Kass

twenty-five (!) years later I came out as a trans man.

now. the important thing to know about my ex-husband is that he loves nothing more than 1) horrible puns, preferably bilingual ones; 2) terrible dad jokes; and 3) committing to the bit until the end of time. he absolutely lives for Shenanigans and Japery. i do not know how his long-suffering wife puts up with him, but they've been married for more than 20 years so presumably she manages.

so, to break the news to my ex, i texted him. the exchange went something like this:

me: "great news, i'm a trans guy now"

him: "oh, congrats!"

me: "thank you. now for the better news: I insist you refer to me henceforth only as your ex-husband. do you accept this challenge?"

and my cis, straight-as-an-arrow, lives-in-the-midwest, married-to-a-minister ex-husband was like

My coven is Claudia.

Referencing Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss

my hc is that it's always all or nothing for sam. he does casual well, sure, bc thats no strings attached. that's "nothing".

on the flip side, once he falls for someone (read: misa) you would here him struck the ground from miles away. he's going all in, head first. a smile from misa and he's plotting their future. a kiss and he's mentally picking out rings and baby names.

Ohhh my god you’re so right, 'all or nothing' is perfect!!

I think it’s that he just knows what he wants, so he rarely hesitates to get it. Sam is actually quite good at figuring out his emotions in the way that if he likes something, he goes for it and if he doesn’t like something, then he just doesn’t.

Casual is easy, he likes it because he knows what he’s in for and what he's good at. With serious relationships he might not always know what he’s doing, but he’s not afraid of putting himself out there and finding out along the way.

Once he figures out his partner's expectations, it’s easy for him to be expressive and loud with his feelings. While he can take things slow in the sexual aspects of a relationship, he dives in head first in every other sense.

Like, he likes Misa and Misa likes him, so why would he not want to spend every single minute of every single day together? Why would he not think about moving in with Misa and taking Misa home to meet his family? Who cares that they've only been dating for a month and a half? (His friends. His friends care, because they’ve been hearing about Misa non stop and they’re not sure if they can survive Sam waxing poetry about Misa's smile for the rest of their lives.)

While that can potentially be a bit much for a partner, I don’t think it’s like that for Misa.

but where i’m going with this is that even when i hated him most, nothing pissed me off more than someone else being mean to my bro, so i’m imagining oblivious misa getting picked on and will shutting that shit down fasttt, but he goes about it in a way that ensures misa could never find out what happened, bc that would ruin his image he’s been building, and maybe he thinks it’d also be bad for his image if his pseudo little brother was known as an easy target, like yeah that’s totally the reason he doesn’t want others chirping him too much

woah sibling like willmisa is actually really compelling. i always got the vibes of middle school girl levels of beef but similar to that aspect of girlhood, if some guy is being an ass you will stand up for her no matter what. obviously… these are hockey guys so siblings is probably a better metaphor lmao

even misa’s quiet presence on the bus behind will’s seat pisses him off. it’s unnerving that misa could just be listening in, even if he has his earbuds on and is staring off into space. they’re mean mugging each other from across the ice even though they’re on the same scrimmage team. will is purposely giving him the smushed brownie, etc etc.

but yeah when it comes to will and mack standing out in the mammoth’s player lot with logan cooley who starts talking shit about misa, will feels anger burn in his veins. it’s one thing when will shit talks misa with mack, or complains to gabe and leno, it’s another when it’s logan cooley doing it unprompted. will is telling him to fuck off immediately, he went second for a fucking reason, man. you don’t even know your shit.

mack’s eyes are jumping between the two of them because, what. fuck logan cooley, but since when is will, number one people pleaser/peacemaker, and also famed misa hater, so keen to be an asshole on misa’s behalf. and the second they’re back to the team, will is acting as if it never happened. back to business as usual!