#glossary's

[unboundprompts]

Pirate Terms and Phrases

-> Pirate Lingo

-> A Pirate's Glossary

Batten Down The Hatches - tie everything down and put stuff away for a coming storm.

Brig - a prison on a ship.

Bring a Spring Upon 'er - turn the ship in a different direction

Broadside - the most vulnerable angle of a ship that runs the length of the boat.

Cutlass - a thick, heavy and rather short sword blade.

Dance with Jack Ketch - to hang; death at the hands of the law (Jack Ketch was a famed English executioner).

Davy Jones's Locker - a mythical place at the bottom of the ocean where drowned sailors are said to go.

Dead Men Tell No Tales - the reason given for leaving no survivors.

Flogging - severe beating of a person.

Gangplank - removable ramp between the pier and ship.

Give No Quarter - show no mercy.

Jack - flag flown at the front of the ship to show nationality.

Jolly Roger - black pirate flag with a white skull and crossbones.

Keelhaul - a punishment where someone is dragged under the ship. They are cut by the planks and barnacles on the bottom of the ship.

Landlubber - an inexperienced or clumsy person who doesn't have any sailing skills.

Letters of Marque - government-issued letters allowing privateers the right to piracy of another ship during wartime.

Man-O-War - a pirate ship that is decked out and prepared for battle.

Maroon - to leave someone stranded on a. deserted island with no supplies, typically a punishment for any crew members who disrespected the captain.

Mutiny - a situation in which the crew chooses a new captain, sometimes by forcibly removing the old one.

No Prey, No Pay - a common pirate law that meant crew members were not paid, but rather received a share of whatever loot was taken.

Old Salt - experienced pirate or sailor.

Pillage - to steal/rob a place using violence.

Powder Monkeys - men that performed the most dangerous work on the ship. They were treated harshly, rarely paid, and were expendable.

Privateer - government-appointed pirates.

Run A Shot Across the Bow - fire a warning shot at another boat's Captain.

Scurvy - a disease caused by Vitamin C Deficiency.

Sea Legs - when a sailor adjusts his balance from riding on a boat for a long time.

Strike Colors - lower a ship's flag to indicate surrender.

Weigh Anchor and Hoist the Mizzen - an order to the crew to pull up the anchor and get the ship sailing.

If you like what I do and want to support me, please consider buying me a coffee! I also offer editing services and other writing advice on my Ko-fi! Become a member to receive exclusive content, early access, and prioritized writing prompt requests.

[science-lings]

God, I love it when people who clearly have personal experience or expert knowledge on certain things write obscure AUs that incorporate those things so hyperspecifically that I feel like I'm learning something.

I love nurses who write hospital AUs that have accurate medical knowledge just thrown in there because they went to medical school and when people who clearly had a phase where they obsessed over a certain time period write an AU set in that time period or location it's just so fun.

Tell me about the 1950s Chicago culture and history and how the characters are interracial and how that affects their life, I love when the money is accurately converted and the personal histories of the characters are thoughtfully woven to incorporate the new setting they're put in, I love it when people care so much about making something and use their own expertise to aide them.

[watermarkglossary]

PURPOSE The Watermark Glossary is as its name implies: a glossary of Call of Duty artist's watermarks. With the rise of artwork being taken and reposted, this blog will serve as a way for someone to inform the artist. This blog won't prevent artwork from being taken, but it will be able to notify the effected artist that its happened.

Even if you're not an artist, creating a link on your own socials or posting about this watermark glossary will help spread the word. Artists supporting artists.

WHAT_TO_DO If you believe a piece of art has been taken/reposted on another social media site, we've provided a list of watermarks from all participating artists organized via art style. Please keep in mind this site is intended to inform the artist, not call out the person who took the art. It is the artist's prerogative to determine what should be done. If you wish to call attention to the person who did take the art, then please do so on your own socials, not this one.

HOW_TO_JOIN • Follow the Watermark Glossary if you have a Tumblr account. • Post a link back to the Watermark Gallery's page on one of your social's about page (we are helping get the word out about you, please help get the word out about us). • Use the "Message Me" button to send a copy of your watermark (no larger than 200x200 pixels) with three of your social media handles/names (please provide the social media platform & handle, not a hyperlink - we will do that on our end).

GUIDELINES Art is a very broad term. So we will accept most styles/types. Digital, 3D, 2D. We will not accept submissions from blogs that are primarily NSFW. We also will not be accepting fanfic. This blog is intended for a visual art style.

SOCIAL_MEDIA We will post links for most major social media platforms (DeviantArt, ArtStation, Instagram, TikTok, X-aka-Twitter). We will not accept for-profit/subscription sitelinks (Patreon, Ko-Fi).

FEEDBACK If you have any suggestions and/or feedback, please leave it HERE. As I am only one person doing this, I appreciate any constructive comments to help improve the experience.

ARTISTS_3D • Page 001

ARTISTS_2D • Page 001

[fanlore-wiki]

Terminology Thursday: Idfic

For this week’s Terminology Thursday we’re celebrating those fics which you know are (sometimes) kind of terrible, but just seem to scratch the right part of your brain: Idfic!

What makes an idfic is different for everyone: it’s not exactly good fic or badfic, but it’s compelling because it satisfies particular kinks, either sexual or emotional. This could be a crackfic which follows a ridiculous premise to its silly conclusion, or a fic about something you might consider “wrong” in real life but love in fiction — as long as it appeals to your id!

Learn more about idfic on Fanlore!

---------

We value every contribution to our shared fandom history. If you’re new to editing Fanlore or wikis in general, visit our New Visitor Portal to get started or ask us questions here!

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

Found a post in my drafts from early November about how I was beginning to figure out the rules of Wooster English. 33 short stories and 5 novels later I nearly forgot how much trouble I had with the language when I started but it genuinely is like learning an unfamiliar dialect

[virtues-end]

Okay, but to be fair the influx of horny asks started when Crim write, and I quote: "#would Shea even need to enforce the bond between you I wonder #or are you so eager to please #so eager to heel #you'd destroy the world for them" end quote. I think it gives us some horny rights.

But also what even is "enforce the bond"? Did I miss something or is it just yet to be seen? Sounds ominous as all hell to be honest

Shea hasn't yet used this ability in the story, though they might've had to use it in the past (depending on how recalcitrant you headcanon your helvling, lol).

The long and short of it is that through the Bond, a Keeper can control a helvling's actions via so-called 'Words of Power', magical command words. These are one-word commands (such as 'attack', 'stop', 'kneel', that sort of thing) and are near impossible to resist.

This is how most Keepers control their helvlings. Shea is extremely reluctant to use them, however, and will only do so as a last resort.

[incorrect-star-allies]

Flamberge: You think that’s cringe? Moms around the world wait 9 months just to end up naming their kid Magolor.

Magolor: Hey, fuck you.

[zal-cryptid]

Toyfolk Glossary Masterpost

Collected in this masterpost is a glossary of terms concerning the worldbuilding of my series Misfits in Toyland.

Toyland - A phantom island of games and toys inhabited by the toyfolk. Also known as the Land of Toys, Island of Misfit Toys, the Doll Kingdom, and Merryland. Although autonomously ruled and governed by a monarch, it belongs to its creator, Krampus. It exists in a parallel plane of existence that dances in tandem with the mortal realm known as the Otherworld.

Toyfolk - People who’ve been transformed into living toys and sent to Toyland as punishment for their misdeeds by Krampus. This punishment is reserved only for adults. They don't possess any vital functions and thus have no need to eat, drink, or breathe.

Rule of Play - the magic that allows toyfolk to interact with toys as if they were real simply by playing pretend with them. For example, toyfolk can move their bodies simply by pretending that they can, despite not having muscles, a nervous system, or any of the necessary organs. Same goes to their ability to speak and sense the world around them. Externally, they can make any toy real for them by interacting with it as if it were real - such as pretending to eat toy food in order to mimic the sensation of eating. There are, of course, limitations to the Rule of Play. For example, it cannot be used to create life (playing with a normal doll or a toy animal won’t cause it to come to life) or cause death (playing dead won’t cause suicide). Toyfolk roleplaying with each other can even temporarily alter their perception.

Phantom Nervous System - named after Phantom Limb Pain, the Phantom Nervous System is what allows the toyfolk to move without muscles, see without eyes, hear without ears, taste without tongues, think without brains, and even feel (temperature, texture, pain, erogenous stimulation, etc.,), all without possessing any organs or nerves. Toyfolk are essentially undead - the mind and soul bound to a lifeless object and animated by magic.

Toy Fugue - Named after Dissociative Fugue (although the two should not be conflated), Toy Fugue is an altered mental state where Toyfolk lose their memories and sense of identity. Their minds are subsumed by their Toy Brain and form a new identity based around the type of toy they are. Toy Fugue is a mental escape triggered by traumatic events and emotionally distressing experiences. It’s often the end result of those who fail to find a way to cope with an existential crisis. Unlike dissociative fugue, Toy Fugue isn’t temporary, nor does it cause one to wander. While some have been able to snap out of it, others may be doomed to remain that way for the rest of their lives.

Toy Brain - also known as Play Brain, refers to the “programming” that all toyfolk have that gives them a collection of instinctive urges to play the part of whatever type of toy they are. Many struggle to find a balance between these urges and their own personalities, and it's a great source of discomfort for many of the toyfolk. Much like a Chinese Finger Trap, attempts to resist these urges will only cause them to intensify and worsen. If toyfolk fail to control their urges, their urges will ultimately end up controlling them and descend into Toy Fugue. These urges can range from specific (such as tea parties) to more broad (such as animal behaviours).

Magic - Magic works differently in the Mundane World than it does in the Otherworld. One can be forgiven in thinking magic doesnt exist in our world, but the truth is exists in its most fundamental and purest form - imagination. In its passive form, it manifests as thoughts, ideas, creativity, emotions, and problem-solving. In its most active form, it can manifest as psionics (also known as psychic powers and ESP). Long-term exposure to another plane will cause an entity to slowly acclimatize to the laws of that reality.

Wind-Up Keys - Wind-up keys have the ability to temporarily influence a wind-up toyfolk's personality and behaviour. Each key contains toy brain traits of the wind-up toy it came from. For example, a toy soldier wound up with a music box key would suddenly start to act more feminine and want to dance like a ballerina.

Voice Boxes - While most toyfolk are able to speak through the Rule of Play, those with voice boxes are bound to the rules of the voice box. Those with pull-strings, for example, cannot speak unless their pull-string is pulled. The voice box isn't just an analog for the larynx, but also functions as the speech center of the brain (particularily the Broca's Area). It contains their voice, vocabulary, speech patterns, accent, language, everything. Damage to this aparatus may cause something akin to aphasia, dysphasia, or dysarthria.

Playing Dress-Up - For dress-up dolls, costumes and outfits can influence their behaviour and personality. For example, a business suit could make them feel and act confident, a girly dress could make them feel and act girly, a maid uniform could make them feel and act like a maid, a collar could make them feel like a pet, so on and so forth. The affects are temporary, only lasting as long as they're wearing the outfit, but their original outfit they ever wore as a toyfolk gets imprinted into their toy brain, making it their default trait.

Currency - The official currency of Toyland is the Standard 52-card deck of French-suited playing cards. Playing cards were chosen over play money on account of the fact they couldn't decide on which nation's or board game's play money to use. They ended up turning to Quebecois history for inspiration. Playing-card money was a type of paper money used periodically in New France from 1685 to the British Conquest in 1763.

[httpsserene]

ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴛʜʏ ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀ - serene: 20. she/her. black. f1 side blog.

📍 requests: CLOSED join taglist glossary index upcoming chapters table of contents

latest releases:

summer 'twenty two - cs. 55 & ln. 4 sip of sunshine toc

seal you later toc - aa. 23

hot and ready - op.81

© httpsserene - header made in and from pinterest. do not reupload any content found on this blog.

[shepherds-of-haven]

lena you can’t just reblog a poll that has the option “sex pollen” and not acknowledge that

Wait, how was I supposed to acknowledge it? 🥹 Are you all not filthy heathens like me…?

[unboundprompts]

Hello! Could you do a cowboy/wild west terms & phrases?

Thank you!

Cowboy / Wild West Terms and Phrases

-> The Chief Storyteller

-> Cowboyaccountant

A Lick and a Promise - to do haphazardly.

Above Snakes - If you were “above snakes,” you were above ground; still alive.

Acknowledge the Corn - admit the truth, to confess a lie, or acknowledge an obvious personal shortcoming.

An Invite to a Dance - could mean shooting at a man’s feet to make him dance.

Bake - to overheat a horse by riding too fast, long, or hard.

Barkin’ at a Knot - Doing something useless; wasting your time, trying something impossible.

Barn sour - horse that loves his stall; speeds up the pace as he nears the barn on the journey home.

Bedroll - Blankets rolled and carried for sleeping.  Also called sugans, soogans, hot rolls, or dream sacks.

Bee in Your Bonnet -  An idea.

Boondocks, Boonies - far from civilization.

Broom-Tail -  a negative term for an ill-behaved or ugly horse, often a horse that looks or acts like a mustang.

Burn the Breeze - ride at full speed.

Chuckwagon - A wagon used to carry food on a cattle drive, which also serves as a mobile kitchen.

Clipped his Horns -  took him down a notch or two; referring to a fight or a braggart.

Cowboss -  In charge of the cattle operation on a ranch.  They choose where the cowboys will ride and hire and fire cowboys.  Answers to the general manager or ranch owner.

Curly wolf -  real tough guy, dangerous man.

Dilly-dally - loiter or vacillate.

Flannel mouth - overly smooth or fancy talker, especially politicians or salesmen. 

Night-Wrangler -  A cowboy that herds and cares for the saddle horses during the night. 

Pull in your horns -  back off, quit looking for trouble.

Rustler -  A horse or cattle thief.

That Dog Won’t Hunt - That idea or argument isn’t going to work. Or, the person saying it doesn’t believe what you’re saying.

Will Die Standin’ Up -  brave

If you like what I do and want to support me, please consider buying me a coffee! I also offer editing services and other writing advice on my Ko-fi! Become a member to receive exclusive content, early access, and prioritized writing prompt requests.

[bagofbonesmp3]

a glossary of haunting by eve tuck and c. ree

[metalhoops]

There are lots of modern aus with rockstar Eddie, and actor or professional sportsman Steve but I propose professional wrestler Steddie. I know this is niche, but hear me out. Wrestling is the perfect mix of sports (Steve) and drama/ camp (Eddie). 

You have a baby face Steve Harrington, who the crowd adores because he’s charismatic on the mic and not afraid to get a little bloody in his matches. Then you have heel Eddie who the crowd loves to hate. He’s got a Lost Boys-style vampire gimmick going on, heavy metal entrance music and has adopted the habit of walking in through the crowds. He’s amazing in tables matches and will take any opportunity to do a choke slam through the announce desk. 

The two don’t face each other in the ring often because Steve’s in a longtime feud with Billy Hargrove, whose a hell of a heel but downright dangerous in and out of the ring. He often refuses to sell for Steve and to make matters worse he’s a fan of not pulling his punches. 

Eddie and Steve don’t talk much in the locker rooms, they run in different circles and Eddie has the sneaking suspicion Steve is a stuck-up asshole (he’s not).  

They end up in a Royal Rumble match, where thirty-odd competitors get in a ring and fight to be the last one standing. Eddie’s sticking to the script. He keeps close to the guy he’s in a feud with until he catches Steve take a bump out of the corner of his eye. Billy’s on him and he’s not pulling his punches. Steve’s nose is gushing. The producers will be pissed because the T.V. network is getting squeamish about showing lots of blood. It’s not the 80s anymore. People don’t do that. 

Against his better judgment, Eddie decides to go off script. He takes Billy by surprise and manages to get him over the top rope. He wasn’t supposed to win anyway, so it wasn’t like they were going to dock his pay. He might get hazed in the locker room but that was a worry for another day. 

To Eddie’s surprise, Steve looks at him and shoots him a brilliant smile, his teeth filled with blood, his eyes shimmering with mischief. Someone tries to grapple with Eddie from behind but Steve intercepts, saving his ass. Eddie wasn’t meant to win the match either but he wanted as much airtime as he could get. He hates to admit it but he and Steve make a good team. Viewers seemed to agree. 

The next day Eddie is approached by his manager, telling him the higher-ups want him and Steve as a tag team. Which means one of two things. He and Steve were going to see a lot more of one another, and for once, Eddie was going to have to play the role of the good guy. It ends with them getting up way too close and personal in practice and pining hard over one another. 

[mylittleredgirl]

happy easter to hawkeye setting up margaret/trapper instead of joining in

(from 1 x 24 "showtime." for @remyfire, bearer of the margaret/trapper torch this week)

[alchemistc]

goon | bucktommy | chapter four

check out the hockey glossary here (updated through chapter four)

Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three

credit to weatherwaxed for the truly horrendous and accurate hockey nickname for Tommy

read Chapter Four on ao3

Tommy’s ears are still ringing.

Kane’s been sent off for a game misconduct, and Diaz’s nose doesn’t seem to be too much worse for the wear, although he’s going to have a nasty shiner on both eyes by the time this game is through. Hen’s done what she can to patch them both up, while Nash talks them through how the hell they’re going to come back from a four goal deficit in twenty minutes, in Edmonton, with McDavid on a hot streak and Hyman one goal away from a hatty.

Tommy’s already done his part — with the Oilers up by three Kane had taken a run at Diaz, elbow angled just right to get him right beneath the bucket, square between his eyes, and Tommy had almost jumped the gun trying to get on the ice before anyone could skate off to give him the opportunity. No call, of course, just the jeers of eighteen thousand or so fans while McKinley screamed at the refs, but the whistle had given Nash the opportunity to throw Tommy out on the ice, and Knoblauch had left Kane out to take his lumps, no doubt certain a fight would just keep the momentum rolling.

Kane had gotten his licks. It’d been a fairly evenly matched fight, right up until Tommy had squirmed his way out from the sweater Kane had been attempting to trap him in and gone full tilt with just shoulder pads for his opponent to try to get leverage with.

His knuckles are split. He can still taste the blood in his mouth. He’s running hot, even now, knee jumping up and down with no conscious effort as he listens to coach try to rally them, but Edmonton had scored almost immediately after Kane had been sent off for chirping a ref after serving his five, and they’re short on momentum, at the moment. It’s been a span of rough days — losing at home to the two-seed in their division, ending the home winning streak. Two new guys slotted into the lineup post-trade deadline who haven’t had the time to build up the chemistry they need. Two back-to-backs with travel time in a week and a half.

They’re tired. They’re annoyed with each other. They keep fumbling the puck in the neutral zone and giving Edmonton the chance to skate it in without challenge. Tommy’d won the fight and it hadn’t rallied shit, and honestly? Tommy’s a little annoyed about that. Kane’s not an easy down, and Tommy’d had him on the ice taking a fist to the gut before stripes had managed to separate them.

This is the point in the game where Tommy cedes his ice time to the skill players — the speedsters, the play-makers, who are all staring at Nash right now like they’re thinking about the mini-bars in their hotel rooms.

Tommy is annoyed.

Nash ends his spiel with five minutes left to go in the intermission and disappears out into the hallway. That’s not abnormal — for all his quiet confidence he’s rarely a hype-man. The problem is right now no one is a fucking hype man.

Tommy shifts his weight, eyes on Diaz as Panikkar mumbles to himself next to him. The ice he’s had on his hand is already too warm to be doing much, and he’s halfway to standing up and spending the next four minutes trying to convince Hen that frozen packs of peas are actually miles better than her gel-packs when he notices one of the new guys shooting him a shifty look.

“Skinner’s taking chances behind the net because he thinks we won’t take advantage of them,” Tommy says, just loud enough to lower the volume of the sporadic chatter. “Hyman’s been nursing his left side all game from the stinger in the first, and they’re leaving gaps in coverage all over the ice. We’ve played this game before. We’ve won this game before.” Two weeks ago, on home ice, with the ability to make the last change and a team fully refreshed after the All-Star break, but Tommy doesn’t feel like that part is necessary to point out. “We’re passing too much, and we’re spinning our wheels for the perfect shot when we should be shooting everything at the net. We’re not gonna get a lucky fucking bounce if we’re all doing geometry on the move trying to find a lane.”

“Great points,” Ravi says, the bratty little tone of his voice betraying him, and Tommy presses his weight down on the bench in an effort not to pick a fight. “Or maybe they’re on three days of rest and a heater.”

Tommy rolls his tongue over his teeth, darts a glance around the room. Three minutes to puck drop, and the room is ready to pack it in. “Anyone else gonna tell me why I wasted a fight on this?” Across the room, Diaz smirks at him, and a few of them shift in their seats. “Or do we wanna put on our big boy pants and play out the next twenty minutes like they mean something?”

As far as rousing speeches go, it’s no St. Crispin’s. But McKinley’s admonished look shifts into that blank-faced zen stare he gets sometimes, right before he runs it up, and the new guys seem to have a bit more energy.

The time ticks down, and they head down the tunnel, and Tommy takes a seat on the bench, fully prepared for his little pep talk to fall on deaf ears.

Buckley shifts closer to Tommy as they all scoot down the bench, three shifts into the third. "McDavid's injured," he says unprompted, and Tommy shoots him a look from behind his visor. "Listen, I know it sounds crazy but he's weak on his left wing right now, and I have a plan."

"You tell Nash this plan?"

"Next time you're out with us, just get to the net."

"Buckley, if I'm out for more than thirty seconds we've already lost this game."

"Just get to the net, Kinard."

Tommy can't help the snotty little salute he sends Buck's way, but three minutes later he's chasing down Ravi, for once grateful that his speed is shit because it means he's never in danger of an offsides call when Panikkar skates the puck in past the blue line. Diaz and Buckley aren't far behind him, so Tommy shoulders his way past two Oilers and plants himself in front of the net.

And then they're passing.

This shits not gonna work. He can feel Skinner behind him, trying to pick out the puck between the bodies blocking his view, and Tommy takes a moment to watch Diaz circling, and Buckley quarterbacking from the top of the zone, Ravi searching out a lane while Buck tosses it back to Landstrom, who returns it to Buck. Near the top of the circles McDavid is skating into the passes and nursing his left side.

Shit.

Buck's right.

Tommy shifts to the other side of the crease. He's got Hyman unknowingly screening the left side of the net, and if Buck can get some separation between Nurse and McDavid --

The puck comes screaming in on Hyman's right, and Tommy shifts his stick, angles it and —

He doesn't even fucking care if it hits Hyman or his stick before it tips into the net over Skinner's shoulder. The crowd noise drops off, and Diaz and Buckley are speeding towards him.

The three of them go slamming into the boards, Diaz and Buckley shouting incomprehensibly, and then Ravi and Landstrom are there too. One of them has a hand on his bucket, shaking his head indiscriminately back and forth, and another one is yelling, and over on the bench, in the sudden deadening of the crowd noise, he can hear Donato and McKinley both celebrating, sticks smacking against the boards.

Tommy’s already halfway to the bench when Diaz and Buckley both have to circle back and send him to the front of their line for glove taps, and as he clambers back over the boards to greet a full barrage of back slaps and bucket-smacks, the refs actually have to come over and warn them to cool it with the celebration.

Buckley settles onto the bench next to him with a bright grin as Nash sends out their second line. “Told you,” he says, the sparkle in his eyes almost cartoonish against the harsh glare of the ice, and before Tommy can think of anything clever to say, he’s turning back to Diaz and the iPad.

---

Tie game, with three minutes left, and the Bobby Blender has somehow worked well enough to give them a chance to win this game. Tommy’s been out for maybe a minute and a half of the last fifteen. He’s feeling pretty fucking good about both the fight, and the dubiously moralizing speech he’d made, when McDavid intercepts a sloppy pass and suddenly has open ice between the blue line and the net.

There’s a certain noise, that happens in an arena, when a particular player has possession of the the puck and speed on his side. A sudden hush, the air being sucked out of the room, before a wild roar taken up by thousands upon thousands of voices, and as Buckley and Diaz chase him down Tommy’s waiting for the inevitable sound of the goal buzzer.

Chim pulls off a stunner of a poke check half a foot outside his crease and while McDavid spins into the turn behind the net, looking about ready to break his stick on the boards, Buckley and Diaz have caught Edmonton in a change — it’s a dumb change, Tommy has no idea why they’d chosen a breakaway as the moment to swap out players, but Diaz has a sheet of free ice to pass it off to McKinley, who is screaming down the ice.

Tommy checks the clock. A minute forty, and McKinley makes a clean break between two Oilers down the stretch, and then he’s free as a fucking bird, ten feet between him and the crease — five, and Skinner miscalculates exactly how many dekes McKinley has in him; the puck slides in five hole and Buckley and Diaz circle up while the entire bench explodes around Tommy.

---

Across the table, Buckley keeps shooting him looks. He’s grown familiar with some of Evan Buckley’s looks, over the past month or so, but he can’t quite parse this one. Before he can raise a brow, tilt his head, try to figure out exactly what the look had all been about, Buck shifts his gaze to Nash, up the table, telling a story about one of his fights when he’d played for the Stingrays.

Next to him, Eddie taps at his shoulder again, phone out to show him yet another comment thread about Tommy’s fight. This one seems to be slightly less horny than the last one, but he’s still not entirely sure he understands why Diaz hops on there so often.

Eddie chuckles when Tommy gets three comments down and rolls his eyes before returning to his food, and across the table, Buck turns to look at them both again. When he catches Tommy looking back, his eyes swivel away.

“No, hold on, listen to this one: Nards could drop me like he dropped Kane tonight and I’d still beg him to —.”

“—Okay,” Tommy interrupts, and Eddie cackles, fingers darting across his phones keyboard like he’s about to do something Josh Russo will absolutely take umbrage with.

“Telling you not to send that reply is just an exercise in futility, isn’t it?”

Eddie raises a brow, lips pursed while he continues to type. He hums. “Josh is gonna be pissed I’m not using my burner account right now. Muy inapropiado.”

Tommy’s not great with Spanish, but it’s not really a stretch to decipher that one. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Buckley leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, a look of consternation on his face, gaze focused intently on whatever story O’Connor is telling now.

“Don’t show it to me. I want to have the ability to claim ignorance.”

“Fine, but I’m tagging you in it.”

“The last thing I posted on there was three years ago.”

“Well, the fan who’s clinging to ‘Nards’ as your nickname is still gonna assume you saw it.” Eddie darts his gaze up with a grin. “Can I call you Cojones?”

“No,” Tommy tells him, but he can feel the lines around his mouth stretching almost to his ears as he shakes his head. “My nonna would rise from her grave to slap my wrist and yell stugotsa before she returned to her slumber.”

Buckley picks at his salad across the table, frown still prominent, and Tommy tries his hardest not to find the pout of his lower lip appealing. He’s not — they’re not — but he’s barely gone a night in his own bed without a phone call from Buck, who’d taken Tommy’s one call to him in the early morning hours before a meaningless exhibition game as blanket permission to spend an hour before sleeping every night talking Tommy’s ear off.

Tommy doesn’t hate it.

(Tommy is very aware that he’s treading a tight rope with too much slack, and can’t get a read on the end-game for the life of him.)

He’s intriguing , is the problem. Beyond the curls in his hair that always appear after twenty minutes tucked under his helmet, beyond the wine-dark splash of his birthmark, beyond the sea-glass gleam of his gaze and the gentle slope of his cheekbones, the frankly ridiculous cut of his Adonis belt and the ass that fills out his dress pants on game days, he is miles more interesting than any man Tommy’s met in years, and he knows plenty of interesting men. He knows more useless trivia than Tommy could fill a book with, and hires chefs to teach him how to make his chickpea pasta, has terrible opinions on Star Wars (according to Christopher Diaz), a codependent relationship with his partner. He’s absolutely obsessed with hockey lore, and on top of that he’s sweet, and kind, and so fucking generous with his time.

Tommy’d watched him spend forty-five minutes with fans in the parking lot outside their practice facility, signing pucks and sweaters and posters, talking to each individual kid like he’d known them for years, taking selfies and talking to parents.

He’d spent that evening under the hood of Diaz’ Chevelle and watching Eddie struggle to make any sense of his son’s homework while slyly derailing the conversation by mentioning Buck, and that night listening to Buck walk him through the history of invasive plants, with twenty minutes reserved for kudzu alone.

Tommy is, in all frankness, a little fucked. He’s well aware, at this point, how heterosexual all of Evan Buckley’s previous romantic entanglements have been, with the help of Christopher, and the fly-by from Eddie to bitch about the latest girl who’d apparently found his brush with death to be the most intriguing thing about him. (He still has the silvery wisp of the scar on his neck from where Kucherov’s blade had nicked him — half an inch to the left, a few millimeters deeper, and Buck would have bled out on the ice in front of eighteen-thousand horrified fans.)

Which isn’t even taking into account how insane Tommy would have to be to throw out twenty years of carefully curated lies about himself to even think about this in anything more than the abstract.

(And Buck is still young — Tommy’s almost out but Buck’s got years ahead of him, in a league so behind the times that Travis Dermott shooting a big fat fuck you to the commissioner by playing with colorful tape on his stick had been seen as an act of ballsy rebellion.)

It doesn’t stop him from thinking about the lingering glances, the flirty head tilts, the tone of Evan Buckley’s voice when he’s teasing.

“...hear her purr, now,” Eddie says beside him, with a smack to the meat of Tommy’s shoulder, and he glances up from his plate to find Buck staring at them both.

“Cool,” Buck says, a moment before he stands, dropping his napkin onto the table. “I’m gonna head to bed.”

Eddie, apparently not catching the tone of his voice, just grins at his friend. “Yeah, you need all the beauty sleep you can get.”

Coming from the man with deep purpling bruises blooming under both eyes, it doesn’t seem to hold much weight, but Buck scowls anyway, a moment before he turns to leave.

---

Tommy tosses and turns for an hour, unable to get comfortable, rolling over their next few opponents in his mind; thinking through the way Buck had looked at him in the moments before he’d walked out of the hotel restaurant; pondering the last thing his therapist had said to him, two weeks ago, when he’d been stuck on something he’d said to his father five years earlier; wincing every time he flexed his hand and was reminded of how sturdy Kane’s jaw was.

He’s contemplating popping one of the pain pills Hen had given him when he finally admits to himself exactly why he’s having trouble sleeping.

His phone has been dark since he passed Eddie’s door on the way to his own.

It’s not abnormal that he doesn’t talk to Buck, after a game on the road. It makes sense, in the context of the last few weeks — they’ve all been a little wired, with so little time between games, so much travel in between. They don’t have another game for three days and all of them should be resting, recuperating. Buckley’s played over twenty-five minutes the last two nights in a row, and less than twenty-four hours before that he’d played almost twenty-eight.

But the gentle hum of Buckley’s voice as it grew tired has become something of a white noise machine to Tommy, and... he’s missing it.

He rambles around his room for ten minutes, tosses a twenty on the desk when he finds the frozen peas he’d asked the concierge for chilling in the freezer of the mini-fridge, fluffs his pillows, contemplates trying to find a shitty rom com on his Netflix account.

When the peas sweat through the hand towel he’d wrapped them in, he tosses them back in the fridge and leaves a note for housekeeping and an extra twenty.

Tommy stares at the ceiling for another ten minutes before he picks up his phone and sends the most cliché text imaginable. You up?

The message glares back at him, mocking him, and Tommy contemplates unsending it while it sits unread for thirty seconds, a minute.

He’s hovering his finger over the message when he gets a read receipt.

A bubble pops up. Disappears.

Three minutes pass, and they appear again, and just as quickly disappear.

He’s just about to plug his phone back into his charger and call it a wash when the text comes through.

Sorry, talking to my sister. Get some sleep, man.

Buck follows it up with a gif of Stanley Hudson passed out in front of his desk, and Tommy takes it for the dismissal it is.

[propertiesofjoy]

a glossary of haunting, eve tuck & c.ree