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1.
Chowder sets his special Farmer ringtone to California Gurls because it reminds him of her.
Not that she’s anything like the bombastic Katy Perry, or even the kind of girls described in the song, he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her in just shorts and a bikini top - although the thought isn’t unappealing. Farmer’s just more the kind of girl who is always wearing sports apparel, wetsuits for surfing, that weird spandex-y sweat wicking yoga stuff for beach volleyball. Sharks hoodie for maximum cuteness, that kind of thing.
It reminds him of her because of it’s upbeat like her, uncomplicated like her, and it reminds him of home just like she does. He feels warm and happy when he he hears it, bobs his head along a few beats every time it bubbles out of his pocket or his backpack when she calls. Sometimes he actually forgets he needs to answer and the call goes to voicemail before he can catch it.
Nursey and Dex might agree that it’s the worst song every time they hear it (which can only probably be a bad sign) but Chowder doesn’t care. He does get a lot of chirping. He still doesn’t care.
2.
He tells Farmer about the ringtone at the graduation kegster. They’re both loose and laughing together in the middle of the living room where everyone is dancing. One of her wrists is strung over Chowder’s shoulder, holding her cup of tub juice there, trying not to slosh it too much but failing occasionally.
Chowder has one hand on her hip and a cup of juice in his other. He doesn’t mind that his shoulder is a little damp. His current status is 100% starry eyed and feeling like the luckiest guy in the world that Caitlin Farmer is currently dancing with him. He can’t believe he’s the one that’s making her laugh with his terrible dance moves, that he’s the one that gets to see that outrageously huge grin of hers, all gums. He thinks she’s the most beautiful person in the entire galaxy.
It’s fitting then that between their giggles the familiar low synth beats start.
“Greetings loved ones, let’s take a journey.”
Chowder gasps, straight into Farmer’s hair (it smells so good, like green apples!) as she is jostled forward into him with a laugh.
“It’s your song!” he exclaims loudly when she pulls back, already moving to the new beat of the song and looking at him with a fond smile.
“Yeah?” She half shouts to him, pulling back her drink for another sip. He joins her quickly, finding that timing their drinks together makes for the best use of time (and lips).
“Yeah! It makes me think about you!” He spits a little bit as soon as he’s pulled the cup away from his mouth. Farmer giggles, although he can’t really hear it properly over the thumping beat and the way Holster is screaming the lyrics close by behind them. Farmer reaches with her sleeve stretched out and wipes the dribble from his chin.
“It’s your ringtone for me, right?” she sways further into his space, slinging her cup arm back around him, asking directly into his ear.
“How did you know?!” he can’t really control his volume any more, he’s just excited, her ribs feel strong under his fingertips.
“Nurse and Dex have tried to get me to get you to change it!” he’s not sure he got all the words she said, but Nursey and Dex and changing the song can only mean one thing.
“I’m not going to!” He shakes his head vigorously and she tosses her head back with another laugh, brown hair streaming out behind her. Chowder is so lucky.
“Good! It makes me think about you too!”
He’d have more thoughts about that, follow up questions maybe, but she pulls him close then and plants one on him and he has better things to think about. Somewhere near them he hears a whistle and someone shouts:
“GET IT CHOW!”
They have it all wrong, he’s not getting anything, he’s being gotten.
3.
They both agree having sex in a car is a little cliché; but there’s a voice in the back of Chowder’s head (that sounds suspiciously like Nursey) that reminds him that clichés exist for a reason, and the reason behind having sex in a car is that it’s hella convenient.
Like okay, not for comfort, or ideal privacy, or cleanliness really, but when you live with your parents in a townhouse with paper thin walls and your girlfriend similarly lives in her childhood bedroom with the same My Little Pony bedspread she’s had since she was seven, the car looks pretty good.
They’re both tall, which makes coordinating limbs a little difficult, figuring out all the angles and places for knees and ankles to go. Chowder doesn’t think he’d trade the experience for the world though: Farmer’s miles of legs wrapped around him, her warm belly hitching under his as she laughs against his adam’s apple.
Their kisses taste a little the mango bubble tea they’d shared earlier on the boardwalk, and a little like blood from where he’d cut her lip with his braces. They’re both shaking and giggling and trying to figure out how to keep their arms from going numb while staying on the seat when the quietly playing radio kicks into the next song.
It’s familiar and poppy and they both freeze in recognition, making abrupt eye contact and then breaking into peals of uncontrollable laughter. When they finally stop laughing Chowder ducks in to tuck a sweet kiss onto the corner of her mouth. He then pulls back and looks at her with a small smile.
“At least we’re not on the beach.” Farmer’s face drops into complete understanding agreement.
“Sand in so many uncomfortable places.” she scrunches up her nose and he does as well, and then they’re giggling again.
4.
It’s mid October and most of the men’s hockey team plus a good portion of the women’s volleyball team are at a Karaoke bar for Chowder’s birthday. He misses his friends back home, he misses home in general so here they are, listening to Bitty and Holster drunkenly slay a rendition of Feeling Myself in front of an entire bar’s worth of people.
Farmer has been looking through the songbook for a while now, standing on the other side of the bar and shooting silly looks back at him to make him smile. At least she doesn’t seem to mind that he’s been staring at her, or that he’s been kind of glum about stuff.
Bitty says the sophomore slump is pretty normal, he’d pull through it, and then he’d pushed pie into his hands and ruffled his hair. That made him feel a bit better, he did like pie.
When Farmer does finally come back, she sits beside Dex at their booth, Chowder being bracketed on both sides by his D-men pair who have been trying to play nice to make him happy. He knows everyone is pretty alarmed by his mood lately, and that worries him but he just can’t seem to shake it.
Bitty and Holster return to a round of applause and wolf whistles and Ransom drags March up to replace them when their names are called.
“I signed us up for a song.” Farmer leans over Dex to tell him, flicking the Birthday Boy! pin that Bitty had fastened to his hoodie that morning at breakfast.
“Okay.” he smiles at her, trusting whatever she’s chosen.
A few (badly sung) songs later and Tango has just finished up a surprisingly soulful rendition of I Want To Know What Love Is, when the long suffering announcer squints at the sign up sheet and hesitantly calls out:
“Farmer and…Chowder…I hope those are people and not someone's order?”
The room goes frenetic with hoots and hollers for them. Nursey's trying to coordinate his limbs enough to shuffle out of the booth for Chowder to exit and join Farmer where she’s waiting for him, bouncing on the balls of her feet. He lets her grab his hand and drag him along to the front of the room, handing him a microphone when they get onto the stage.
He turns to face the crowd and reaches up to re-adjust his cap so his face isn’t in complete shade the whole time - but before he can set it back on just the crown of his head Farmer is plucking it out of his hands and setting it backwards on her own head.
He grins, there is nothing better (in his opinion) than when your girlfriend steals your Sharks themed merch and wears it for everyone to see. He ruffles his hair, knowing it probably looks ridiculous without his hat and tries to focus so he doesn’t miss the beginning of the song.
The song that he now realizes is very familiar. He feels his heart swell and looks at Farmer while she sings him the first couple lines of the song alone.
“I know a place, where the grass is really green-er.”
Then he finally realizes he should be singing too and joins her enthusiastically. Their friends cheer and shout his name, and her name, and possibly some kind of charming portmanteau of their names.
He gets to rap like Snoop Dogg (I mean like she’s the one!) and watch Farmer mime ridiculous actions to go along with the song. He barely needs to look at the lyrics scrolling across the screens around them and the crowd whistles and stamps and sings with them towards the end of the song.
When they finally hop off the stage and another person takes their place, Chowder reels Farmer in for a kiss, not caring that he was probably going to have to put money in the Sin Bin. When she pulls back her eyes are pretty much sparkling with how beautiful she is in that moment.
“Happy Birthday Sweetie.” She squeezes his hands and then pulls him back through the tables to their booths. Chowder doesn’t feel glum any more, just knocked off centre, upside down and inside out. He’s not sure but he thinks this is maybe definitely what love is.
5.
They’re all down in Providence for a spring Falconer’s game. It happens to coincide with the Friday leading into Spring Break so there’s a good turn out in the stands. There’s a kind of frantic energy in their group, watching Jack, with the Falconers, battling for a playoffs position.
They’re tucked up with other friends and families of the Falconers behind the benches. Chowder always feels extra excited this close to the action. Ransom and Holster are plotting about baby jerseys again with Shitty on speaker phone it sounds like, Bitty looks like he’s so worried he’s ready to punch people, Lardo is sitting on Chowder’s right and Farmer is on his left chatting with Dex.
Nursey is absent, already on his way to France for Spring Break and the tadpoles are watching the game from back in the Haus with the rest of the team.
There’s a break in the play so Farmer and Dex are talking about the finer points of Icing calls and Chowder grins to himself, running a knuckle over Farmer’s wrist where it’s resting unprotected between their seats. California Gurls is playing through the sound system and Farmer doesn’t turn from the conversation but pats his knee in reply.
Seeing her in Falconer’s gear when he knows she bleeds Sharks teal like himself - just to support the team, just to support Jack is really something else. Jack had called him specifically earlier in the month to ask if Farmer wanted her own ticket. It made Chowder swell up like some kind of poisonous fish with pride. No one else on the team has a significant other like this (Who isn’t also on the team? He isn’t clear on what is going on with Nursey and Dex right now.) acknowledged and always accepted in their ranks.
Bitty always likes to repeat the point when the others are teasing him that maybe Chowder isn’t exactly the most smooth operator, but he is the only one in a serious relationship.
“You’re looking happy, C.” Lardo pokes at his arm with sharp fingers until he raises it and she can snuggle warmly into his side, “What’s got you smiling? It’s sure not this period, they’re getting nothing in those D-holes.”
“That’s what he said.” Farmer leans over to snicker and Lardo throws her head back into Chowder’s bicep with a laugh in reply.
The strains of Katy Perry abruptly cut into the familiar country-bop of This Kiss. Everyone looks up to the jumbotron, watching the Looney Tunes cartoons of comical kisses and cornered pairs of people singled out in the stands.
It’s only when the next couple that show up are himself and Lardo that his grin slips off his face and he gapes in shock. The crowd cheers as they’re wont to do when a couple plays shy - But then Chowder is being tugged sharply to his left and Farmer is there for the catch, mashing their mouths together kind of painfully, but to the utter delight of the crowd around them.
When they pull back and check the screens the next cartoon is their big blushing Oops! pig they show whenever they pick out a sister and brother or other unsuitable pair by accident.
“Nice save, Farmer.” Ransom offers his palm for a high five which she slaps automatically.
“Well, someone is in for some politically correct racially themed rants about picking out couples for that thing.” Holster clucks absently, leaning forward as the play resumes on the ice.
Chowder just licks at the inside of his bottom lip, raw from where his braces scraped it harder than usual. He doesn’t mind that sometimes people think he and Lardo fit together, he takes it as a compliment most of the time. Lardo is like the literal coolest person he knows.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get you so hard.” Farmer murmurs into his ear, “They just cut off our song and then-”
“I love you.” He blurts suddenly, heart beating alarmingly fast, surrounded by friends and hockey and most of all Farmer, fitting so seamlessly into all of it.
She looks delighted as she turns to face him completely.
“I love you too!” She throws her arms around him and a Falconers defensemen is thrown into the glass a few rows below them.
(“I’m going to get fined for that aren’t I?” Chowder asks Ransom and Holster a few minutes later but they’re both looking suspiciously misty eyed and only shake their heads and mutter something about hockey being an emotional and sacred sport.)
+1
A few years later…
“What about I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You?” Caitlin is going through a list that’s been provided by their very helpful DJ of all the classic first dance songs.
“It isn’t our song.” Chris insists, knowing deep down nothing is going to be right unless they stick to what they know. Superstitions (like clichés) are around for a reason. He’s not going to touch a puck off the ice and he’s not going to spend their first dance as a married couple dancing to anything but California Gurls.
“I know.” Caitlin crumples the page a little in her grip, practically wailing with her frustration. He hasn’t been budging at all on this one.
“I don’t see why we can’t just use it, other people have unique, sometimes inappropriate wedding songs too.” He doesn’t really care what other people think, it’s theirs, it’s perfect.
“Chris, I’m sorry but I just don’t think I can seriously dance with you in front of all our family to a song that literally includes the lyrics: ‘kiss her touch her squeeze her buns’ and ‘home boys bangin out, all that ass hangin out’.”
He frowns to himself at that, acknowledging that he doesn’t really want to see his mother’s horrified face when they do a quick jig around the dance floor to their upbeat song.
“Maybe we can find a nice cover of it?” He asks trying to compromise but also trying not to, like, jinx their impending marriage too much.
“Okay, go get my computer we’ll figure this out.” Caitlin nods firmly and crumples the other list firmly between her hands tossing it aside for effect. Chris grins, teeth smooth and straight and swoops forward to kiss her quickly before hurrying off to find her laptop where she left it on their bed that morning.
He can’t believe how lucky he is. Caitlin Farmer is marrying him.
(They do end up finding a cover, and everyone cries.)