hello i am not dead

My life story basically

I feel like my life is just one big distraction, a distraction I use to take my minds eye off of how I truly feel inside, empty, sad, and most of all alone. I try to pour myself into simple tasks and hobbies like playing games to occupy my time but I still feel bored. I spend time with friends, friends who wouldn’t be there for me and whom I can’t really open up to and be myself around, but hey it beats being alone. I dedicate my studies to politics and economics in hopes of someday going to a law school, but for what? Do these subjects truly fascinate me? Is it my dream to become a lawyer or stockbroker or even some sort of politician? I tell myself yes that these futures have potential and that I’ll have enough money to live comfortably and perhaps find someone willing to stick around. But deep down I’m scared that I’ll just be another drone with a desk job following this career path but what else can I do to escape this feeling? I thought I had my answer in the form of a girl, the most wonderful woman I had ever meet but now I’ve lost her, and this is the tale of how my life has gotten to where it is now. She stuck out from the moment I first saw her, as she called out to me about a week after I had moved into my dorms for my freshman year of college. She hollered my name across the hall and said hello, I returned the greeting but hurried into my room, smiling but also slightly embarrassed as I didn’t know her name. Little did I know that chance encounter would put me on a course of my first real love. We continued this pattern of greeting each other in the halls until one night another very important character in my life appeared to me. I had been out to a house party that night and had been on my way back to the dorms when I saw someone sitting outside and I had recognized him as one of the kids who lived next door to me, we had never spoken really but I went up to him, hopped up on some liquid courage and introduced myself to him. Coincidentally he too was was rather intoxicated and we were able to hit it off quite nicely. We hung out outside with the people I was with and my newfound friend, who I will refer to as Taylor. However the night was getting rather late and so it wasn’t long before we headed up to our rooms and slept the night off. The next day though we reintroduced ourselves while finally sober and almost instantly we were very close friends. He started spending most of his time with me and would come over to my room daily, it’s as if he was another one of my roommates, and I couldn’t have been happier to make such a friends in college. Me and Taylor became such fast friends but it still feels weird not to talk about how our friendship blossomed in other ways but it really did happen in only a few days. As we progressed through the semester my more outgoing roommate let’s call him Nick (I have 3 total besides myself that live in my room) made friends with the floor so it was a natural progression that I started hanging out with them too. And it was here that I first really started to smoke pot, something Taylor did regularly already. We started hanging out with the kids on the opposite side of my room from where Taylor stayed, Sam, Corbin and Tony. They all smoked often as well and soon they invited us out with them and with them was that girl down the hall who always was able to make me smile, let’s call her Liza. We smoked out in some woods outside our dorms and this being the first time I had smoked I was embarrassed to have to ask how to use the bowl, but they helped me along and soon we were all pretty baked and laughing and having a good time. Liza even commented on it by saying how goofy we were being which only made me laugh harder. I found myself surrounded by new friends and was so genuinely happy for the first time in idk how long. This became habit for what seemed an eternity during that first semester, we had so many good times out in those woods it seemed like those halcyon days would never end, I found somewhere I could be happy, where I could be myself finally. Soon it became Taylor, Liza and I most of the time, we just all got along so well and developed a dynamic that just worked really well. We were the three closest people on the floor and I couldn’t be more ecstatic about it. However my world came crashing down around me as Taylor had gotten caught smoking by police and soon after was suspended for the second semester, we had as much fun as we could before the end of that semester and I was heart broken to see him be forced to leave, it just wouldn’t be the same without him always in my room, it would be so quiet. Winter break rolled around and we said our goodbyes and headed home, this was the last time I was able to see Taylor for a while, with that on my mind it made it even harder to go home, as being home was where I always felt so alone and isolated. Thankfully the time flew by quickly but not without some important developments. I went to a party at one of my friends houses and during that party Liza had texted me, she seemed so sad and asked why boys treated her like shit and what must’ve been wrong with her, and I did my best to console her, tell her it wasn’t her fault and how wonderful she was and that she’d have no problem finding someone who’d truly appreciate her. Aside from that we didn’t even really talk, even the rest of break. When we got back we didn’t hangout at first so much. I know a lot of people at my university that went to my hometown, hell I room with three of them, any way I was spending time with a friend from my hometown for about the first week back. But that weekend we went out just the two of us to smoke and we talked about how we had been distant and how it just seemed that we were busy, but we were glad to be spending time together again. Since that point we had been like peas and carrots, I know it’s cheesy but we seemed inseparable, we spent hours of the day together everyday, we even had 3 classes together. I was really happy that we were getting so close, I hadn’t ever had a friend so close before. She soon started opening up to me about herself and her family and her issues and I felt really happy to get to really know her and for her to feel safe talking to me, as trust comes hard for her. Time seemed to fly by that second semester, by it was so great to be with her all that time. It was a little before spring break when I started to really develop feeling for her, her feelings however were ambiguous to me and it already felt like a relationship as we already spent so much time together and had basically gone on a million ‘dates’ but that’s not what they really were to us then. She showed so many signs, it seemed to me, that she’d also enjoy a relationship with me, she used to cuddle up with me when we’d watch Netflix I’d slept with her in her bed (we didn’t do anything) multiple times, just as a few examples of what made me think that way. My roommates all would always ask when we started dating and I’d just laugh it off. But I was also petrified of saying anything to her, I didn’t want to make a move and then have her reject me, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to handle that, especially if she wouldn’t want to hangout anymore because of awkwardness. So I held my tongue. The week before spring break things were going really well, or at least in my mind, she had been really touchy that week I felt like and I was enjoying all her doting. Of course spring break came and was horrible for both of us but we had each other to talk to, we would text and snap all day to comfort each other and help lift each other up. I was so happy to have her there for me it meant the world when I felt like I had nothing else. Spring break ended and when we came back I just felt weird around her, like all of a sudden we were so distant. It was then that she started going through hot and cold streaks when it came to me and how she acted. Some days she seemed to love me and others I felt like she must’ve hated me, and I didn’t know why. This cycle repeated innumerable times to my measure but I always did my best to be there for her. And then one night we had been drinking and we laid in her bed together arms around each other and she cried to me, like never before. I wanted so much to stop her pain, she said she always felt like people were tearing her down, especially boys. I held her throughout the night so sad and what I had just witnessed but so happy she had come to me and so happy I was the one able to comfort her. The next day however she seemed upset and me, cold, like the night before had never happened. Then a similar cycle started where she’d get drunk and either open up to me or she got really grabby and flirty, and I never wanted to hurt her or do anything that might make her regret anything so I held myself back bc she didn’t usually act this way sober. I would go along with whatever she was doing but I would never make any moves bc I knew it would be wrong and be taking advantage of her. And now after this last weekend she’s so far gone from me, we haven’t talked in days and I’m scared she’s gone. Idk what I’m supposed to do, we had all these plans like going to the movies and to some dinner and to my grandfathers cabin up north for her upcoming birthday but idk where I stand. I ask myself if it’s my fault for never making any moves but I know that would’ve been wrong, so I just have to wonder what’s wrong with me. Perhaps it’s a new boy and I never meant that much at all. All I can do is wonder and worry that I’ll never get back to at least where we were, even if It hurts to be there it’s even worse not to be in her life at all. I love her like I’ve never loved anyone else, and I know no one will ever love me the way she did or make me feel the way she made me feel during our time as the dynamic duo. But I feel it’s too late to tell her and it’ll only drive us apart now, and the worst part is that we live on the same floor of the same building next year too so even if I fired my shot there are consequences I cannot avoid. I just want to talk to her and let her know How much she means even if I have to hold back how I really feel but I feel like that’d only push her away more now and idk why, I just want things to be like they were, I can hardly bear losing my closest and most genuine friend I’ve ever had. She was my distraction from the void inside my soul, she filled that emptiness and made me feel so warm and full of life like I’d never felt before. I love her and it hurts feeling like she’ll never love me back the same way or in any way at this point. I love you so much.

5 names kent parson had on his arm by accident +1 he chose

This is a nightmarish soulmate au I wrote bc there are literally never enough, according to me.

2k words, patater, past pims, angst, verbosity

Here on AO3

Most people have three names.

Alex

The first time a name appears on Kent’s wrist, he’s just fallen on his face. The ice is cold through his gloves, and his mom’s back is turned or she would have yelled to see if he was ok, he knows it.

Instead, one of the other boys skates over and holds out a hand. Alex is a year older, and has been skating for three. He’s already everything Kent wants to be on the ice, solid and reckless all at once.

Alex’s name has always been light. It matched Kent’s freckles at first, but by the time a few years pass it’s faded until it’s barely visible at all, and Kent’s alone again.

Jack

Jack is like Alex all over again - always a step ahead of Kent. And Kent is okay with that. They play good hockey, better than Kent’s ever played, and Kent doesn’t feel so alone.  Kent hasn’t had a name appear since Alex, not even a family name like most kids have.

Jack’s name appears slowly, and at first Kent doesn’t even notice. He refuses to look at Jack’s wrist until he finds him lying on the bathroom floor. Even then he doesn’t mean to, but a stretched out hand catches his attention. And the wrist above it. Kent stumbles out of the bathroom, makes a call - Bob or Alicia, he doesn’t remember anything the next day but a clench in his chest and Jack’s eyes closed and a wrist he’s never been brave enough to look at before.

It’s Alicia who calls him three days later, to congratulate him on being picked and tell him that Jack’s ok, but he’ll be in rehab for at least a few weeks, and yes she’ll tell Jack he said hello and yes his phone is still active Jack will get any messages Kent says when he’s out and feel free to call any time. Kent must call once a day. He texts more - whenever he thinks of something Jack might like. He never gets a response.

A week after Jack gets out Kent hears a message about a number out of service, and drives over to the Zimmermans’, and Alicia meets comes out to his car before he can get out. Her eyes are sad when she gently tells him that Jack isn’t ready to talk, and Kent thinks he feels a tingle on his arm.

Before dawn the next day he wakes up and his arm is burning and he can barely think because it hurts and somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that Jack could only reject him if he knew Kent had called and -

Ellie

The first person Kent meets in Vegas - after the Aces manager - is the team’s social media intern. She’s in college, and almost Kent’s age, and seems almost as nervous as he is until she launches into a spiel on responsible posting. By the time she finishes talking Kent’s exhausted, and apparently he looks it because Ellie gives him a pitying look and starts flipping through cat pictures on her phone.

It turns out she volunteers at a cat shelter when she isn’t here or in class, and by the time Kent leaves he’s offered an afternoon a week until training starts. A month after he starts volunteering that turns into an afternoon at the shelter then dinner with Ellie (and often her girlfriend) before he goes back to the empty apartment he’d rented a week after he got to Vegas. Not that it’s very empty anymore, with Ellie and Katie (Katie and Kenny, Ellie giggles whenever the three of them are together, and Jack’s name for him doesn’t hurt as much from his new friends’ lips) coming over.

A week after Ellie’s name appears on his wrist, Kent falls in love. And as if the ugliest cat he’s ever seen isn’t irresistible enough, Ellie had gone and named it Kit Purrson, supposedly as petty revenge for cancelled dinner plans. The apartment’s even less empty with Kit, and Ellie comes over that much more often to complain about how ugly Kent’s cat is.

Jeff

When he joins the Aces, Kent is in overdrive. It feels like it’s been months since Jack’s name died on his arm, but Kent can’t stop thinking about it. He drags himself to the rink every morning for practice, and by the time he gets his gear on he’s pushed Jack out of his mind. He pushes himself until he feels like he’s breaking, and he almost hopes he does.

Most of his team ignores him - they’ve seen rookies like this before, and eventually he’ll burn out or settle. Nothing they say will help. Except, not all of them think that. And after a while, Jeff’s wheedling gets to him, and Kent follows a few of his teammates out onto the strip. He’ll earn a reputation here, and he’ll learn how to earn his team’s respect.

Jeff is different. He’s only a bit older than Kent, he’s been traded twice already in his three seasons in the league, and he’s as settled as Kent is flighty. Becoming Kent’s best friend is probably something he did by accident (he’s just good with rookies, Kent tells himself), but Jeff manages it. And once he gets Kent to come out with him, it’s not long before he’s following Kent home after the bar because he’s “too drunk for a cab, Parse, they’ll rip me off!” and Kent rolls his eyes but there’s something nice about waking up in the morning and Jeff is half awake on the couch watching Liberty’s Kids reruns on PBS.

Jeff’s name appears on Kent’s arm almost two years into their friendship, a bit darker than the freckles around it, almost the same color as Jeff’s Kent . They don’t celebrate, but they do go out for brunch.

Sophie

Kent and his sister don’t get each others names until after their mom dies. She’s always been older, enough to be resentful of their mom spending money on hockey gear for Kent instead of new clothes for her. When she was old enough to get a job they rarely saw each other, and by the time Kent got drafted she was done with college and settled in California. They see each other when their mom flies out once a year, close as they are.

When he hears about his mom, Kent is in Dallas. He’s pulling on his gear when his phone rings, and he almost doesn’t pick up. It’s his first healthy scratch since he started playing. The night of the wake Kent and Sophie stay up late. It’s the first time they’ve both been in their childhood home at the same time, the first time either of them has been there without their mom, and the first time they’ve ever really talked.

Sophia blooms across Kent’s wrist that night, tentative, and by the time he hugs her goodbye and gets on a plane back to Vegas it’s the darkest mark he has.

+Alexei

By the time he meets Alexei - really meets him, not just on the ice - Kent is okay with the fact that he’ll never have another romantic soulmate. He had Jack and lost him, but he still has his three bonds, and Kit and the rest of his friends. He finally feels as settled as he always wanted to be.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean he’s quite ready when he gets the (courtesy) invitation to J-- Zimmerman’s wedding. To his soulmate. A soulmate that, it’s widely publicized, is the only name on Zimmerman’s wrist. Apparently no matter how happy you are, proof that someone you thought could never love just couldn’t love you hurts. So Kent cries on the phone with Sophie, and lets Ellie and Katie buy him bottomless mimosas at brunch that week and lets Jeff order sushi which is Kent’s favorite but Jeff kind of hates the next time he stays over.

He bites the bullet and books a ticket to Providence. Two tickets, because he isn’t going without his sister, who would kill him if he tried to go it alone.

Sophie ditches him as soon as they get to the reception, and Kent can’t blame her. There’s dancing, and an open bar, and Kent is moping. He makes the rounds by himself, dodging Jack and Eric as cleverly as he can until Alicia manages to grab him.

“Kent! We were so surprised when you said you’d be here,” she says. “How are you?”

Alicia’s smiling, and suddenly Kent feels like he’s shrunk and he’s eighteen again and his best friend’s mom is looking for a way around telling him he isn’t good enough. But she’s always been kind, and he’s never been the best judge of what people think of him, and he can’t help but tell her about his people.

Jack’s dad finds them while Kent is recounting the story of meeting Ellie and Katie and Kit, and he’s pushed his sleeve up a bit and he thinks Bob flinches a hair at the burn mark, but Ellie’s name is stark against his skin and so are Jeff’s and Sophie’s. Kent’s laughing by the time Sophie joins them, and when Jack’s parents excuse themselves and are replaced by a huge Russian a moment later Kent doesn’t give it another thought.

Until he realizes that it’s Mashkov, and it would look like Mashkov was flirting with Sophie if it didn’t look so much like he was flirting with Kent. And realizes that apparently Mashkov’s idea of flirting is to bring up the time he pulled Kent out of a pileup by the scruff of his neck and shook him like a ragdoll.

Of course, Sophie invites Mashkov to visit next time he’s out west (offering up Kent’s house with a wave of her hand: “I’ll just come to Vegas, it’s not far! I come to most of Kent’s games anyway,” she says with a sly grin).

Mashkov grins back, and Kent forgets about it until the first time the Falconers come to Vegas.

Sophie lands at his house at ten at night on a Wednesday with two suitcases. By the time Mashkov gets to Kent’s house, the Aces have beaten the Falconers 3-2 and Sophie has gotten Jeff, Ellie, and Katie to come over. And just like that, with a “Call me Alexei!” that Kent isn’t sure applies to him, Mashkov-maybe-Alexei has been adopted by Kent’s family.

Alexei (he is Alexei now, Kent’s sure) starts visiting whenever the Falconers are in town, and Kent visits him. Then he starts coming just to visit - he’s become fast friends with Sophie and Ellie, and Katie’s father is somehow from the same town as Alexei so they’re constantly talking, Alexei still flirts with Kent, but Kent is settled now. And Alexei’s his friend, and his friends’ friend, which is more than enough.

But Alexei keeps flirting, and one day Ellie visits Kent and tells him that she had a talk with Alexei and “yes, Kent, he means it when he flirts with you - just give it a chance” and when he tells her that he doesn’t want to risk ruining things for everyone she tells him to stop being an idiot, he’s their soulmate and if that means they have to stop hanging out with Alexei they’ll stop hanging out with Alexei, but “really Kent you would have to actively work to wreck things with Alexei, so chill.”

And the next day Alexei comes by, and somewhere between the doorbell ringing and sitting curled around a pillow against the arm of the couch while Alexei sits on the other, Kent makes a decision. He knows exactly when it happens - he’s walking towards the door to let Alexei in, and he realizes he looks like a goblin or something in a too-big Aces hoodie and sweatpants from Sophie’s school and mismatched socks.

There’s a minute where his arm itches, and he scratches it without looking, but he knows because it’s halfway between his wrist and his elbow, just above the place he knows his arm reads Sophia and Kent wonders if Alexei’s name will be in the English alphabet or Cyrillic.

Then they’re there, sitting across from each other, and Alexei is telling him that he’s had Kent’s name on his wrist for months and maybe it’s platonic but Alexei doesn’t want it to be and what about Kent? Kent’s blushing furiously, and Alexei’s nervous laughing and Kent should probably put him out of his misery but it’s hilarious. Finally Alexei pulls his feet out from under himself and puts them on the floor like he’s about to stand up, so Kent dumps the pillow he’s clinging to on the floor and and pushes his left sleeve up to his elbow.

Алексе́й is written on his arm, right where he thought it would be, just as dark as Jeff and Ellie and Sophie.