#since the most suitable option of launching the entire franchise directly into the sun is not really within the confines of this story | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

workingforitallthetime · 9 months

Text

drawn arrows unseen

part 17 / previous installments/tags

Mason’s never watched the draft lottery before, not even the year he was drafted. But this year his heart beats faster with every card flipped. Sixth, Chicago. Fifth, Montreal. Fourth, San Jose. Third, Arizona. Mason paces around the room waiting for the lottery winner, chanting Anaheim, Anaheim, Anaheim in his head.

It’s Columbus.

Mason deflates. It’s so far away. But Anaheim has the second pick. Connor should go first overall. Connor deserves to go first overall. But – and Mason feels like a traitor for thinking it – if anything good can come out of Connor being an omega, maybe it’s him falling in the draft, just one spot. Falling straight to Mason’s team, straight into Mason’s apartment and bed and life.

It feels so right that he almost convinces himself it’s going to happen. On draft night, after Jarmo Kekäläinen announces Adam Fantilli’s name as the first overall pick, Mason sits at the edge of his couch, leg jiggling nervously, waiting for it.

It takes him a moment to register that Pat Verbeek didn’t say Connor’s name. Mason rewinds the broadcast and watches the pick again, just to make sure. It’s Leo Carlsson.

Mason throws the remote at the wall.

He’s not sure what he’s madder about: that Connor fell, or that he didn’t fall to Anaheim. Arizona snaps him up at third overall. Mason watches him hug his family and shed his jacket and walk up to the stage, hungry for any glimpse of Connor's face.

[Mason does not read any post-draft coverage, but Scott Wheeler and Chris Peters both predict Columbus and Anaheim will be sorry they passed on Connor because he’s an omega. Both franchises say they wanted a 1C with size, but everybody knows what they were really thinking. Pronman’s last mock draft predicted the first three picks correctly.]

Mason knows nothing good can come from a FaceTime request from Kent Johnson on the night of Connor’s 18th birthday, but he still picks up. Kent’s in a club, the music loud and the familiar ice buckets and velvet couches of bottle service visible as the phone swings around unsteadily. “Say hi to Mason,” Kent demands, and hooks Connor into the frame with an elbow around his neck.

“Hi?” Connor looks at the screen, puzzled. Mason can’t even tell if Connor knows who he’s talking to. HIs hair is hanging sweatily in his face and his shirt has one button too many unbuttoned. The club lighting casts shadows along his collarbones.

Mason wants to do things to him that would have Parliament holding a whole new set of Hockey Canada hearings.

“Happy birthday,” Mason projects, although he suspects it’s a losing battle over the music in the background.

“Thanks, man.” Something catches Connor’s eye off camera, and he ducks out from under Kent’s arm and disappears from the frame.

Mason glares at Kent so hard it ought to bore holes in the screen of his phone.

Kent snorts at him. “Don’t worry, nobody’s touching your omega. Last guy who tried to grind on him got an elbow in the gut.”

Mason opens his mouth to object, and then shuts it. Connor doesn’t feel like his omega, even if his entire body goes fuzzy with static when he hears Kent say it. Connor feels like a friend Mason played with once, who he kept in touch with for a while and then he faded away. If the thought of Connor still turns his insides upside down, maybe that will stop hurting, eventually. That’s how it has to be, with Connor headed to another team that’s going to hope for a bond with one of their own alphas.

(next)

#drawn arrows unseen #it's my story and so i get to suitably demote chicago #relatively suitably i mean #since the most suitable option of launching the entire franchise directly into the sun is not really within the confines of this story

27 notes · View notes