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montrealmadison · 3 months

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olliewicks and 37 !!

abby, it’s only appropriate that i write these two for the very first time for you. ❤️

37. olliewicks + Anything You Want (Not That) by Belleruche for @zimms

Forgive the doe eyed relentless attention If it's on, I'm on, and there's no more use in pretending Close to the chase, it's clear you've had fun playing Some liberties, well you've surely been taking

Halfway through December, with the night becoming morning and the tub juice lighting him on fire, Oliver O’Meara thinks he’s having a pretty good freshman year.

Or—frog year. Right. New team, new lingo; he knows how this goes. The guys here call him Ollie, same as they have everywhere else. The ice at Faber is bigger, better kept, but his skates dig into it just the same. He goes to class (most of the time), hits up the kegsters, tries his best to get in with the upperclassmen, successfully makes one entire friend.

He’s a simple guy. Doesn’t expect much.

So the fact that something is starting to feel different is rubbing him the wrong way.

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The Haus is high off the win—literally, Ollie thinks, watching smoke drift past him out the open front door. They destroyed BC tonight, four-nothing, and Jack only shouted at them twice, which at this point honestly passes for kindness where he's concerned. Shitty has been incandescent with joy since they hit the showers. He’s dragged every member of the team into at least two keg stands with his own set of complicated strip rules and is now down to nothing but one sock and a giant smile, which was the final warning that prompted Ollie to move to the porch. The parties here are way better than in high school, he has to admit, but only in small doses.

Salt crunches beneath him when he sits down on the steps. It’s cold out. Not as bad as it is at home this time of year, but not warm enough to justify him sitting outside in shorts and a hoodie, sweat chilling quickly in his hair and his breath smoking out in long billows. He half-expects someone to come outside and yell at him to put a coat on, but no one does. To fill the silence, he takes another sip of tub juice, lets it torch his throat all the way down.

Maybe everybody feels like this freshman year: unmoored, self-conscious, either too loud or too quiet. It’s not bad, it’s just—different. Not having his brothers around. Playing hockey that really means something. Making friends on purpose, not just because they’re the only ones available. Going to parties where people sort of know you, where they call your name; where your teammates smile and smell like cinnamon and weed and have nice asses and ex-boyfriends; where that’s okay, it’s all okay.

Maybe, if he’s feeling like this on a night when he’s supposed to be happy, he shouldn’t be drinking alone. He’s about to pound the rest of his cup and risk going back in for a refill when someone knees him in the back.

“Ow,” Ollie says, which is a great first thing to say when you’re potentially going to have to kick someone’s ass. “Bro, what the fuck.”

He turns around, ready to defend himself, but it’s only Wicky, carrying two Keystones with the tabs already popped.

“‘Sup,” he says, grinning like he didn’t just commit an act of warfare, and hands one over. The can’s cold, as are Wicky’s fingers when they touch. “You’re thinking loud. Want a buddy?”

“Yeah,” Ollie agrees, more out of surprise than anything else. He takes a sip and finds that even watery beer is a welcome change from warm Everclear and foot stank. He tosses the rest of the tub juice into the bushes in a wide arc, sends his cup tumbling after it. “Thanks.”

Wicky sinks down beside him, close enough to throw off heat but not enough to touch. He’s in sweats and a beanie, dirty old Vans, that half a smile he always wears. Ollie’s not used to feeling like it’s directed at him and kind of waits to feel uncomfortable about it, but he never does. Beyond their little sliver of porch, it’s starting to snow.

“Good fucking game,” Wicky says after a long minute, throwing a shoulder in Ollie’s direction. His inflection is familiar, round and Midwestern, and reminds Ollie so much of home that it almost softens the blow. “Tired of cellying your assist?”

“Tired of Holster kicking my ass at pong,” he retorts. Wicky laughs and dodges the elbow Ollie aims his way. “Didn’t see you rushing to my defense, man, I had to play with Hardy and he’s about as useful as—”

“Nah, nah, I didn’t mean to laugh at you.” It’s sincere. “I got you next time, sorry. Got distracted.”

“What could be more important than riding to my rescue?”

“Key lime pie?”

“Ah.”

Ollie elbows him one more time, just for good measure and because Wicky claims not to have saved him any, before they drink their beers and watch the street turn white and he goes back to thinking.

Maybe it’s Wicky who’s different. Not in the way that Bitty is different, like nothing this team has ever seen, like the kind of person who merits special coaching with Jack by day and stands on the arm of the sticky green couch to deliver an impassioned performance of some Kesha song by night. No, the thing about Wicky is that he’s… bright. He puts his head down in practice and works the same as Ollie does, doesn’t ask many questions or draw attention to himself. They go to the dining hall and practice and the library together; mundane shit. Somehow, Ollie can’t stop noticing him anyway.

“You good, dude?”

Wicky’s voice is low, but Ollie’s so tuned into him in his head that it sounds loud. He turns, tipsy and slow, and finds Wicky still wearing that smile.

Oh, shit, Ollie thinks, hoping the cold and the beer serve as cover for the flush that immediately crawls up his cheeks. Oh, fuck.

Because here is the goddamn thing.

Oliver O’Meara is having a pretty good freshman year, but that’s all he ever expected it to be. Go to school, play hockey, have a little fun. Look, he gets that maybe there’s something in the water here that lets Shitty hug the Jack Zimmermann on the daily without getting both his arms ripped off, or facilitates the freaky mind-meld between Ransom and Holster, or enables Bitty to get on the ice with them at all. But Ollie’s never felt like a main character, not even in his own story. Everyone else probably has better reasons for coming to Samwell, life-changing ones. Ollie feels a little like he just ended up here because of some force of nature greater than him, like the broad strokes of his life have been sketched out and the details have all been left for him to make up.

Wicky is the only person who’s ever made him wonder how it would feel if, maybe, he could be different here, too.

“Ollie,” Wicky says, now sounding distinctly amused. “Earth to O’Meara. You wanna get out of here, brah? Not having fun?”

He’s pretty sure that get out of here isn’t intended that way, not yet, but it could—oh, God, it could.

“No, I’m good,” Ollie says, feeling everything and nothing like himself. He stands, feels his knees ache with the effort of the day, knows he isn’t done quite yet. He sticks out a hand. “One more song and then late night?”

Wicky’s at his feet now, trusting eyes and curling hair, a face Ollie’s only just started to get to know but somehow thinks he won’t ever forget. He takes Ollie’s hand and pulls himself to his feet, but he doesn’t let go right away. Ollie kind of loves that. “One more, huh? Only if you’re gonna dance.”

“Deal.”

“‘Swawesome,” says Wicky. It sounds like a promise.

(Inside, on the dance floor, when that same hand wraps warm around the back of Ollie's neck like a question and an answer all at once, it feels like one, too.)

The next weekend, they win again. Ollie’s on the ice when Ransom wrists in the last goal and everyone shouts, and when they all pile in for the celly, Ollie finds Wicky’s bright blue eyes (oh, shit) and winks, and Wicky reaches up with one gloved hand and catches it like a kiss.

Alright, Ollie thinks. Game on.

#ollie o'meara #pacer wicks #olliewicks #omgcp #omg check please #omgcheckplease #my writing #efickegster 2024 #abby tag #abby thank you for this request it was super super fun ❤️#I love writing them who knew!!

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