You gave me a pet name

[skoosiepants]

While I haven't exactly been offline, I've been kind of MIA for the past week. Sorry! My mind is brimming with fic ideas and for some reason I've been craving Ron/Draco stories, so I've been paddling around del.icio.us a bit.

For the interested, I've found a reception hall! The date is December 29, 2007, because I've always wanted a Christmas wedding, and we've booked The Mendenhall Inn's Grand Ballroom. The first pic on the page is it, as well as the third - which is the indoor atrium adjoining the ballroom, where cocktails will be served - and the last pic on the page, which is the winding staircase from which we'll be announced, with our own cocktails served in the pretty loft. It'll be all decorated for Christmas, too, with a big tree at the bottom of the curve. I'm SO EXCITED! I'm sure in about a month I'll be sick of details and just want it done with, but thank god I found a place I absolutely loved. We saw four places before this one, and two after, and they just didn't compare.

I'm currently working on Hermione's adventures in space, which will involve Boot and Malfoy most directly, and a few others on the fringe. After that I think I'll do Malfoy's story.

And I haven't forgotten Rodney and John. One idea is on the backburner of my mind, and the other involves being soccer moms. Or something like that. I don't know a lot about soccer, but I figured neither does Rodney, and it'll be from his pov. I'm pretty sure this was sparked by Benchwarmers - which is HILARIOUS by the way, and more fun that I thought it'd be - and also Kicking and Screaming, and possibly The Mighty Ducks.

Radek was red-faced, hair tufting up at weird angles, glasses slipping down so far they petered on the edge of his nose, and he was yelling his fool head off at Sylvie, who was standing in the middle of the field, chewing on the frayed ends of one of her braids.

“Sylvie! Sylvie, rush!” he shouted, and she started, whirled around, and tucked her hands up close to her face as the opposing forward bore down on her with all the grace of the eight-year-old soccer protégé he was, shark grin and fast pumping knobby knees.

She squealed and ducked to the side, leaving Jordon completely uncovered in front of the net, and just as incompetent when faced with large flying objects. Goal.

Rodney slapped a hand over his eyes. “Tell me again why I’m here?”

Radek spared him a small glare. “You stabbed Kavanagh with your pen—”

“Barely a flesh wound,” Rodney scoffed.

“—and called him a communist bastard,” he went on, turning back to scan the field, “and it was either assist me here or endure another round of sensitivity training.”

Sensitivity training, the biggest waste of time on the face of the earth. Even playing assistant soccer coach to a bunch of seriously untalented kids – Rodney could make a better showing on the field, and he didn’t even have a clue how the game was really played – was preferable to getting yammered at about harassment and hurt feelings. Again.

When Tyler went down without a fight, flat on his back, Radek barked a time-out and gathered the little urchins close.

“Good, good, you are doing very well,” Radek assured them, nodding and rubbing his chin, which was a blatant lie. They were doing horrible. The Abilene Market Mountain Lions were massacring them. “Just, um—”

“Oh, for god’s sake, shove over, Radek,” Rodney growled, pushing his way into the huddle. “You there.” He snapped his fingers in front of a bug-eyed, skinny girl with unfortunate frizzy red hair and goggles strapped around her head.

Radek sent him a censorious frown. “Cynthia,” he offered.

“Cindy, right, are you having fun?”

Cindy blinked up at him, mouth slacked open.

“Seriously, are any of you having fun?” Rodney demanded, and they all just stared at him, like he was some sort of alien with fifty eyes that spoke backwards, and he had a hard time imagining these kids had willingly signed up for peewee soccer. They had one kid who wasn’t completely terrified of the ball – a little dark-haired boy, who looked two years younger than the specified age, but had a manic gleam in his eyes whenever he drove down the field – and he was the only one who bothered to answer Rodney.

He placed his tiny fists on his hips and said, “I’m having fun,” and asked, “Who’re you, anyhow?” and, “Can I have a juicebox, Dr. Z?”

Rodney clapped his hands together. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Everyone stay away from the ball except for Shorty McGee, here—”

“Hey!” The little dark-haired boy glared at him. All the others looked spaced-out and squirrelly.

“Is it too late to forfeit?” Rodney asked Radek hopefully. Maybe his day wouldn’t be a complete loss.

The whistle blew and all the kids tore out into the field, and then Radek called about a third of them back to the bench, and the remaining twelve sort of milled around in some approximation of official positions.

Radek scowled. “I believe I am being punished.”

“You’re the one who volunteered for this,” Rodney groused.