Hey, I really like your omegaverse world building and I wanted to ask if you got any more thoughts of suzufield's bond/relationship in that context? Or maybe anything about some other habs if they are your jam? Hope your travels aren't too stressful!
I will happily provide more thoughts on this!! I love suzufield and I love the habs and I don't really talk about them much on here so I'm happy you've given me a reason to:))
First and foremost, I want to address what I think their designations are. I've always pictured Cole as a alpha and Nick as an beta, personally, but trust and believe Nick is running that ship and Cole is happy to let him take the reins. I also think, in this world, Nick and Cole took a loooooooong time to actually get together.
At first it was because they were both wrapped up in the whole "NHL" of it all. They were simply each other's best friend, nothing more than that. Then as things settled over the years, they got closer and closer and both started to feel something more. They did little things that people who were just friends definitely didn't do. Nick would give Cole stuff he'd heavily scented, they'd stand closer to each other than what's typically proper in puplic, Nick would put his hand on the back of Cole's neck in pseudo-scruff. All very non-platonic actions.
And then Nick gets named captain and just locks away his romantic feelings for Cole. He essentially twists the situation in his mind to where now that he's in a position of power over Cole, any sort of romantic intention or ideation towards him would be completely inappropriate. So he stops doing those non-platonic things and Cole gets really sad about it. He starts moping around and whining a lot more and(Nick doesn't know this part at the time) making a den in bedroom out of stuff that he steals from Nick.
It goes on for almost a year and it's miserable for everyone involved, team included. It gets so bad that fucking Marty has to tell Nick to do something about it, heavily implying that he and Cole should just get their shit together and mate already.
So he does. He musters up his courage and he plans a speech and a nice dinner and everything and fucking Cole ruins it by bursting into tears before they even get to dinner because he loves Nick so much and he misses him and he's so sorry if I did anything wrong please Nick let me fix it I promise I'll fix it. And so now Nick has to do damage control and reassure this lovely alpha who's apparently in love with him(????) that he loves him too and it wasn't his fault it was all Nick's fault.
They settle this misunderstanding by mating each other that night, which might sound crazy to some people but Cole was very tired of waiting for his gorgeous beta now that he had him. Cole went first, not because he insisted, but because it's traditional for the alpha to present their bite first and Nick Suzuki is nothing but a romantic sap. Cole knows how much the captaincy weighs on his partner, especially knowing now that Nick was only resisting because of the captaincy, so he puts his bite right where the C would sit on his chest, as a reminder that Nick is human before he is a captain. Hockey doesn't get to dictate every part of his life and he doesn't owe anyone anything. He can just be Nick Suzuki, Cole's mate, without having to take away anything.
Nick, on the other hand, bites Cole right over the scent gland on his neck; the traditional spot, as a way to publicly claim and show a belongingness to someone. He is proud to have Cole as his mate and he wants fucking everyone to know about it.
If you want to read more of my thoughts on omegaverse Nick and Cole, I did write a (unrelated) fic about them that's on my ao3!! I'd encourage you to check it out if you haven't:)
As for the other habs, I don't delve into them much but I have been veeerrrrryyyy intruiged by Arber/Lane recently and slightly less but still intruiged by Doby/Fowler.
Arber and Lane are a traditional alpha/omega pair, but untraditional in that Lane is the alpha and Arber is the omega. Arber was pissed about his designation for a very long time before coming to terms with it and Lane has always just sort of not cared much? It didn't do much for his hockey so he just kind of ignores the fact that he's an alpha. They aren't bonded yet(much to Arber's dismay) but Lane's thinking about bringing it up soon:)
Doby/Fowler my beloved omega goalies:))) perhaps stereotypical for goalies to be omegas, but Doby has such a fierce will to protect his crease(his nest) and Fowler's otherwise pretty mild-mannered that I think it just fits. They got mated perhaps too quickly but they're both happy so who cares. Doby's bite on Jacob is on the nape of his neck and Jacob's bite on Doby's is in the same spot. They both thought it was cute to have matching mating bites AND it has the added benefit of further deterring random people from trying to scruff them without their consent, because everyone knows its extremely rude to touch a mating bite.