#also this is actually the first 829 thing i ever wrote i just didn't post it lol

[crow-talks-hockey]

Victory - an 829 fic from Nate's POV

Nate had Cale in his arms and it was perfect. He could hardly bear it. They’d done it, they’d won. They had actually won. It was amazing, but right now all he could focus on was Cale. He could practically feel the twenty-three year old’s smile as Nate closed his eyes and buried his face into Cale’s neck, not ever wanting to let go. He wanted to stay in this joy forever. He could hear everyone else celebrating around him, he didn’t care. Cale pulled away first, his cheeks even more pink now, his brown hair spiky and a mess. He was smiling so wide, Nate studied him with loving intensity.

Then, out of nowhere they were giggling. Giggling for hell’s sake. Like kids. Nate wiped tears of joy from the corners of his eyes and he sighed. “We actually did it,” he stated, the moment so real but so dreamy, like he could wake up at any moment and discover that this was still just a fantasy.

“Yeah…” Cale agreed, looking around Amalie Arena with the same expression as Nate.

Landy was skating towards them and they welcomed his embrace. “Lovebirds,” muttered Landy as he held them tight.

Nate had never seen Landy this radiant, energized by this win and by his undying love for all his teammates. Landy skated back a bit and he winked at them before turning and skating into EJ’s open arms. Nate shook his head, about to reply to what Landy had said. Cale got to it first. “He’s one to talk,” Cale laughed.

“Talk about it.”

The two chuckled again and Nate had the urge to find somewhere private just so he could finally give Cale the affection he wanted. He’d settle for this, though. After all, they  hadn’t even brought out the Cup yet and Nate would be lying if he said that he’d ever want to miss that. So they stayed and celebrated on the ice with each other even more, Cale eventually skating off to join some of the others, Devon probably. Nate himself made his way through all of them, congratulating Kadri especially on his resourcefulness throughout the playoffs.

Nate wasn’t exactly sure how long had passed, but eventually they’d all gathered around to see who would receive the Conn Smythe. Cale, Nate’s mind screamed immediately. It has to be him. I’ll be damned if it isn’t. He was right. Cale skated his way through them, smiling a bit awkwardly in true Cale fashion. Nate gave him a little nudge as he skated past and cheered for him from behind Landy, beaming at the defenseman’s accomplishment. Cale took the Smythe and was quick to hand it off to someone where they could take it safely off-ice. Before Nate knew it, Cale was back at Nate’s side. To think he calls me clingy, thought Nate.

Time flew by as Landy received the Cup, then EJ, then eventually all of them. Soon enough the on-ice ceremony ended and they all filed to the locker room where a huge party would no doubt be in store. None of them were going to sleep a wink tonight.

Nate had been too overjoyed to laugh when Landy came into that room with the Cup, dented in all of its glory thanks to Aube. The room filled with shouts of celebration and the sound of champagne or beer being cracked open. Nate had then had what might well have been the first carb in his life as he drank from the Cup, and holy shit did it feel good. The night wore on and celebration never ceased, not even when Nate had managed to sneak into the hall with Cale every so often just so they could finally kiss each other senseless. They’d even walked in on Landy and EJ once and they’d all broke into giddy laughter. “Fuck, you two,” was the first thing Nate had exclaimed upon seeing them. “He isn’t going anywhere, Gabe.”

Gabe has turned to him with a coy smile. “I know.”

EJ had stood to his full height and run a hand through his hair, readjusting his jersey. He’d laid an arm across Gabe’s shoulder with a grin. “We should get back.”

“Why? It’s not like we’re hiding much of anything. I like this,” Gabe gestured to EJ, “type of celebration.”

EJ shook his head. “Fine then, we’re leaving to give them some time. How about that?”

Landy had waved his hand in disagreement but they were already through the door and back with the others. Nate had shrugged with a small smile. “They’re worse than us,” he remarked.

“A little,” Cale agreed with a shrug before taking a seat on the floor.

Nate eyed him a bit confused but he sat and took Cale’s hand in his own. “Is there something wrong?”

“No,” Cale had laughed dryly, “no, nothing at all. I’m just… this feels like a dream. I can’t even begin to comprehend this.”

“I’ll be right back,” Nate said out of the blue. He returned a few moments later, two beers in hand, and sat back down. “I know what you mean. This has been our dream ever since we were kids, and now that it’s finally happened, it doesn’t seem real.”

Cale nodded and took a drink. He wiped sweat from his brow and closed his eyes. “I’m glad it’s real, though.”

“Me too,” Nate said and smiled when Cale rested his head on his shoulder.

“I’m so fucking exhausted now, though.”

“Oh, hell yeah,” remmarked Nate. “Absolutely… What time is it even?” Nate’s eyes widened as he checked his watch. Almost two AM, no wonder.

Landy’s head appeared out of the doorway and Nate’s focus turned to him. Landy smiled warmly at them. “We’re gonna head back to the hotel. I think everyone is ready to take this party elsewhere, you guys?”

Cale nodded and they both stood. Nate gave Cale’s hand a reassuring squeeze before going ahead and saying a quick hello to Jared. He grabbed water and, along with the others that hadn’t gotten completely out of their gear, redressed. When they all finally piled into the bus, Nate was quick to locate Cale and take his seat beside him. Nate pressed a kiss to Cale’s cheek and he leaned back against his seat. “I can’t wait to take the Cup back home.”

“Me either,” Cale replied, short and sweet as usual. 

The bus back to the hotel was anything but quiet, their tiredness from the game now translating into delirious celebration. Music blasted and by the time they had all filed into the hotel lobby, they were all bumping drunkenly into each other. It was glorious. It was about four in the morning when all of them had finally fallen into their beds again, after all, they still had a flight to catch in the next afternoon.

Nate had fallen easily asleep with Cale by his side. Life was perfect. Cale was perfect.

[singingcookie]

Fanfic Q&A!

Thank you for the tag @encyclopika, sorry I'm oh so very late getting back to it 😅

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Good question uhhhh 55???? That seems like way more than I thought it would be....

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

523,858 words! Granted over half of that is just my slow burn story so lol

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Primarily I've written for My Hero Academia (40 out of the total 55). But I've also written for Kingdom Hearts, The World Ends With You, and more recently Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Oh that's a good question let's see...

Drops of Jupiter (829)

A Princess's Dilemma (381)

Within Arms Reach (378)

One Plus One Does Not Equal a Date (Probably?) (303)

I Roll to Seduce (296)

I'm...genuinely shocked one of my LoZ fics is up there??? And so high??? 1, 3, 4, and 5 are all from my hero fanfics which is not surprising and most of them are super old. Number 2 I only posted in June and it was my first fic for LoZ so that's...interesting to say the least.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! The last year or so I've had a hard time working up the energy or finding the words to respond to comments, sometimes. But whenever I do gather up the energy to do it, I tend to answer everything in my inbox in one fell swoop! And I always really appreciate getting them so tbh sometimes I feel bad that it can take so much energy to reply....

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh gosh idk if I have anything that qualifies as an angsty ending lol. Maybe Tarantism (a KH fic) because it's supposed to be feelsy and then the ending is one of those "it's just a dream" things haha.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Happiest...probably A Family's Orbit? The story has married izuocha with their first kid who they're not sure when or if she'll have a Quirk of her own. But the one-shot ends pretty happy.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Hmmmm I've gotten a handful of complaints on Drops of Jupiter, on occasion. Usually just people telling me I'm going too slow (when I put in the author's notes of the very first chapter that it's "the slowest of slow burns" smh). Or this one time someone told me I didn't give Deku enough victories in the fic and it would be way better if I did.

Outside of that though, I can't think of any on my other stuff. I've been blessed with very kind commentors, I think.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I've written a couple for Izuocha. But yknow usually, in all honesty, I've only ever written smut out of spite? The two fics I have (Burning Heat and Homecoming) were written in opposition to fandom tendencies at the time. Mostly everyone was talking about Izuku like someone who was a sex addict/sex god and Ochako was just kind of there. And I said "actually I think Deku's on the ace spectrum and probably mostly just cares about pleasing his partner than anything" and thus they were born. I haven't reread them in ages though that said lol

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Generally, no. However, about a year or so ago I got really into twewy again because I had just finished playing NEO:The World Ends With You. So I came up with a concept that kind of meshes twewy's concept with the my hero world? I only have one chapter posted of Death By Proxy so far, but I have an outline and little details written down whenever I'm in the right headspace for it. For what it's worth, you don't really need to know about twewy to read it, because Izuku finds out how everything works at the same time you do lol

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge. Here's hoping it stays that way lol

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of? I've never been asked about it anyway.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not explicitly? I feel like I help out my friends with their stories and vice versa, but not really.

Oh!

Although once upon a time me and a friend (you know who you are) wrote a KH fanfic together but I guess that was moreso just for us than anything else lol

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Probably Izuocha, just going by the numbers.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Hmmm probably Eri-sitting? I really want to finish it at some point, and I posted the first part with every intention of doing it. But I never figured out the way I wanted to start chapter 2. Maybe someday though. Also!!! I did start writing a fanfic based off of heroes of the dark, but I didn't end up finishing it because it contrasted how the story ended and I thought completing that would be in poor taste with that said lol

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hmmm I've always found dialogue and characterization comes easier to me than I think it does to most others? There's always been discussions I've seen where people are like "oh sometimes the characters just do what they want" and I've never really...had that happen? Or at least not in a way that completely alters a story like I've seen people say. Little actions or pieces of dialogue that take me by surprise, sure, but like never anything that completely alters a plot beat I had planned. But usually at least for me, the plot beats are so centered around who they are or how they act that the odds of them veering off course are incredibly slim, if that makes sense

God I'm rambling uh dialogue and characterization I guess was my point haha.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Probably description is the thing I have the hardest time with. Some people are so good at writing a setting and making everything seem so like immersive in that way. For me, I don't see the point in describing something unless it's like relevant and so my description tends to be very to the point.

Also estimating a story's length. Usually I come up with a concept and then I'll say "oh yeah this'll only be this long" and then I start writing and writing and realize I had a lot more to say than I thought I did initially. This has happened a handful of times now haha

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic.

I definitely don't see anything wrong with it. I usually only do it for small phrases, myself, but partially because I'm not fluent in anything except for English. And I generally try to do some research or I'll check with friends if I have any who speak the language I'm using.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Kingdom Hearts! Back in the days of yore, yours truly actually wrote KH retellings with OCs back on quizilla lmao. I wrote quite a lot back then although with how long it's been most of the things I posted on there don't exist anymore. But that was back during 8th grade when I started.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Oh hmm I don't know. I feel like favorites is tough because I like a lot of my stories but for different reasons. I'm exceedingly proud of Drops of Jupiter for example. And I think it's been a true adventure to write and does have some of my best work in it as a result.

But I also think some of the prose and concepts I've made for Call From the Wild has a special place in my heart. It's very different from...basically anything else I've ever written because most ever other fic is "modern" in a manner of speaking and this was my first time writing something that's...decidedly not lol. I also think I'm fond of it because it's adhering to canon while allowing me the creativity to come up with how certain things happened since the details before the Calamity in botw are pretty limited...

Basically I guess my favorite kind of fic I've written is anything that really allows me to go nuts creatively.

Thanks so much for sending this! I don't have anyone in particular I want to tag, but if any of my followers fill it out, please tag me so I can see it!