#why is duck so goddamn expensive in the united states

[gu6chan]

i would kill for a cup of this right now

[nothingpersonal1234]

mister congeniality (bellarke)

as you can likely guess, this is a miss congeniality AU

read here or on AO3

The worst part of the whole thing is that if he takes a step back, he understands exactly why he was chosen to play this role. It makes perfect tactical sense. He’s the only one in the agency who is 1) young enough to pass as college-aged, 2) good at undercover work, and 3) male.

So really, if he were anyone else but himself, he’d totally get why he was chosen to go undercover at America’s first and only male beauty pageant. 

But he is himself. And currently, he’s getting the ever-loving shit plucked out of his eyebrows while Clarke fucking Griffin eats a bagel and smirks at him.

So really, his complaints are one hundred percent justified.

“Jesus Christ, can someone get me a fucking donut, at least? There’s two whole trays of them right there!” He catches sight of a woman approaching with a bottle of Nair; he stops her cold with a look. “What the fuck do you think you’re going to do with that?”

Clarke pushes herself off the table she’d been leaning against and approaches the rigged dentist’s chair he’s currently sprawled out on. “Can you please,” she says patiently, “stop terrorizing the beauticians? They’re just doing their jobs.”

“Yeah, and I want to get back to doing mine,” he says, batting away the goddamn tweezers as they approach his face again. “I’m an FBI agent! I didn’t go to fucking Quantico for this!”

“Yeah, and I didn’t go to get stuck babysitting you,” she replies through a bite of bagel. “Yet here we are. Hold still, or I’m going to knock you out.”

He glares at her for half a second longer before groaning and letting his head fall back. The woman with the tweezers hesitantly starts going at it again at Clarke’s nod. “I don’t understand why the fuck I have to do this,” Bellamy says, for possibly the tenth time in the past two hours.

“Because,” Clarke responds, bored, “some Christian fundamentalist group is convinced this pageant promotes homosexuality and threatened to bomb it, and you’re a highly qualified agent dedicated to protecting the people of the United States of America.”

“Yeah, I got that part,” he says, gritting his teeth as the tweezers rip another hair out of his face. “But why do I have to be the one to do this?”

She sighs. “You just want to hear me say that you’re the best undercover op we have in our class again, don’t you?”

"It wouldn’t hurt,” he grumbles, and pretends he can’t hear her snickering.

So maybe it’s the coffee, or the sleep deprivation, or something in the air, but Clarke legitimately cannot take her eyes off Bellamy Blake as he strides out toward her in the morning sunlight. 

Behind her, Raven whistles. “Boy cleans up good,” she says, before sliding into the driver’s seat of their SUV and starting the engine.

Bellamy stops a few feet in front of Clarke and slides his sunglasses off to meet her gaze. “Well?” he asks, going for nonchalant and missing it by a few notes. “Is my movie makeover adequate?”

“Uh,” she starts, then stops. 

A smirk grows on his face. “Alright, I think that’s the answer I needed.”

The cockiness is what snaps her out of it. “Don’t be such an ass,” she replies, before reaching up to run her fingers through his hair. He ducks down automatically, although the expression on his face goes from smug to stunned pretty quickly. “The gel isn’t a good look on you,” she says in response to his unasked question. “Messy is much better.”

He clears his throat. “I, uh... do I need to look that great right now? We’re just going to the hotel.”

“Yeah, you’ll be meeting all the other competitors. And I think they have a full schedule planned out for you, actually. Dress rehearsals and publicity stunts, probably.”

“Hence the monkey suit,” he supplies. 

“The expensive, fitted, designer monkey suit,” she says, finishing up with his hair. He rolls his eyes as he straightens up.

The SUV window rolls down then. “Hey, lovebirds,” Raven calls. “If you could stop with the PDA and get into the damn car, maybe we’ll have time to hit a Starbucks before we drop Bellamy off at hell.”

“Snarky when she gets no sleep, huh?” Bellamy says, finally hitting that casual tone before sliding into the car. 

Clarke hopes no one can see her face turning red.

“There’s a what?” 

“A swimsuit portion,” says the backstage crew member, unruffled. “Come on, you have to have known that. That’s the most infamous part.”

Bellamy looks like he’s about to pass out. The music on stage is starting though, and half the contestants have already gotten changed. Clarke grabs the - well, it’d be generous to call it a swimsuit, it’s like a scrap of black fabric - from the guy’s hands and shoves it at Bellamy, forcing herself to be professional despite Raven’s cackling in their earpieces.

“Bell, do it for America,” she says, and God help her if her voice doesn’t crack.

“Fucking - “ He snatches it from her and stomps away toward the changing rooms.

“He’s just mad because he knows we’re going to make fun of him for literally forever,” says Raven. “Right, Miller?”

“I’ve already got alerts set on every social media website for his name,” Miller deadpans, and Clarke really can’t tell if he’s being serious or not.

Of course, that’s when Bellamy comes storming back out toward her, and literally all human thought leaves her brain.

“Do not,” he intones. “I am not in the mood.”

She nods, a little busy trying not to choke on her own tongue.

Raven, however, is in charge of monitoring the feed from the camera disguised as an American flag pin on Clarke’s suit, and it’s very clear when she turns back toward that particular computer screen. “Holy shit, Blake!”

“Can we not do this right now,” he replies, a dull red flush working its way up his neck. His hand goes up to tug at his hair. Clarke watches his shoulder muscles shift and clears her throat. 

You’re a federal agent, she scolds herself, not a fucking teenager. Get a grip. 

She can’t figure out where she should be looking. Should she be making eye contact? Staring over his shoulder? Checking out his abs?

Jesus, okay, definitely should not be looking at his ass.

“Are we all done ogling Blake?” comes Miller’s voice through their earpieces. 

“Nope,” Raven replies, gleeful.

Clarke clears her throat one more time for good measure. “Uh, I think you’re on,” she says to Bellamy, gesturing at the other contestants, who are all lining up to get back on stage.

“I can’t believe,” he says, “that I’m going to be on national television in nothing but Speedos. I don’t even wear Speedos normally!”

“You’re going to be on YouTube forever,” says Miller.

“Great,” he says, and on that note, the pageant music starts up again.

Alright, so he manages to find the bomb. If his methods of making sure it safely detonated away from anyone else were a little... unorthodox... he’s sure HQ can forgive him. Better that some props backstage were blown up than the new Mr. USA’s head. 

Clarke is waiting for him when he gets off stage, shock blanket and bottle of water somehow already in hand. She has that look on her face that she gets whenever Jasper burns himself pouring hot coffee while texting: sympathetic, a little worried, but also amused, despite herself.

“What a hero,” she says, voice not quite sarcastic as she drapes the bright orange blanket around his shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah,” he replies, relieving her of the water and taking a long sip.

“How do you feel?” she asks, and it takes him a little while to respond.

“Better,” he decides, and laughs at her expression. “Not, like... I mean that now that we know there was a legitimate threat, and now that we’ve prevented it, I feel like this whole ordeal was worth it.”

“Yeah, it would’ve been a shame to wear a Speedo for no reason at all,” she says, and despite her teasing grin, he can see pink starting to creep into her cheeks.

“Not no reason,” he says, before he can help himself, and at her inquiring look, he continues, “Made you look, didn’t I?”

Raven beeps in to tell them that HQ wants to talk to him ASAP, so she doesn’t get to respond. Still, her deepening blush is all the reply Bellamy thinks he needs.

He’s greeted with a round of applause and wolf-whistles when he gets back to the office a week later. He bows once, flips off Miller (the source of most of the whistles), and settles into his seat. When he turns on his computer monitor, he finds that someone’s changed his desktop background to a picture of him assaulting the new Mr. USA to grab the explosive crown on his head. Before he can do much more than process it, a mug of coffee enters his field of vision.

“Thought you’d like a third party view of how the action went down,” Clarke says, and he takes the mug from her with a grin.

“It is pretty cool. Still, not worth the fact that I can’t do undercover ops for a while.”

“Kane says he’s thinking about giving you some overseas work,” she replies, taking a sip from her own mug. “You’d have to go with a partner though, and probably change up your look. People in Kazakhstan might not normally know who Mr. USA is, but they’ll definitely know on sight the crazy guy who attacked Mr. USA to grab his crown before it blew up.”

“Wow, I’ve become the face of America in Eastern Europe. That’s a shit deal.”

“The trials and tribulations of serving your country,” she shoots back, and he can feel everything settling back to normal, as normal as things get in this crazy office, and while that’s exactly what he wanted while he was undercover, he’s also come to realize that there are some stones you can’t leave unturned.

“Clarke,” he says, and the nerves he didn’t feel at all during the last few weeks suddenly kick in when she meets his gaze. “Listen, I... I know we fuck around a lot, and I haven’t exactly been the greatest guy to hang out with, especially at the beginning, especially at Quantico. But... you’ve been the best partner I could’ve asked for, even before this fucking ridiculous mission, and... I want to say thank you. For always having my back. And for everything you did for me these past few weeks.”

She’s looking at him with her interrogation face now, blank and a little calculating, like she’s trying to figure out how what he’s saying fits with the story she already knows. “Okay,” she says slowly, and it’s only when Raven chimes in that he realizes half the office is already listening in.

“Jesus, just kiss already,” she yells. Clarke’s expression immediately breaks into laughter, and that’s what does it for him. He can’t help ducking forward to press a kiss against her lips, quick and soft, and then her arms are twining around his neck to pull him in again, hardly able to kiss properly around the smiles both of them aren’t even trying very hard to hide.

“Fucking finally,” Raven says when they break apart, and Bellamy flips her off. 

“Kane is definitely never going to let us partner up again,” Clarke says, nearly breathless, and Bellamy laughs.

“We’ll figure something out,” he says. “We always do.”

[yahoo-puck-daddy-blog]

NHL TV ratings, Ryan Kesler and Phil Kessel (Puck Daddy Countdown)

(In which Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

7 – THE RATINGS!!!!!

One of the things that has been pervasive in hockey over the past few weeks has been the smug chortling from Canadians like, “Oh ho, the ratings for NBC will be really bad if it’s a Ducks/Senators final, haha,” as though: a) anyone outside of an NHL or NBC boardroom should give a rat’s ass, and b) the real loser wouldn’t be the hockey fans who have to sit through up to seven games of the stultifying, ugly hockey both teams are capable of playing.

Like honestly, this is one of those things I cared about when I was 14 and wrestling ratings were a thing. The Monday Night Wars. I was a WWF guy, myself (though I also watched Nitro!) and so to see my preferred brand of pro wrestling pull ahead was something of a personal vindication. In retrospect, it was dumb to feel this way.

Again, I was 14.

So why does Canada care? As though they have some sort of provenance over Hockey Caring, after the Senators didn’t sell out a home playoff game, and after ratings for Sportsnet’s coverage are repeatedly abysmal. (Apparently they’re just fine from these playoffs, but guess what: It’s because the Leafs and Oilers made it for the first time in a million years.)

Point being: Who cares however many million people? If you’re the only one in the United States watching a game, what’s the big deal?

Go back to worrying about whether the Senators are Hashtag Canada’s Team.

(They’re not, by the way.)

6 – Battle of the Ryans

Not that I’m choosing sides here because their names are both so so good, but Ryans Johansen and Kesler are in a bit of a feud.

It’s not hard to see who has the moral high ground, though. Kesler chicken-wing elbowed Johansen right in the chin — and shocker: he didn’t get a call from DOPS about it — and Johansen was steamed. Understandably so.

Of course, Johansen did a dumbass thing by complaining about it, because when you tell a goalie “cut it outttttt!” and there’s no discipline forthcoming from someone in a position of authority, the bully is only gonna turn up the heat on you. Perhaps Kesler will resort to the “I’m not touching you” trick in future meetings. I hope so.

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To be clear: Kesler should have been suspended for last night’s Game 3. Johansen is right that the stuff Kesler gets away with — and in fact, gets praised for on every broadcast and every article from a non-Nashville outlet about this series — is beyond the pale. There’s no way it should happen in today’s game.

But it’s the playoffs so it’s going to. Peter Laviolette would be wise to use last change to free Johansen from his tormentor as much as possible, not just because Kesler might try to pants him during the national anthem, but also because he’s very clearly leasing space in Johansen’s head at this point. Which is, of course, the plan.

Why play into it?

5 – The Stars goaltending situation

“Hmm,” thought Jim Nill as his team’s season prematurely smoldered, “I have two goalies who are very bad and over-30 and quite expensive. It’s a real problem. What to do, what to do?

“Ah, I know. As a GM who people used to think was very smart but who let two middle-pairing UFA defensemen walk for nothing in the offseason because of how expensive my two bad, old goalies are, I will sign a bad, old goalie for a lot of money. And a lot of years. And I will be sure to give up an asset to do it!

“And sure, I could wait until the playoffs are over and see if I can get, say, Marc-Andre Fleury, or maybe one of Detroit’s goalies. But what’s the fun in that?

“So who can I get who fits the bill? Has to be a UFA. And preferably he’d already be pretty close to 31. And he’d have to be coming off a career-worst season. And if possible, it would be ideal to get someone who was also plagued by lower-body injuries, which are particularly bad for goalies because they aren’t easy to recover from. Especially if they’re really tall!

“And what, if — and maybe I’m being crazy here — what if we also didn’t really have a good plan for how to deal with the two other old, bad goalies I still have on the roster?

“Jimmy, that just might work!”

Ben Bishop. Who will be 31 in November. Got six years and a little less than $5 million per. And all for the low, low price a fourth-round pick and a goaltending logjam that will be almost impossible to work out without dead cap space.

Beautiful.

4 – The Penguins goaltending situation

The good news for the Penguins, though, is that Marc-Andre Fleury continues to play some very good hockey in Matt Murray’s stead. That gives them approximately a million options for the next two seasons.

The question is whether teams will be willing to accommodate a team that has gone to two straight Conference Finals (and perhaps more before this postseason is all over) that might need some cap wiggle room. As I said in the mailbag yesterday, there really aren’t a lot of teams that need goaltending help, and a $5.75 million backup probably isn’t ideal as part of a going concern.

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But if Dallas is willing to give up all that to get Ben Bishop, imagine what a desperate team would give up for a goalie who only has two more years left and is coming off what will probably be, at worst, a .925 postseason save percentage.

Not ideal, but not terrible.

3 – Jason Botterill

First of all, you don’t get to all of a sudden decide to say, “My name is pronounced this other way,” after decades in hockey. This is Jason “It’s pronounced Kroag now” Krog and Brad “Marsh-AND” Marchand all over again. This isn’t on us, Jason!

But second of all, shoutout to a college hockey guy finally getting his shot to run a team. Of course, that team happens to be the Buffalo Sabres, at a time when their blue line is made up of a bunch of guys I wouldn’t trust to protect my computer at Starbucks while I went to the bathroom for a second. And also their owner is a huge fanboy who thinks he knows anything about hockey, when in fact he does not.

So congrats on the job and everything, but uhhh, good luck.

Phil Kessel of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

2 – Angry Phil Kessel

A million individual blessings to America’s most beautiful and kind hockey boy, Phil Kessel, who loves to shout at his teammates and score goals and be perfect in all ways.

Kessel’s goal on Monday night to win that horrid 1-0 game and even the series was his 29th in his playoff career. And despite playing in Toronto for a bunch of years, that puts him in fairly exclusive company.

Since Kessel’s career began, he’s one of only 20 guys to score at least 29 playoff goals. But again, because his teams were so bad, you have to keep in mind he’s only played 60 playoff games, compared to the 85-plus for literally everyone in front of or behind him.

So how’s this one for a stat: Out of the 231 players to appear in at least 50 playoff games since 2006-07, Phil Kessel — who plenty of people hated and called an out-of-shape loser right up until he won a Cup — is first in goals per game, at 0.48.

That’s ahead of playoff choker Alex Ovechkin, but also playoff Clutch Performer Daniel Briere.

So, y’know, stay angry, Phil. It’s working!

1 – Watching paint dry

Okay so an interesting lesson anyone on Twitter has learned in recent weeks is that you should not under any circumstances express your extremely correct opinion that the Ottawa Senators play boring-ass, defense-only-ass, Ambien-ass hockey.

They do. Everyone knows that it is boring and no one besides Senators fans should enjoy it. In general, you want to be scoring about one goal per period. Ottawa’s offense is well below that number, and it should come as no surprise that they’re last in the playoffs in goals for per 60.

This isn’t a value judgment, by the way. To say they are boring is not to say they don’t deserve to be in a conference final. When you have a minimally talented team and you’re trying to get wins, you use whatever tactics work. Obviously. Games 1 and 2 of the Eastern Conference Final are a great example: Ottawa scored three goals in six-plus periods and held the Penguins to two. Now, this is a badly banged-up Penguins team. And they’re still only 1-1 in the series.

But the best Ottawa can do is hope to make every game a coin flip, especially at this point of the postseason. The idea that you’re going to get reliable results in the form of really close games that go one way or the other is preferable to playing run-and-gun, because everyone on earth knows the Penguins would shred them playing run-and-gun.

Point is, of course Ottawa fans don’t think this is boring. Either playing to come back from a 2-1 deficit or protect a 1-0 lead is going to make you really goddamn nervous. That gets the adrenaline pumping, and if your heart is racing for the last 20 minutes of every game, you’re going to feel like, “Wow I just sweated my way through a really intense hockey game.”

But believe me when I say, if you don’t have skin in the game, you’re gonna find this hockey boring as hell. It’s by design and everything, but that doesn’t make it aesthetically pleasing. Try not to equate “unimaginably tense for you” with “enjoyable for everyone.”

(Not ranked this week: The Nashville anthem guy.

My man, this is like Harry Zolnierczyk complaining to the media that Filip Forsberg is getting the big minutes. Figure it out.)

 Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All statistics via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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