Yuletide Fic: "[Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: We Are Experiencing..." (Superstition Hockey)

Title: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties With The Jacktalien Spaceship, Please Stand By
Author:

lannamichaels
Fandom: Superstition - Superstition_hockey
Pairing: Luc Chantal/Oliver Jackson
Rating: G
Recipient:

Wereflamingo
A/N: This follows Until the Whistle by Superstition_hockey.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld
Yuletide Reveal Post: 2023 Yuletide Reveal Post

Summary: Digest of the Jacktaliens mailing list for Tuesday, June 20, 2028.

From: treebeardsareus@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Fic: I Kiss Jacks All The Time. - G - Drabbling Our WTF!

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 02:39 AM UTC

Yet another I Kiss Jacks All The Time drabble, because the world is not enough:

Title: I Kiss Jacks All The Time.

Fic summary: Except you don't.

Author: Treebeards R Us (treebeardsareus@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: None

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Betas: None

Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure this isn't real?

Feedback: Off list only

Archiving Permissions: Yes, please.

Author's notes: My entry for Drabbling Our WTF!

"I kiss Jacks all the time," except no you don't, except it was only once, except in your dreams it's every night, except in your hopes it's every day. "I kiss Jacks all the time", but it's a prayer, it's an endless search, reaching and grasping the horizon, fingers and arms stretched wide. I kiss Jacks all the time, in our vacation home, walking our dog. I kiss Jacks all the time, and it's always coming home, it's the endless longing across time zones. I kiss Jacks all the time, and now everyone knows. I kiss Jacks all the time.

From: toshkacan@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic, luckyluc-list@jacktaliens.fic, intermission-updates@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Fic: Intermission -- PG -- 45/103

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 03:29 AM UTC

Title: Intermission

Authors: Toshka (toshkacan@jacktaliens.fic), Alfonzo The Cheshire Cat (alfiecat@jacktaliens.fic), Bufet (bufet@jacktaliens.fic)

Fic summary: They meet at the draft.

Chapter summary: Oliver calls his mom.

Chapter count: 45/103

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: None.

Rating: PG

Warnings: Homophobia.

Betas: Carly

Disclaimer: Our fics are all works of fiction and any relationship to any real people is a sheer coincidence.

Feedback: Off list only

Archiving Permissions: Jacktaliens, Lucky Luc

Author's notes: None.

Luc sure is something else. He's more than something else. He's so much else, Oliver isn't sure what to do about it.

He definitely should do something about it.

Definitely

He's in the NHL now! He's going to be a Philadelphia Flyer! He can handle this ridiculous crush and its ridiculous grins that it keeps floating onto his face without his control.

For all that Oliver has been hearing about Luc for years, he'd never realized that Luc would be so--

so--

so something else.

He'd been prepared to meet a hockey bro. He'd been prepared to meet a total asshole. He'd been prepared for a hockey-playing robot with a banal quote on his lips at every turn. He'd been prepared for everything except for what he got.

It wasn't a firm handshake, a "nice to meet you", a "heard a lot about you". Oliver has been the Inevitable Second Pick to Luc Chantal's Inevitable First Pick for three years now. It's been long enough for Oliver to work through his baggage about it.

Luc Chantal didn't have everything handed to him, even though from where Oliver had been sitting, it had always seemed that way. Luc Chantal got everything he wanted, but Oliver had to fight for every bit of recognition he ever received. His first sponsorship had been a victory; Luc Chantal's had probably been an afterthought.

Oliver's mom had always shaken him when he said things like that, though. She would chide him for believing media narratives, then tell him to stop reading his press and go do his homework. Guys like Oliver Jackson need backup plans. Luc Chantal's backup plan is his cheekbones.

But his mom wouldn't like him saying that, either.

Good news, mom, Oliver imagines saying. I've met the enemy and he's great in bed.

I've met the enemy and I think he's going to make me love hockey again.

Oliver's mom would probably be more surprised by the second than by the first.

In the two years since that talk on the pier, Oliver's thought about it constantly. Hockey is too dangerous a sport to play just for the money, especially when there's no guarantee you'll ever get enough of it to matter. Oliver's fucked his chances at college hockey by taking money, but he'd needed that money to keep playing hockey to ever be good enough to get scouted by the NCAA anyway. It's just yet another way that hockey assumes everyone's rich. It takes money to be rich enough to play for free, and that money has to be family money. It can't be something you earned yourself.

Oliver's never going to get anywhere without earning it himself.

And so he'd made the deal with his mom. He was going to go second in the draft to Luc Chantal and he would commit himself to a career in the NHL. And if he never made it that far, if he spent his entry contract years in the minors, cup of coffee or no cup of coffee, then he'd get the fuck out and go to college, before the concussion risk caught up to him.

And he still thinks Mickie was wrong about the NCAA anyway. It's not like staying pure and amateur would have helped him get a college education, it just would have gotten him into college. They promise you an education but all they give you is a sweatshirt; Oliver's talked to enough NCAA guys enough to know that. Some NCAA guys buck the trend and actually learn things, but Oliver's good enough at hockey that doing that would just be leaving too much money on the table.

And that's money he's needed to keep playing hockey in the first place.

Hockey needs to either pay for itself, Oliver always reminds himself, his mom's agreement ringing in his ears, or he can't keep doing it.

And that's what Mickie never understood. It was never that Oliver wouldn't be allowed to play hockey anymore if he didn't turn it into cash. It was that he'd just plain not be able to. Hard stop. If there's no money, there's no anything.

Oliver had skated by for years on favors, on coaches swinging by his house to drop him off after games, on the always-overhelpful always-judgmental parents of his teammates. And every single year, every single season, every single new team, he'd had to negotiate it again. Oliver has always played hockey on a shoe-string and a prayer.

And in the beginning, he'd done it because he'd loved it.

For the last two years, he's done it for the money.

But after looking Luc Chantal in the eye. After kissing Luc Chantal in a hotel bathroom. After shoving his hand desperately into Luc Chantal's shorts in an elevator.

After.

Oliver's life has a Before and After. His life is split into Before Mom Took Me And Left and After Mom Took Me And Left. Oliver has lived his life in that shadow and he can't remember a time before it.

He has a new After now.

He wishes, not for the first time but now for a new reason, that he'd managed to go to World Juniors. He could have had this crisis last year instead of tonight.

"Mom," he says, when she finally picks up, when he can imagine her coming home after a long day at work, eating whatever food's left over in the fridge from when he'd cooked. "Mom, Luc Chantal is-- I met Luc Chantal."

"And?" she asks. He can hear her sorting through the mail in the background. Pretty soon, he'll be able to pay off all the bills. He'll get her a new car. They'll remodel the kitchen. As soon as he gets the NHL money, it'll all be worth it. Every injury, every insult on the ice, every bruise and every tear and every single teammate who pitied him for his hand-me-down gear. It'll be worth it, because Oliver Jackson will go second in the NHL draft. It'll be worth it, because Oliver Jackson will be a Philadelphia Flyer.

It'll be worth it.

It's always had to be worth it.

"I think I love him," Oliver says.

His mom drops the phone.

From: tptb@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Resources: Videos Archive - Updated Through Monday

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 04:00 AM UTC

Let us know of new videos at videoarchive@jacktaliens.fic

From: shinanna4@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic, luckyluc-list@jacktaliens.fic, nonhl@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Go Falcons! -- R -- 0/15

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 05:27 AM UTC

Fic title: Go Falcons!

Fic summary: They get a second chance. Or: Oliver Jackson is the star center of the college rec league you've never heard of.

Chapter title: Prologue.

Chapter summary: How it begins.

Chapter count: 0/15

Author: Shinanna (shinanna4@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: None

Rating: R

Warnings: Fraternities.

Betas: Carly

Disclaimer: None of this ever happened.

Feedback: Yes

Archiving Permissions: Jacktaliens, Lucky Luc, We Refuse The NHL

Author's notes: N/A

Oliver Jackson could have been the greatest hockey player of all time. Luc Chantal could have been the greatest hockey player at all time. In this way, they were no different from many other youth players. And like those youth players, love of the sport wasn't enough. You needed a team you could trust. You needed coaches you could trust. You needed a hockey establishment that… you get the idea.

Jacks and Chants shook hands one day at age nine and both moved away. They sent letters and postcards for a few months, but that petered out. They thought of each other fondly, when they thought of each other.

They didn't know each had abandoned competitive hockey, Jacks for financial reasons, Chants for personal ones.

They didn't know each had chosen the same university.

That is, they didn't know it until the second week of their freshman year when Oliver Jackson turned to the student standing next to him at the rec league try outs and said, "where are you living?" and met the eyes of someone who he'd never forgotten.

And who had never forgotten him either.

From: audaciousarchimedes@jacktaliens.fic

To: luckyluc-list@jacktaliens.fic, jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Fic: Storage -- G

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 07:18 AM UTC

Title: Storage.

Summary: He hides it away.

Author: A. Archimedes (audaciousarchimedes@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: None

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Betas: None

Disclaimer: I, personally, have not won a Best Picture Oscar for my RPF.

Feedback: Yes

Archiving Permissions: Lucky Luc and Jacktaliens

Author's notes: This was written for the Drabbling Our WTF! challenge.

During the season, he keeps it in storage, all of his feelings for Chants. He closes them up with care in the preseason, drops kisses into their zippers, and then folds them away. He vacuums all of his love up and presses out the air.

In the summers, he lets it out, all of his feelings for Chants. He revels in them and drinks them dry, his joy in these moments, so precious and few.

And on the day when the season touches the summer, Before and After, he smiles an invitation and Chants accepts.

The Cup unfolds their love.

From: gravitino@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Fanvid: Gay Bar!

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 08:38 AM UTC

Title: Gay Bar!

Summary: Oliver Jackson, Luc Chantal, and the Stanley Cup Champion Quebec Nordiques.

Vidder: Gravitino (gravitino@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fanvid

Additional Pairings: Chants/Jacks/Buddy, Chants/Team, Jacks/Team

Rating: G

Warnings: Three hockey fights.

Feedback: Yes

Archiving Permissions: None.

Vidder's notes: You! Take your pairing to a gay bar!

The song is Gay Bar by Electric Six. The zip file is jacktaliens.fic/fanvids/gravitino/gaybar.zip

Streaming links on the Jacktalians streaming page.

Please dance along.

From: patternmatchinguniforms@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Gossip (What do you mean he kisses Jacks all the time?) -- G -- Drabbling Our WTF!

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 08:41 AM UTC

Title: Gossip (What do you mean he kisses Jacks all the time?)

Summary: Was there a memo about this?

Author: PMU (patternmatchinguniforms@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: Paul Sokowski/Discretion

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Betas: None

Disclaimer: Didn't happen!

Feedback: No

Archiving Permissions: Yes.

Author's notes: For the I Kiss Jacks All The Time drabble challenge.

Paul Sokowski knows everything there is to know about gossip; he's a hockey player. This person did this, someone else did that. Someone liked someone's status but not someone's else's; they must be fucking. They must hate each other.

The point is, it's exhausting and always a headache. His peewee coach told him never to gossip and it's held him in good stead; everyone says he's getting an A next year.

It's been a great life and career strategy, but it means he's the only one surprised when Chants grabs Jacks and kisses him under the Stanley Cup.

The fuck?

From: tetrapetalous@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Fic: Storage -- G

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 10:34 AM UTC

Keyboard smash! Archimedes! You've come to Jacktal!!!!

Holy shit I fucking love this. Welcome to this pairing!

Everyone, go check out her stuff on Lucky Luc, she writes the best Chants/Temi/Buddy you've ever read.

Keyboard smashing all over the place!!!!

From: shinanna4@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic, luckyluc-list@jacktaliens.fic, nonhl@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Parallel To The Horizon, 30/62

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 11:45 AM UTC

Fic title: Parallel To The Horizon

Chapter title: The Sunk Cost Fallacy

Fic summary: There's more to life than hockey.

Chapter summary: Oliver makes his decision.

Chapter count: 30/62

Author: Shinanna (shinanna4@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: None

Rating: R

Warnings: None

Betas: Carly

Disclaimer: None of this ever happened.

Feedback: Yes

Archiving Permissions: Jacktaliens, Lucky Luc, We Refuse The NHL

Author's notes: N/A

It doesn't get better.

It gets worse.

They're still the best line in the league, but off-ice, it's like they don't even know each other anymore. Oliver explodes at Luc one day over their homework, screaming at him that words have meanings, motherfucker, you can't just write that in your English paper, and Luc smugly tells him that language evolves, bro. Oliver could have hit him. Instead, he goes downstairs and starts making dinner, pounding his way through chopping vegetables. When Luc's parents come home, they find a four course meal and two fifteen year olds who can't meet each other's eyes.

'I'm sorry," Luc says and shows Oliver his revised homework, where he'd done everything Oliver had told him to, but it's not enough.

"I don't need you to do what I tell you to do just because I tell you to do it," Oliver tells him, not sure if he's angry or resigned or so ... so done with his entire life. He's so tired. He's so tired of feeling like Luc is skating away from him on the ice, but grabbing onto his shirt to keep himself afloat off of it. "Do your homework however you want. Fail all the classes you want. When you don't make the NHL and can't get into university, don't come crying to me. I'm not your tutor. I thought I was your best friend."

"You are my best friend," Luc insists, but the next day, he's back to cutting classes and hanging out with the stoners and when Oliver sees him as practice, he can smell him.

Oliver constantly feels like he's the only one who cares about their future. Luc's a cocky motherfucker and thinks of nothing but hockey, but Oliver knows his stats backwards and forwards. They're the best hockey players in the league and next year, they're going to be the worst in the Q. Because that's how this works. It weeds you out. Up or out, up or out, over and over again. Hockey Canada doesn't need three thousand elite hockey players, not when it really matters. When it really matters, they only need enough for a team. That's all.

Oliver's gonna get weeded out after the Q, if he even makes it in.

And Luc-- he won't focus. He won't care. He won't make any effort towards backup plans. Oliver feels like he's trying to drag Luc into reality and meanwhile Luc is fighting him all the way.

So why keep going? Why keep bothering?

They're supposed to be a team.

They're not a team right now. They're not even Luc And Oliver. They're two teenagers who are falling away from each other, no matter how much they try not to.

If Oliver didn't care so much, it wouldn't hurt so much.

When Oliver tells his mother he thinks he shouldn't go into the Q, she sighs. "Do you want to quit hockey today, Oliver?"

Oliver flinches. "No, of course not."

"Because you can always quit hockey," she tells him. "It's a hobby. If you don't want it to be a job, don't let the sunk cost fallacy force you to see out the season." She ruffles his hair. "Don't be miserable just because of Luc, all right? He'll understand."

"No," Oliver says, certain of it. "He won't."

She sighs again. "Well, he will eventually."

Oliver doubts it. Luc is stubborn the way the ocean is.

"Do you think Luc is having this conversation with his parents right now?" Oliver's mom asks him.

"Nope," Oliver says.

"Then I'll call them," she says and reaches for the phone. Oliver gets there before her.

"Don't do that," he begs. "Me and Luc, we'll work it out ourselves."

"Oh, Oliver," she says. "Baby. Sometimes, you don't have to. Sometimes, I need to call someone's parents and tell them to get their ducks in a row and start to parent already. You know I did it all the time when you were in mite."

Yes, because when Oliver was in mite, the other kids were calling him names loud enough for the parents to be able to hear. The boys who stuck around in hockey learned how to lean in and whisper their hatred at him.

"I don't want you to get involved," Oliver says. "I-- what if we were dating, mom? Would you step in then?"

She raises her eyebrows. "Are you dating him, Oliver? You always say you're not."

Because they aren't, but that's not the point. "That's not the point," Oliver says. "If I'm old enough to move away next year and play professionally, then I'm old enough to solve problems with my best friend myself."

"Of course you're old enough," she says. "That doesn't mean you have to."

"I want to," Oliver insists.

"All right," she says. "But remember, the option is always there. I'm always happy to tell people they're being terrible parents and their kids are little shitheads."

Oliver laughs, despite himself. He complains a lot, he knows, but he really doesn't know how he would have gotten through mite if his mom hadn't gotten three different boys kicked out of the league and ten more parents banned from games. Oliver may be the poor kid, the scholarship boy, the one in the patched and worn gear, but it's never been because his mother wasn't on his side.

But, "Luc's not a shithead," he says.

His mom smiles at him. "Sure about that, baby?"

Oliver laughs again. "All right. He can be sometimes. But he doesn't try to be."

"Then maybe you should help him learn the difference," she says.

And Oliver thinks all night about how to do that, tossing and turning, but it's useless anyway. The next day at school, Luc ignores him the entire time.

They manage to play two away games before Luc is willing to say a word to him that isn't on the ice, and Oliver wishes he could say he didn't know why, but he does know why. He's the one who told Luc that he relies on him too much; this is Luc saying, hey, I'm not relying on you at all. I don't need you.

Luc's going to go to the Q by himself next year, Oliver is increasingly convinced. The more he thinks about moving away, about his life being nothing but hockey, the more he thinks: no fucking way. There is no fucking way I'm doing that.

Oliver loves hockey but he doesn't love whatever it is that Luc does. Oliver doesn't love the hockey lifestyle. He wants to do more with his life than play game after game, go from game to practice to game to practice to the gym to work out back to the physical therapist and then to another game and then to a party, don't forget the parties, and then more games...

He doesn't want to do it.

He doesn't want to do it.

And he doesn't have to do it.

And frankly, it's so much easier if he doesn't do it.

All he has to do is say no. All he has to do is step backwards. All he has to do is give up on a dream he's had since he was seven years old. There's no NHL without the Q. Oliver knows himself. He knows he's not going to stay in NCAA shape if he doesn't go to the Q. And the NCAA is pointless; if Oliver's going to college, then he's going to college. He's not going to go to college to play hockey. If he wants to play hockey, he'll play hockey.

And he's lucky that he has that choice, but it's not just luck, it's skill and work and years and years of his life that he's put into this.

But he'd learned about the sunk cost fallacy when he was ten, and he still has the cardboard sign on his bedside table. 'You can quit at any time'.

It's always spurned him to do more. It's always reminded him that quitting is an option but so is working harder.

His mother had applied it to her marriage and gotten a divorce. Because sometimes? Sometimes there's no working harder. Sometimes there's only walking away.

Oliver's lucky. He doesn't even need to walk away. He just needs to stop walking. Hockey will keep going on without him.

And so will Luc. Luc will keep going without him, too.

After all, Luc's showing him every day that he can. Luc's showing him every day that he doesn't need him.

Oliver's been Luc's center, but that's always hockey. Oliver's never thought himself to be the center of Luc's world. How could he, when their coaches have always known that Luc is the star and that Oliver is the one who has to run to catch up? Luc's the one they care about, Oliver's the one they don't. And Oliver's worked himself to pieces to be as good as Luc is. They have the same amount of talent, Oliver knows, but Luc has the resources. You can't be poor and be a hockey star, not when you're relying on someone else's parents to get you to every practice and every game, to buy you the gear you need to shine, to pay your way into summer training camps and special events.

If Luc tried to quit, their coaches would be on top of him telling him no he's not, get back on the ice.

When Oliver quits, his coaches say, "money ran out?"

And Oliver can say, "yeah."

Oliver can say, "my mom needs to me to get an afterschool job."

Oliver can say, "I can't do that and hockey."

And his coaches pat him on the shoulder, already mentally moved on, already thinking of line changes, already writing him off in their heads. Oliver Jackson was never going to be the hockey superstar that would make them famous, that would give them stories to tell in bars for the rest of their lives. Oliver's been a good teammate and a star center at his level, but his coaches have seen talented boys like Oliver before. They know Oliver's real use is as a goad to the rich kids, as a standard for them to work their way towards, because boys like Oliver don't make the NHL. Oliver is there to be surpassed by the boys with more resources. Oliver Jackson has only ever been the boy no one cared about.

Well, not no one.

Luc used to care.

Oliver can't even tell Luc himself that he quit hockey because Luc's still ignoring him. It means Luc finds out when Oliver doesn't show up at a game. He'd already missed two practices without hearing from Luc, but a game is a game, and Luc finds him the next day.

"Let's talk outside," Oliver says and they walk down to the park. It's cold out but that's good. It'll give Oliver an excuse to go back inside.

"What happened, Jacks?" Luc asks. "Coach says he didn't bench you."

"No one benched me," Oliver says. "Luc, I quit hockey."

Luc stops walking. "You-- you what?"

"I quit hockey," Oliver repeats. "I was going to tell you but you haven't been talking to me."

"Did you quit hockey because I haven't been talking to you?" Luc asks, incredulous. "Are you shitting me?"

"Of course I didn't quit hockey because of you," Oliver says. "I quit hockey because of me."

"But we promised each other," Luc says. "We promised we'd lift the Cup together. We swore on it!"

"We were also nine," Oliver says. "I decided I wasn't going to go to the Q, and there's no point in continuing the season and risking my grades if I'm not going to go pro."

"Fuck your grades, Oliver!" Luc runs his fingers through his hair in frustration. "Who care about your grades? You won't need grades in the NHL!"

"I'm not going to the NHL," Oliver says. "I'm going to graduate and I'm going to university and I'm going to have a job. A normal job, with normal hours, and I'm going to play hockey on weekends in a beer league, and I'm going to be happy."

As he says it, Oliver feels filled with a certainty he never had before. That's it. That's his new goal. He's going to be happy.

"I never realized I wasn't happy," Oliver continues, sounding it out as he starts to feel it, as he acknowledges what he hadn't let himself acknowledge until now. "I thought it was stupid teenager shit. I thought it was hormones. Would we really have been fighting so much if I were happy with the way things were, Luc? I was picking fights all the time and when I wasn't, you were. You've been giving me the silent treatment for weeks. Is that what best friends do? Because I don't think that's what best friends do."

"Are-- are you saying we're not best friends anymore, Oliver?" Luc asks. "You can't-- you can't just say that without consulting me. Look, I've been a shithead, I know I've been a shithead. Let me make it up to you. I didn't realize you didn't want me to leave you alone. You told me to leave you alone! You said I was dragging you down, so I stopped doing that. Didn't you want me to be Mr. Independent?"

"All I want is for you to be Luc Chantal," Oliver says. "I don't want you to be anyone else."

"Yeah? Well, I want you to be Oliver Jackson. I want you to be the center of my line and my best friend on the planet." Luc kicks the ground. "And meanwhile, I ignored you into quitting hockey without even talking about it to me first. Can't you unquit? Can't I say I'm sorry, can't we kiss and make up? I need you on my line, Oliver. I need you in my life."

"I can be in your life without being on your line," Oliver says, but he knows it's not true. Luc's going away next year. He's going to the Q and he'll make a new life for himself and he'll think about Oliver sometimes, probably, but that'll be all it is. Luc won't have time for more. That's half the reason Oliver isn't going. He doesn't want hockey to eat his life like that. Because it would eat his life and leave nothing else and then it'll leave him, too, leave him washed up, too old for the Q, not good enough for the NHL, yet another discarded and disregarded junior hockey player.

He won't be a bitter twenty-one year old, sitting in a bar and whining about glory days, about peaking at sixteen. He won't do that to himself. He can be so many things and he won't be that.

Oliver knows what Luc has always refused to learn: there's life after hockey.

Oliver is just choosing that now for himself, rather than having life choose it for him somewhere down the line.

"Oliver," Luc says. "Oliver, please."

"I can't, Luc," Oliver says. He should apologize. He knows he should apologize. But he's not wrong and he's so tired and he's just realized he's been fucking miserable for the last three years of his life, and all for nothing. "I'm not your center anymore."

There are tears gathering at the corners of Luc's eyes when he says one more time, "Oliver. Please."

"You'll be great next year, Luc," Oliver says. "Break out star, you'll win all the awards. Reporters will swarm all over you and so will all the girls. And no one will tell you to shut up and do your homework, or to fix your fucking spelling, or that you can't call Queen Victoria a babe. So you'll be happy."

"How can you think that?" Luc demands. "How can you think so little of me to think I care about any of that? I care about you, Oliver!"

"And you care about hockey, but you care about hockey more," Oliver says. "That's the thing, Luc. I care about you, and I care about you way more than I care about hockey."

"You're not fucking listening to me," Luc says. He grabs Oliver by the shoulders. "Listen to me, Oliver Jackson. I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you for seven years. Where you go, I go. Where you play, I play. And if you don't play, then neither do I."

Then he lets go of Oliver's shoulders and Oliver stands there, stunned, as Luc brushes his hands together.

"Got it?" Luc asks.

"You're fucking nuts," Oliver says. "There's no way you're quitting hockey."

"Are you unquitting?" Luc asks.

And Oliver has only one answer to that. "No, I'm not," he says.

"Then congratulations. I'm fucking quitting hockey," Luc says, sounding furious about it but not backing down, because it's not Luc's way to ever back down. "I'm fucking staying in Moncton next year with you, and we're going to be fucking happy together, and have great lives, and even if you never proof any of my papers again or fix my math homework, I'm still going to fucking love you every single day of my life. So you better get used to it."

"Can't you ever be fucking normal?" Oliver demands. "Ask me out on a fucking date already, will you? Or are you not gonna do that?"

"Of course I'm not going to do that," Luc says. "You've told me three times you don't want to date me! You tell my grandma that every summer when we go to the lake! You're straight, I get it. But I still fucking love you and you're still the goddamn center of my line and always will be. Get used to it."

"I'm gay, you self-centered asshole!" Oliver shouts, not caring who hears them.

"Fantastic!" Luc shouts back at him in French. "Date me, then!"

"Fuck you, fine!" Oliver returns. "Let's do it! You and me, Tim Horton's. And then you'll text your mom and I'll text mine, and Coach will do a fucking intervention on you tomorrow morning, and the world will end. I cannot believe you, Luc Chantal."

"Yeah, I'm unbelievable," Luc says. He grabs Oliver's hand in a way that's nowhere near romantic hand-holding, but who needs romance. Oliver would rather prefer not to get any more giant romantic gestures from Luc right now. He still doesn't believe Luc's actually going to quit hockey. "But I'm unbelievable and also your boyfriend."

Yeah, well, they'll see about that.

Oliver squeezes Luc's hand and tries to think of how he's going to tell his mom about this.

From: thetwelfthjessie@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Parallel To The Horizon, 30/62

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 01:02 PM UTC

My screaming is incoherent, Shina. Incoherent. Of course that's how Luc tells him. Perfection. :D

-Jessie

From: ami@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Parallel To The Horizon, 30/62

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 01:06 PM UTC

Aaaaaah! Shina, I have to know. When will Luc show him the box?

From: shinanna4@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Parallel To The Horizon, 30/62

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 01:12 PM UTC

Don't worry! Luc will show him the box...

...before the birth of their first child.

> On 2028-06-20, ami@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> Aaaaaah! Shina, I have to know. When will Luc show him the box?

From: boggio@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Fic: Champions -- G -- Drabbling Our WTF!

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 02:49 PM UTC

For the challenge!

Title: Most Likely To

Summary: Succeed.

Author: Boggio (boggio@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: None

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Betas: None

Disclaimer: Fiction.

Feedback: Off list only

Archiving Permissions: Yes.

Author's notes: This drabble is the for the "I kiss Jacks all the time" Drabbling Our WTF! challenge.

There's a moment when Jackson can only think: champions.

Chants had promised him, all those years ago. They could be together one day but only if they win. You gotta do the work. You can't have distractions. You can't get a Cup while fighting about whose turn it is to vacuum the rug.

When we're champions, Chants had said. When we're champions.

When we're champions, we can be together. When we're champions, we can be to each other everything it's possible for two people to be. When we're champions.

When we're champions.

And now they're champions. Now Chants kisses him.

From: paintedplastic@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Parallel To The Horizon, 30/62

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 03:31 PM UTC

Shina, I know you had to move some stuff around for the AU to work, but pssst, go check the timeline for that winter. Should be fixable with a sentence or two in the next chapter.

From: aryg_argyle@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:09 PM UTC

Fic title: Do Not Use For Navigation

Fic summary: Jackson had pruned himself into a perfect hockey player to make the NHL. But when he moved to Quebec, he let himself grow wild.

Chapter count: 1/?

Author: Ary G. (aryg_argyle@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: Past Chants/Temi

Rating: PG

Warnings: Homophobia.

Betas: Toshka

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.

Feedback: Yes

Archiving Permissions: Jacktaliens. Others please ask!

Author's notes: N/A

It has never been easy to be Oliver Jackson. It had never been easy to be the poor kid on the team. Everyone else had the newest gear but Jackson had what was donated. It took him years to get used to having sponsors. It took him years to get used to being able to replace his skates when they wore out or when he grew out of them, rather than suffering through it until the end of the season. He still expected all his uniforms to be patched and mended. He'd been sewing them up himself since he was eight and his mother put a sewing needle in his hand and told him, they were a team, and he had to keep his kit in order. Chantal had chores from his parents, but Jackson had jobs to do. If Chantal didn't do his chores, he'd get punished. If Jackson didn't do his chores, they didn't get done.

When Jackson had made the NHL, it had been like he'd never been the poor kid at all. Friends he'd never made had poured out of the woodwork to claim to be his best friend. But his real best friend was on the other side of the United States and all they had was determination keeping them in touch.

With his first big paycheck, Jackson had gone in on a vacation house with Chantal. He should have been like everyone else and bought his mom a car, but his mom liked her car. It was dependable. In a few more years, she told him, she'd let him buy her something nice. But what use was a nice car when all she was going to use it for was commuting? No, darling, buy a house with your best friend. Tie him down with paperwork since you can't tie him down any other way. The NHL was never going to let them ever play together again, so all they'd have were their summers. Go in on a vacation house. Get a dog. Enjoy the summers, because the summers mean no hockey but they also mean freedom. In the summers, Jackson could choose where he lived. In the summers, Jackson could choose who he trained with. In the summers, Jackson could be himself.

In the summers, Jackson could paint his face until no one recognized him and walk in Pride.

He'd been scared to tell Chantal, but Chantal was always braver. Chantal told him first. They'd held hands the night before the draft and Chantal had said, "Oliver." Chantal had said, "bisexual." And then Chantal had said, "what about you?"

And Jackson had taken his heart in his hands and said, "gay". But he hadn't said, "and in love with you."

He hadn't said that until the day the Flyers refused to match his offer sheet. He hadn't said that until the day Jackson packed up his apartment and moved into Chantal's spare bedroom. Jackson hadn't said that until their first practice, until he'd settled out the new endorsements and sponsorships, until Jackson was as much of a Nordique as it was possible to be.

And then he'd lit candles and he'd gotten enough food from the fanciest steakhouse that he could have paid his and his mom's rent for a month with what it cost, back when he'd been seven, back when they'd had to move, back before he knew Luc Chantal. And Jackson had held Chantal's hand across the table and he'd said it.

He'd said, "Luc, I love you."

And a miracle had happened. Luc had loved him, too.

Jackson had pruned himself into a perfect hockey player to make the NHL. He had ruthlessly, ceaselessly chosen this life. He knew what he had to do and he'd done it. He'd made the NHL, but he'd also made a life in the closet.

In Quebec, he began to let himself grow wild.

He kissed Chantal that night, and every night after that. He found times for dates, just the two of them together. He caught dinner with Chantal's former girlfriends and they worked out a schedule for the cameras. The NHL was a beast and they all knew it must be fed. They made their lives in what remained, or so Jackson had always thought.

In Quebec, he ran wild. He sprouted roots and budded new flowers. His feet anchored him to the soil and his head looked clearly forward. He could see the rest of his career here. He could see the rest of his career here, with Chantal.

And then Chantal kissed him on the ice.

TBC!

From: koalaf@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:34 PM UTC

Ary, I love this, but either don't check twitter until you finish writing the fic, or check twitter right this minute. Your choice.

From: aryg_argyle@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:38 PM UTC

Goddammit, Chantal.

> On 2028-06-20, koalaf@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> Ary, I love this, but either don't check twitter until you finish writing the fic, or check twitter right this minute. Your choice.

From: quinary@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:41 PM UTC

Ary, please accept this lovely toaster for yet again winning the "closest fic posted to the fic getting fucked over by Chantal" competition.

I'm so sorry for your achievement.

> On 2028-06-20, aryg_argyle@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> Goddammit, Chantal.

From: fifthsetofangevins@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic, luckyluc-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Fic: Good Ideas -- G -- Drabbling Our WTF!

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:42 PM UTC

Title: Good Ideas

Summary: It began after the All Star Game.

Author: Angie (fifthsetofangevins@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: None

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Betas: None

Disclaimer: No.

Feedback: No

Archiving Permissions: All.

Author's notes: Drabble for the challenge.

It began after the All Star Game.

They shouldn't have done it. They both agreed after. It was a bad idea. It was the excitement. They shouldn't give it a second try and see if it was as good as the first.

It was as good as the first, and the third, and the fourth.

And the world is full of firsts and seconds and thirds and fourths and fifths and sixths, until it becomes a thing, until it becomes: I kiss Jacks all the time.

The world is full of bad ideas that are really good ideas in disguise.

From: corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] OT: Whatever Chants has done now (Was: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?)

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:47 PM UTC

No. I, for one, refuse. I'm not looking. I've got a ficlet just back from beta. I'm gonna post it before I find out what entire fuckery Chantal has done now.

> On 2028-06-20, aryg_argyle@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> Goddammit, Chantal.

From: leya@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: OT: Whatever Chants has done now (Was: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?)

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:51 PM UTC

You're gonna like it. We're about to go juggernaut pairing.

> On 2028-06-20, corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> No. I, for one, refuse. I'm not looking. I've got a ficlet just back from beta. I'm gonna post it before I find out what entire fuckery Chantal has done now.

From: corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: OT: Whatever Chants has done now (Was: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?)

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:53 PM UTC

We're already the juggernaut pairing. Like, this last week has been nothing but juggernaut eating everything it encounters.

> On 2028-06-20, leya@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> You're gonna like it. We're about to go juggernaut pairing.

From: marsh_lion@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Resources: Marshallion's Timeline

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:54 PM UTC

We've updated our timeline.

Good luck everyone.

-Marsha and Lion

From: leya@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: OT: Whatever Chants has done now (Was: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?)

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 09:59 PM UTC

...Uh. Just post your fic. And then go look. And then reply to say you were wrong and I was right.

> On 2028-06-20, corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> We're already the juggernaut pairing. Like, this last week has been nothing but juggernaut eating everything it encounters.

From: corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: Re: OT: Whatever Chants has done now (Was: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?)

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 10:03 PM UTC

Damn, now I'm curious.

> On 2028-06-20, leya@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> ...Uh. Just post your fic. And then go look. And then reply to say you were wrong and I was right.

From: ohplayoff@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: OT: Whatever Chants has done now (Was: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?)

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 10:07 PM UTC

Don't do it! Post your fic before your fic get nuked from orbit!

> On 2028-06-20, corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> Damn, now I'm curious.

From: corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: OT: Whatever Chants has done now (Was: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?)

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 10:12 PM UTC

Uh oh. Okay now I'm scared. Doing the headers now.

> On 2028-06-20, ohplayoff@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> Don't do it! Post your fic before your fic get nuked from orbit!

From: worstschiralli@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] News: Jacktal have been legally (?) married all this time

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 10:13 PM UTC

According to a video Chants posted to his twitter, he and Jacks have been married since the summer after the draft.

Jacks has retweeted this video.

No one has any more details at this time, but we all expect a press release from the Nordiques and/or the NHL and/or You Can Play in the morning.

Congratulations to everyone who wrote Married In Vegas After The NHL Awards fics; you were only one year off.

From: treebeardsareus@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: News: Jacktal have been legally (?) married all this time

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 10:18 PM UTC

In all of our defenses, none of us *knew* they were in Vegas the year they got drafted.

> On 2028-06-20, worstschiralli@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> Congratulations to everyone who wrote Married In Vegas After The NHL Awards fics; you were only one year off.

From: corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic, luckyluc-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] The Fault Is In Our Skates -- G

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 10:22 PM UTC

Title: The Fault Is In Our Skates

Fic summary: They did it.

Author: Corsi Carousel (corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic)

Type: Fic

Additional Pairings: None

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Betas: Navarrrow

Disclaimer: Pretty sure this didn't happen, and even more sure now.

Feedback: Off list only

Archiving Permissions: Jacktaliens, Lucky Luc

Author's notes: N/A

Jackson heaved a heavy sigh as Chantal took the seat next to him on the plane. "We really did it," Jackson said.

"Oliver," Chantal said helplessly.

"Don't give me that," Jackson said. "Talk to me like I'm one of your French girls," he went on, putting his hand on Chantal's thigh. "We're out in front of the entire world. Talk to me like I'm pretty. Give me sweet nothings. I want a thesaurus of your best poetry, Chantal. I have to call my mom in the morning."

"Your mom loves me," Chantal said.

"Yeah, well, my mom also loved the idea of me not getting in the tabloids anymore," Jackson said. "My mom didn't want reporters calling her at all hours asking about her gay son. My mom wanted me to come out in a heartfelt newspaper article, or not at all. This isn't either one of them, Luc. So tell me it'll all be all right and let's go to sleep."

They'd just won the Stanley Cup. It's everything Jackson has been working for his entire life, but it's overshadowed because Chantal just couldn't help himself. Chantal just had to push.

Chantal always pushes. Jackson wishes sometimes that he would stop.

But that would be like asking for the world to stop spinning.

---And now I'm going to go look!

From: leya@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: OT: Whatever Chants has done now (Was: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?)

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 10:26 PM UTC

And?

> On 2028-06-20, corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> Uh oh. Okay now I'm scared. Doing the headers now.

From: corsicarousel@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: OT: Whatever Chants has done now (Was: Re: Fic: Do Not Use For Navigation 1/?)

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 10:30 PM UTC

....Well.

You did tell me so.

> On 2028-06-20, leya@jacktaliens.fic wrote:
> And?

From: tptb@jacktaliens.fic

To: jacktaliens-list@jacktaliens.fic

Subject: [Jacktaliens List] Re: Re: Re: We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties With The Jacktalien Spaceship, Please Stand By

Date: Tue, June 20, 2028 11:30 PM UTC

It happened again but we're back up!

Aliens, start your engines. Begin writing your "five years married" fics on my mark.

Mark!