The Indigenous Basketball Team Fighting Gas Sponsorship
“The All Native Basketball Tournament has been held annually in Prince Rupert, British Columbia for 56 years and attracts up to 1,400 people per game in a community civic centre. The whole week has turned into a celebration of Indigenous sport and culture with a big party element that some people call Second Christmas. But with liquified natural gas companies now sponsoring the tournament some First Nations, led by reigning champions the Skidegate Saints, are bringing active protest to the week’s contest.
VICE Sports discovers why this event is so important to the communities, what makes their style of basketball unique and how politics has started to work its way into the games”
So I wrote a two princes fic… only the first chapter is posted currently but the rest should be up soon! Please go read it! Oh and @oftheflamingheart this is the fic I was telling you about! Enjoy!
Summary: “we could call it even, you could call me babe for the weekend, ‘tis the damn season (write this down) I’m staying at my parent’s house and the road less traveled looks real good now.”
or, high school sweethearts Rupert and Amir reconnect years later in their hometown after Rupert is left without a home on Christmas Eve.
——————
Amir’s car is cold, but not as cold as the snowy playground. So Rupert gets in. It takes three or four cranks on the ignition to get it to roar to life, and once it does, it settles on a low vibration as the smell of faint gasoline wafts in the air. The headlights cast the playground in artificial grim lighting, which only serves to undermine any sense of dignity Rupert had.
God. It was Christmas Eve, and his ex had to pick him up from an elementary school playground.
Amir chooses a random rock station, one that’s mostly playing one-hit wonders off some computer generated mixer, as no one could possibly be in the studio at this hour. Faintly, the harmonies of Queen filled the uncomfortable silence through a filter of heavy static.
“I saw your car parked between the Methodist and our old school,” Amir said abruptly. Rupert, shaken from his trance, only straightened in the passenger seat. So they’re talking again. Ok.
“I wasn’t stalking you. Just to be clear,” Amir added, and the car fell back into uncomfortable silence.
After Freddie finally found somebody to love, Rupert spoke up again.
“Thanks.”
Amir’s thumb idly tapped on the edge of the steering wheel, a nervous tick he picked up somewhere between the eleventh and twelfth grade. He was always tapping something when standing on the edge of a Big Question. Can I sit next to you? Tap tap tap. Want to grab some burgers? Tap tap tap. Would you hate me if I was…. tap tap tap. I think I’m in love with you. Tap tap tap. Is this the end?
Now that the old beat-up heater had finally thawed the ice from Rupert’s bones, he realized how uncomfortably wet his clothes were and yearned for Cecily’s old pull-over in the bottom of his suitcase. He wondered if she took it with her when she packed her things, or if she left it in her embarrassment.
“Do you want to just drive for a little bit?” Amir asked after seventeen definitive taps, and Rupert nodded as he pushed back the skin on his cuticles. There was still a little bit of cold left in his joints, so when the pad of his finger slid across his nail, it was just numb enough to be disorientating.
The car pulled onto some old two-lane stretch of pavement marked only by a rusted eighteen mile marker. The moon reflected off the white landscape and cast the car in a dark blue hue.
“I finally told my parents,” Rupert said. “It went just how I thought it would.”
“Oh.” Amir’s response is as hollow as it is compassionate, a mixture somewhere inbetween hesitation and love.
“My Dad doesn’t want to see me for a while,” Rupert added, “Which makes sense, because my girlfriend was in town. I think she’s taking the red-eye out of Atlanta now, though. I doubt she wants to stay.”
The car whizzed past several estately farmhouses that were aglow with bright, golden light, shedding warm colors on the snowing landscape.
“Girlfriend?” Amir prodded, deciding not to touch the rest of Rupert’s statement. He appreciates it. Rupert doubts he could relive the evening’s events without breaking down, and he couldn’t do that now, not in front of Amir.
“Her name’s Cecily. I was set up on a blind date with her. We were never…” Rupert sighed, “I’m still gay, so you can take what you want from that. She was a good friend, though.”
Amir hummed. He tapped the breaks of the beat-up Sedan slightly, casting the car in the warm glow of the break lights as they entered the intersection. Another vagabond driver passed them, then they turned from mile-marker 18 onto mile-marker 42.
“I told my mother right after we broke up.” Amir’s statement shocked Rupert out of his spiraling thoughts.
“Yeah?”
“She was… well, she’s a PTA mom,” Amir smiled, “She liked having all her bases covered. After you left for Berkeley she had me in one of those queer support groups. I’m an officer for UGA’s GSA now.”
Rupert grinned, “That’s an mouthful.”
“Do you know how hard it is to say that for new member’s speeches? It’s like a tongue-twister. It’s awful,” Amir laughed, and for moment the pair forgot that the last time they were in a car together they both vowed to never speak again.
So much, that Rupert continued with, “God, I wish I could have joined one of those.”
Amir’s voice is timid, testing, “You still can.”
Rupert’s is stubborn, harsh, “My parents-“
“Godamnit.” Amir hits the breaks, and Rupert flies forward a little as a deer narrowly misses the hood of Amir’s car. The front tires hit a patch of ice at an odd angle, causing them to careen and slide slightly toward the opposite side of the road. Rupert grabs doe the side door, chest heaving slightly as his heart races in his ears.
“Shit,” Amir mumbles. He presses on the acceleration, but the tire is caught on the lip of the road and can’t catch any traction. The car is stuck.
“Can you call anyone?” Rupert asks, after his mind shifts from panic to planning.
Amir presses on the acceleration again and again, growing increasingly agitated as the car refuses to move. They’re stuck on a bend in the opposite lane, so if any other car comes flying around the corner it will be too late before they can stop. The car continues the sputter as the acrid smell of burnt tire fills the car.
“Easy, Geez,” Rupert mumbled, “We need to save gas to stay warm.”
“My phone’s dead,” Amir slammed his foot on the pedal, causing the car to jerk…. in the opposite direction. They slipped further off the road, “My mom thinks I’m driving to my cousin’s.”
“You could use my phone.” Rupert offered as he produced it from his pocket. It was brand new- an early Christmas present from his dad to celebrate the connections he was making out in California.
There was something that lingered in Amir’s eyes as he stared at Rupert, but it disappeared before he could get a good read on it. Amir grabbed the phone from Rupert, mindlessly entered in his own birthday, and didn’t even feign suprise when the phone unlocked. Rupert’s contacts were full of people whose first names he had never heard of before but whose last names were branded in almost every product in the local grocer. Big names, with a capital B. But just like there was still a little of his Ru in Rupert, there was one familiar name beside his own in that list. She picked up on the second ring.
“You have a lot of nerve calling me after all this time, Rupert. Especially on-“
“Hey Joan.” Amir said quickly, “It’s me.”
Joan’s defensive tone quickly switched. “Amir? What are you doing calling from his n-“
“Can you pick us up, Joan? Please? We’re off of 42 near Donaldson’s. Halfway to the General Store.”
There was a long sigh over the receiver. “I’m with my dad tonight, Amir.”
Amir glanced in either direction, but the gold glow of farmhouses had long disappeared in the distance. It would be a long walk to ask anyone for help, and it was well below freezing by now.
“Sneak out then. We can’t stay in the car much longer. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Then, “Fine. But you owe me.”
Amir exhaled in relief. After she hung up, he sat in silence with Rupert for a few moments.
“We should probably get out soon.” Rupert said softly, eyes set on the turn for the warning shot of headlights against the trees.
Wordlessly, Amir turned the ignition off and climbed out, stumbling slightly when he missed the asphalt and landed in the gravel lip of the road. The car door shut with a dull thud and he joined Rupert’s side off the road. With each breath, a little cloud of air puffed out of his nose.
“I guess I should apologize, now we’re both stuck out in the cold,” Rupert said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“Don’t be sorry, it was my fault,” Amir replied. Whether or not he was referring to picking Rupert up or the incident with the deer, he didn’t elaborate.
“No, I should be. For everything,” Rupert said with earnest. His ears were turning red in the cold, “I pushed you away, I left you at that restaurant, I was too ashamed of myself to be proud with you-“
“Rupert, we were just kids,” Amir cut him off, “And besides, you were right about coming out. I should have never pressured you to come out that early. I can’t imagine the sort of pressure that was on you back then, and now… Rupert, it’s ok.”
Rupert nodded but refused to meet Amir’s eyes.
“I just… I don’t want you to hate me,” he said, “Because I don’t hate you.”
“I hate you, Amir!” Ruper screamed, climbing out of the passenger’s seat into the pouring rain.
“You’re insufferable, you know that?” Amir replied, “Did you ever think about how hard it’s been for me, either?”
“You don’t understand-“
“Oh I know perfectly well!”
Amir swallowed.
“I don’t hate you,” he said quietly, “I never did. I don’t think I can.”
When he meets Rupert’s eyes, there’s a shine that wasn’t there before.
“I’m really scared, Amir,” Rupert said, “I don’t know what to do.”
Amir regarded Rupert for a moment, watching the way he held his sides as he spoke. Then, silently, he closed the distance between them and hugged him. He was just tall enough to tuck his chin over Rupert’s head. Amir looked up at the stars, watching the way his breath curled and disapated.
HOW did I not noticed that the third season of The Two Princes came out months ago?? Why did no one told me??
Anyways, here are my designs for some of the characters! Go listen to the podcast if you haven’t! I loved this season, it was so corny and that’s my weakness
