#kat favs

[whimsysful]

thinking abt leno in that apt, the only one not in a fuckass talladega costume, which had felt like the cool aloof mature decision 3 weeks ago but now just feels unspeakably lonely. standing as far as possible from will, who’s chosen his shiny new toy, and gabe, who’s chosen will, even though leno was the one who stayed with gabe to chase their dream another year the way they’d promised. but gabe still went running back to will’s side like always, and leno knows it’s bc gabe needs to be loved as desperately as leno, so he attaches himself to a person who loves easily and makes himself a person who’s easy to love: and leno will never be either of those things. leno only knows how to make himself hard to love so it hurts less when nobody does.

thinking too abt leno at circle tavern, nursing a beer and watching will and gabe hang all over each other like nothing’s changed, and even when mack shows up and will lights up and immediately sways into his orbit, gabe just smiles and acts like it doesn’t kill him that will has a new person to nap with. and maybe it doesn’t! maybe it’s just leno!! bc the next day they all go to dinner at their italian place, the old boys’ spot, with the same leather booths and folded-arms photoshoot and truffle parm fries; except instead of will gabe leno, it’s will gabe mack—as though will is intentionally trying to rewrite every single memory he has of leno by scribbling mack over the top

and leno knows why he wasn’t invited, knows he was a bitch to the kid last night, and so what if he was? celebrini’s just like him, leno can feel it, hungry and ruthless, 200 lbs of barely leashed predator quivering under will’s plea to play nice—so slip the fucking leash, kid. why can’t we all just be fucking honest for once in our lives, he’d thought; bc leno can only accept a love that’s perfectly honest, but only if it’s honestly cruel. bc nobody has ever lied to leno for any reason other than selfish, so he can’t conceive of a boundary that’s meant to protect rather than exclude.

but when celebrini had finally snapped under leno’s needling; when leno had looked, triumphant, at will—you see? he’s no better than i am. he’s just like me. if you’re going to hate me you have to hate him too—will hadn’t even looked at leno. he’d been too busy looking at celebrini, who’d flinched and turned to will, guilty and apologetic and defensive about it, with an affectionate softness that will has never offered leno. and that’s when leno had realised that it was possible for will to cage leno for being a wild animal while petting celebrini for his teeth and claws. that will, who once pressed his lips together and wrenched leno up off the ice for daring to cry after losing natties, hissed at him to get his shit together because nothing embarrasses will more than a public breakdown, was all along a will capable of smiling fondly at celebrini for failing at kegstands and punching windshields and getting kicked out of bars. that maybe it wasn’t the public display that embarrassed will after all; maybe it never had been. maybe, all along, it was just leno

[whimsysful]

if you think about it actually the most romantic thing about this entire affair is will skating directly to the net to grab mack's record-breaking puck. because everyone else was yelling and screaming and hugging mack but will got up quietly and made sure that mack got his keepsake. something to remember this moment by later when everyone else is long gone home. whole world is celebrating you right now and you're celebrating with us and i'm going to choose to give that up—to sacrifice sharing this once-in-a-lifetime moment with you—just so you have this memento. just so you have a talisman to help you remember to celebrate yourself even when it's a new season, a new year; even when you're chasing down the next record (because there'll always be a next record, for mack). because i know you struggle with that, when you're the last person who ever should. because i think you should be allowed to be happy about getting what you want. because i care about the hockey of it all, but i also care about you. because i love you. you should be proud.

[whimsysful]

thinking abt how will wants mack to like his friends soooo bad and he wants his friends to like mack soooo bad and he thinks it might kill him, actually, if they didn't, it almost killed him with leno (who he is not thinking about, not right now, not ever maybe), and at the crux of it all is the uneasy awareness that despite mack being possibly the easiest part of will's entire life, mack is not, in fact, particularly easy to most people in this world; could actually be described as rather difficult upon first impression—even by toff, who loves mack, and whom mack loves in return. will knows mack can be blunt and inconsiderate and a bit much (though not for will, never for will), that mack can be breathtakingly cruel without meaning to, without even realizing, the whole time bleeding that desperate need of his to be liked and wanted and loved. and as protective as will feels over that raw need, this softest most vulnerable part of mack, he's just as fiercely protective over his old friends, especially voter, who grew up with will and spent summers at the cape with will and suffered through the program with will but wasn't tall enough or good enough to make it to the show with will; who will is guiltily aware is not as cool or good-looking or talented or successful as will himself, and is also aware that mack cares to some extent about all those things, and especially the talent. will doesn't think he could handle it if mack unleashed his particular brand of casual cruelty onto voter, the way he so often does when it comes to hockey. will doesn't know if he could take it.

but he has to risk it. he has to risk it!!! because the alternative is spending his summer either not seeing mack (other than a week in vancouver spent grinding the grouse under sheriff dada's watchful eye) or not seeing his childhood friends, who he doesn't get to see the other three-quarters of the year, which means the choice would be obvious, should be obvious, except it isn't obvious at all, which means he can't choose, which means he's standing here in the overheated kitchen of some bc joint, sweating in a shitty polyester costume jacket, tracking mack's pin on his find my friends as it gets closer and closer to the collision of his two worlds

[whimsysful]

will and gabe in matching old spice jackets..... leno spotted in the same photo dump (thought he was in dc training for worlds??) but withOUT his own girl group fit to complete the spice girls trio... bc line u are the narry that keeps on narrying.

if we really get into it the tragedy of leno is that in many ways, he's just a version of macklin with slightly less talent and less money. will very much has a type, and that type is an overly blunt verging on abrasive soft boy who only knows how to fight and only wants to be liked. maybe that's why will fell for mack so instantly at dev camp—why loving mack came so easily. because in a sense he'd already done it once before. but with leno, he and will have known each other for too long maybe, not only do they know each other's ugly parts but they helped form them, and now will knows just how to manipulate others, to deflect and redirect because he grew up managing leno's rage, while leno crashes out so hard because it was the only way to penetrate will's icy silences and emotional distancing.

and that's too much, you're not supposed to know another person like this, it's too intimate to survive growing up and moving away and starting new lives. it rots when left untended. but loving leno gave will a blueprint for loving mack, so now will loves all of mack's ugly parts fluently, because he learned how during all those years of loving leno, and it's easy but also shiny and new; familiar without any baggage. loving mack feels like coming home to a brand new house. and leno gets to watch will love mack for all of the things that he hated about leno.

[whimsysful]

The dichotomy of Mack in that photo manspreading, man in his lap, another man with his hand on his thigh and that smug face vs him with Will when he purposefully makes himself smaller, tucks himself into Will and tries to sit on his lap and fuse bodies with will

local twunk reinvents size kink out of his own beautiful mind, but only for One Guy

[whimsysful]

Smitty never stops to amaze me because how on earth did he come out of the ntdp still this "soft".

and before there are some anons losing it I am not calling him effeminate or even feminine in the grand scheme of society as a whole but in the hyper-masculine space of hockey he is very much a soft soft boy.

and somehow he has gone through this wild experience (his mom and people he knew from before being there definitely helped) and he's come out of the other side not even a tiny bit less confident of what he likes. in fact he is still 10 toes down on his romcoms and pop music etc.

and I think that's really his rizz it's his confidence and knowledge of who he is and what he likes. that's not to say he isn't also the people pleaser extraordinaire who needs everyone to like him and to be perceived as a nice person but that doesn't interfere with him liking what he likes. because these interests don't determine the "goodness" of a person.

and so much of what that ideal hyper masculinity that these young men think they want to embody boils down to is that confidence of knowing who you are, what you like and not changing just to fit in. this nonchalance when it comes to other peoples opinions on your interest. and will needs people to like him and so he'll be very nice and attentive but he won't change who he is at his core. and I think that just blows these hockey boys minds. and even worse for them he isn't even an ass about it.

I find it so fascinating that he was thriving in that environment (probably because all the other boys were in awe of his manic pixie dreamyness and lack of giving in to certain peer pressures) and came out the other side the way he still is.

sometimes I think that while he has definitely always been a romanticizer of life that the ntdp of it all made him lock into it even more as an escape mechanism. and so he's latched onto his whimsy even more as a response to that strange environment and so his response was kinda the opposite of what you would expect it to be but he was still thriving.

yes forever in awe of how will managed to cultivate a small kernel of softness and whimsy in the harsh unforgiving terrain of usntdp, the program, here we breed lions, take responsibility for your own personal hell, etc etc. a boot camp intentionally designed to break down the individual boy and package him back up as a fine-tuned calibrated machine of a man; a place where coaches could and did force 16yo boys to change in public hallways with security cameras and fluorescent lighting; a surveillance state where trainers tracked heartrate monitors and cellphone usage and time spent with your girlfriend; where you were ground down into less than nothing in order to win and then all you did was lose, and lose, and lose, against boys older and bigger and stronger than you.

i do think a large part of it was that he had colleen during those years; that she and voter's mother were able to trade off providing a home to will and leno and vote rather than handing off their children, their care and feeding and legal powers alike, sight unseen to strangers on the program's payroll. but remember this is also a woman who knew that her son was being forced to change in public for at least a month and was still able to call the program "unbelievably exciting"; a "once-in-a-lifetime thing." who watched her son develop eating patterns bordering on unhealthy and not only did not stop it but in fact catered to it, cooked to its specifications. who told the world that she knew her son was special from the moment he was placed in her arms, and meant it. what kind of weight do you think that places on a child? how impossible is it to live up to?

how can you tell your mother that you're having panic attacks in the penalty box when she flew to europe two years in a row to watch you win for once? when she sacrificed two years of her life, her husband, her daughter, because of the special boy you are? how can you even admit it to yourself? so you don't. instead, you become even more special. you become the second top scorer overall in the program's history. you put up 127 points in 60 games. you win worlds juniors tournament mvp. and you become special in other ways, too. the songs you listen to, the hobbies you pursue, the way you cultivate your friendships as intentional, precious things instead of the casual whoever-cares-less-wins entanglements of the hockey world. some of these softnesses are just for you, but others you share with the world, not as a vulnerability or weakness but as simply yet another thing that sets you apart. and you get to frame it that way because they love you for it. because everyone knows. you're a special boy.

(and then when he finds mack—mack who is the most special boy himself, who knows what it's like to bear the weight of all that specialness on his shoulders, who also sees will as special, the most special, and demands that everyone else see it too, but who never, ever asks more of will for it than will can give!!)

[whimsysful]

the way mack is going to worlds because he needs to win something, anything, and he didn't win gold at the olympics and he didn't win anything at all at worlds last year or u23s the year before that and he didn't win at the beanpot or natties and he didn't even make the fucking playoffs this year, couldn't even do the one thing he was drafted first overall to do, and it's always been on him to drag his team across the finish line but now everyone knows, from his teammates that follow him like a god on ice to the thousands of fans screaming his name to the inescapable, inexorable sports media painting him a narrative to live up to, and he couldn't do it, has never been able to do it, but maybe this one time he can. maybe this is his chance to finally taste that sweet champagne, that golden high. even if it's only worlds.

and, of course, the way will is not going to worlds because he already won it all last year. will actually has multiple international gold medals tyvm and he did not in fact have a super great time at denmark or sweden last year oops!! so he and gabo are gonna fuck off to the cape and get languorously inebriated on orange nutrls, deliciously sticky and golden in the sun, the way things used to be before everything kind of went sideways and weird and adult, plus will is also going to bulk 30 lbs and rock up to vancouver tan and beefy and glowing and it's going to blow macklin's obsessive little mind so yeah. mack can have fun playing against leno, or whatever

[whimsysful]

do we actually get BC line and Macklin besties? All of us and Will Vote going to Vancouver to train with Rick and Toff?

apparently what we get is willmack italian dinner dates and covert bar backroom kitchen seltzers with gay parole thirdwheeling while leno remains exiled to the cuck chair for daring to disclose one (1) fact about will that didn’t fit with will’s carefully crafted Public Image™ and voter hangs around on the periphery like that bespectacled poltergeist always crying in the girls’ bathroom at wizard boarding school.

jokes aside i DO think it’s v v v meaningful that will is bringing mack into this part of his life. it’s easy to be… whatever he and mack are, when he’s in san jose with wenny and toff and a team that knows and has accepted that he and mack are just like that and sports bars with little rainbow flags in the window. it’s different here, back in boston, with impeccably manicured lawns and friends that have known him since he was eight and fourteen and too young to hide the soft underbelly of his heart and the weight of the smith-comiskey-rigney legacy breathing down his neck and wrapping its way around his throat. it might be hard, making the shape of will and mack fit inside the confines of a life that will had before he ever met mack; that was defined for will before he was ever born. and mack, to will—his friendship, his laughter, his steady permanent presence in will’s life—is the one thing that should never ever be hard. the one thing that always came easy to will, in the midst of injuries and slumps and adjusting to a league that felt sometimes too big to ever make a home in. but will wants to try, anyway.