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

﹌﹌﹌

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.

﹌﹌﹌

William Charles Patrick Smith (the third, of course) is no stranger to shame, the one constant in life that remains more unshaken than his faith.

It’s a heavy feeling with an origin he can’t remember, but with a shadow-like presence he can’t quite escape. 

It’s not a state that’s eased into as much as it’s engrained - he’d been a practicing Catholic his whole life, spent each and every Sunday in an oak pew before a leather kneeler with his family, summer weekends in Vacation Bible School before any sport took off. 

He can recall his first Communion, and even more so the Reconciliation prior. 

Bless me Father for I have sinned. 

At a ripe 7 years old, there isn’t much that he could have done inherently wrong.

I called my sister stupid. I didn’t do my chores. I cheated on my homework.

Regardless, a sort of fear of God plants itself within him, brain stained with near photographic memory of a laminated sheet naming any and every avowed wrongdoing, deterrence from acts he had no choice but to deem as bad having had no prior cognisance of what these verbs even meant.

I am sorry for these sins and all of those of which I have forgotten. 

An empty feeling that somehow weighs multitudes, a breath of air as all wrongdoings are declared absolved.

The elation of making right in the eyes of God. 

It’s something he carries close to him, a trust he places in those who want what's best for him, and it follows him throughout the years.

He can recall early high school, becoming himself in all the best ways, being a boy in a locker room in all of the grossest. 

“Yeah well at least I don’t get off to the girl’s soccer team stretching.”

And he remembers the other guys laughing in tandem with the confusion within him, the tinge of embarrassment as he doesn’t quite get it.

“Get off what?”

There’s a short pause before one of the guys snorts into a fist, another one punching him in the shoulder to shut him up.

“Get off? Like, jacking off? Yanking your hog?”

He stands there like a deer in headlights, shaking his head slightly before his teammate motions vulgarly below his belt, heat in his cheeks growing.

Because he knows what they’re getting at now, but he isn’t any less confused, because this is St. Sebastian’s, and he remembers ‘Theology of The Body’ with Sister Mary Michael, sitting next to some of the guys in this very room, being told the crime of masturbation goes beyond fornication, fed contempt towards what was described as an assault against himself, an act of perversion towards his own temple of a body.

It was only really in prep school that he ever felt a desire to fit in, some sort of urge to be what he felt might be normal. 

He’d never admit to his friends that on most days, he’s stuck staring at the ceiling with a pit in his stomach, and the best he’d get is with the lights off, eyes closed, a blanket over his lap so as to pretend that he’s done nothing wrong.

Just some months later, he goes to some party at the house of a teammate whose parents have gone out of town, a first kiss and some nagging friends urging him to score, nevertheless ending up with him making out with a girl from his English class in some guest room on the upper floor.

It’s going well, second thoughts properly mutedly and heavy feelings compartmentalized, when her hand drifts from his jaw to his belt, his gaze dropping down to a jewelry clad finger.

A golden ring, a sacred heart. 

His stomach sinks, and maybe it’s the alcohol but he can feel an acidity in his throat, his hand dropping to hers, fingers wrapping around her wrist to pause it in its place.

“I- sorry,” he starts, and she leans back a little bit with confusion and concern, “I… I can’t.”

She smiles sweetly to him, and Will has to hold on to the fact that it might be in empathy rather than disappointment, and the two tidy themselves up before rejoining the party. 

Highschool Will never tries again.

⋆ ★

Just a year later, Will finds himself in the same house under similar circumstances. 

He’d left St. Sebastian’s not long after, joining the USA National Team Development Program and becoming what he would hope to be the best of himself.

When he returned in the summer, his old friends and teammates insisted they pick up where they left off, getting stupid drunk off of whatever could be found in unattended liquor cabinets while they’re still young and dumb and able to reconcile with their mistakes scot free. 

But, they’re sitting in a circle in the living room when Adam points out how long it’s been since Will had been there, how much things had changed, how he ought to give him a new house tour.

And he’d been willing, following him along like a dog through the lower level, ignoring the flip of his tummy when the boy loosely grips his forearm to lead him up the stairs, not thinking of the natural lift of his cheeks when they’re sat beside each other atop his bed, derailed by some drunk, off-topic conversation as it often goes. 

He wills himself to forget the way the conversation drifted off, the image of two boys looking at one another with mere inches between them, the dryness in his mouth and tightness in his chest as he feels prompted by some metaphysical force to lean in. 

The shout from downstairs that pulls them apart before anything can happen, the silence that assumes.

He returns home the next day as though nothing happened, because nothing has, greeted by his mother in the kitchen as he drops his keys on the island.

She smiles up at him from where she’s mixing flour for some sort of dough, “how was the sleepover?”

He shrugs, grabbing a glass from the cabinet before moving to get water from the fridge, “was good.”

“Are you sure? It seems like something’s bothering you.”

And he loves his mom so deeply, but he’s really not in the mood for hashing things out, nevertheless this, so he shrugs once more when he responds just as dryly, “‘m fine.”

Her lips are straightened out in a line and there’s a furrow in her brow when she returns to the dough and reassures, “Ok, just.. You can tell me if anything’s wrong, yeah?”

He nods, rounding the corner of the counter to leave the kitchen with one last call from behind him, “just, don’t forget: we’ve got mass later this evening.”

Once upstairs, he makes haste to strip himself of his clothes, avoiding any glimpse of the chain hanging from his neck before he can step into the shower and scrub himself of any sweat, alcohol, and guilt from the night before.

It’s only after a minute under the steaming water that he finds himself zoning out, leaning his forehead against the tile before him as he breaks out into silent sobs. 

⋆ ★

Another year comes and goes, and Will? 

Well, he goes on a bit of a death spiral of sorts.

Stepping back to a locker room of half dressed and even naked guys after whatever the hell it was that didn’t even happen with Adam was less than ideal, so he responds in the only way he deemed appropriate and made swift work out of hooking up with any girl that looked at him for longer than 5 seconds. 

It’d started after gold at World Juniors and continued into his freshman year of college, the entryway of his dorm room becoming nothing short of a revolving door, so much so that even Leno had started making jokes about his habits. 

He’d have a conversation with some guy that maybe was a little too pleasant, or someone would make some taunt on the ice to throw him off his a-game, and he’d be scrolling through his contacts, or Instagram following, or sidling up to some girl at an afterparty. 

Sure, these behaviors came with a guilt of their own, but he viewed it as a necessary lesser evil for the greater good of numbing his mind from the thoughts he was too scared to confront alone, and he makes up for it in silent prayer, fingers clutching the pendants hanging from his necklace in the shadow of night when he can’t make sense of his own being.

Until fall break, and he’s back in his bed in his family home, and it’s just past 1 o’clock in the morning, and he can’t sleep despite how much tossing and turning he’s been doing. 

So, he does what he hasn’t since he was probably about 12 or so: he pulls a hoodie over his head and pads his ways down the hall to Grace’s room, pausing for just a second or two before softly knocking on the wooden door.

He can hear the soft rustling within the room before she opens the door, eyes squinted and hair lightly messed from sleep. 

“Can I sleep here tonight?”

Her eyes soften and she immediately turns sideways to let him walk in, and he immediately climbs onto the mattress and takes up the side he knows she prefers least. 

She takes a sip of water before climbing back under the covers, flipping onto her side to face him.

“So,” she whispers with a sigh, “what’s wrong?”

He shrugs, not responding for a minute or two, sniffling lightly before softly speaking.

“I don’t think I know who I am.”

The silence continues, not judgmentally or uncomfortably, but reverently. 

“That’s okay.”

He feels a sharp pain in his eyes at the quiet reassurance, but he holds steadfast. 

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

The room is quite dark, but he can still make out her soft smile.

“Does it ever?” she lifts a hand to gently ruffle his hair, “you’re still so young, everything will fall into place eventually.”

Nothing else gets said after that, and by the grace of God he’s granted the peace to actually get some sleep.

⋆ ★

He fairs much better upon his return to campus, but he never really eases out of whatever whore phase he’s going through.

Then spring rolls around, and pen presses to paper in the calligraphic shape of his name, jumping coasts in late May before he can begin to settle all of the turmoil in his veins. 

The first month or so was.. rough. 

He coped with the pressure of professional hockey and a room full of hot shots years older than him by taking on the persona of the happy-go-lucky young gun, all while still making himself impossibly small so as to not be seen for who he really is – whoever that may be.

But, he pays so much time and attention towards how he’s perceived that his cup is left empty and all that he’s given carries over into the following week, leaving him absolutely drained of all that he is, to the extent that it’d be impossible for others not to see all the ways in which he’s failing. 

And then, Macklin signs, and his arrival is akin to magic.

It’s almost as though a life is breathed back into him, and he has to remind himself on numerous occasions that it’s just nice to have someone just about the same age in such a new and intimidating environment, and nothing more lies beneath the surface.

But he can’t ignore how everything is just so intimate, hardly stopping to learn each other’s favorite color or middle name before doing just about everything together, as close to twin flames as his faith might let him claim.

Then, there’s the first away game.

It’s late, and the room is impossibly dark, and Will’s staring at the ceiling while staving off thoughts that several years passage have failed to cease, and the sound of constant rustling coming from across the room is just too much on top of the already overstimulating feeling of trying not to have a fucking existential panic attack. 

So, without stopping to think of how rude it might come off because he’s already asked him once to cut it out, he’s flipping himself over and flicking on the light with one swift motion, at his wit’s end and in dire need of some sleep. 

“What is your-”

And… oh.

Because, Mack makes out a sound he hasn’t heard before, not from another dude, and a single word has him looking down at the guy’s lap, and now his throat’s gone dry and the air in the room suddenly feels so heavy.

He doesn’t even process what the other man is saying, gaze fixed and cheeks a deep red, surely from the awkwardness of the whole ideal, but he finds himself speaking nonetheless. 

“No, yeah,” he waves off, casually, “I mean… you can. If you want.”

Cause that’s just what guys do, and it’s really just a sucky situation if you think about it.

So there’s a pause, and it’s not weird or anything that he watches the boy as he shyly stuffs a hand down his pants and gets to work, or that he returns his gaze while he rubs one out.

And, it’s pretty normal that Will slips his hand beneath the sheets and starts running it over the silky, soft skin below his navel, because it’d arguably be weird if he didn’t join in. Probably more gay, somehow. 

He only speeds up his movement as Mack’s breathing gets heavier because it’d be more uncomfortable if he stayed lagging behind, having to catch up after he’s already finished, and it only feels so good because it’s just a little bit taboo and comes with its own unique rush compared to going solo in the safety of his home. 

The racing thoughts only resume once he’s gone to the restroom to wipe himself clean, eyes caught on the crucifix hanging from his neck.

A mark of penance, a noose of failed virtue,

He swallows with a clenched jaw, blinking once, twice before crawling back into his bed and flicking off the lamp with a soft spoken goodnight.

⋆ ★

The first time he touched Macklin feels like blasphemy.

They’re drunk off of wine that they’d had at some dinner while on the road in Canada following their… relational breakthrough at your concert just last month, and the buzz beneath their skin and the way they keep drifting into each other on the walk back to the hotel only thickens the already pressing tension between them.

So, it’s almost like clockwork when they press up next to each other in the otherwise empty elevator up to their floor, and their clothes come off for the sake of their newly adopted routine before Mack looks at him with these dopey eyes that has Will saying c’mere.

Then, he’s hovering just above him, flesh rutting rhythmlessly against flesh, brunette hair fanned out like a halo against the crisp linen.

A simulacram, his golden calf.

Unyielding looks through hooded eyes, skin tugged against skin, soft pants shared between mouths like a muted prayer.

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…

Two foreheads, noses beginning to mush against one another, pressed so tightly their atoms may perfectly align and make them one.

A soft, warm mouth slipping against his, the barely there stubble of his fellow man scraping against his jaw in a way that feels unjustly good.

Hail mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee…

A slow rock of his hips backwards, another roll of his hips forward. A string of precum connecting them at the tip of where they both throb. 

Deep reds of flushed skin where they’re most sensitive.

Holy Mary, Mother of God…

Another whimper, another thrust, another meeting of flesh to flesh. Another bead. A full decade. 

Broken skin where gapped teeth clench over his shoulder to not make too much noise. The broken whine that slips through the cracks anyways.

“Will- fuck, I’m coming.”

Glory be to the Father,

And to the Son,

And to the Holy Spirit,

As it was in the beginning is now and every shall be, a world without end,

Amen.

⋆ ★

Will’s 21 years old and has sworn himself to be an honest man from here on out, having grown the pair it takes to open up to none other than Cat Toffoli about his newfound relationship.

Disregard that the confession was ugly, maybe even a little bit embarrassing, and indirect, and not even intentionally initiated. It’s the principle of even getting it done that counts, and he’s been so completely normal about it after the fact.

Really.

He’s in the locker room after a free skate, toweling out his hair as Toff approaches him at his stall.

“What’re you doing the rest of the day?”

Will drops the towel in his lap, flicking his head back to toss his damp hair out of his face, then looks up at him.

“Dunno, haven’t really planned anything.”

“Good, I’m taking you on a hike.”

Will’s forehead scrunches in humored confusion, grabbing his phone from the cubby above him.

“Okay? Let me ask Mack-”

Before his hand even grazes the case, there’s five fingers wrapped gently around his forearm, pausing him in his tracks.

“Actually, I wanted it to just be us two.”

He’s silent, entertained smile now gone as he looks at Toff, a new wave of nerves making itself known within him.

It could be a million things. Trade rumors. Toff moving. Hell, Toff retiring. 

He drops his forearm with a less than reassuring it’s just a hike, dude, which is apparently enough for Will to leave his phone where it lays, nodding in agreement with a soft smile.

All things considered, it is just a hike, taking turns to jab at each other’s inability to breath or their mediocre shot at crossing creeks as they traipse over the foothills before reaching an overlook of the canyon.

“I should’ve said no,” Will breathes out, embarrassingly sweaty for a professional athlete as he drops down to sit on a boulder. 

Toff rolls his eyes, shaking his head silently but visibly worse off than him as he catches his breath through his mouth.

He falls into a seat next to Will, sitting silently while drinking water and gazing through the clearing of oak trees before them.

“Listen,” Toff breaks the silence, “I’m gonna try to make this as painless as possible - you know it’s okay, right?”

Will feels his heart rate quicken, a tightness in his jaw as he turns his head to face him.

“What?”

He rolls his eyes in return, “you know what.”

A buzzing silence consumes Will’s brain, and he doesn’t know if he should return to facing forward or to make a challenge by holding his gaze, a pitiful attempt at maybe threatening this conversation away.

Tyler is looking at him intently with a crease between his brows, and hand raised between them with a slight turn of his head as he continues, undeclared concern lingering just behind his words.

“This shit between you and Mack. None of that is, like, bad. You’re not doing anything wrong.”

He hums in acknowledgment, undaring to move his own lips, just tense and sweaty as someone he might consider similar to a father figure poses him such vulnerable statements in the air of a faux question, like there’s something for him to answer for.

Will knows he must look a mess, because the look on Toff’s face drops into something much softer as his eyes look over his own.

“Just, I’m not saying none of that shit is real,” he gestures vaguely at the sky above them and the hills before them, “but, I know that whatever that is, is, and you’re allowed to have something good.”

Still, he doesn’t trust himself to speak, but he scrounges up the confidence to nod his head lightly, maybe relax his jaw just a bit.

“Whatever you do or don’t tell anyone doesn’t matter to me, or coach, or anyone, but… it’s okay to be happy bud. Whatever you choose to do, regardless… it doesn’t make you any less human, or any less one of us.”

And, fuck, he crumbles, can’t stop himself from crying, only faintly recognizant of Tyler’s ‘get over here’ before he’s pulled into a tight hug. 

They stay like that for just a moment or two before Will pulls back, tugging up the hem of his shirt to wipe his face dry.

“We good?”

Will looks at him, lips pursed, then he gives him a soft, still slightly wet smile with a light nod, “yeah, we’re good.”

“Good,” he offers his own smile, “now man the fuck up so we can get you back to your boyfriend.”

He punches his shoulder before Toff quickens his pace down the return trail, forcing Will to chase after him, conversation functionally forgotten.

Shame momentarily displaced. 

The pendants of his chain beat metronomically against his breastbone as he catches up beside him, but as the conversation between them picks up into something less serious, he finds himself paying no mind for the first time in… well, time. 

Instead, he focuses on the beat of his heart behind his flesh, the rhythmic thump resembling something of a humble prayer of his own.

⋆ ★

The castle crumbles in the off season, naturally. 

Mack comes to Boston with him the weekend of the season’s end, crashing at his childhood home in the days surrounding the marathon. 

Nothing’s gone wrong per say, his parents love Mack to bits, love the friendship that exists between the two boys, so much so that they just can’t help but tell Will they’re so happy he’s doing well every time he leaves the room.

But, Colleen mentioned some restaurant she’d been meaning to try in the city, and Will manages to convince her to have a nice night out with his dad, leaving the two boys entirely home for a couple of hours or so. 

He’s a good Catholic boy, for God’s sake, so they just order in some food for themselves and play some chel on the nice living room TV.

But they start nudging each other during each game, and it gets a little physical with each push, and then they’re full on wrestling each other, but then Will is hovering over Mack, and their noses are impossibly close, and they don’t even really do this normally but his tongue is slipping against his best friend’s as he slowly relaxes, dropping his weight onto his lap. 

Which is important, because it’s for this reason that he’s thoughtless enough to not notice the crunch of gravel beneath tires, and the gentle shutting of a car door that follows.

They do notice when the front door swings right open, Grace standing in the entryway just in the line of view of the loveseat where Will is perched over Mack. 

“Oh, shit,” she immediately snaps her head to the side and brings a hand up to cover her eyes.

“Fuck-” 

“Sorry!”

“No, I-,” but it’s no use, because she promptly turns and leaves right out the door, and he can hear the sound of her car starting back up before driving away.

He’s sitting stock still on the couch, having thrown himself off Mack’s lap the second he heard the creak of the front door, barely cognizant of him saying something right next to him but too far somewhere else inside his brain to make out what it is. 

The vibration of his phone on the coffee table is enough to snap him out of it, picking it up to find a text from none other than his sister.

I’m gonna go for a drive around the block 7:41PM We can talk when I get back 7:41PM

“Will, please, can you say something? You’re kinda freaking me out here.”

But he can’t, he just leans forward, elbows pressed into the top of his thighs, palms pressed against his face.

“Like, it has to be fine, right?”

He doesn’t even process that he’s sobbing until he feels Mack’s hand rubbing circles against his upper back, quiet reassurances whispered into the room. 

Then they just sit there. For minutes, but it really feels like years, taking deep breaths, wiping harshly at his eyes.

When the sound of gravel returns, Mack wordlessly excuses himself to Will’s room to grant them some privacy, not before giving him a shoulder squeeze and a soft it’s gonna be okay. 

He’s still just sitting there, eyes locked in on the coffee table in front of him, hands rubbing up and down his thighs over top of his jeans to soothe his nerves.

The second time she comes in is far less eventful, maybe more meek.

“Hey.”

He can’t bring himself to look at her when he begins speaking, “Look, I’m sorry.”

I confess to almighty God,and to you, my brothers and sisters,that I have greatly sinned.

Except, she stops him before he can continue, “no, I just… didn’t realize.”

He swallows dryly, still avoiding her gaze.

“This is just… Well, it’s a lot, Will.”

He offers a nod of his head in response, pinpricks in the corners of his eyes as he inhales sharply through his nose. 

“... are you at least breaking up with her?”

And he’s still staring straight ahead as his teeth shred the flesh just behind his lips.

“No. It’s not,” he clears his throat before trying again, “I’m not, uhm… It’s all of us. Like, together.”

“Will.”

He finally looks at her, and her gaze is soft. Revered, maybe.

“Oh, come here.”

Within seconds, she’s sitting on the couch next to him, hand at the base of his neck to pull him closer, guiding his head into her shoulder as his body begins to wrack in sobs.

“I’m so disgusting.”

“Hey, no.”

She leans back, hand grabbing the side of his face to force him to look at her.

“First of all, I’m sorry. I was only coming to surprise you while you were in town. Second of all, yeah. All of this is… complicated, and I won’t lie, it’s a lot. But this doesn’t change anything,” her hand moves up to ruffle his hair gently, “You’re always gonna be my baby brother.”

He sniffles hard, turning his head to wipe the tears off his nose on his own shoulder.

“Which is why it’s my prerogative to say, doing that in the living room? Rookie mistake.”

A near-giggle punches its way out of his nostrils, playfully shoving her with a pitiful stop before she’s laughing. 

“I mean, really, I was sneakier in middle school.”

And now they’re shoving each other, a smile on his face at last, almost forgetting what had transpired just 15 minutes earlier before she speaks again.

“Hey,” her hands grasp his forearm, making him pause.

“I love you.”

He’s barely able to croak out an I love you, too for the sake of not crying any more tears, but it doesn’t come off as any less meaningful, taking a couple of deep breaths before grabbing his phone to give Macklin the all clear.

It’s there in that room that they spend the next hour or so before their parents come home, the three of them, Will baring his soul in ways he never had before. 

And it feels good. Right and just, even. 

⋆ ★

So, there’s a plan, and a promise, and it leaves Will standing in his kitchen with unsteady legs and sweaty palms while everyone else is hanging out in the backyard for a casual family barbecue just a week and a half later. 

Well, everyone but his mom. 

She looks up through the window out onto the yard, lips curling upward at the sight of you and Mack taking turns chasing Rigney around the lawn.

“You know, I sort of thought you and her had something going on, but she and Mack are so cute together.”

And none of this is going according to how he planned it, and now he’s got no preamble for what comes next, and the wind was just sucked right out of him because of a wholly innocent comment.

Colleen notices the lack of response from her son, and with a glance over her shoulder the fruit she’d been washing is long forgotten. 

“Oh, honey, I didn’t mean,” and he must look pale or nauseous or something because she’s immediately fussing over him and moving him to sit on one of the stools, “here, let me-”

“No!” 

She pauses, looking at him concernedly, but listening nonetheless.

“Just, I need to say this.”

Her eyes are scanning his face, worry eating away at her heart, guilt eating away at his. 

“Mack and I. We’re, well… together.”

And there’s a shift in her eyes, and her face does something he can’t quite name, but he can hear his heart beating in his ears and the prick of sweat at his nape. 

“Oh, Will, sweetheart.”

Her hands move up to frame his face, just for a moment, before she pulls him into a warm embrace, hand rubbing circles into his upper back. 

“But, Mack is…?”

“No, we’re- It’s… all of us.”

The three of us. A triune prayer.

A moment passes where nothing gets said, and he can hear her take a deep breath inward. 

“Will, the only thing your father and I have ever wanted for the two of our kids is for you to be happy. Yes, this might be a little… confusing, but it’s not because of who you are, or who you might like.”

He nods in acknowledgement, replies to her soft smile with one of his own. 

There is no contrition, nor penance. Yet there also is no retribution, no lighting bolt sent down to smite him. 

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. 

A moment or four gets spent between them, mother and son, and the things that are said are probably best left unspread. 

But they return to the lawn after the fact, Will’s eyes thankfully now a hardly noticeable red, and he doesn’t need to share anything for the two of you to notice the weight that’s been lifted off his back, and nothing else changes save for the reassuring smiles sent from Colleen, or the inconspicuous yet knowing squeeze of his shoulder from his father and the low love you, son spoken when passing behind him later in the evening. 

The normalcy persists as the night winds down and the guests all go home.

At least that is until you’ve all said your goodnights, retiring to your respective rooms, when Bill sticks his shoot out to prevent him from fully shutting the door to the room where he previously claimed you and Mack would be sleeping on the air mattress. 

He looks at him in confusion, brows creased with a raised hand as an appropriate means to say what the fuck is that as his father continues down the hall.

“Keep the door open four inches.”

The three of you are mortified, exacerbated by the laugh from his sister’s room and the Bill from his mother in the master bedroom, but Will grasps onto the humiliation, nails digging in to this feeling of embarrassment, grasping on to that familiar feeling from a new angle like a rosary bead. 

We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become.

If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing.

﹌﹌﹌