#anon it's so lovely when i see you in my inbox ty again for dropping by to say hello!!

[nighttimenothings]

hi again!!

everything about your blog is so aesthetic. your choice in style, posts, and phrasing is very pleasing to read through! i love what you’ve done with the place 😊

do you have a favorite color? why is it your favorite color?

i hope you’re keeping happy and healthy, don’t forget to take time for yourself in these busy times!

- 🎀

hi back!!

thank you so much??? you're so sweet for saying that! i'm just doin' my very best over here 🫡

i'd say dark blues and all shades of green are my fave, but i'm rather fond of black and certain shades of yellow as well! these colors bring so much calm into my life. they make me happy when i wear them or are surrounded by them 🕺🏻

i'm doing reasonably well and doing my best to find some time to recuperate<3 sending loads of love your way💚

[haikyuu-appreciation-club]

oh my bad, i didn’t see you didnt write for atsumu or sakusa. can you do the same headcanons (s/o who’s smol and fragile) but with kuroo, bokuto, and oikawa? if possible, i would still like to see these headcanons with atsumu and sakusa <333

hey hey hey anon!! ty for the requests :)

I think this is such a cute idea (´♡‿♡`)

I just started watching S4 soo I'll save your other request for atsumu and sakusa in my inbox and get to that once I'm done!!

in the meantime, I hope you enjoy some of my favorite captains <3

btw sorry it’s definitely not my best, I was having major writers block so this is basically all I could manage :(

•Kuroo, Bokuto, and Oikawa w/ a Small and Fragile S/O•

warnings: none

genre: fluff

characters: kuroo, bokuto, + oikawa

•Kuroo•

Kuroo had teased you about your height ever since the two of you had become friends

it was his way of playful flirting, harmless really

“Ah, hey there chibi-chan, still need help with that chem assignment.”

“I thought I told you to quit calling me that.”

“Aw, but it suits you.”

It was all harmless until he began to actually fall for you 

the way your laugher erupted through the air at one of his stupid chemistry jokes or how you would never fail to flash a pretty smile and throw him a wave whenever you two were near

every single thing about you drew him in and he just had to make you his, so that’s exactly what he did you said yes obviously

even though he spent quite a bit of time with you before making things official, he never realized how prone to injury you were

seriously you got hurt so often it was crazy

at first he thought it was just bad luck until he noticed that you collided with the majority of things that were in your path

it was actually quite entertaining to him a lot of the time, but even if he let out a chuckle he would always take care of you

didn't matter if it was him grabbing the first aid kit from the gym or keeping you company in the nurses office while you got checked out

as much as he loved to tease you for everything, he was always right by your side 

even though he put on a calm and collected front, he got worried every time you got hurt

it didn’t matter how minor or major the injury was, he just wanted to make sure you were okay

he was always making sure you were taking care of yourself too

making sure you ate and drank water and took care of your injuries when needed

sometimes he’d even tease you by buying you a carton of milk and claiming that you needed it for bone growth

he definitely could be a huge pain sometimes, but it always brought a smile to your face

with your height differences, his favorite thing was to pick you up by your waist, hold you up high, and spin you around

he didn’t care who was watching, all that he was focused on in that moment was the lovely smile stitched on your face

he loved to lean down when you were standing around or talking with someone and rest his chin on your head and wrap his arms lightly around your neck

this was especially common when he noticed someone else trying to flirt with you, a piercing gaze followed as well in these situations

if anyone tried to tease you about your height he would pick you up, throw you over his shoulder, and run the opposite direction hey problem solved

as much as he teased you himself, he was always making sure to let you know how much he loved you just the way you were

he always eased you insecurities and whispered compliment after compliment in your ear when you were down

he was your #1 hype man no matter the time

he truly saw you as perfect and he wouldn't mind spending the rest of his life letting you know

•Bokuto•

when you and bokuto first met, he was very upfront about your height

"HEY HEY HEY! Wow, you're super tiny!”

cue your pouting

bokuto noticed your change of expression and quickly saved himself

“OH! No no, not in a bad way, like a cute way, you know? Tiny and squishy!”

cue him pinching your cheeks like an old lady

Akaashi ended up dragging him back to practice but not before he turned your cheeks bright red, from the excessive pinching and his comments

after that incident, you saw bokuto a lot more

usually due to you bumping into him in between classes

you didn’t mean to but he was just so tall and you were just so clumsy

those situations usually ended with you both apologizing profusely to each other while bokuto walked you to the nurses office

overtime, you two grew closer and closer and eventually made things official 

despite all the energy he had, he was always very gentle with you

he knew he could get a little much at times and with how easily you got injured he wanted to make sure he was never the one causing you pain

his touch was always very soft and loving, allowing you to feel just how much he cared

since you would get hurt so often he would always carry bandaids in his school bag they had little hearts on them

he would drop anything he was doing and sit you down to place a bandaid and a kiss wherever the damage was

“There you go, Dr. Bokuto is always at your service Y/N.”

“Thank you Bo.”

if it was something more intense he would walk you to the nurse’s office, hair drooping and tears in his eyes

he honestly hated seeing you hurt or in pain

if he could, he would take away any and all of your discomfort

he just wanted to see you smiling, that was his favorite look on you

no matter how much you would tell him you were okay he still would not leave your side until you got fully cleared by the nurse and the rest of the day he would be clinging to you with a pout stitched on his face

he adored the height difference between you two

your small hand fit perfectly in his and the was your tiny figure molded into his when you two cuddled felt right

he knew that sometimes you could get a little insecure

he never really understood why you couldn't see yourself how he saw you but that didn't prevent him from bring you up and letting you know exactly how he saw you

he truly saw you as the most flawless person he’s ever seen

compliments were always followed up by a lot of hugs and kisses

he always felt like you deserved to feel like you were on top of the world so giving you piggy back rides or letting you sit on his shoulders was his favorite thing to do

he never missed the laughter that escaped your lips when he would pick up speed definitely his favorite sound ever

his main goal was to protect you from anything and everything and make sure you were loved

and he succeeded with that each and every day

•Oikawa•

oikawa had had a thing for you since middle school

you never really thought much of the way he would act towards you due to his high popularity

honestly, you just thought he was being polite

that was until he asked you out your first year of high school

ever since then you became aoba johsai’s power couple

you didn't really care about titles though, all that mattered was that you and oikawa were happy

and contrary to popular belief, oikawa was a really great boyfriend

he never failed to make you feel appreciated and cherished

he honestly just couldn’t believe he was with someone so perfect, and honestly the blush that spread across your cheeks was just too cute to pass up

this didn't excuse you from oikawa’s teasing, your height being a main target

“Y/N-chan, mind if I rest my arm here, it’s so tired from practice”

“Tooru, get your gross, sweaty arm off my head.”

“Ahh so mean baby.”

although he never missed the opportunity to rile you up about you height, he always recognized when to stop and followed it up with a bunch of compliments

he knew it could be an insecurity of your sometimes and he would never dream of making you feel less then perfect

if any of his fan girls tried to mention something involving your height, he didn’t hesitate to confront them

occasionally going the extra mile and pulling you into a loving kiss right in front of them

he didn’t care if they stopped supporting him, he had you by his side and that was more then enough 

although you usually got hurt quite often, that all stopped when you started dating oikawa

you honestly couldn’t believe it at first

all the scratches, scars, and bruises that frequently littered your body and slowly healed over time and no new ones took their place

you could not wrap your head around how he managed to do it

he was very observant and almost had this sixth sense when it came to you and your injuries

usually catching you before you fell, pulling you out of the way of something, or grabbing something and moving it away before it could cause you harm

you were practically like a small child he had to watch

he always followed up his smooth movements with a flirty remark

“Ah ah ah, you have to be more careful Y/N-chan, I'm the only one you should be falling for.”

although he loved spending any moment with you, his favorite memories had to be watching you in the stands during one of his games, cheering for him

his jersey was so big on you, he found it so adorable it always smelled like you when you returned it which was a huge plus

his favorite thing to do during games was throw you a wink before each serve he did, watching you laugh and wink right back

he always played his best when you were there

watching you from the court made him fall in love with you all over again

you were his world and he would make it his top priority to remind you of that each and every day

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

[melohax]

Ok so I just realized that I can send long ask so I will just copy paste my last meta here, it will kinda be a mumble jumbo wall of text so I hope you don’t mind

I have never personally perceived what shadow Basil said about us as he was deeming is as cruel or evil toward them tbh. Shadow Basil seems to be there to ground Sunny back to reality more by recalling him of the past and calling out his escapism to me more. Him saying “but after everything, you left me” is less him calling out on Sunny being evil toward him but more on him calling out how Sunny just mentally completely shut off from reality, him dropped out of school irl and become shut in paralleling to him building an entire imaginary world on “black space” and suppressing the black space as the light bulb locking other half of Basil who knows away, leaving Basil both irl and in dream to be left alone dealing with his own guilt.

You talking about Basil irl and black space Basil occasionally has the same overlapping dialogues of “will you forgive me?”/“do you hate me?” also raised up possibility of Basil irl has also said these to Sunny in the past thus his manifestation saying the same thing to him. Basil in dream world acting completely carefree and sweet is more of him just want to live in his idealistic, good old day of the past tbh (evidence in how 4 years have passed yet the citizen in the dream world never age, dream HERO still 15 years old haha why are you so small) and Omori acting “cold” or “strange” isn’t entirely exclusive to Basil either since we saw the same instance with Mari who was trying to guide Sunny to the truth at the beginning of Last Resort arc, as he is the manifestation guardian who “guards” Sunny’s psych so to speak and the irl instance where Sunny hurt Basil is when them both are in panic and fist fight each other to dead so I think it’s an understandable reaction tbh SFGHVJBK.

There is a lot more but the biggest reason why a large part of me feeling like Sunny doesn’t exactly “hate” or blame Basil for anything he did is also because the way the narration portray him coping with thing, he completely and utterly rejects it, denies it from being real, being “I do not see it” (the closet door lead to the toy book with his broken violin completely disappeared irl in his pov despite other character still comment about it, when Basil was tying the noose to uh do the thing Sunny chose to pretend that he did not see what was happening, when he witnesses Basil’s death in one of the bad end if you try to interact with the door lead to Basil’s room again it will completely disappear with Sunny notes that “there is nothing there”) than blaming it on someone or something else and when he finally forced to face the truth he just blames himself the most, how he just took away everyone happiness irrc

ALSO SORRY AGAIN FOR A LONG WALL OF TEXT AFHJGJJ

Yeah, I’ve already talked in my other posts about Sunny’s coping through extreme avoidance and how it intertwines with him burying the truth in his subconscious and so forth. It doesn’t cancel out how his subconscious does see the truth to the point that Blackspace keeps leaking into Dream world.

Daddy Longlegs mentions this, how Sunny and Omori do all they can to pretend they don’t see the truth, repressing as much as possible BUT Blackspace still ends up leaking into the Dream world regardless.

As much as Sunny’s mind keeps working to get rid of all that hurts him, blackspace keeps seeping into his dreams and yet he still seeks Dream Basil out when he disappears from his mind. This is counterproductive in that it interferes with his own coping mechanisms of “I do not see it” and Omori’s attempts at defending his mind. It tells us that Sunny’s thoughts and feelings are conflicted, he both wants to suppress the truth while his mind simultaneously has him trying to save the person that represents said truth to him.

Sunny and Omori want to keep the good parts of Basil in his dream, the parts that remind him of the good ol days of innocent childhood. Meanwhile, he tries locking away the parts of Basil’s existence that hurt him (Basil giving him the Mari idea, Basil hanging Mari, the monsters Basil sees etc etc) but he always fails.

Daddy Longlegs, the Blackspace void people and the tree in the deepest well tells us Sunny’s mind has never been able to separate his ideal Basil from the parts of Basil that force him to acknowledge what happened.

I kinda also disagree with your other arguments too tbh.

Like I said before, monsters with Basil’s dialogue keep calling Sunny a liar (like the one on the train) and Sunny’s subconscious he tries to represskeeps focusing on how he hurts Dream Basil: Basil telling him he doesn’t feel safe, the invisible shadows in the main room of Blackspace calling Omori and Sunny evil, commenting on Sunny’s mistreatment of Basil and their fears that he’ll do something to real world Basil if he’s not “uncorrupted”.

Sunny’s mind specifically clings to Basil’s “do you hate me?” + his apologies for a reason. Real Basil very likely said these things to Sunny this mind keeps going back to it for a reason. Mari commenting on Omori being cold isn’t the same at all cus Basil commented on it in a context where he was about to be killed and his next words are about how he doesn’t feel safe with Sunny.

When I talk of dream Basil’s almost angelic persona, I don’t mean just him being the way he was in the “good old childhood days” all carefree and sweet. I’m talking about things like how even when he’s being killed, Sunny portrays Basil in his mind as still trying to be kind, understanding and passive even to the things actively hurting him (like how Dream Basil keeps trying to be nice to the spiders even while they’re eating him alive).

Real life Basil isn’t only made of infinite beatific patience like Dream Basil is. He cries, gets angry and really upset at times, tells Sunny it’s not fair that Sunny left him behind. Basil calls Sunny out on lying about promising to always be there for each other and begs in desperation for Sunny not to leave him, once again coming back to him asking “Do you hate me?”.

Dream Basil is also shown as very helpless and someone who would never resort to violence. This is shown not to be true in the real world.

Basil will resort to violence if he feels it’s absolutely necessary to protect the person he loves, like how he physically attacks Sunny at the end, possibly gouging Sunny’s eye out in the process. Basil does this believing he’s genuinely going to save Sunny from the “Something” behind him so it shows he’s not just this eternally passive, soft, helpless being Sunny’s mind portrays him as.

Real Basil is willing to do anything it takes (including resorting to physical violence) if its for the sake of the person he loves most. It’s a contrast to how Sunny in his dreams goes as far as putting his ideal of Basil on this pedestal of “purity” at times. This goes back to how one the invisible strangers walking in Blackspace void tells Omori it hopes real Basil is uncorrupted or else it fears what Sunny will do to him.

Then there’s shadow Basil. He doesn’t just “ground” Sunny, he also reminds Sunny of the consequences his actions have on others. This shows that Sunny’s subconscious (Blackspace) acknowledges the truth even though real Sunny keeps trying to pretend it’s not there and Omori keeps trying to bury it.

These are all parts of Basil that Sunny doesn’t want to see and that he keeps trying to lock away deep in Blackspace so that only his perfect version of Basil remains in his mind. All of the trouble Sunny goes through to shut his eyes and yet when Omori finds Basil in the alternate rooms in Blackspace, it’s as if Sunny’s mind keeps trying to guilt trip itself over how he’s been treating Basil by showing Basil constantly suffering and dying in horrible ways.

So imo the points you made are easily attributed not only to extreme avoidance but also to entangled feelings of hatred, love, fear and pain. Sunny isn’t a completely innocent character when it comes to his mind and certain actions (being able to stab real world Aubrey and stuff) but that’s ok. It doesn’t mean he’s simply a villain, it just means he’s complex and with complicated emotions the same as most human beings.

Of course at the end Sunny blames himself the most, I talked about this in my first post too. It’s by then that he’s accepted his main role in the tragedy with Mari (the fact it was an accident, Basils good intentions, why he isolated himself, etc) and he’s moving towards facing the most painful parts of it. That’s part of the whole point.

None of this means Sunny generally just cruel or callous, of course. Again, I’ve already said before that this doesn’t make Sunny objectively “evil” or anything of the sort. His own mind is the one calling him evil due to all his guilt and so on.

Also P.S. Please be mindful and don’t spam my inbox with so many messages tho 😣 I got this entire message sent thrice in my inbox and then you also sent it as a submission and then you also sent a few other asks as well all in the span of one day. They were all kinda the same subject over and over too.

If it’s tumblr being fucky and sending that many messages repeatedly, I understand and it’s ok but then I’d rather you come off anon instead cus boy it spams.

[slapshot-to-the-heart]

Breakable Heaven (pt. IV) - p.l. dubois

part I part II part III

Oh my gosh, I seriously can’t believe this little series has come to an end. I’m so so happy with how it’s turned out, and want to thank anyone who’s stuck with Laurel and Pierre-Luc throughout this month. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever done, and it’s yours to enjoy now. Please please let me know what you think of this part, what you think about the series - getting anon comments is amazing, my inbox is always open, and I LOVE reading tags. Reblog if you like what I’m putting out, it helps me know that!

Warning: Smut (It’s light, but it’s there, so no one under 18 please!)

Part IV (7.8k)

September 23 (thurs)

Laurel was running through the Toronto airport, her carry-on bag bouncing on the tile behind her as she frantically searched for her gate. Thank God Air Canada domestic flew from the international terminal; her layover was only an hour and ten minutes and even more time had been shaved off by a departure delay in Montréal. She had forgotten that flights from Toronto cleared U.S. Customs in Canada, and if she hadn’t been able to skip the line and slap her American passport on a kiosk reader she would have almost certainly missed her connection. 

No matter how many times Laurel had tried to insist on an economy ticket when she and Pierre were booking flights for her visits, he refused to cave. “They don’t include a checked bag in economy, but they do if you fly business,” he had said, shrugging, with a small smile on his face. “Baggage fees alone would make it pretty much a wash.” Laurel doubted that, and she doubted that she’d need a checked bag for a four-day trip, but her husband had made it clear that he wasn’t budging. 

So needless to say, she was more than a little bit out of breath as she finally arrived at Gate F66, which was conveniently almost as far away from her arrival gate as humanly possible while still being in the same terminal. She handed her boarding pass and passport to the gate agent, smiling apologetically as she hurried down the jetbridge. It was barely past noon, but there was nothing in the world Laurel wanted more than to sleep. Maintaining a full-time schedule at the hospital while also trying to organize a trip to Columbus that lasted more than two days meant she had to switch shifts. Normally, that wouldn’t be an issue; that week, however, the only open slot was the 12-hour overnight shift on Wednesday. Which meant that she’d been awake for some twenty hours straight, but almost all of that had been on her feet at work, or walking from the parking lot to the check-in counter in Montréal, or running through the halls of Pearson Airport in Toronto. She took her seat, half-listened to the safety briefing, and passed out as soon as her head hit the headrest. 

Much to her chagrin, the flight itself was only just over an hour, and she was really only able to get in a generous nap before their descent into Ohio. Sitting in the second row, she exited the plane in record time, flicking her phone off of airplane mode and waiting for a text from Pierre-Luc. At least she didn’t have to go through TSA again. He wrote back in record time, letting her know he’d be in his car at the curb right outside the terminal. She waited at baggage claim, grabbing her forest green suitcase; the same one she had when she’d moved to Toronto for university, fresh-faced and 18 and so, so unaware of what the world had in store for her. If only she could see herself now. Laurel ran her thumb along the side handle for a moment, pulling at a loose thread, before hefting it onto the floor and turning towards the sliding exit doors. 

As promised, Pierre was waiting right outside the door, flashing her a bright smile and throwing the driver’s side door open as soon as he saw her. “Welcome to Columbus, babe!” he exclaimed, wrapping Laurel into a deep hug and kissing her on the cheek. 

She laughed as the trunk popped open, each of them grabbing a suitcase. “It’s a little bit funny, don’t you think? That I’ve lived in the Midwest for almost my whole life and the first time I go to Ohio it’s because I’m living in Canada?”

“Maybe just a little bit,” Pierre said, holding his thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart. “I’m really happy you were able to come, though, Laurel. I got used to having you around.” His face was softer now, looking over at Laurel with an expression that wasn’t quite placable but seemed like it was somehow communicating so much in a single glance. 

“Me too,” Laurel replied. The ride to Pierre’s Columbus apartment took just over ten minutes, and Laurel was in the door, petting the dogs, before the clock struck 3:00. 

Pierre approached her from behind, his hands on her shoulders as he leaned around to kiss her on the cheek. “You want to take a nap?” he asked. “We’ve got that thing with the team at 7, and I know you’re probably running on fumes right now.” 

Laurel nodded, giving him a weary smile, dropping her bag on the floor of the master bedroom with an all-too-satisfying thump. “Nap sounds good.” 

---

The nap was good, so good, and Laurel woke up at half past 6 feeling like she’d just had the best sleep of her life. She yawned, rubbing her eyes, and looked around the room to see Pierre with his back towards her, buttoning up his shirt. He turned around, catching her eye, and grinned. “You like the view?” he asked, gesturing to his half-naked torso. 

Laurel rolled her eyes, pulling the sheets up to poorly conceal her embarrassment at being caught. “And if I do?”

She heard a loud laugh, peeking her head out from under. “I’d say my wife has every right to appreciate it.” He walked around the bed while fastening the last few buttons, holding his hand out for Laurel to take. “I let you sleep as long as I could, but we’re going to have to get going in fifteen minutes or so. I was told that ‘we’ve waited this long to meet her, the least you could do is get your damn wife to the party in time,’” he said, adding air quotes for emphasis. 

Laurel nodded, tossing back the covers and walking over to her suitcase, intending to rifle through the stacks of clothes to find something for the night’s festivities. Instead, she was greeted by an empty bag. She wheeled around to look at Pierre, who was sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at her suitcase. “I unpacked your stuff,” he said, nodding over towards the spare dresser. “It’s in there. I’m sorry if that seems weird and I won’t do it again if you feel like that was pushing your boundaries, but I know for me when I’m on roadies I like to unpack, even if it’s just one night. Makes it feel more like home.”

Laurel was too overcome with how sweet the gesture was, small as it may have been, to realize that that meant he had touched four days worth of bras and underwear. It shouldn’t have bothered him anyways, and if he hadn’t said anything about it, it clearly hadn’t. So instead, she pulled him into a warm hug, standing on her tiptoes to bury her face in the crook of his neck. “Thank you, P. One less thing I have to do.” 

“You do still have to actually get dressed, though,” he added, giving her sleepwear an appreciative once-over. “Unless you’re planning on wearing that.” 

She let out a giggle. “As much as I love wearing a massive Cloquet High Lumberjacks t-shirt and no pants, somehow I don’t think that’s the move,” she said, ambling over towards the dresser. She found the tops on the first try, pulling out a wine-colored wrap shirt and grabbing the same pair of light-wash jeans she had worn on the plane. Pierre moved to duck out of the room, presumably to give her privacy to change. Laurel made a split-second decision to call after him. “You don’t have to leave.” Pierre stopped in his tracks.

Laurel slipped the shirt on, tying it in the front, and fastened her jeans. Mascara on and booties zippered, and she was good to go. “So what is this thing, anyways?” she asked Pierre as they drove to Foligno’s house. 

Pierre tilted his head. “Little bit of this, little bit of that. Half the typical beginning-of-the-year preseason party, half the wedding reception we never had. They were very insistent on bringing gifts, so be prepared.”

“Will do,” she said, laughing. “And by they, you mean…”

“Some of the guys, but mostly the wives and girlfriends. Their parties are the stuff of legends, so you can imagine how excited everyone was when I told them we never had a proper reception.”

“But they don’t know why we didn’t have a proper party,” Laurel reminded him. 

“About that…” Pierre started, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. 

Laurel froze, her thumb hovering over her phone screen, halfway through composing a text to Kristen. “Pierre,” she swallowed, her voice deadly soft, “did you tell someone?”

---

It was the Saturday before, and the team had gone out to celebrate the end of the first week of training camp. Sunday was an off day, so Saturday night found all the over-21s — and anyone who could get a good enough fake — at a bar in the city. Pierre had just crossed the line into tipsy, and as his captain was about to find out, tipsy Pierre was an oversharer. It was common enough for families to be a topic of discussion on nights out or in the locker room; that wasn’t the issue. The issue was that, as the old adage goes, drunk words are sober thoughts. And, if he was being honest, Pierre was still harboring some guilt from having to hide the truth of his and Laurel’s marriage from everyone, Nick included. Pierre hated that he couldn’t tell Nick the truth. He was his captain and his friend, and he felt the least he owed to him was not to lie. 

“It’s just so weird being away from Laurel, away from Montréal, for this long,” Pierre sighed. 

“Sure,” Nick said sympathetically, “but you said you’d been friends for a few years, so you’ve had feelings for her for a while, no? It’s obviously not ideal, but you’ve been away from her for longer.” 

Pierre turned towards Nick, some of his beer — his fourth of the night — spilling out of the cup. “Can I tell you a secret?” 

Nick rolled his eyes, thinking he was going to be hearing some dumb high school confession, that he had asked out a senior girl when he was a freshman, or filled his QMJHL captain’s gloves with shaving cream or something. He didn’t expect what he heard next. 

“We got married so she could stay in the country, for her permanent residency. I never met her before June.” 

Nick sucked in a breath. “You’re not fucking with me, are you?” 

“Nope.” 

“You realize how much trouble you guys could get into if they figure out, right?” he asked. 

Pierre nodded, looking down at his clasped hands nervously. “We both do. But you’re not going to tell anyone, right?” 

“No, of course not,” Nick said. “I trust you, and I know you and Laurel were just doing what you thought was the best and most logical thing given the circumstances.” Pierre let out a somber nod. “But,” he continued, “I feel like this whole...situation just leaves open the opportunity for things to get really messy really quickly.” 

“Messy how?” Pierre asked. 

Nick shifted uncomfortably in his chair, looking at a spot just beyond Pierre’s head. He didn’t want to, not really, but it was his job as Pierre’s captain — more importantly as his friend  — to make him consider every angle. “Someone catching feelings, one of you falling for the other, or God forbid, someone else. There’s already so much at stake in a ‘normal’ marriage, but yours just has added complications.” Pierre felt a twinge in his heart. He didn’t want to admit it, he really didn’t want to admit it, but Nick was right. “Do you love her?” Nick asked softly. 

Pierre sunk back into his chair. “I don’t know. She means a lot to me, more than I ever thought she would, but I don’t know. Plus, I have no clue how she feels about me, and I wouldn’t want to say something like that only to have her pull away.” 

“Did you guys talk about that?” he asked. 

“About what?” Pierre responded. 

“About what would happen if one of you caught feelings. Because I’m assuming it was supposed to, is supposed to, be a strictly platonic thing.” 

Pierre shrugged. “Not really. We didn’t like make a pact or anything, if that’s what you’re asking. We really didn’t talk much about it at all,” he said, finishing his beer. “I mean, obviously we agreed that we wouldn’t be seeing anyone else, dating or hooking up or anything like that. It was just too risky. But no, we never really addressed how we’d deal with it if one of us ended up...falling for each other. I guess it was just supposed to be a ‘we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it’ type of thing.” 

“And have you come to it?” Nick asked. 

“I don’t know.”

---

Pierre finished the story, hazarding a glance over to Laurel, who was wringing her hands as she looked out the windshield. “I’m not mad at you,” she said finally. “If Nick said he wouldn’t tell, I trust you when you say he won’t. One of us was bound to let it slip eventually.” 

He turned his eyes back towards the road, still feeling a pang of regret. She was almost being too good to him. “We’ll be okay,” he said, saying it just as much to himself as he did to her. 

Laurel gave him a small smile as they pulled into the Foligno’s house, parking on the stone-paved driveway. “We will be.”

Janelle opened the door practically the second after they knocked, greeting Pierre and Laurel with warm hugs. “Laurel, it’s so wonderful to finally meet you,” she said, squeezing her hand. “We know how hard it is to find the time off and make the trip down, and everyone’s excited to see you.” She led them through the entryway to the living room, where Laurel was passed around to some twenty-odd players and their partners, where she introduced herself over and over again as “Pierre’s wife, yes the nurse from Minnesota who none of you knew existed.” 

Dinner was a barbeque outside, Nick, Pierre, and some of the others manning the three grills as Laurel helped set up the drinks table. He held her hand under the table as they ate, his thumb gently rubbing across her thigh every so often in reassurance. “You good?” he murmured in his ear as Laurel sipped a beer, half-listening to some story Korpi was telling about a near-miss incident with a water ski back in Finland during the summer. 

Laurel nodded, squeezing his fingers. “I’m good.”

Plates were cleared, dishes were washed, and everyone was herded into Nick and Janelle’s enormous family room, where a small mountain of wrapped boxes and bags sat in the far corner. “I don’t know if you know this,” Janelle said conspiratorially as Laurel sat down, “but NHLers make more than a little money.” 

She laughed. “So I’ve been told.”

“Which means that, clueless though they may be, you’re going to be getting some very nice presents.” 

And very nice presents they were. A wine club membership, a set of dutch ovens from Seth — “It was my mom’s suggestion”  — Jones, an espresso machine from Boone, a set of matching, personalized dog bowls for Phil, Georgia, and Piper. Laurel honestly wasn’t sure how it was all going to fit in the car, let alone how she was going to manage to stay under the baggage limit on her way back to Canada, but the thought and kindness that went into each gift was what really made it special. 

“From me and the other girls,” Janelle said, passing Laurel a bag. 

“Oh, this is too much,” Laurel said. “You already got the knives and the mixer, I don’t need anything else.”

Cam’s wife, Natalie, shrugged. “Would it help if we made it, didn’t buy it?”

Laurel’s brow furrowed in confusion, her fingers moving to undo the ribbon that tied the handles together, taking out the tissue paper. “Oh!” she gasped quietly as she pulled out a denim jacket, a Blue Jackets logo ironed onto the back, Dubois embroidered where a name bar would be. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“You’re still a part of the family,” Natalie said, smiling. “Even if you’re not here all the time. We want you to feel as included as anyone else.”  

Laurel folded up the jacket carefully, tucking it back in the bag as Josh walked up to Pierre, holding out a small box, clearly wrapped by himself. “Well now I just feel silly.”

Pierre shook his head, smiling at his friend. “Don’t, Josh. I’m sure we’ll love it.” He thumbed open the folds on the wrapping paper, setting it aside before pulling off the top of the box. He fell silent. 

Laurel peeked over, trying to catch a glimpse of the box’s contents. “What is it, P?”

Instead of answering, Pierre just held the box upside-down. Condoms of all colors and sizes rained down onto the hardwood floor as Pierre stared at Josh, clearly trying very hard not to laugh. The side of his mouth twitched. “Interesting choice of gift, you don’t think?” he asked.

Josh shrugged helplessly, his cheeks red. “It’s practical?”

 November 28 (sun)

 Laurel caught every Blue Jackets game she could on the TV, even the ones in early November when Pierre was out for a few games with a mild concussion. She was his wife, but she was also a nurse, and made sure to get daily updates on his condition, restraining herself from FaceTiming him to help limit his amount of daily screen time. But he had been back for a few weeks, making second star of the night with a goal and an assist, so naturally he was pulled away for a few postgame interviews. 

Laurel watched the screen, trying not to get distracted by the sweat drenching his Underarmour. Reporters, the good ones at least, were usually considerate with steering clear of asking personal questions, but sometimes an injury, or the birth of a child, or, as luck would have it, a wedding, begged an answer. “So, Pierre, I think a lot of us were surprised to see you announce on Instagram that you had gotten married this summer. Congratulations, by the way,” the journalist from the Dispatch said. 

“Thanks,” Pierre replied, smiling. 

“And I hope I speak for everyone here when saying that we entirely respect you and your wife’s decision to keep things quiet and announce it in a much more subdued fashion than usual. Players often speak a lot about how integral support from family and friends is, and just how important it is to have that kind of a support system in place.” Pierre could see where the question was going. “Obviously you’ve got the boys down here, but it doesn’t look like your wife Laurel is based in Columbus like you are. Is there a reason for that, and do you think that’s affected your game?” 

Pierre sucked in a breath; it was a fair question, and a reasonable assumption to make, but that didn’t mean he liked answering it any more. But it was almost suspicious how quickly he had an answer. “Uh, yeah, it’s been interesting for us to have to navigate. You’re right, Laurel’s back in Montréal, she spends most of her time at our place in the city. She’s a nurse in the intensive care unit of CHU Saint-Justine, so she does pediatrics there. She loves what she does, and she’s so good at it, and it just wouldn’t be right of me to ever ask or expect her to leave on my account. I know we’ve got a great hospital at Nationwide Children’s, but she loves where she is. We both do. So yeah, it’s rough being away sometimes, but luckily she’s able to move shifts around and make it down twice a month or so when we’re not on the road. But we keep in contact daily, obviously, and I’m able to lean on the guys, especially the other married ones, on how to deal with the stress of being away for so long. But it’s rough. I miss my wife,” Pierre finished. 

Laurel clicked the remote, turning the TV off, her hand scratching behind Piper’s ears, and tried not to replay his words in her mind as she crawled into bed and fell asleep. 

 December 18 (sat)

 Laurel stumbled through the door of Pierre’s Columbus apartment, laughing breathlessly as she tried to lock the deadbolt. “You need some help there, L?” Pierre asked, raising one eyebrow. 

“I’m good,” Laurel said, taking two more tries before it would actually lock. The eggnog from the Christmas party was starting to take its toll; Pierre had agreed to be the pair’s designated driver for the night, so she had had maybe a glass too many. The night had genuinely been so much fun, Laurel had initially been worried at how well she might fit in with the group in a more casual situation. As much as she loved being able to hang out with the team and the other WAGs when she was in Ohio — and she did — she couldn’t help but be nervous that she didn’t have the same level of camaraderie that could help turn a night from good to great. Laurel couldn’t have been happier to be wrong. She was embraced from the moment she walked in the door, a glass of wine pushed into her hand and her Secret Santa gift deposited on the entryway table. 

Laurel used to always roll her eyes at the idea that “time flies when you’re having fun,” but that couldn’t have been more true for the party. It seemed like only minutes had passed, but suddenly it was almost midnight, and the couples with kids had to head home to relieve the babysitters, and Laurel and Pierre were headed home. 

“Let’s get some water in you, no?” Pierre murmured, walking to the kitchen and opening the cupboard. 

“Thanks,” Laurel said softly as she took the glass from him, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet under her on the couch. 

Pierre perched on the arm, absentmindedly playing with his watch. But while a tipsy Pierre was an oversharer, a tipsy Laurel was always emotional in one fashion or another. “How’d you like the party?”

“It was great,” Laurel said. “I’m not sure why Alexandre thought I’d be into a Blue Jackets scarf, but I guess it’s the thought that counts?” She pulled the offending object out of her bag, running her fingers through the fringe on the edge. “Seeing how amazing so many of those couples are, Janelle and Nick especially, it was awesome…” She trailed off. “But it was hard.”

His brow furrowed. Why would it be hard? “How so?”

“I always thought that, when I got married, it would be once and that was it.” She screwed her eyes shut. “And that’s not to mean I’m not grateful for what you’ve done, it’s so incredible and goes so far beyond just plain kindness. I just thought it would be a forever thing.”

Pierre’s heart dropped. Of course she’d feel like that. If marriage was something she wanted to take that seriously, how could she not feel like she was cheapening its meaning by treating it as nothing more than an arrangement of convenience? It wasn’t even like he felt any differently; hockey was obviously still his first priority most of the time, but he’d always seen himself as someone who wanted to settle down and have a family one day. He guessed that he just hadn’t let himself think about it. “Laurel,” he said quietly, reaching out to her. But she wasn’t done. 

“It’s just,” Laurel sighed, one hand tugging on her hair, tears threatening to escape her eyes, “knowing this is all temporary. Knowing that in a couple of y-years, when I g-get my citizenship and we get d-divorced, this is all going to end,” she said, hiccuping through her words. “I won’t be able to come to your Christmas parties and fly down for games and sit up in the WAG box with my friends and that jacket and a jersey with your name on it. I won’t be able to do any of that any more because it wasn’t real, it wasn’t ever real, and that fucking kills me inside, P.” Laurel sat on the corner of the couch, a spot as precarious as the words tumbling out of her mouth. 

“Why?” Pierre asked, even though if he was honest, he’d stake his career on the belief that he already knew the answer. “Why would it hurt so bad?” His voice was so quiet that if Laurel hadn’t been sitting two feet away, she wouldn’t have heard. 

“Because I’m fucking in love with you,” she whispered. “And that’s the single most terrifying sentence I’ve ever said in my life.” Even though Pierre somehow knew that’s what she was going to say all along, it didn’t stop her words from stealing the breath out of his lungs. Laurel looked up at him through her tears, her eyes beginning to redden. “Say something, please, P.”

Pierre knelt in front of her, his thumb resting gently on her cheek, wiping away her tears. “God, Laur, how could I not be in love with you?” She blinked rapidly at him, trying to process the words that were coming out of his mouth. “I wasn’t lying when I said you were one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. You’re so caring, not just for me, but for everyone in your life. You’d give a stranger the shirt off of your back. You’re probably the smartest person I know, way smarter than me.” A giggle escaped Laurel’s mouth. “The dedication you show to everything in your life is amazing. At your job, you treat every patient like they were your own sibling or your own child. You make the trip down to Columbus once a month, twice a month. That’s not easy, all the flight time and having to leave Piper and switching shifts around so we can see each other. You’re gorgeous, not just on the outside — though you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen — but the light in your eyes when you talk about a new book you read, or how happy you look when you let me taste a new recipe you’re trying, or how passionate you get when you see something wrong and know there’s something you need to do to change it. So what if we’re doing things a little backwards? First comes marriage, then comes love.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “I fell in love with you awhile ago. I think it just took me a second to realize it.”

 January 26 (wed)

 Laurel thought the distance and space between them would be easier now that she knew how he felt, now that they both knew how they felt. She couldn’t have been more wrong. So the All-Star break, and the Blue Jackets’ bye week, couldn’t have come at a better time. Pierre had made plans for the break a few months earlier, but after everything that happened over Christmas, it didn’t seem right to ditch Laurel for a boy’s trip with Alexandre and Seth. So Hilton Head was traded in for Saint Lucia, and his teammates were traded in for his wife. And he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Laurel was using three of her paid vacation days and Pierre was able to make the schedule work just right to get five nights in the Carribean. “A belated honeymoon, if you will,” he had said, cracking a grin over FaceTime as they booked the flights. The flight from Columbus was much less straightforward than hers from Montréal, but by a chance airline scheduling his first layover was in Toronto. Laurel met him at the gate, hauling her own green suitcase behind her as he flung his arms around her, kissing her with everything he had in him. They may have missed the not-so-subtle fans taking pictures that later circulated around Twitter that may or may not have led to some grade A chirping in the team’s group chat. But Pierre didn’t care. He cared that for a few days, he could forget about the stress of hockey and trying to make a playoff run and all the rumors floating around and just be with his wife. And, Pierre thought as they walked through the airport door into the Carribean sun, there really wasn’t anything else he wanted. 

They hailed a taxi, the twenty minute drive to their resort rushing by in a blur of palm trees and seas so blue Laurel thought she could fall into them just by looking. Pierre jogged into the main office to check them in, coming back with their key cards before the taxi continued on its way, dropping them off in front of their villa. Laurel spun slowly as they got out of the car, smiling up at the sky as Pierre pressed a few bills into the taxi driver’s hand with a nod of thanks. “You okay there?” he asked with a grin. 

“It’s so warm,” Laurel said in wonderment. Even in January, the weather in Saint Lucia hovered in the mid-70s, a far cry from the twenties and teens of a Montréal winter. Laurel was no stranger to the cold — Cloquet had seen temperatures pushing thirty below when Laurel was in high school — but the idea that she could be somewhere and wear shorts while it was snowing in her hometown was a concept so novel she hadn’t quite grasped it yet. 

He nodded, looking at Laurel with a gaze so soft she thought her heart would maybe burst. “We’re in the Caribbean, L. It’s warm all the time.” 

She rolled her eyes, bending over to get her suitcase, but not before Pierre snatched it up himself, holding the key card between two fingers. “Are you going to just stand there, or do you want to check out our honeymoon suite?” Laurel’s words dripped with suggestiveness, her sandal-clad feet dragging their way up the path to the villa with tantalizing languor. 

“Coming.” 

Even after the six months of their marriage, and even after everything that happened over the holidays, they hadn’t had sex. They’d gotten close a few times, both on her trip in December and in ones since, but never managed to go all the way. First Laurel needed a new birth control prescription — the last thing she would do would be have sex without being extra safe about it — and then she was too tired after a night out, and another time Pierre had scored a hat trick and they had partied way too hard to even think about sex. So needless to say, it had been a while for Laurel since she’d gotten release by any hands other than her own, and even longer for Pierre. And it certainly wasn’t because she didn’t want to. Laurel was well aware that her husband was hot as fuck, and she’d be lying if some of her lonelier nights weren’t filled with thoughts of exactly what she wanted him to do to her. But it felt different than any of her other relationships. Obviously, it felt different, she hadn’t been married to Oliver or Ryan or Carter. And that didn’t mean she wasn’t invested in those, but just that the stakes were so much higher and she had fallen so much harder for Pierre than she ever thought imaginable. She didn’t want to have sex with him until she was sure. Sure that it was going somewhere, sure that it would last, sure that he loved her in the same way that made her heart ache every time he dropped her off at Columbus International Airport. 

---

By the time they had unpacked, eaten, and gotten a few rum punches in their system, it was well past 7 and the sun had long since set. Laurel peeked out the door onto their balcony, nodding at the private plunge pool. “We’ve got quite the setup here.”

She walked over to the dresser, grabbing a swimsuit out and crossing over to the bathroom, her hand hovering over the knob. “Just something to think about.” Pierre put his swim trunks on in record time. Laurel padded out of the bathroom, the top straps of her bikini dangling, the swell of her breasts peeking above the cups. “Do me up?” she asked. 

Pierre’s fingers brushed the baby hairs at the base of her neck as he tied the straps of her white-hot bikini. “Sure you don’t want to go out to the beach?” 

Their villa came with a stretch of beachfront, and it seemed like such a shame to let it go to waste. Laurel shook her head, a smile playing on the edge of her lips. “We’ve got a couple of days to enjoy the beach. I’d like to stay somewhere a little more...secluded.” She bit her lip as she opened the door to the balcony, dipping her toes in the pool and sighing at the warmth of the water. Laurel looked back at Pierre, one eyebrow raised. “You coming?” Pierre couldn’t follow fast enough. 

They stayed in the water for a while, lazily kissing and staring at the stars and sipping drinks that had lost their potency hours ago, but neither of them really cared much. Sometime during the night, Laurel had made her way onto Pierre’s lap, where she reached over to the balcony, lofting herself out of the pool and wrapping a scarf around her body. “Getting a little cold,” she said, bending down and giving him a soft kisss. She walked into the room, drying herself off; he followed. Laurel threw the towel over a chair in the corner of the room, walking over towards Pierre, stopping when their noses were almost touching.

Laurel’s wrap fell from her shoulders, pooling on the wood floor. Pierre’s hand skated up her arm to rest on her cheek. He leaned in and pressed his lips to hers. She stood on her tiptoes as her left hand tangled in his hair, her right pressed against the back of his neck. She whimpered into his mouth; it took everything in Pierre’s power to keep the blood from rushing south. The kiss got more frantic, tongue and teeth clashing against each other as he walked her back to the bed. The back of her knees bumped up against the edge. 

Pierre pulled away slightly, letting out a moan as he saw Laurel’s face. Her lips were puffy from kissing, her chest heaving with the force of her breath, and her wild hair had long since been taken out of its ponytail. In other words, Pierre was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Laurel, in that moment, was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. “You sure you want to do this?” Pierre murmured. He wanted to. God, he wanted to. But he’d never do anything without making sure that she was absolutely comfortable. Laurel nodded, biting her lip. “I need to hear you say it, babe,” Pierre said, taking a step forward, their noses almost touching. 

“I want you to ruin me.”

Pierre audibly groaned, capturing her lips in his before throwing her back on the bed, his hand moving to her back to undo the tie of her bikini top as his lips trailed down her neck. He threw the top off to one side, paying exactly zero attention to where it landed, as his hands slid up her waist to cup her breasts, his thumbs ghosting over her sensitive nipples. Laurel’s breath hitched in her throat. “You like that, baby?”

“Mhm,” Laurel whimpered, unable to form a complete sentence. 

He smirked, lowering his mouth to her chest, flicking his tongue over her right nipple as his hand pinched her left. The air was filled with breathless sighs from them both until Pierre’s hands left her breasts. Laurel whined in protest until she felt his fingers toying with her bikini bottoms, his head lifting just enough so that his eyes could meet hers. “This okay?”

It was all Laurel could do to choke out a single word. “Please.”

Pierre pulled them down her legs, kissing down, down to her hips, down to her inner thighs, down to everywhere except for where she needed him. “You need something, Laurel?” Pierre asked, his voice dripping with sex. 

Laurel groaned, not wanting to give in but also knowing that Pierre could stay where he was for hours if it meant teasing her. “Your mouth.” 

“As you wish.” And then his tongue was on her, and in her, and she couldn’t help but let out a moan. And Pierre was loving every second of it. He stayed down there for a while, long enough to finish her twice. 

Laurel pushed on his shoulder, trying to get him to turn on his back so she could return the favor. Pierre shook his head as he shucked his shorts off, pulling her head down to kiss her roughly. “I’m going to cum right here if I don’t get inside you in the next two minutes, babe.” He reached over to the nightstand, grabbing a condom. “Guess I’ll have to thank Josh for these when we get back home.”

She raised one eyebrow, clearly unamused. “If you do that, I can promise you I’ll never put your dick in my mouth. Not now, not ever.”

Pierre held his hands up in surrender, the foil packet shining between two fingers. “Alright, alright. I won’t.” He paused just before bringing the wrapper up to his teeth. “You want this?”

Laurel nodded frantically as he rolled the condom down his length. He looked so hard it was painful. “So bad.” He leaned down to kiss her, propped up on one arm as he pushed into her, hair falling into his face as he closed his eyes. He was too blissed out to be able to focus on anything other than how good she felt around him, how tight and warm and how well she fit, like Laurel Elizabeth Klerken was made for him and him alone. 

“More,” Laurel cried softly, and that was all it took for Pierre to grab one of her legs, throwing it around his hips as he increased his pace, head dropping to her neck as he nipped at her pulse points. It didn’t take long for Pierre to reach his high, Laurel right behind him. He pressed a sweet kiss to her forehead before getting up from the bed, going into the bathroom to tie off the condom and grab a washcloth. He cleaned up between her legs as Laurel lay there, trying to steady her breathing, absolutely spent from the night’s three orgasms. “Why didn’t we do that earlier?” Laurel murmured. 

Pierre laughed, throwing the cloth in the laundry basket and tilting down to press a kiss to the crown of her head. “I don’t know. But it was worth it.”

 February 20 (mon)

 Laurel had learned early on in her relationship with Pierre that she couldn’t put much stock into what was said on Twitter. Or Instagram, or any social media for that matter. So much was speculation: about draft picks, about trade rumors, about Pierre-Luc Dubois’ secret wife, that it just wasn’t useful or healthy for her so spend much time looking around. She still had her accounts, but Instagram was the only one she went on with any regularity nowadays. And she rarely checked her phone during the work day anyways; unless it was an unusually slow day  — which was never a good sign in the medical world — the only time she was even able to spare a glance was during her lunch break or when she’d run to the bathroom. So when her phone buzzed with a text from Pierre as she sat at the nurses’ station, her brow furrowed as she unlocked the screen. 

Are you free right now? I need to call you. 

Laurel bit her lip, nerves threatening to boil over. He knew her schedule, he knew she was at work. What could be so important that it couldn’t wait? Are you okay? Did something happen?

He typed a response as soon as her text showed as delivered.  I’m not hurt, it’s not bad, really, I just need to tell you something and I don’t want to have to do it over text. 

Laurel checked her watch. 11:18. It was early for a lunch break, but as long as she wasn’t needed, she could take her half hour any time between 11 and 1. She caught the eye of her charge nurse. “Claudette? I’m taking my lunch if that’s alright with you.” Claudette nodded, and Laurel quickly made her way to the locker room to grab her leftover pasta, texting Pierre on the way. Headed to the changing room now. Are you going to tell me what this is about?

Her phone rang a minute later, when she had just closed the door. She tapped the green button. “You’re going to have to tell me what’s going on here, P, because I’m kind of freaking out,” Laurel said, laughing nervously. “You don’t tell a girl what to expect, she starts assuming the worst.”

Pierre let out a heavy breath. She could imagine him running a hand through his hair on the other end. “I know, and I’m sorry if I worried you. I just needed to tell you before it breaks.”

“Before what breaks, Pierre?” Laurel’s anxiety was coming to a head. 

“I’m coming home.”

Laurel screwed her eyes shut, even more confused than she was before. “Yeah, Pierre, I know you’re playing here next week. Why would that be news?” 

“When’s the trade deadline, Laurel?”

“Last Monday in February, but I don’t see what that has…” She pulled the phone away from her ear, looking down at the screen, eyes locking on the date. “You got traded?” 

She could imagine him sitting down on the edge of his couch, one hand dangling off the side, Georgia trying to jump up and goad him into giving her a pet or two. “They’re breaking it right before the noon deadline, but you deserved to know before everyone else did. You needed to know.”

Laurel leaned up against her locker, hand over her mouth. “You’re coming to Montréal?” She had seen it mentioned offhand on a few Twitter accounts she followed the handful of times she had logged on in the past week, but nobody thought it would actually happen. Even the concept of trading him seemed so far-fetched with the type of season he was having in Columbus. He was sitting near 30 goals and 40 assists, with one of the best plus-minus scores on the team. It just didn’t make sense. 

“As of twenty minutes ago, I’m officially a Montréal Canadien,” Pierre answered. 

“Oh God,” Laurel said, sympathy lacing her voice. She couldn’t let herself be excited, wouldn’t let herself be excited, until she knew exactly how Pierre felt about it. He had just been uprooted from the team that drafted him, where he’d played for four seasons and made friends and where everyone saw him as the future of the franchise. 

Pierre let out a single laugh. “They let me know what the deal was, apparently Montréal really wanted me. First round pick next year, a second-year defenseman, some prospect from Laval.”

Laurel settled on the bench, tucking the phone under her chin. “Of course they really wanted you, P. You’re an incredible player, you’d be an asset to any team and you’re going to do great things in Montréal.” She paused. “But how are you feeling about the move? I know it’s not what you were expecting. Or what anyone was expecting, really.”

“It’s weird,” Pierre said after a moment. “Obviously yeah, I won’t lie, it’s a shock. But almost every player, even the really good ones, get traded at one point or another. Gretzky was traded to L.A.”

“Are you comparing yourself to Gretzky?” Laurel asked playfully. 

“No,” Pierre chuckled. “But just trying to remind myself that it was almost inevitable. I’m allowed to be sad about it — and I am, it’s going to fucking suck leaving the boys — but I’m not as torn up as I thought I’d be if this ever happened.” He felt more than a little bad about it, but his first thought when his agent called and broke the news wasn’t sadness, it wasn’t despair at having to leave the team he had been brought up in and the men he considered his brothers. It was relief. Relief that he could be closer to his family, relief that he’d be back with Laurel, relief that he was going home. “And hey,” he said, catching Laurel’s attention. “You know what?”

Laurel rolled her eyes. “What?”

“I don’t even have to marry someone to move.”

---

Pierre’s flight got in late Tuesday night, just after Laurel’s shift at the hospital had ended. He had said he wouldn’t mind taking an Uber home so she didn’t have to rush over and stress about traffic, but Laurel didn’t care. She wanted to be at the airport to pick up her husband, even if it meant she’d still be in her scrubs doing it. 

She saw him exiting the sliding doors of the international terminal before she even turned the corner, practically slamming her car into park as soon as she hit the curb. Pierre dropped his bags when her car door opened, paying no attention to the thump of the suitcases as they hit the ground or the wandering eyes of passersby. Airports hadn’t always been his favorite place. They meant leaving the people he loved, going away from what was warm and familiar and safe. They usually meant uncertainty. But that had changed, Pierre thought, as his wife jumped into his arms, her legs wrapping around his waist as their lips met. Airports might just have become one of his favorite places. He pulled back from the kiss, their foreheads just barely touching. “Hi,” he said. 

Laurel smiled, the kind of smile that lit up rooms and made crying babies giggle and that Pierre was pretty sure was his favorite thing he’d ever seen in the world. “Welcome home.”

[sunnysidewrites]

Soulmate!Woozi

Requested by anon: This is going to be an odd request, but if you had seen the Disney short, "Paperman" and could use the idea of it in a scenario with Woozi? If you haven't seen it, I recommend it~

omg so i watched it right after i saw this pop up in my inbox and lemme tell u it was so freakin cute thank u anon for enlightening me with this cute lil short love u <3333 i hope it was what you wanted bb!! also excuse the gross quality of this,, i havent written an actual separate thing in so long but hope this is somewhat decent :))) <3333

REQUESTS ARE OPEN BTW SO DROP IN SOME STUFF FOR ME TY TY I HOPE I WONT BE A LAZY ASS AND WILL ACTUALLY DO SOME WRITING

warnings: paper cuts. no paper airplanes were hurt in the making of the process but jihoon sure was

Every day, every single day, was the same old for lil Jihoon

An ordinary office job, an ordinary house, an ordinary lifestyle

Sure, it’s stable. His mouth is fed and a roof over his head hey that rhymes hehe but it’s so dull and lonely

You know that soulmate au where all you see is black and white until you meet them?? Yep. that’s it. That’s the tweet.

But the two people have to actually lock eyes -- it can’t just be someone seeing the other across the street

All of his friends are slowly marrying their soulmates and jihoon is just like hahHAHAhahaha guess i’ll marry my boring as hell job!!!!!

You’d think jihoon is most likely to marry his job right??? Mmm yeah that only applies if he likes his job sigh poor dude

Probably the most eventful thing that has happened to him in the past four years is “spicing things up a bit” amd spreading strawberry cream cheese on his bagel rather than regular cream cheese :(((

He needs some EXCITEMENT!!! ADVENTURE!!!

Can’t really do that when you’re stuck in a cubicle from 8-5pm can you smh

He didn’t expect -- ok well he probably did actually -- to have a painstakingly slow and mundane life when he moved to the city those years ago but it’s not like he can complain about having a stable life,,,, right?

You’re in the same slump as your soulmate without even realizing it

You landed a job at this fairly large corporation, and the pay was enough for your everyday living expenses

Each day, you stood before your reflection in a cute yet professional suit

You thought that this was what you’ve always wanted to be: a successful career person

Yeaaaa that’s not working out like you imagined it would be :(((

It sucks even more since you only see black and white so the boring factor just amped up by x30 more sigh rip you reader

Anyways, Jihoon was at the subway station as per usual, waiting for his 7:30am train to come

He’s carrying a huge stack of papers nECK HIGH so when the top paper starts blowing away he’s like oH NO NONOONO

Luckily (or is it unluckily?) the paper lands right in front of your face and he’s like oh,,,,, crap. There’s a bright red lipstick mark smack in the middle of the page LMAO

He wants to reach out for it but his hands are a little busy at the moment, but fortunately you laugh it off and place it back on his pile

He’s relieved as h*ck that you didn’t go nuts and tear his head off

It’s also a nice bonus you’re hella cute too ;))) some nice eye candy in the morning for the both of yall

You don’t quite make proper eye contact,,, it’s more like one of yall are looking at the other only when the other isn’t looking back

He’s about to work up the courage to say something to you, but as soon as he turns back to you, you’ve disappeared!!!

You lock eyes again on either side of the train and then it’s farewell T_T

The next few weeks he’s going INSANE and thinking about you no matter how much he tries to bury himself in his work

Quite literally. Those papers just keep multiplying rip jihoon

His boss is just like ohmYGOD WE DON’T HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD GET A MOVING!!!!

One day when he’s at his desk, his boss --

You guessed it

-- plants down a new stack of papers

Is this some daily ritual or smth idk man

Truth be told, he kept that paper with your lipstick mark on tucked in one of his desk drawers as a friendly reminder of the lost opportunity he screwed up on :))) good job my dude

He sighs and turns his head to stare out the window for a moment when he nearly jumps oUT OF his skin

There you are in your nice and polished suit, sitting in the room diRECTLY ACROSS FROM HIM IN THE NEXT BUILDING

He tries waving and just about anything to get your attention, but you’re too absorbed in engaging with someone else so he’s frantically trying to come up with another method

And there it is. He looks at the pile of papers and a lightbulb goes off

45 pages of paper airplanes later, you stiLL haven’t noticed anything rip all those airplanes failed. The closest he ever got sailed right in the back behind you but you didn’t notice it :’((

Soon, he uses up aLL his papers and his boss catches him doing some weird stuff so he shuts down the window and forces him to focus rip jihoon no one is on his side. On top of giving him another stack of documents ofc

Him: this is so sad alexa play i won’t give up on us

Anyways he tries to go back to his work but when his boss leaves he’s back to those airplanes

He runs out again and this time he’s like ok. I have no choice but to use The Last Resort

He makes a final airplane using the lipstick paper and IT STILL FAILS RIP BYE END OF STORY

He sighs frustratedly and gives up but since this is based on the disney short, some magical stuff happens LMAO

All of his failed airplanes come to life and ATTACK THE HELL OUT OF HIM WHEN HE TRIES TO LEAVE

Simultaneously, the lipstick airplane also comes to life and is discreetly flying through the city to catch you when you’re walking back to the train station to head home

Jihoon’s airplanes are viciously attacking him -- ngl looks pretty painful -- but they’re pushing him towards your direction all while your special airplane is leading you to him!!!

The city onlookers are freaked tf out seeing a man with 20 airplanes attached to his body and attacking him but a plane’s gotta do what a plane’s gotta do right folks??

Jihoon tries to move out of the train that the planes pushed him onto but they firmly hold him back the poor man

You’ve been following this lil lovely plane for a while now and just when you think of heading back, you meet a very familiar man but he’s… completely covered in airplanes

The boy keeps struggling against the planes and it’s super hard to walk and see when all he sees are blurs of flying white around him but he comes to a sudden halt when he sees the face he’s been thinking about for weeks

All the planes on his body slowly fall down and the second you lock eyes, colors just bURST into your vision

You’re not sure how the airplanes did their magic, but it’s definitely the least of your worries rn

He shyly chuckles and rubs his hand on the back of his neck, a tinge of pink coloring his cheeks (which you can NOW SEE YAY)

You look at the gigantic pile of airplanes crowding his feet and you can’t help but giggle when you connect the dots

“Did you really spend that much paper and time folding all of these?”

“It’s… a long story, but I’m glad I did. I think I have a bunch of cuts from them jamming into me earlier tho :(“

“Hmm, how about we properly communicate over some dinner?”

He smiles boyishly and nods in agreement

“As long as there’s no lemonade involved”

[yeonjuins]

yes very lovely and yess exactly it’s such a nice song ♡︎

aw,, are you okay? (giving you a hug right now ♡︎) I hope everything can fall back into balance for you soon ♡︎ I understand how that can feel

no really I understand that’s been me with exo lately but I hope listening to them has been helping you feel better at least ♡︎

no same but now I will literally play a song 3 or more times back to back and still vibe with it each time SKSKDKD

And hmmm well I went shopping for decorations for my room over the weekend and I’ve been getting around to listening to some song recs my friends gave me, I added them to a separate playlist so it’s easier for me to get to them,, I also added the audios you reblogged too so I can finally listen to those (I haven’t gotten to yours yet but when I do I will bug your inbox about them SKSKDKDKF) but other than that nothing new. I’m on spring break so I am just taking time to relax before I have to get back into work mode :)

I am currently trying to work on my Home Screen at the moment because it’s like blank LMAO but I can’t seem to come up with any ideas :/ but I will not give up

also also whenever you have time listen to See the Sea by Dvwn it’s an instrumental but it’s really nice and I feel like it could be good background music while doing work or just something nice to listen to ease your mind or something (hope like it!!)

(lengthy response!)

OHH MY GOD HUMMING ANON okay before i forget i need to get this out of the way... i like.. secretly remember your actual url from the time you accidentally sent an ask off anon (because you pop up on my mutuals pages too off anon ;0) so whenever i see you pop up in my notifs i'm like (": <3 and out of curiosity i was just wondering if u were active so i tried searching ur url off memory BUT I TYPED IT IN WRONG AND DIDN'T NOTICE !??! SO i began to panic and i was like omg what if humming anon deactivated what now... i feel like my life is suddenly empty.... i like RETYPED IT IN (incorrectly each time) AND I COULDN'T FIND IT AND I WAS SO IN DISTRAUGHT until i finally got it and i was like oh phew they're still here ): <3

anyways aside from that, your url is redacted to me it does not exist you are simply humming anonnie to me if that is much more within your comfort zone !!!!

i'm doing better now ! recovering from like.... a little bit of too much spending in the month (to which i can whole heartedly afford with ease... spending a lot just makes me feel guilty in a sense and i overthink literally any purchase <- spent 4 hours agonizing over buying a new desk i wanted) ty for the hug though i read this when it first came it and i felt really warm ): i'm more coherent today so i'm hoping things eventually just.... do bounce back in general and i'm back to my normal lifestyle again (i say that as though something truly significant happened.... i think march overall is just a really hectic month for me so i've been having 31073120 things on my plate D:)

EXO SOOOOOO TRUE oh my god.... i'm going to hate the way i sound but like exo is such a mood for me... like sometimes i'll remember growl exists and i'll listen to it on repeat along with mama, what is love, etc etc... i'm pretty sure exo was one of my first groups and i was such a big exo-l (": i remember watching their little web series too and i had such a big crush on chanyeol <3 honestly exo's songs are up there for me i respect their work a lot

CRIES U ADDED THE SONGS I REBLOGGED TO THE PLAYLIST D: i'm so honoured ;; NOOOO garuntee that you'll like them, a lot of the times i'll just upload it for the sake of being able to show off the niche music i like for the even more niche minority that knows xyz song... i hope u are enjoying spring break my angel ! u deserve all the rest you can get esp after all your finals and exams ;;

see the sea is so cute i wasn't expecting dvwn just to drop an instrumental by itself that's so cute ): a song i've been listening to lately is until i found you - stephen sanchez (piano version in particular!)... makes me feel like i'm in a slow waltz and i'm realizing how in love i am with xyz person (<- is not in love but for the future LOL MANIFESTING I GUESS <- <- EVEN MORE OF A JOKE i intend to die single <3))

[lemoncupcake]

favorite beth moments please?

ohhhh. that's a hard question. i give you my top 5 character moments + my top 5 giffing moments under the cut :) be warned, it gets very rambly. also, these are like off the top of my head, so i might have forgotten something.

character moments:

that scene in 1x06 when she gets home with a bag full of "groceries" and dean is watching tv and drinking beer because he doesn't want her to be alone at night and she rips him a new one and throws the bags of cash on him. i mean, it's kind of a dumb decision because the less deansie knows, the better. but like, it's so cathartic!! the audience needed to see dean called out and beth reasserting herself and showing him who's the boss. and this delivered on that!!

the scene of annie and beth giving ruby their cut. i love the relationship the girls have and i just feel like this scene is just such a perfect moment that showcases why. i mean, they're all in very bad money situations, right?? but annie and beth still give ruby their cut. because they love each other that much, because they support each other no matter what. it's just really good! and i feel like it showcases beth's best qualities.

that scene in 2x10 where dean asks beth if she misses "it" and it's so clear that she does. i feel like the whole of 2x10 is the best they've ever done at exploring the fact that beth doesn't actually enjoy normal (whether that's a "anymore" or "and never did" i don't know, though i lean towards it being not anymore). i don't understand why they insist on doing it every season, though, because it's just getting repetitive. like, even if your favourite iteration of that isn't 2x10, it will be one of the 300 times they've done it and so all the other ones will just feel like badly done copies of that thing you like.

with that said, it's no surprise that the scene in 2x10 of beth saying she had fun (trying to) cover up/comitting a crime also makes it on this list. just... yes. i always enjoy this show the most when beth admits she enjoys doing crime and being good at it. plus, she looked adorable.

that scene in 2x08 where she tells ruby to take stan to the hypothetical beyoncé concert. i love her relationship with ruby. and i can admit that beth can be very selfish/self-centered at times. but you feel bad for her for ruby's betrayal, because she doesn't have a partner in her husband like ruby does, but you also feel bad for ruby, because she's between a rock and a hard place. and i just appreciate that we had ruby not follow through and apologize but then we also had beth acknowledge that she gets why ruby did it and i think also that she understands if it were to happen again, to some extent?? it just feels like they've reached a new understanding. it feels like growth.

giffing moments (these are basically just scenes where i think she looks really pretty and that i try to squeeze into every gifset i possibly can):

that shot of her smiling after rio ups their drop in 1x06

that scene of her giving amber the money in 1x01

that shot of her smiling at rio at the bar in 2x09

that shot of her taking a breath and steadying her hands in 1x10

that shot of her laying on the exam table at the ob-gyn and opening her eyes in 3x03

ty for asking anon! feel free to also tell them what yours are in my inbox or in the comments :)

[flange5]

Hey there, new followers and new-ish followers: it’s milestone time and thus welcome time

So, I try to put up a welcome/intro post whenever I hit a milestone/have an influx of followers, to say hi, thanks for following me, and to give you a quick heads up on my tagging tendencies (helpful for people who like comics but not MCU, or Marvel but not nail polish, or who like media but not the consumerism/enabling posts, how to find all the posts on Tony Stark and tentacles, etc.), my policies/preferences on anons and asks, following back, etc. I’m going to put this all behind a cut, though, because it gets long.

Welcome new followers! Here are some heads up that might make my tumblr a bit easier to navigate/follow/enjoy.

1) Chatting, etc. I love talking to followers! Feel free to talk to me in my inbox any time in person or anonymously. I do have a very low tolerance for trollery, though, so if you decide to yank my chain I have no compunction about blocking someone if they’re abusive or nasty. I do not consider civil disagreement trolling. I trust grown-ups can tell the difference :) I’m more likely to assume it’s trollery if it’s aggressively negative/insulting *and* on anon, so be aware that I generally decide in those cases that this is my fun place and I block with abandon. Life is too short.

2) Following back- I’m one of those people who tries and fails to get through her whole dash most days, and I find it fairly difficult, so I follow a pretty small list of blogs and rarely add more people. This doesn’t mean I don’t think you have a great blog or I don’t personally like you or like our conversations, or don’t visit your blog from time to time. I’m just really swamped. Please don’t take it as a judgment or rejection of any kind if I don’t.

3) Fandoms -My primary fandoms right now are MCU and 616 Marvel (main Marvel continuity), though I also post X-Files, Arashi, Star Wars, critters, baking, current events, nail polish/nail art and various other things. I tend not to tag fandoms, but I can on request if there’s something you want to be able to find or avoid. Right now, I’m in the middle of an Iron Man and a Captain America 616 comic readthrough, both of which are in 1998 at present, but to be honest, the late 90s are kind of terrible, so I’m bouncing all over the place right now until I can get the courage together to proceed again. You’ll see a lot of them if you stick around.

4) Tagging -There are things I try to tag carefully for. Common triggers are tagged, and if you would like me to tag for anything specific, please let me know and I will do my utmost to comply. Other tags followers might find useful for TS/Blacklist are as follows: 

Politics: If it’s about the current president, I will tag it “45.” If it’s about him and or the current political nightmare we’re all going through, the tag is “dumpster fire of democracy.” If you BL the second, you will miss most day to day political posts. 

Marvel wank: this tag is my catch-all for comics wank, which covers creator wank and content wank, but not fandom wank. For the most part, I do try to steer clear of fandom wank but I’ll tag it when I post or reblog it. I will typically make a distinction between “marvel wank” (comics wank) and “mcu wank” (self-explanatory).

Fandom wank: when I do step into fandom wank, I try to tag it.

[creator] wank: There are creators I really have beefs with and I tag that because I know there are people who are interested in my general gripes but might not want to get into individual things. People who’ve come in for it in the past: Spenser, Remender, Brevoort (these two are common and if you’re fans but want to follow, I recommend blacklisting these tags immediately because yeah, I have strong opinions), Alonso, and to a lesser degree, Hickman and Bendis. Oh, and Whedon. I have some serious issues with Whedon, and though they don’t come up often, if he’s your cinnamon roll, you need to BL ‘whedon wank.’ Honestly if anyone is your cinnamon roll, you might want to preemptively BL their name + wank. I don’t go spewing wank willy-nilly, but no one gets an autopass if I’m pissed at them. Generally, these posts will have a Marvel wank tag as well, so if you’re a see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil sort, the Marvel wank tag will likely save you from just about anything.

enabling: these posts are when I post an item with a link to where you can buy it, typically comics related or nail polish/cosmetics related, but anything is possible. If you don’t want to see these things, it’s a good tag to make go away, because I use it a lot. I do not always use this tag when I reblog other people’s posts about things you can buy, but I try. When I post enabling posts, I tend to add a second link to the type of item (“clothing”, “nail polish”, “wall art”, “jewelry”, etc, and if there is a character featured, I will include that tag as well, so if you need to search something, you can, or, if you want to blacklist nail polish, let’s say, but keep the other enabling posts, that’s how you’d go about it.

nail polish: this should be pretty self-explanatory. I’m not perfect on this, but I probably tag around 85-90% of the nail polish posts so if that’s really not your bag, BL ‘nail polish’ and you should be pretty safe. Your wallets, too. The sparkles are seductive.

team nobody: It’s no secret that comics aren’t that great at writing healthy relationships and I am often pretty clear about my opinions on the writing of some of them in my read-throughs, but I get that some people might not appreciate that, especially if they’re fans of the ships in their more modern incarnations. This is my tag primarily for Silver and Bronze Age depictions of Steve/Sharon and the Tony/Pepper/Happy cluster@#$! because I have grumpytimes quite frequently. If I’m grumpy in a post about it, I tag it with this so people can avoid it if they want. When I get to vol 3, it’s likely I’ll post some commentary about the Tony/Pepper/Happy/Rumiko/Ty debacles under this tag too.

Readthrough tags–I generally tag all shown characters in a panel for my original posts, usually by code name and personal name to make it easier to search, but each book also has a tag, if you want an easy way to ‘read’ along:

Iron Man/Tales of Suspense: what even is this comic?

Captain America: flange reads captain america

Avengers: flange reads the avengers

Civil War: flange reads civil war oh god why

Objectified Tony Stark tag: Tony has diversified assets

Objectified Steve Rogers tag: for all of your objectified Steve Rogers needs, american assets (I know, but I’ve used multiple tags. More recently, I’ve been using the second, and it’s much more populated.)

Tony and comic art suggesting bondage: Tony Stark all tied up

Steve and comic art suggesting bondage: Steve Rogers all tied up

Tony and Roller Skates: tony stark/roller skates is my new otp

Tony and Tentacles: tony stark/tentacles

Tony/Doom (aka the crackship): the crackship sails on

Ships: If a canon couple is shown in canon panels, I will typically just tag the characters, rather than a ship name. If my commentary takes characters who are not a canon couple and talks about them in a shippy way, I will generally tag the ship name(s) in case people have that ship BLed. If I reblog fic or other fanworks with a ship, canon or not, I try to remember to tag it, though I’m probably not 100%. Feel free to make a (polite) request for me to tag a ship if I am not.

I also find it funny how often Tony and Steve are represented busting through walls, so: Iron Man: scourge of walls and Captain America: scourge of walls both exist.

Uuuuuh, I think that’s everything. Drop by any time and say hi, and thank you for following me :)