled at her as he plopped down on the couch at her feet before becoming serious, “But like I’ve said before: if my mom had had the chance to get out, I would want her to take it. I will never fault you for that and I understand why you did what you did.”

Jo gave a small smile of appreciation. The pause lingered for a moment before she quirked a brow, “But…”

“You recognized his voice in passing in a busy hallway while arguing with me,” he tried to explain with his palms in the air and his voice rising in pitch, “It’s just weird to me that you’ve never mentioned him, that’s all.”

Jo took a drink from her beer as she tried to not laugh, “Do you want me to bring Lexie Grey into this?”

“What does Lexie have to do with anything?”

“Oh come on, Alex. Your best friend’s sister, who died tragically right before I stepped foot into the hospital, who was your roommate, who you dated….”

“Okay, but it wasn’t like that…,” Alex protested as he took her feet into his lap to rub them mindlessly.

“But still, we were dating what…? A year? Two? And that was after we spent almost a year hanging out every night and you never mentioned her. Hell, I didn’t even know Grey had another sister.”

“That’s different!”

“How?”

Alex shook his head as he stumbled for the words, “We’ve been together four? Five years? And you say he was like a brother, right?”

“And like I said, I’ve mentioned him before. You never mentioned Lexie. But it doesn’t matter, my point is you can’t know every single thing about me. You want to know about every single person I’ve ever met? That’s dozens of foster homes, hundreds of foster siblings, probably thousands of teachers and coaches and church and synagogue members and neighbors and coworkers and classmates. There’s no way I would ever be able to tell you about everyone I’ve ever met.”

Alex sighed and readjusted to be angled more towards her, “Okay, hit me.”

Her eyebrows shot up as she stared at him over the beer that she had just raised to her lips, “What?”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” When the silence stretched, he let out a breath and leaned back further into the cushions as his hands continued to massage her feet, “Fine, I’ll start. Did I ever tell you how I got into the internship program?”

Jo’s eyes danced in amusement as she scooted herself closer, “No, but this sounds promising.”

“For my application, I explained away my bad grades by saying I had a…uh…medical issue that kept me from attending class. My…well all of my family had issues and I really had a hard time making it to all my classes and paying attention when I did go, so I…um…said…well….”

Jo chuckled at him, “Oh my God, what?!”

Alex grunted to himself as he tried to stand, “You know what, this was a bad idea. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“The carrot cake was a catalyst,” Jo interjected quickly to keep him from getting up, having grown excited by the chance to learn more about her husband. Alex stared at her with wide piercing eyes, waiting for her to continue, “I was getting poisoned by a foster parent. I think…maybe she put too much in it. It…it made me sick quicker than the other things. I think that’s why I remember it best.”

Alex looked at her sorrowfully, “Munchausen by Proxy?”

She shrugged nonchalantly, “Medical subsidy. I think she already didn’t like me, so watching me suffer was a plus, but if I had some strange unknown illness, it was worth more.” She shrugged again, “It turned out alright.”

Alex shook his head sadly, but kept his emotions in check to match her blasé mood, “Is that why you have no ass?”

Jo laughed and shoved him on the shoulder playfully, “I don’t recall hearing any complaints before, Mister.”

“Oh no, no complaints at all,” he responded with a smug grin causing her to shake her head in amusement.

“So what did your essay say?”

Alex took a long drink from his bottle, “That I had testicular cancer and…well…”

Jo began choking on her beer, “Wait, wait, you’d rather the world think you were down one ball than to say that your family had issues you had to handle? Seriously?”

Alex shrugged, “At the time I thought it was less embarrassing, besides I thought the medical side of it would score points. You know, explain why I was wanting to go into surgery because of my tragic health crisis, blah, blah, blah.”

She smiled warmly at him and shook her head, “So what did lead you to surgery other than the pride of being badass? Or was that the only reason?”

“Oh no,” he interjected playfully, “It’s your turn again.”