As this stretch of writer's block continues undefeated (who could have known that identifying the problem wouldn't instantly solve it?), things have been going a little differently on Patreon of late.
Polls about what ficlet I'm writing next have become 'which of these patron exclusive stories most deserves to be seen by all?', the key to these stories being that I've already written them(!), but a ton of people, patrons and otherwise, haven't read them, because I reached back to the beginning of the archives for my picks.
So, the first winner of the poll of a story everyone deserves to read, from six years ago (not thinking about it),
For that stubbornest of prompts: Anything with Bryce and Julius interacting (the equally stubborn Zach/Elias will be the next SOTW on Patreo
He already said this two minutes ago, and he meant it then too, but unfortunately, he doesn’t have a lot of leverage here. What’s Jared going to do if two minutes pass and Blythe still isn’t ready: drive off to her game without her? Ben's at Elaine's helping her with her garden, and Bryce is meeting them at the rink after he finishes up at the dentist with the twins, so it's just her and Jared, and it's her game they're running late for. Jared isn't going anywhere without her, and she knows it.
Blythe appears almost exactly two minutes later.
“Yeah, yeah,” Blythe she says as Jared applauds her arrival.
He glances outside to try to gauge what jacket to hand her, only to squint at the surprisingly beautiful day.
“Can you grab me a baseball hat?” Jared asks.
“Who’s slowing us down now?” Blythe says, but doubles back. They’re getting close to actually late by the time they arrive at the rink, thanks to a stretch of bad traffic — the kind of late where getting the remainder of Blythe’s equipment on becomes a team effort, Jared lacing her skates while her goalie coach and back up goalie work on her pads. Frankly it’s a miracle no one’s taken a blow to the head, but he supposes there’s still time.
He's also well aware that Blythe may well planning exactly that — Jared watched her use her head for a couple saves during her last practice, which was the single most horrifying development in his recent existence, and he has two toddlers, so he has so many other horrifying things to choose from. Obviously he told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was not permitted to intentionally stop pucks with her head, so he expects chances are 50/50 she tries to do today.
“I feel like I’m in some historical movie,” Blythe remarks. “Like some princess with six maids, all trying to get her into her ballgown.”
“Or a knight and her squires,” Jared says, because she’ll like that one.
“A knight’s way better,” Blythe says, already halfway down the hall, her back up literally on her heels. The two of them goalie shuffle with determination that makes Jared feel weirdly proud — he guesses it isn’t weird that he’s proud of his kids, but he always ends up being proud of the weirdest shit. The only person who’s proud of weirder shit than Jared is, well.
Bryce is attempting to juggle toddlers and popcorn when Jared finds them in the stands. Jared saves the popcorn just in time. “I’m confiscating this,” he says. He skipped lunch.
Bryce doesn't argue, staring at him in a way that might have made him self conscious ten years and three kids ago, but at this point, Bryce can just tell him. Jared needs popcorn more than answers.
“Girl Dad!” Bryce says.
Jared frowns in incomprehension around his popcorn, chewing as quickly as he can as Bryce hands him a terror.
He’s just swallowed when Bryce plucks the hat right off his head. “Hey!” Jared says, adjusting his grip so he can fix his hair without letting go of the popcorn or the already squirming kid.
“How did the dentist go?” Jared asks, and both terrors bare their teeth at him in unison. “Still all there, huh?”
Two nods, then the teeth go away, thank fuck. Jared’s got enough to handle right now — they don’t need to add biting to the mix again.
“Girl Dad,” Bryce says, and when Jared looks up from toddler level, he finally realizes what hat he’s been wearing since they left the house.
“Where did Blythe even find that?” Jared asks, then, looking at Bryce’s face, “Aw, fu — babe. Babe, are you — did you want me to —“
“I’m fine,” Bryce says, doing his own little shuffle so he can hold onto the hat, the kid, and dab at his eyes with some Kleenex he rescues out of his pocket. “I just — just look at how big she is now!”
Below them, Blythe’s cutting grooves into the ice, getting her crease to her liking, her shoulders set in a way that tells Jared she's dialled in, completely in the game now, that even though the puck hasn't dropped yet, if he called out her name right now she wouldn't hear. She looks like an impenetrable wall. Also like someone who would try to headbutt a puck out of the air just to get her fathers back for such horrible affronts as expressing fear for her safety.
“Most of that’s goalie equipment,” Jared says.
He presses his lips together as Bryce somehow figures out how to elbow Jared without jostling either terror from their unusual state of calm. Maybe they like the dentist. Blythe would probably say that was the most terrifying thing yet, and Jared might not even disagree.
It has been awhile since Jared’s seen this hat. Years, and not just a few of them either. After Blythe was born, someone got it for Bryce, just a simple black ball cap that said Girl Dad in vaguely cursive lettering. At least, Jared’s pretty sure it was a gift, since Bryce usually passes on the cheap online shit, but maybe none of his favourite designers had anything especially ‘Girl Dad’ oriented the year Bryce became one. Or whatever.
Jared has never uttered the words ‘girl dad’ unironically in his life, before or after having kids, but Bryce leaned right into it, and for years this was his default hat whenever they took Blythe out anywhere. It got him plenty of chirps when pictures of him wearing it inevitably surfaced online, along with the weird relationship the internet had with Jared’s husband being reignited once again.
Jared had resigned himself to seeing it as long as the thing held together, but after Ben was born, Bryce stopped wearing it. He didn’t buy a Boy Dad hat instead or anything, just swapped it out for one of the seventeen other hats he lying around, and Jared hasn’t seen it since. Hadn’t thought about it in almost as long.
He hadn't even known it was missing —if someone asked, he would have assumed Bryce had tucked it away with the other things he couldn’t bear to let go of.
It's a collection Jared admittedly makes a visit to once in awhile himself, usually to go over tiny little baby socks and shoes, the receiving blanket that somehow once swaddled Ben twice around, the smallest Canucks jersey ever made, to marvel that they had, in fact, been that tiny once.
Then they get teeth.
“You want me to take —“ Jared says, and then he has two terrors in his lap while Bryce retreats, hat in hand, to have his teary emotional moment a somewhere a little more private than in stands peppered with parents of Blythe’s teammates, some they’ve known half Blythe’s life.
“You liked the dentist, huh?” Jared asks, and, because parenting continues to be so fucking weird, he gets two shiny smiles in response.
who do you think would be the best spy: BryceJared or HoldenJames?
I think Holden and Bryce are actually pretty decent in general (fooled Jared and James, didn't they? And Bryce's douchebag straitsona fooled pretty much everyone but himself), but as soon as Jared and James are involved they get all flustered and giddy and any cool or nonchalance goes straight out the window.
Jared is, in general, a much worse liar than he gives himself credit for. Every single time he's tried to manipulate his parents in the entire course of IJ(aoe), his mom is 100% aware that is what he is doing (Don not so much). Every time he's like 'wow, Erin's transparently angling for something' it's like 'you are your sister's brother'.
Whereas James I think is exceptional at keeping a low profile and avoiding topics of suspicion...unless you tell him to keep a low profile and avoid topics of suspicion.
So basically: they both suck in their different ways, and are obvious to everyone who knows them well, but I think I have to give Holden and James the edge for not having an article written about how close they are and thinking that would make things better.
Also now I'm imagining the biggest, dumbest Spy vs Spy right now, with Jared the exasperated voice in Bryce's ear and James the exasperated voice in Holden's.
(Or! Plot twist! The other way around and then ~entanglements occur.)
It quickly became quite clear that this prompt would refuse to settle into a one-parter, so here is the first of at least two. Next one should come within the week.
“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Stephen says
It isn’t always a bad sign when Stephen starts right in the middle of a conversation he neglected to invite Gabe to — sometimes Stephen genuinely forgets that ‘I should tell Gabe’ isn’t the same as ‘I have told Gabe’. But lately? Lately it’s been a very bad sign indeed.
But then, everything’s a bad sign lately. Stephen says ‘good morning’? Bad sign. Stephen doesn’t say ‘good morning’? Bad sign. Stephen shortens it to ‘morning’? Absolutely terrible sign.
It’s only been getting worse as the wedding date approaches. Gabe thought they’d be above stressing over their wedding, but in hindsight, he’s not sure why. Stephen stresses about everything, and special occasions are no exception. If anything, they’re the exemplar.
“I don’t know what they’re talking about either,” Gabe says, since Stephen’s giving him an expectant look.
Stephen squints. “You don’t know what I’m talking about.”
“No idea,” Gabe says. “You forgot to tell me.”
Stephen huffs.
“Who are they, and what are they talking about?” Gabe says. “I know you said you don’t know, but you sort of said it in a way that implies you do know, you just think that they’re—“
“Full of shit?” Stephen says.
That one, yes.
“You still haven’t told me who ‘they’ is referring to,” Gabe tells him.
Gabe knows Stephen’s trying to get him to agree, but he refuses to do that until he knows who Stephen’s talking about. What if he’s talking about his parents? Or Gabe’s? Gabe is way too big a mama’s boy to ever say his mother is full of shit. And if he did, he’s positive his mom would know. Even if he and Stephen never mentioned it again, even to each other: she’d know.
Stephen huffs at him again. “Them,” he says, gesturing expansively around the room, though Gabe doesn’t think he’s talking about their living room furniture. “Everyone.”
“Okay,” Gabe says. He thinks if he asks what everyone’s saying he’ll get a third huff, and if he gets a third huff, he’s probably going to start agreeing with ‘them’ just on principle, because, whatever it is that 'they' said, Stephen probably deserved it.
“Do you know what Jared called me today?” Stephen says.
Ah. Math. Gabe should have known it was Math, because he manages to get under Stephen’s skin like no one else. Stephen’s sole consolation is that it’s mutual.
Unfortunately, that’s the opposite of consolation for Gabe, who has to listen to both of them bitching about each other afterwards. Well, Dima often has to hear both sides of the bitching too, but he enjoys it.
“Something mean?” Gabe ventures.
“He called me high-maintenance,” Stephen says.
Gabe presses his lips together.
“Him,” Stephen says. “Jared Matheson. Who does not drink beer because he thinks it’s ‘yucky’.”
“You’re not the biggest fan of beer yourself,” Gabe says. He thinks Jared would take umbrage to the ‘yucky’ bit, claim he was too mature for to ever use that word, but he also saw Math’s face when he accidentally took a sip of Bryce’s beer, and ‘this is yucky’ is a pretty good description of the expression he made.
“But I drink it,” Stephen says. “Do you know why?”
Gabe knows exactly what he’ll say the reason is, and he refuses to participate on principle.
“Because I’m not high-maintenance,” Stephen says.
See? He doesn’t need Gabe for this at all. Doesn’t need him for conversations, or wedding planning, or —
“Can you believe that?” Stephen says, then gives Gabe a look that tells him it isn’t a rhetorical question.
Gabe makes a noise. It could be taken as support, if Stephen would like to take it that way. Commiseration, even. But it isn’t.
Because yes. Gabe can believe that.
In fact, messenger aside — no one who has ever met Jared Matheson would describe him as low-maintenance, except probably him, and maybe Bryce if he’s feeling particularly blinded by adoration that day — Gabe can’t do anything but agree.
For the prompt: I would say Gabe and Stephen’s wedding because I want that more than anything in the world, but I suspect that’s coming without my prompt? But if it’s not…
It would come either way, probably, but this started the ball rolling.
More Gabe and Stephen, more lists. No actual wedding, but we get pretty damn adjacent.
Gabe knew the list would backfire the moment Stephen started making it. He even told Stephen as much, but Stephen just shrugged a shoulder and kept working on it. He got into it as it grew too, enjoying it so much that Gabe told himself he was probably worrying about nothing.
And maybe the list wouldn’t have been a problem if the only person he’d told about it was Gabe. Probably would have been fine even if knowledge of it extended to the Marksons and Petersens, which happened sooner rather than later.
But telling Gabe’s teammates — that was a mistake.
“A what list?” Jared asks when Stephen first mentions it.
“An anti-wedding list,” Stephen says.
Bryce sits up. “You guys aren’t getting married?”
From this angle, Gabe can’t see how withering the look Stephen gives Bryce is, but the kick Jared aims at his ankle is probably related.
“Obviously we’re getting married,” Stephen says, like he wasn’t panicking for a good few days after they got engaged, and only the potential wrath of Miriam Markson kept him from fleeing on the next flight out of Vancouver. “It’s a list of shit we don’t want at our wedding.”
“Um,” Bryce says.
“You know,” Stephen says. “The wedding traditions we’re vetoing.”
“We is such a strong word,” Gabe says.
“Unanimous approval or none at all, Gabriel,” Stephen says. "A veto only needs one."
He's right. And Gabe guesses he would know, consdiering he's the one vetoing everything.
“So wait, what exactly are you vetoing?” Jared says.
“Nobody’s wearing white,” Stephen says, starting to tick items off on his fingers. “I mean, white dress shirts are fine, obviously, but nobody’s a virgin here, we’re not doing any all in white shit. No flower girls or ring bearers. No little groom cake toppers. Fuck knows there aren’t going to be any garters involved. I don’t remember the rest off the top of my head, but I have it all written down."
“I like the little grooms,” Bryce says, sounding hurt. Gabe hasn’t seen any pictures from Bryce and Jared’s wedding, since it was very much on the down-low — and he truly wishes he could see how those two managed to put together a wedding on the sly when they couldn't even sit across from each other without Gabe figuring out they were married — but he bets there were little grooms on top of their cake. He also bets Bryce still has those little dudes hanging around somewhere.
“Can I see the list?” Jared asks. “I’m kind of curious how many our wedding had.”
“Sure,” Stephen says, with a hand wave. “I’ll email it to you when I’m finished. Have a few more items to add first.”
“Cool,” Jared says.
After Bryce and Jared leave, Gabe mentions it might not be a good idea to send Jared the list, but Stephen just scoffs.
“What’s he going to do?” Stephen says. “Wear white to my wedding? Put little grooms on his piece of cake? He’s a pain in the ass, but he’s not going to anything that actually fucks with the day, he’s not Dmitry.”
“Our wedding,” Gabe says.
“Oh come on, you already know what’s mine is yours,” Stephen says.
“You stabbed me with a chopstick over the last soup dumpling last night,” Gabe says.
“Stop saying I stabbed you,” Stephen says. “I didn’t even break the skin.”
“It hurt,” Gabe says, and Stephen takes his hand, planting an officious kiss on the back of it.
“Better?” Stephen asks.
“It was the other hand,” Gabe says, smiling when Stephen sighs dramatically before kissing it too.
“You’re really going to give Math that list?” Gabe says. “Blind trust isn’t usually your thing.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’ll lead to something hideous,” Stephen says. “But think of it this way: your idiot teammates are going to do something, so I may as well give them some parameters.”
“Huh,” Gabe says. “Good point.”
“I’m not exactly new to this, you know,” Stephen says.
“No, I know,” Gabe says.
At least whatever it is that’s coming, it won’t come out of the blue.
~
Gabe did not foresee this. Sure, when he gave Stevie and Dima and Bullet bachelor party planning rights he anticipated some variety of disaster, but he underestimated them, he thinks. Or overestimated them. There was some mis-estimation occurring.
He looks around. What initially looked like chaos seems oddly recognisable. Almost familiar.
It’s sort of wedding themed, which makes sense, considering the occasion, but everything’s slightly off, and not just because they’re in a venue more suited to clubbing than matrimony.
His eyes land on the big cake at the centre of everything. It looks more like the kind Gabe saw at Cup celebrations than a wedding one, decorated to look like a rink, with two little figures at centre ice. He’s too far to see the details, but he’s pretty sure they’re hockey figurines rather than grooms, and someone has decided to use the manipulable joints for, well, evil probably isn’t the right word, but maybe immaturity — Gabe’s pretty sure one of them is straddling the other. He guesses he should just be grateful no mounting is taking place, considering Dima’s probably the responsible party.
There are so many elements, and they don’t seem to fit together at all — elegant baskets of flowers that look almost painstakingly put together, surrounded by a scatter of rainbow confetti that feels like it's moonlighting from a completely different event. Some kind of crooner — Bublé? — playing, also from a completely different event. None of it seems to fit Gabe's picture of a bachelor party planned and attended by hockey players, even if the wives and girlfriends present also got involved in the planning.
It’s the guests themselves that help Gabe put it together. There was clearly a dress code, one that only Gabe and Stephen weren’t informed about, everyone all in white, neon bright under the black light. Like an item of a list come to life. Like one of many items of a list come to life.
He can see Stephen put it together a mere moment after he does, his eyes narrowing, mouth going flat. Playing at unimpressed for the — many — eyes currently on them, avidly waiting for a reaction.
“I’m going to fucking kill Jared,” Stephen says, and Gabe decides not to tell him just how proud he sounds.
“I wonder which one of the Canucks is wearing the garter,” Gabe says, and grins when Stephen forgets his audience and his composure for a moment, throwing his head back with a laugh.
