#cue the playoff run and painful opening of old wounds and kissing after you lose the conference finals

[bropunzeling]

For fic ask game, ★ for linger, ❖ for linger and don't ever be a stranger, ☰ for last call x second chance romance (no I'm not fishing what do you mean)

already answered the first one, so!

�� did anything major change when you started writing [fic] to when you finished?

originally this fic wasn't going to be linear! i had vague thoughts of doing something similar to collide the spaces that divide us, where it would start with the 2023 asg and then go back to the 2020 asg and work forward again. in that version the conflict was going to be much more about the trade itself instead of matthew's deep-seated emotional hangups about being vulnerable. i tried writing the opening and went oh this isn't working and then switched to the structure you see now.

☰ send a fic and an unrelated trope and I’ll remix it [last call and second chance romance]

lmao i sure was giving them one more year than they got!!!! but okay here's what i think happens to trevor and jamie after that fic:

trevor does get traded, right at the deadline. jamie, too. it sucks and maybe the worst part is they're barely talking anymore, that one night in cabo strung up like a barbed wire fence between them.

smash cut to years later in another city. jamie hasn't had the career where he gets to stay in one place for long, but he’s been here a few seasons at least. has his friends, a bit of community, is making a home for himself. the injuries are what they are but he’s hoping for a few good years, maybe some cup runs if they're lucky, and then he'll retire and go back to the gta.

then, in the spring, the team makes a trade. for trevor.

and it's EXCRUCIATING. the social media people keep having them do videos together. most of the team (who aren't children, anyway) expect them to be buddies. and trevor is as bubbly and charming and fast talking as ever, but jamie knows. it's been years; he knows when trevor's hiding things, and now is no different.

except they are on a playoff run, and trevor seems to be making friends (jamie has the selfish urge to be like they were my friends first, which isn't even fair) and one night in mid april they're all out celebrating a win, and trevor looks at him across a table, and it’s like they're fucking twenty again, it's everything jamie ever wanted then, and he has to swallow hard because it turns out he still might want it now.