unbridled. unkempt.

re: hockey teams

generally sports-wise im a ny fan (rangers down) but i also cheer for the caps via forced proximity

my series:

unholy trinity masterlist | w.smith x popstar reader x m.celebrini

-challengers inspired au

don't let the good life pass you by | cowboy m.rempe x reader

my oneshots:

all i need is you | m.barzal x reader

-in which he takes care of you when you get white girl wasted

must be love on the brain | m.rempe x figure skater reader

-in which no thoughts head empty but he still knows he needs your number

sue me i wanna be toxic wanted | r.leonard x reader, frat au

-in which the party girl deserves love too

fuck me eyes | m.celebrini x w.smith

-in which will is 3 years undefeated as ms. holiday inn

on reqs

i kinda write as it comes to me but def if you have thoughts or reqs send them my way, but don't be offended if nothing comes from it cause some players just dont rock my shit like that (do NAWT come in my inbox talking about chopped ass slugs like the tkachuks)

i am trans but i do generally write from a fem perspective - i would be willing to write from any other lens if u have a particular request! just lmk but no promises

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ー

Life has a funny way of showing you things with no heedance towards timing or circumstances, deconstructing itself when you are least prepared for it.

All things considered, you’d been living the life of a modern day princess – a reality sought after by many, yet something most people must accept will never be more than a fantasy. 

From a young age, you’d always considered yourself ambitious, the go-getter type instead of a person who could sit around and wait for life to come to them. Someone so self assured, so independent that it’d always been known and recognized by family and friends. 

It’s not that you ever necessarily demanded a spotlight, but you absolutely detested even the mere thought of having to exist in the shadows.

Minute qualities birthed as admirable quirks turned to characteristics that seemingly defined you through the eyes of others – you’d spent your teenage years letting them, if not embracing it. 

You’d let it fuel you, putting yourself out there through encouragement of those around you, applying yourself, opportunities practically falling into your lap, so it should not have come as a surprise when you came out the other end with a full ride admittance to Harvard University. 

Fucking Harvard. 

A pre-law program, nonetheless. 

Looking back now, you should’ve recognized your own hesitancy, the sinking feeling in your gut when you hovered the accept admission button. 

You’d written it off as imposter syndrome, maybe even senior year burnout. It's a path that’d been prescribed, fated to you, having been through many a childhood conversation in life resulting in appraisal to your parents, various measures of your intelligence, how you’re just so gifted, and, well, the occasional smart comment of wow, she should be a lawyer. 

It’d be foolish to decline.

And yeah, maybe those cold feet never really warmed up, not even past those initial first weeks following move-in, and maybe you were just one drunken sorrow, one blunt rotation away from making that realization for yourself. 

But then you met Alex. 

Six-foot-one with a set of green eyes, he damn near came to you wrapped up in a bow. 

You’d met at a party your freshman year, easing out of midterm hell with some friends before fall break hits, bumping into him in some kitchen on your way to get another drink.

For what it was worth, things with him were just so easy. 

Even at the party, he never made things weird – a bar that was surely in hell but maybe just a bit higher when you found out he was on the hockey team, a silk stocking upbringing and a minimum six-figure future ahead of him. 

If anything, he made it quite the opposite: in a landscape that was inherently heavy, a program with subhuman expectations and a 50/50 drop out rate, he never took you too seriously. For the longest time, being with him felt like the one area you could breathe, where you could be yourself without any sort of front to spare your appeal. 

But with time, the edges began to fray, and threads were pulled loose one by one, things lost so slowly in the thick of it that you wouldn’t realize they were gone until you looked back one day and realized you’d given it all.

Conversations about the future without mention of what this demands. Certitude that you’d remain together, as if it were ever a question.

The slow come up of realizing it never was one.

A life he’d planned for you. Fantasies he’d built around himself.

Wherever we go, you could always just be a paralegal. There’s always a need for those.

You force yourself to pay no mind to him throwing it around like it’s just some hobby and not a living, not to mention him ascribing you a future no more than entry level, one with no need for your degree.

And then there was sophomore year. His contract across the country in which you had no say, an assumed move to California that felt as though there was no room to decide otherwise.

And then there was the house, and the joint bank account. 

Then the late night discussion. How he wants you more around. 

The two weeks notice sent to the job you aren’t sure you really wanted, but grounded yourself with nonetheless. 

But, it’s not like it was abuse or anything, because you’d accepted the stipulations pretty willingly, had accepted that this would be your life by the first anniversary, regardless of if the changes happened so shortly thereafter.

After all, isn’t that what love is supposed to be?

Sacrifice.

Everyone had known the lifestyle was difficult, and you’d handled the frequent time apart with ease, and the other ‘WAGs’ were nice enough, so you’d told yourself that maybe this is where you were meant to be after all. 

So, it’s only natural when just shortly down the line you’re faced with a question on a knee, and you accept, because what else is there to do?

Maybe you’d assumed that it would feel different, and there’s a voice on your shoulder saying it should feel different, but isn’t that how life always goes? It’s a big commitment after all.

Or, it should be.

It happens just months after the ring, him across the continent on yet another lengthy road trip to round out the season, you re-cleaning the already pristine kitchen of your ever-empty house when a text rolls in. And then another. And then another.

Then there’s the phone call. A partner of another player. 

You can’t even say that you really react, because nothing would even cover it off-rip, and the initial brunt of it is quite simple:

A warning. A picture beginning to circulate. Some club, dark enough for the facade of privacy but clear enough that they aren’t baseless allegations. Sources claiming some sorority girl from UMiami. 

The fallout is worse.

Because there’s an additional photo, and it’s picked up by the press. And then your name and social media gets mentioned, and the notifications roll in, and you’d already gotten advice from other WAGs and his PR reps to do whatever it takes to ignore it, but instinct takes over and you cave. 

In the most backwards way, it’s important that you did.

There’s several messages, all different words but of the same nature, young women from different colleges with receipts to follow and real phone numbers to prove.

omg girl im SO sorry i had no idea who he was

swear on my life he told me he was in an open relationship

He told me he was going through a breakup and wasn’t looking for anything serious

You don’t respond. Not to the DMs, not to the media mentions, not to the peers and staff trying desperately to get ahold of you. But you do react. 

Media, academia, society all throw around the phrase 'fight or flight', but you don’t know even half of its accuracy until you’re in it yourself, and it’s a whole lot uglier when you’ve got a millionaire’s resources at your disposal.

One second you’re standing at your marble island in South Bay with a cold sweat and tunnel vision, then you’re at the bank with a phone full of contacts either blocked or muted, pulling out cash of a quantity you can’t even remember, then at an airport counter asking for the soonest flight at a reasonable price, on a plane, then a shuttle, then a bus.

And then, only then, where it feels right, distant enough from the horror that you can truly feel good about it, you find yourself boots on the ground in Wilson, Wyoming. 

A small town nestled in Jackson Hole, population less than 2,000, somewhere so distant, so foreign that it presents itself as a safety net. 

And, well, it’s only when you’re standing on the pavement, with no gameplan or clue as to what comes next, that you realize you’re not only functionally off-grid, but also royally and utterly fucked. 

Although it might feel like it, you aren’t in Timbuktu, so you do what maybe any half-sensible person with mediocre-at-best survival skills would do with the ordeal you’ve thrown yourself in, and you lug your bags into a quaint coffee shop on the short strip of local businesses before you.

You can only imagine how insane you must look - lululemon leggings and a sports bra, crewneck half-off and hanging around your neck to cope with the sweat from hauling around your belongings for the foreseeable future, however long that may turn out to be. If you weren’t already flustered enough, you’ve made quite the entrance of yourself regardless of intention, and you will yourself to ignore the curious side eyes and furrowed brows of the customers who look very much to be local, at least a lot more so than you, as you shuffle to a chair with a small table off to the side. 

Eventually the hushed tones around you resume their normal cadence, granting you with the privilege of just a short minute as a hot topic, leaving you to pull your laptop out of your carry on and crack it open on your lap. 

Maybe it’s the sweat over your brow, or the subconscious chewing at your bottom lip, or the shaking of your ankle just below the table, because one second you can only barely make out the sound of whispered argument from the coffee counter, a disagreement of sorts or possibly an egging-on of one another, and the next there’s a shadow cast across the corner where you’ve perched yourself.

You don’t look up, still embarrassed by your initial impression on the people around you, but a pink sticky note slips its way onto the tabletop with the push of an index finger, forcing you to look up.

Literally up, because along with your seated position, standing before you is quite literally the tallest man you’ve ever seen, with soft brown eyes and honeyed brown hair, dark jeans and a plain white tee. 

A beat passes as it hits you that you’ve gotten lost in your own head, staring at him as though he’s spoken to you in some foreign language before you clear your throat, “sorry - what was that?”

He smiles, just barely as if in polite reassurance, before repeating himself, “I said, you might need this,” gently pushing the sticky note just a fraction of an inch for emphasis.

Looking down, you realize it’s just the wifi password for the cafe, and you feel your shoulders relax as you let out a deep breath, a sort of saving grace in this whole mess. 

And, this poor guy, because objectively speaking, it is just some numbers scrawled out on a scrap of paper, but you look like you might just burst out into tears at such a simple gesture, and you know it’s concerning because his brows scrunch slightly before he speaks again.

“Are you… is everything okay? You seem kinda,” and he gestures sort of aimlessly around the space you’ve taken up, not crudely, but in a matter of acknowledging the supposed elephant in maybe the least judgemental way one might be able to. 

Honestly, the answer is quite simple - no. Not really, at least, but that’s all too much to dump on some stranger who is already extremely lost on so many details of you being here, so you leave it neat and simple and cut to the chase.

“Yeah, I just- I’m trying to figure out a hotel, or something,” and you sigh, continuing, “preferably somewhere I could stay for like.. a while.”

Confusion is still written across his face, but he nods in understanding nonetheless, slipping his hands into his back pockets as he mulls the words over in his head.

“There’s an inn, just across the street. Can’t say I know much about long term stay, but the owner is a real sweet lady, and the town isn’t really hurting for open rooms.”

You take another deep breath, shoulders a fraction more lax, another inch gained in the miles of figuring this shit out that needs to get done. 

“I can go ahead and run down there, talk to Annette and see what she can do.”

You tilt your head meekly, shaking your head out of modesty, “I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that.”

“You aren’t, I’m telling you. Just stay put.”

He leaves without room for further argument, leaving you slightly bewildered before you slide the sticky note towards you to log into the coffee shop wifi in the meantime. 

You’d only been perusing other options out in the Jackson city limits for fifteen minutes or so when the door chime rings once more, the boy from before strolling purposefully back towards you with a key in tow. 

He places the keyring on the table with a soft clank, “she’s all yours - for the night, at least. She’ll want to talk to you in the morning or something to hash out the nitty gritty like payments and whatnot.” 

You close your laptop once more, wrapping your fingers around the cool metal before looking back up to him in appreciation. 

“Thank you, genuinely - you’re literally a life saver.”

He smiles once more, “it’s literally nothing,” he drops down slightly to grab your hefty bags with little effort, “c’mon, I’ll walk you over there.”

You make no motion to complain but do offer a silent thank you before you slip your computer back into your bag, following alongside him as he tugs your luggage across the street and up a flight of stairs, stopping before an oak door embossed with a number to match the tag on your key. 

Once inside, it finally feels like you're no longer suffocating, gazing around the room before looking to where the man is neatly tucking your belongings beside the armoire. 

Neither of you makes any gesture to say much of anything, just staring at each other wordlessly for a second or two before he speaks again.

“So… you’re here for a while?”

You take a deep breath, one that says there’s much more to be said but not necessarily enough time to air it out. 

“Yeah, more or less.”

He nods in consideration, hesitating for just a moment before moving to the pen and note pad on the side table. 

“Here’s my number - in case you need anything else,” he iterates, a soft undertone of shyness below the words he haphazardly tacks on at the end.

You accept the note with a gracious smile, deepened by the messy scrawl of Matt separated from the digits with a dash, and you offer an earnest thank you paired with the return of your own name, his facial expression mirroring your own. 

He looks you over at last, residual reticence emanating off of him as he finally steps back towards the hotel room door, “well, you know how to find me.”

With a final nod, you offer your thanks once more, “I’ll see you around, maybe?”

His voice is gentle but intentional as he responds with a truncated ‘course, the soft click of the door latch leaving you in your own silence. Tomorrow you'll begin to sort the fragments into their new places.

At night, you dream of café noir and carob tufts.

ー

Macklin Celebrini is keenly observant, if nothing else.

To be in a family chock-full of professional athletes, spending most of his childhood pivoting across state lines and hopping between countries for the sake of a mascot clad jersey, his one saving grace in getting by each time his family started anew was to study his peers like a play to be made.

It only makes sense that he would pick up on Will’s quirks so quickly. 

College rivalry be damned, the two men hit it off almost immediately, exacerbated by their closeness in age in tandem with their near constant proximity between lengthy flights and shared hotel rooms.

Truth be told, his relationship with Will was… different. Something unnamed that blossoms between them, present since the start of his rookie year, if he were to try to put a date on it. 

The different stems from the fact that, despite their quick closeness, Mack can’t help but feel a bit dejected for the first few weeks of the season, a stark bipolarity in the relationship between them that he often struggles with. 

It was like a cycle: they’d be having a great night in some post-game hotel, dropping secrets that neither had once dared to share, ribs aching from ugly laughs at stupid jokes, and then one of them crosses the imaginary line between them.

Mack couldn’t tell you what the hell the line is, or where exactly it lays, but there’s a line nonetheless.

The point is, like clockwork, the two boys would be having fun, not a single thing amiss, but then a wall goes up, and Will has somewhere to be.

Always somewhere to be.

He takes it personally at first. 

He’s being too much, too friendly, too enthusiastic. He spends his waking hours picking through every and any interaction between the two, digging for the catalyst that splits this atom into two, each and every time coming up empty handed. 

It’s the bedsharing thing. It’s because I’m only ever spending time with him. I’m bearing too much of myself to him. And I should stop leaning into him when I laugh a little too hard because he probably doesn’t like that.

No. 

Maybe he’s a bit too headstrong, but he’s certain he hasn’t done anything wrong.

So, he’s hard on himself in other ways.

Perhaps the media is right, and Will is just some glorified frat boy. Who is he to get in the way of the guy going out at night to pick up and get his rocks off? Maybe that’s just what the NHL is like, and he’s just still too infantile to understand the big leagues and their ways of life.

There’s one night in particular where things are just off.

They’re up later than usual, Will still hanging around maybe just by the grace of god, chatting about nothing at all before the conversation drops off and things just get weird again, the cocky, happy-go-lucky persona he’s grown to know like the back of his hand once again disappearing without a trace, WIll glued to his phone with a slight quake in his thumbs. 

“I, uhm…,” the blond clears his throat in fake casualty, “I gotta go deal with something.”

And it makes no sense, because it’s just past midnight, and Mack couldn’t think of one thing that could be so pressing at this hour.

“This late?”

Will fails to meet Mack’s furrowed gaze, preoccupied with whatever notification he’s looking down at on his screen.

“Yeah, it’s uhh.. It’s just this thing,” he looks up now, holding his gaze uncertainly, and Mack can feel how badly the boy wants to drop it, “I’ll catch you in the morning?”

The confusion sits heavy in his stomach, but he can’t find the words to argue as the boy in front of him slips on his shoes before squeezing out the door, and surely enough, he is back in his bed when he awakes the next day, as if nothing had even happened in the first place.

That is, until he himself wakes up.

He can read the exhaustion on the sleeping boy's face, can tell he feels beat by the way he stretches out his sleep-ridden limbs, but it’s the painful expression on his face and awkward shifting of his body as he properly wakes up that fills Mack with worry.

“You good, man?”

He looks to him, then, and for the first time in a long time, Mack feels like he can’t tell what he’s truly thinking, nothing but an empty stare behind his hollow gaze.

“Yeah, I just- yesterday’s game got me good again,” he says, only half-convincingly, like something rehearsed four times over but executed without any energy left to spare.

And Mack? He’s nothing if not observant. He already knows that yesterday’s game was fine, that he didn’t take any particularly nasty hits or even get any crazy ice time. It just doesn’t make any sense.

That and, well… he just can’t help it when his eyes jut down to the brand new hickey sported just at the base of his neck, beneath the collar of a worn t-shirt that he typically wouldn’t wear to sleep.

So he challenges. Not to pry, but to extend himself with a look in his eyes saying please, just give me this one thing.

“You sure?”

I can take it, let me carry it with you.

A cry for connection, yet he comes up short.

“Yeah, think I might’ve pulled a muscle or something, you know?”

Always an excuse.

But his expression betrays him, telling Mack a completely different story. He notices the tick in his jaw and the look in his eyes, and his heart nearly drops. It’s almost as if he acknowledges the brunet’s suspicion, silently pleads with him to just drop it.

You’ve bitten off more than you can chew. It’s rotten. Poisoned.

Mack wants to grip both of his shoulders, feel the flesh press beneath the pads of his fingers, hold his gaze as he shakes him roughly and tells him no, not if it’s you.

But he can’t. Won’t.

So instead, he accepts his plea, giving him just a curt nod with an attached ‘kay, and the conversation is abandoned, willing himself to ignore the shakiness of the boy’s breath when he sighs in relief.

Things take an abrupt turn during a particularly long roadie. Seven games across the continent, hotel room after hotel room, bus ride after uber after flight. 

They’re in bed, impossibly close to one another as they both lean over Will’s phone to watch some reel when it happens. 

A single notification. A telltale chime. An unmistakable icon.

He snatches his phone back, sitting upright with a patented click as he shuts it off. They’re both frozen.

“Will-”

“Don’t,” it’s a sharp response, paired with the frantic speed at which he pulls himself off of the bed.

“It’s fine.”

“Mind your fucking business.”

It’s a harsh retort, and Mack can’t help but crumble beneath the acuity.

There’s no time to anticipate what comes next, because it’s only within seconds that Will locks himself in the bathroom for maybe ten minutes or so, Mack sitting on the edge of the bed anxious and uncharacteristically still when he waltzes back out, blank-faced as he gathers a couple of items hurriedly.

“I’m leaving.”

“Dude,” the space between his brows is met with a deep scrunch, a mixture of confusion and maybe even frustration, “we have a game tomorrow.”

“Yeah, and I’ll be there. Don’t wait up.”

His lips are parted as he tries to come up with some rebuttal to his terse remark, scrambling for words to string together any sentence at all.

I don’t care. This doesn’t change anything.

You’re still my same Will.

But the hotel door clicks shut before any of it can leave his mouth, and Mack is stuck in the empty space between those four walls.

The rest of the week doesn’t get any better.

He doesn’t disappear completely, he can still see Will in locker rooms around games, the rough marks left across his neck and chest, knows it isn’t imaginary through the chirps of his teammates.

Lucky lady, eh?

Empathetic as ever, Mack leans into the sinking feeling that roots itself in his chest. It’s a weight he’ll gladly carry for him, the closest he’s felt to him in days.

Each day is a cycle - he grabs his hotel key alone, unpacks alone, scrolls on his phone alone before going to bed alone.

Then 2 a.m. rolls around. A soft click of the door latch as Will sneaks back in. The silence of the room broken by a stray sniffle or few coming from the bathroom for 15 minutes or so before he can hear the sputter of the shower head turning on. The curtain only opening 30 minutes later before he reappears after another 5. 

The first few nights, Mack is brave enough to peak through his lashes, each time granting him a new sense of dread. 

Even through the darkness he can see the deep bags beneath his eyes, a purple splotch blossoming on a different part of his body each night, sometimes by his collarbone, more frequently across his torso. 

By the fourth night, he stops glancing, but if he stays awake to listen in and make sure the cycle doesn’t change, well… that’s just a coincidence.

The night of the sixth game is when it all falls apart.

His shoes shuffle through the door just before 4 a.m., the routine presuming as always, yet the shower head never turns on.

The sound of water hitting the tiles is instead replaced by a guttural noise, something akin to a sob, the viscerality of which is emphasized by an audible gag.

Within seconds, Mack is pulling himself up, not a second wasted on brainstorming some sort of game plan before he tugs open the door to the bathroom, met with none other than Will.

The blond looks distraught, crumbled into a heap on the tile between the toilet and the tub, sobbing into his knees and damn near ripping his hair out by the roots.

He’s clearly drunk, maybe even high, but that’s a conversation for later if at all.

There isn’t a single thought in his mind as he moves towards the boy, pulling him into an upright position by his upper arms as best he can when working with dead weight.

“Macky,” he’s still crying, but it’s a whine from a different angle, briefly expressing relief from his torment.

“I know. I know.”

Except he really doesn’t, and he’s kind of freaking the fuck out, but he’s trying. Knows he needs to. 

As if there were any that could have been had, all chance of conversation is thrown to the wind as Will curls into himself, Mack only just shifting him towards the toilet in time for the first upheaval of vomit to excavate itself from his body.

Between gags, Will tries his best to collect himself.

“I went back to some guy’s motel.”

“Will, stop.”

The looks he’s met with is something of betrayal, maybe even anguish.

“I love you man. But I don’t think you want to be telling me this.”

Unexpectedly, his face crumbles once more, eyes brimming with tears as his demeanor settles into something of exhaustion of every variety.

“I do.”

Suddenly, Mack is torn. He’s holding Will’s gaze, reading the thickness of desperation that lies beneath the surface, the aching within him to shed years of weight, of guilt. He knows there isn’t a sober shred of the boy before him, that there is a time and a place for a conversation so heavy to take place and that right now is neither, but the feebleness of the please that slips past his lips forces him to release his cautions to the wind, “okay.”

From there, it’s like a dam has collapsed, an insurmountable flood of shame and years worth of skeletons torn from their closets to follow, and Mack holds him through it all as he tells him everything.

How it’s been going on for years, dating back to his U18 Worlds days. Sometimes dark motel rooms, other times just some parking lot, men leagues older than the both of them, usually married, just outside the confines of legality. 

Getting picked up at odd hours before getting dumped once they’ve gotten their fill. Scrubbing his skin raw before willing himself to pass out. Swallowing his shame and pretending it never happened before doing it all over again. How it being bad somehow makes it all cancel out in the eyes of god.

The silence that follows is suffocating, existing only for a beat or two before Will attempts to remove himself from the conversation.

“I’m a mess, I need to-”

“Hey, stop,” and Macklin is already pulling himself to his feet, “let me help you.”

He hardly pauses as Mack’s fingers wrap gently around his biceps, “you don’t have to-”

“I know, but I want to.”

Finally, he meets Mack’s gaze, and he can see the genuine care exuding from his stare, and his face is crumbling all over again, mere ounces of existing control now relinquished as he lets the boy move him.

He doesn’t fight it when he follows him into the shower, knowing he can hardly hold himself upright if he even tried. He leans into his shoulder as he washes him clean, nothing remotely sexual about the scene. He feels the care and admiration in the way that Mack communicates everything he’s doing in a soft tone, if not because he’s severely intoxicated then for his extremely fragile state. He notices each and every time when Will rolls his lips into his mouth, tucking them between his teeth to stave off a sob, refusing to embarrass him over it and only acknowledging it with a whispered instruction to breathe.

He helps him towel off before dressing in clean clothes, only pulling him inches towards Will’s bed when he feels him gently tug his arm towards his own.

“Can I…?”

There’s no hesitation before he nods, as he’d do just about whatever he asked him to, letting him curl towards his chest once they’ve each settled beneath the covers, a pinky loosely wrapped around his own between their bodies as they fall asleep.

They stay that way throughout the night, Will’s grasp only tightening when Mack moves a singular muscle, to which he responds with a squeeze of his own, a silent means of saying I’m right here.

Morning comes all too soon, and Will abruptly throws himself out of the covers, quick feet silenced by hotel carpet followed by the heavy thud of his knees against bathroom tile before spilling his guts once more.

He resurfaces minutes later, Mack now fully awake and upright, terrified of intruding now that Will’s sober, wanting to be there for him nonetheless.

A moment or two passes, Mack staying silent to grant him the chance to recollect himself, Will sitting on the edge of his own bed looking everywhere else but him.

“Did you wanna go to a coffee shop?”

And maybe he wasn’t sure what to expect after last night. Maybe he expected the worst, but he certainly didn’t expect this, so he just stares back at him, failing to read his expression.

“Can be somewhere quiet, I don’t know.”

His eyes begin to brim with tears once more - maybe inhibition, maybe anger, maybe confoundment.

“How are you still here?”

The reaction he receives in return makes that feeling sit far heavier than before, Macklin’s face screwing into something akin to insult or indignity.

“I’m where I wanna be.”

And maybe Will doesn’t know what to do with that just yet. But fuck, if that’s not exactly what he needs.

﹌﹌﹌