#nicecoasters

THEY’RE ALL SO PARSE. He’s just an A Softer World kind of guy. 

 I have upgraded “two” to “three” for Maida and Luis. TW for a joke about organ harvesting, but it’s mostly just fluffy.

When he comes back from locker room cleanout, there’s a ratty, disreputable-looking pickup truck with an equally grimy camper trailer parked on the curb outside his high-rise. He feels too shitty to smile, but the sight of it does make him compress his lips a little as he drives into the underground parking.

When he hauls an overloaded hockey bag full of an entire season’s crap in the door, his girlfriend is stretched out on the couch asleep, and his boyfriend is drinking a juice smoothie and making nice to his cat. They both look up languidly as Kent comes in, which feels like a gross injustice. He should get the kind of applause and confetti that normally greets the winners of Olympic marathons.

“There,” he says peevishly, heaving the bag onto the tiled front entryway. It does not land softly, and the cat jumps off the kitchen island in protest. “That’s another season done with.”

Luis tilts his glass. “I made you one of these for the road.”

Kent hesitates, then takes a risk. He goes over to where his boyfriend is sitting on a barstool next to the kitchen island, to drape himself over Luis’s back and shoulders. Luis reaches up to hold his arms. “Tell me I’m the most wonderful amazing hockey player in existence and all the other teams in the playoffs right now are just crap.”

Luis takes one of Kent’s hands and brings it up to his mouth, kisses his knuckles. “You are my favourite hockey player,” he says. “And I can name at least five of them now. Compared to you? They are all enormous douchebags with inflated egos. I hate them all. If they wanted to spend time with me I’d sell their kidneys on the black market and give the money to poor children. You, I love.”

Kent laughs; he can’t help it. He also nuzzles into Luis’s neck, and arches his spine when his girlfriend pads up behind him and runs a hand up his back.

“Come on,” Maida says, snuggling under his arm. “Let’s get on the road. By the end of the day we’ll be cooking dinner over an open fire at Joshua Tree. You might get some bouldering in before the sun sets.” She tilts her face up, and Kent kisses her. “You’ll be able to forget all about them and just be a cool dude in a truck with two people who don’t care about frosting or cross-sticking or whatever.”

“That’s not even–” he begins, and when he stops she grins mischievously at him.

“If you can get Kit into her carrier,” she says, “I’ll slip a little vodka into the smoothie Luis made.”

Luis looks resigned and amused, and Kent cups his face and kisses him; Maida gets one more kiss, and he lets her go so they can separate.

“I gave her the Gabapentin when you texted from the rink,” she calls. He gives her a thumbs-up and finds his cat in the bedroom, where she’s expecting him to lay down for an afternoon nap; instead he scoops her up and stuffs her into a carrier, and rests its strap on his shoulder.

He’s already arranged for someone else to go through his hockey bag and wash, clean, or repair anything worth saving. He’s not sentimental about old equipment, and he’s ready to leave the stink of this season behind.

He comes out of the bedroom with Kit at the same time Maida comes out of the kitchen with the doctored smoothie, and their eyes meet uncertainly; are they really ready to go?

“Maida, your hat fell off the end of the couch,” Luis says. “Kent, your bags are already in the camper. You didn’t pack an electric razor so I threw it in for you.” He pulls the door to Kent’s apartment open. “Vámonos. The road is calling.”

Then he gropes Kent on the way by. Kent grins.

(meme link)

Bitty notices with fascination that the bartender’s cloth doesn’t completely remove the glitter from the bar. It just rearranges it. “Here,” the man says, setting another Long Island Iced Tea in front of him. “You gave that kid some really good advice. This one’s on me.”

“Thanks,” he says with a watery smile. “Gotta look out for each other, right?”

The dance floor had drawn him in initially with its siren call of freedom, anonymity, and Beyonce; he’d danced off the initial hurt and started to reach for forgetfulness when another guy had danced up behind him and Bitty had thought: Oh, he’s good–wait, I have a boyfriend–might serve him right–no, I can’t. So he’s been at the bar, keeping his back resolutely turned on the dancers and the booths with their publicly affectionate couples.

“Bad night?” the bartender asks, like he can tell Bitty was happy to seize onto someone whose troubles seemed even worse than his.

“Got stood up,” Bitty admits, pulling his drink closer.  The bartender looks like a nice guy, about 30, barrelchested with muscled arms coming out of his vest and tattoos climbing around them.  He stirs the ice with his straw. “Came down from Boston tonight to pick my boyfriend up after work and go out. But he’s not out at work, so he comes downstairs with all his coworkers and he’s like, hey, good to see you, I’m just going out tonight with the guys. Subtext, without you. And I’m in a lobby with all these guys around so I can’t react so I just have to smile and wave them off, but…”  He blows out a breath and takes a slurp of his drink.

“Sounds like a douche,” the bartender says succinctly.

“No, he’s not, he’s just in a difficult situation,” Bitty responds. “I understand, I mean, I just…”

“So what, are you here to make him jealous?”

“Not… maybe that’s what I was thinking when I came here, but I’m not…”  Bitty’s shoulders slump. “I’d be so devastated if he did that to me, I couldn’t do it to him, right? But I feel like I need to be here just to remind myself that we can be normal. That it’s allowed. Maybe one day, you know? Maybe when he gets more settled in his career.”

“What the fuck kinda career is worth standing up you?”  Bitty looks up to argue, but then he sees the kind of look the bartender is giving him up and down and blushes instead.  

“Oh–well–there’s, you know–” he stammers. “I’m not–there’s a lot of money involved.”

“Hmph,” the bartender says.  “Well, I hope it makes him happy. You want another?”

Bitty looks down at surprise at the bottom of his glass and blinks. He maybe does feel a bit lightheaded. “Uh, maybe just a water.”

“You got it,” the bartender says.

Bitty sends Fitz a snap before he leaves. Went out for a drink. Bartender gave me his number. Empty glass, glittery bar, napkin with the last few digits of the phone number out of frame.

Around like midnight, I realize I can have a shot and knock on Nicecoaster's door

Me: Hey! Hey! You sleep!

Me5g: No, i mean a little.

Me: Good! You wanna do a shot!

ME5g: Do I have to get out of the bed?

Me: No!

Me5G: Okay.

Both of us take a shot!

Me: All right, Good Night!

haha imagine us mormon-style knocking on people’s doors like “have you heard the good news about these sweet queer children?”

 Roy, Kira and Cosmo are together on a beach volleyball team. Despite their various disagreements, the Astris Aces is rising through the ranks pretty steadily WHEN SUDDENLY out of nowhere comes Team Space Birds.

They’re called the Astris Aces because they’re from Astris Academy and have some sort of ace in their identity. (e.g. Roy’s agender, Cosmo’s aromantic, Kira doesn’t know if she’s even on the spectrum but fuck if anyone’s gonna keep her off the team).

 Roy and Elliott end up meeting on the beach after an especially heated match and just chill together for a while. It turns out he’s from Empyrean High, a public school down the road that’s predominantly stellaraptors, and he’s also a surfer in his spare time.

they start meeting in their spare time so they can train together, and eventually elliott gives roy surfing lessons