#when he plays hockey it just hides underneath his pads. in the off season he simply wears a skin suit. that suit is a part of him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

magalidragon · 3 years

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6! I’ve been loving everyone doing these prompts!

Aw, yay! I knew instantly which universe to set this in, as well as what would happen, so I hope you enjoy this return to grinning & grumpy, aka Hockey Player Grouch Jon and Bubbly Happy Dany!

Romantic One-Liner Prompts

6. “Being happy, fortunately coincides with making you happy.”

“I don’t know how I feel about this.”

“It’s easy.”

Dany huffed, her knuckles white under the layer of her cashmere gloves, gripping the red edge of the ice rink wall circling her. Initially, she was slightly offended that he hadn’t seen fit to bring them out onto the actual rink, but now, her feet resting upon narrow blades and a very hard, very cold surface, designed to be as slick as possible and when it wasn’t, filled with dangerous sharp gooves and divots that could tear into your skin, if you were not wearing proper padding.

The red leather leggings she’d chosen that morning, with her favorite oversized black cashmere sweater and black puffy coat did not consistute proper padding. She was regretting this entire thing, when she’d agreed to Jon’s declaration that he ahd a surprise for her and would it please him if she could wear a black scarf around her eyes for a moment?

She agreed, thinking it was some new kinky thing they could test out, but nope. He’d brought her straight to the ice rink. The practice rink. The children’s practice rink. “This is a mistake,” she threw over hers houlder, still not letting go. “I enver should have agreed to this!”

“Oh come off it, you’re fine.”

“Says the professional hockey player!”

Indeed, her grump was skating easily around the rink, lapping her every two seconds, more comfortable on the ice than he was off of it, and he’d put on his gloves and was holding his stick, tossing about the biscuit with Edwina, who was laughing at her and pointing, looping her too. “It’s fun Dany!” the little girl shouted, in her pink pads and pink hockey skates, a pink helmet strapped over her head.

“Where do I get one of those?” she asked.

Jon lapped her again. “One what?”

“A helmet.”

“Oh you’re fine.”

“You wear one!”

“Because I have six-foot, five-inch, 250 pound defensemen trying to beat the ever-loving shit out of him with their stick and blades,” he explained, popping the puck onto his stick and watching it bounce a moment before he dropped it down to the ice, sending it rocketing down the rink towards Edwina, who easily took it and shot it into the small kid’s size goal at the end.

Edwina shouted, throwing her hands into the airs. “She shoots! She scores!”

“Not a difficult thing to do with no one here!”

“Oh shut up Uncle Jon!”

“You shut up!”

“No you!”

Dany passed them, her feet slightly more comfortable underneath her now. She let go of the rink with one hand, feeling better now and pushed off here and there, giggling. It wasn’t so bad. She glanced over to Jon, who was msiling at her, lazily crossing over to join her, his hand outstretched. She gently placed hers in his; even through her gloves his skin was cool, despite his gloves on a moment ago. She let him tug her away, her knees trembling. “Ah!”

He shook his head, clicking his tongue, eyebrows lifting. “No, none of that, just trust yourself.”

“Jon, I’m wearing sharp razors on my feet on ice.”

“That’s how you can stand, come on, just trust me.”

She trusted him with her life, letting him pull her closer to his chest, his hand still in hers, and she allowed him to pull her along, while he skated backwards, taking her around the ice, around and around, in relaxing laps, her mind going blank, focusing on the warmth from his chest, the slight puffs of his breath, and the cool breeze on her face wafting off the ice.

It was a nice surprise, one she suspected he’d done to cheer her up. Daario had decided, after he’d been traded from the Wolves, to go on a press blitz that included trashing her as much as possible in the papers and on talk shows, going on about how she’d used him to get the job with the Wolves—not true—cheated on him with Jon—definitely not true—and currently was in a fit of depression because not only was she without him, but her meal ticket boyfriend had decided that he would retire from the Wolves after the end of the season—the only thing true about that was Jon deciding to retire from the Wolves after the end of the season.

It had been a hard call to make, but he wanted to go out on his own terms, not because a bad check forced it out of him. He had done what needed to be done to heal his shoulder enough to get back out there, to be the all-star centre he was. She loved him more and more, every second, and was so grateful to have him in her life. Daario’s shitty moves hadn’t affected her at all, until he decided to bring up some extremely personal details, personal details she regretted ever sharing with him.

Dany could only be so happy in public, but this was enough to bring her down, and when the roles switched—Jon was the smiling one in the relationship—the press had picked up on it and there was only so much even she could take. She’d been fairly down lately.

And Jon Snow was picking her back up.

Also literally, literally picking her up.

“Put me down!” she laughed, when he hoisted her up off the ice, spinning in a circle with her in his arms.

He laughed, keeping a tight grip on her, skating backwards, her legs now around his hips. “And why would I do that?”

“You drop me on my arse and I will kill you!”

“I’m not going to drop you on your arse, I am a <i>professional</i> hockey player.”

She tightened her grip around his neck, smiling down at him, his often-scowling face pulling into a relaxed grin. “A hockey player, not a pairs figure skater.”

“Perhaps that can be my second career.”

“And who will be your partner?”

He set her down on the ice, holding her hands, and carefuly glided her around in a circle; it was shaky, but it was the barest hint of a spin. She shrieked, amazed she hadn’t fallen down, and he pulled her back into his arms. “You, of course.”

“I don’t know about that.”

They skated around, her feet far more comfortable now, even willing to test the ability to push off the ice on her own, but still keeping his hand tight in hers. Circling around and around, she noticed that Edwina had left, along with the hockey goal. She peered up at Jon, who didn’t think a thing about it. “What?” he wondered, at her frown.

“Wehre did Edwina go?”

On cue, the lights dimmed, bright rainbow ones flashing around lazily on the ice, like a disco globe, and music started, soft jazz that she normally played in her apartment when she wanted a hot bath, usually preferring hard rock or rap or hip-hop for everything else. “What on earth…,” she wondered, gazing around, and then to Edwina, who was on the other side of the plexiglass, waving and giggling. She burst into laughter. “What did she do!?”

Jon feigned disgust. “That little shit!”

Even the great grouch Jon Snow couldn’t hide the little curve in his lips, the smile winning out after she jabbed her elbow into his gut. He chuckled, shrugging his shoulders, sheepish. “Wanted to do something nice. This is nice, right?”

He was so nervous about it, she pushed into him, knocking him slightly off balance. She gasped, faltering, terrified of falling, but his arm shot out to wrap around her wist, keeping her on her feet—or blades—regaining his balance too. She maintained her arms around him, nodding, smiling wide. “Yes, it is very nice.” She paused, whispering. “Thank you.”

They continued to skate around, with him letting go of her to have her try some strokes out on her own, a couple of bobbles here and there, but she was able to do it, eventually skating right into his arms, her face pressing into his Winterfell Wolves hoodie. She sighed, eyes closing, and he spun her around a few times, at home on the ice, and sharing that home with her, in a way that made her think, her eyes flicking up to his.

He was still smiling, softly to himself, and she turned so her back was to his chest, his chin dropping to her shoulder, keeping her skates between his as he pushed her along with his momentum. “Jon,” she whispered, hands tight on his.

“Hmm?”

“I think you’re very happy. I’m glad for that.” It was where she wanted him to be, a place where he could be satisfied with how things would turn out in his career, which she knew was very important to him, and also, he was letting what Daario said in the public roll right off his back, which was what she was doing now, pressing away all that initial hurt, because she was here with Jon, and that was where she was happiest. Where it mattered most.

He kissed her neck, his breath tickling her ear, husky and thick with emotion. “Being happy, fortunately coincides with making you happy.”

Tears pricked the corners of her eyes. She turned her face up to his, grinning, and accepted the gentle kiss he touched to her lips. “I love you,” she whispered.

“I love you too.”

They skated around for some time, how long she couldn’t say, but long enough for Edwina to grow bored wherever she was hiding and stomp out, banging her hockey stick on the ice and demanding a one-on-one with the All-Star, Highest-Scoring Centre in Westeros Hockey history.

“Are we just gonna’ skate or are we gonna’ play some puck!?” she demanded.

Jon rolled his eyes. “Oh shut it. You don’t know what you’re talking about, you’re six!”

“I do so know and I’m gonna’ beat you!”

Dany kissed his cheek, giggling, and squeezed his hadns again. “I think Jon, it would make me very happy if you taught your niece a bit of hockey now.” She arched her brows, laughing at his pretend scowl, his gagging as she let go of him and carefully toddled over to the edge of the ice rink, clearly all for show. She got off the ice and sat down on a bench, grinning and watching him play with his niece.

And very grateful she did not have to go back out there again. Ice skating most definitely not for Daenerys, as happy as it did make Jon.

#jonerys #jonerys drabbles #reply #jonerys fluff

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csykora · 4 years

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After ‘84, Igor felt the pieces were beginning to fall off the Red Machine.

He hated being called a robot as much as he hated being called a soldier. He didn’t know what the world wanted the Green Unit to do on the ice or off it, how they had to behave, before someone would believe they had feelings. On the worst days they were too tired and numb to feel anything else.

When he’d met Bobby Clarke, who he thought looked like a hockey angel with a blond halo and no teeth, Bobby commented about the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Igor didn’t know how to say that he’d definitely never been allowed to go to Afghanistan, and under the uniform he didn’t deserve to be a soldier, for good or bad. The national team was a tool of the Soviet government: at the same time it was a comfort for ordinary people in cold little apartments in mining towns where the players grew up and also a prop in the illusions that kept everything how it was.

The illusion went skin deep: every time they left Russia, Igor was issued a snappy winter coat and brand-name Western clothes, so no one would think the Soviets looked poor.

[A black and white photo of the Green Unit posing, smiling except for Igor, in matching windbreakers with saddle shoulders and bold stripes. This was a hot look, about 10 years before the Soviet Union Costuming Department thought it was a hot look]

Underneath the coat or the beautiful red sweater, everything was a mess. At one point, at a tournament in Canada, a Canadian player would hit Igor from behind. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except the Soviet management hadn’t provided enough hockey pads. Igor was wearing a partial set he’d borrowed from a high school team that played in the host arena earlier that day. (Across Europe and Canada I bet there are grown men, still hockey fans now, who have no idea they once owned game-worn gear from the world’s top scorers. To Igor’s fans those pieces might be worth as much as he ever earned in his CSKA career.) He would play the rest of that tournament with broken ribs.

The only outsider he’d met who seemed to understand, however briefly, was their friend Vanya. Asked what it was like playing against those Russian robots, Wayne said,

“Robots don’t hurt when they lose.”

By June 1985, Slava was recovering from that knee injury that had sidelined him for half the last season. He and his little brother Tolya, now a CSKA rookie, drove back for the start of training. Their car was hit, and Tolya was killed. Slava thought about leaving that season, but their parents told him to keep going, and just try to live for two people.

In November, the players at Arkhangel heard a rumor: someone had written an article, in a Soviet paper, that criticized the hockey program. Anything that wasn’t awe was criticism. Someone got their hands on a copy, and Igor, Vova, Sergei, and Slava huddled around their usual table that evening, hiding each other as they read it in turns. Igor reread it twice. He’d read Canadian and American papers that dragged the Soviet system, but never something like this, that got it--almost--right. It didn’t have all the details to understand the illusion--how they trained, how Tikhonov acted behind Arkhangel’s walls--but it guessed some.

Glasnost was beginning, a long rustling cracking thaw opening new streams of information and communication like Igor had dreamed. The Canucks drafted him that year, and then Vova. The Devils had dibsed Slava and Lyosha a few years before, and the Flames wanted Sergei. There was a place for them, waiting, if they could ever get to the NHL. But there wouldn’t be any thaw in Arkhangel as long as Tikhonov ruled it.

The ’85 World Championships were held in Prague, and ’86 in Moscow. Igor played both, and nothing else. For two years, no one saw him outside the Soviet Union.

In December of ‘85, CSKA was supposed to tour North America. Igor was dressed and ready. Then he heard his passport, which he had used a hundred times before, had run into problems. Coach told him not to worry, but to stay behind in Russia and--how convenient--keep training for the championships in Moscow. Igor woke up at three in the morning to watch the games he was supposed to be playing. He learned that Canadian journalists were asking about him: apparently, he had tonsillitis. Igor wasn’t entirely sure where his tonsils were.

Two months later CSKA played in Sweden. Strange, how his tonsils still weren’t better, and his passport was still missing. Two nights before they were set to leave Tikhonov called him into the office, in front of the team, and told him so. But the next evening Tretiak, now a more senior officer, came out to visit the barracks. He hugged Igor and promised him he would do what he could to get the passport by the time they were supposed to leave the next morning. Igor went to bed hoping. At 4:30 AM the coaches woke him just to tell him the passport wasn’t there yet, so the team really would be leaving without him.

The third time it happened, he was told to go back to the passport office to file everything all over again--maybe he had fucked up his passport. He didn’t bother. Taking away travel had been one thing. But doing it in front of the team, in front of the Green Unit, so that he knew that they knew that he had let them down somehow, broke his heart.

He was still allowed to play inside the Soviet Union. As long as he was with CSKA, the other Greens treated him the same as always. If they had known how bad things were going to get, Igor thought they would have done more sooner, but he knew that they didn’t understand what was happening. In between games, he spent his days in office buildings, being grilled about suspicious activities like listening to rock music, calling his mom too often, or kissing Canadians.

“I was at fault all around. That I gladly gave interviews to journalists. That I liked the NHL...that I like rock music. That the living standard there impressed me. All this was raked up into a pile. I was the enemy. Because, you see, if I liked the American way of life, then in general I was an American by heart. All of this they said about me.

By nature, I am clearly a Russian. I do not like everything in America. It cannot be that somewhere is as in a fairytale, and somewhere else is total darkness.

Particularly, it seemed, my [friendliness] offended the preservers of government secrets….I also knew a little English. Therefore I had the possibility to rub elbows with whomever I might come in contact: hockey players, journalists and even immigrants. And, they assumed, to each of them I could give important information--everyone getting an equal share, no doubt, in order to be fair.”

He couldn’t talk to his friends from other countries, or his Russian friends either when they traveled without him. On the street outside between the rink and the party offices, none of his former fans would speak to him, except to ask or tell him their opinion if he really was a traitor.

He was wanted everywhere but home. Obviously, no other country believed that a 25 year-old athlete who had been the best in the world six months before had been brought down by tonsillitis multiple times in a row. There’s only so many tonsils a person can have. Obviously, every other country thought Igor must want to defect, the one thing he did not want and couldn’t convince anyone of. So each host on the international hockey circuit was bouncing on their toes, first Canada, then Sweden and so on, thinking maybe the Soviet Union would slip up and let him come to their tournament, he'd defect, and then they’d get to keep him. Obviously, the Soviets noticed that, and squeezed tighter.

Each time the team left on tour, he was told to spend his time alone training harder and hope. If he was good enough, maybe he’d make the next tournament. His body, always a battle-ground with Coach Tikhonov, became a hostage situation. The more Tikhonov told him to train, the less he ate. Eventually he was eating mostly fruit, and restricting his water intake.

He stopped pretending to defer to anyone. He used to be the sober one between his hot-head wingers, and now he egged every fight on. Sometimes he faked an American accent, calling Coach “Tikhonoff” the way American broadcasters had at the '81 Olympics.

One day at the rink he bumped into figure skater Lena Batanova, who “knew nothing about hockey and could not have cared less.” She had been through worse training than he had growing up, only to win two World Championships, and then be slighted from a third. They understood each other without having to say anything.

[Igor washing dishes in their Moscow apartment, turning to glance at Lena pressing up him.]

That summer he stayed up late talking with his friends, and realized he wanted to marry Lena. He asked her the next morning, and she said yes. Behind Igor’s back, Slava, Vova, Sergei, and Lyosha went to Coach Tikhonov’s office, and told him that they would play every other day of the year if they had to, but they would be going to Igor’s wedding. Coach wouldn’t allow the three days for a traditional Russian wedding, but he had to give Igor one.

Waking up the morning after the wedding, Igor checked the mail and found a summons to appear before the Central Committee of the Communist Party. His friends, who I imagine lying hungover on his and Lena’s new couch and floor, rushed for their unused books to help him study up on Communist doctrine, in case he got quizzed. This is presumably when Lena woke up, realized she’d married a whole line of hockey players for their one communal brain cell, and rolled back over. Igor reported the next morning, probably with flashcards Vova had made for him in his pocket.

The Party officials congratulated him on getting married and gave him the wedding gift they were sure no one else would have gotten: his passport. We have to guess the logic here, if there was one. It’s possible the Party thought he wouldn’t risk his wife, or that two years had just been enough to realize the team wasn’t working without him.

But he was allowed to go to Canada for the Calgary Cup before the end of ‘86, and everyone had questions about his two years of tonsillitis. Igor, for the first time in his life, didn’t talk. But that just left the hockey world to gossip. Two months later it was announced he’d be in Quebec City for another tournament, and right before they arrived a Quebec newspaper printed a version of the night out with Gretzky--with quotes, they claimed, from Wayne. This time the tournament organizers called someone from every team up for a pregame presser. I imagine Igor shrugging at his KGB handlers and sliding away to the stage: nothing could stop him talking now.

Except the Canadian journalists. They wanted to interview Team Canada first. Igor stewed, and then looked up to see an oncoming Wayne. Someone had asked him about the alleged quotes in the article, which Igor had snagged a copy of to read the second they let him loose in Canada. Apparently Wayne hadn’t.

“‘Believe me, Igor,’” Igor remembers Wayne blurting out. “‘I didn’t say what was printed in the paper. I’ll tell them it didn’t happen! But what is your position now?’”

“‘Do not worry,” Igor promised him. “‘Now, everything is okay.’”

“Oh, awesome,” (I’m assuming again) Wayne said. “So do you want to come over later and hang out in my mom’s basement?!”

“If the KGB pulls a gun, then call me.” --Wayne Gretzky

Weirdly, I’ve never seen this inspirational quote cross-stitched on someone’s wall.

The next Canada Cup was held in August ‘87 in Hamilton, Ontario, which is like, basically next door to Wayne’s parents’ house. So the afternoon before the first game, Wayne sent his dad Walter to the hotel where the Soviet team was staying. Walter asked in Ukrainian if he could chat with Igor, who had to come down to the hotel lobby to meet him, since visitors were absolutely not allowed to wander up to players’ rooms. Walter invited his son’s friend over for dinner. Igor cut eyes at the KGB agent in the corner, and said he had to go upstairs and ask Coach. Tikhonov said no before Igor started talking.

Igor came back downstairs and apologized to Walter, who thought hard for a minute. He told Igor to ask what if the whole Green Unit went to Wayne’s house for team bonding? Coach Tikhonov considered, and said no, and Igor went back to Walter.

Walter hitched up his suspenders, and announced to the KGB that he would talk go to Coach Tikhonov now.

He told Tikhonov he would be honored if Coach came to dinner at his house that evening, and if Coach felt like it, he might bring the boys over too. Tikhonov said he’d love to.

Tikhonov, Igor, Vova, Sergei, Slava, Lyosha, and a KGB operative spent a delightful half hour packed in a car together driving to the Gretzkys' house, where Walter and Phyllis were throwing a cookout. Walter and some of his local buddies had barbecue and corn on the cob on the grill, and Phyllis had quizzed her son about his Moscow trip before throwing up her hands in despair and making a big batch of her mother’s Polish dumplings and sausage.

Nothing makes me happier than the image of Wayne Gretzky, beaming from ear to ear, handing famously fussy little Igor Larionov a piece of barbecued corn on the cob. Igor had to explain that yes, they had corn in Russia, but they ate it on a plate and not like squirrels. Walter offered him a beer, and Igor looked to Coach Tikhonov before saying no. Tikhonov allowed the players to have a soda.

Wayne started asking him how everything had been since the last time they hung out, and didn’t get why his friend wouldn’t talk to him at first. Igor might answer one question, and then act like he didn’t understand. Sergei and Vova really didn’t speak English, and kept elbowing Igor to explain what was going on and why Wayne was smiling at them like that, but Igor was still pretending he only spoke Russian and hesitated to translate for them. Finally Wayne realized Igor was clamming up every time Tikhonov got within earshot.

Wayne went to Walter to change the game plan. Walter would use his Ukrainian to ask Coach Tikhonov about his many amazing accomplishments, while Wayne told the whole party he wanted to show the other boys his medals, which were all down in the basement. Unfortunately the Gretzky family’s basement was very small, and housed Wayne’s many, many medals, so only two people could possibly fit down there at a time: one Gretzky, and one Russian. Tikhonov thought about it, decided he didn’t care about someone else’s medals, and gave the okay.

Just in case, Wayne deputized his dad’s buddy Charlie, who did not speak Russian or anything like it but was somebody’s dad from suburban Ontario, to chat up the KGB agent.

So Wayne began to escort the Green Unit, one by one, down to his family’s basement. At the bottom of the stairs, he handed them a beer. The two of them chugged their beers together, trying not to take suspiciously long or laugh too loud, and then ran back up to change out for the next boy.

Nothing happened that night. It didn’t change anything, except that Tikhonov never found out. The Greens had been able to get one over on him, because they didn’t have to do it alone.

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#green unit #igor larionov #wayne gretzky #slava fetisov #sergei makarov #vladimir krutov

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spanglepuck · 7 years

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Kaner/Artemi "written in the stars” AU Preview

Ok! First off, this AU was created so @povverbottoms and I could have a stable, not angsty foundation to throw a whole bunch of fluffy 7288 fics on - even though at first glance the premise sounds a bit angsty.

Basically this AU “deviates from canon” after the Blackhawks 2015 cup win. Instead of trying to ride out their capspace issues, they rip the band aid off so they can start developing a younger and more stable core, etc. etc. To do this they trade Kaner and Sharpy to the Stars. In the same year the Stars sign Artemi Panarin from the KHL. Kaner and Jonny still have a great relationship. There’s no hard feelings between Kaner and Chicago, and then some really good things come out of the trade for him. Anyway, below is the literal fluffiest “Kane is traded” AU you’ll ever find.

warm underneath my skin

The trade didn’t come as a shock. How could it when they’d been discussing waiving his no move clause since February? It started basically the day the rumors of the cap staying flat began to spread. Patrick played harder, put it out of his head - I’ll do whatever’s best for the team - and then they pushed through game after game of the playoffs. Maybe, Patrick thought, this will change things.

Nobody brought it up in the wake of the cup final. Nobody said a thing and Patrick didn’t give it one single thought when he stood next to Jonny on top of a float, the entire city of Chicago pulsing victorious red and celebrating with them.

The cap is raised 2.4 million dollars for the 2015-2016 season. There are lots of factors working in his favor, Patrick knows - and none of them are enough. Patrick doesn’t know where he’d cast his vote if he had one, but even he knows that the organization is paralyzed, and they decide to rip the bandaid off - one 10.5 million dollar band aid. It’s a short term hit that gives the organization the room to build itself back up again - they can’t keep putting duct tape on it forever, so they say.

When they ask him to waive his NMC he almost says no. But apparently Patrick’s not that selfish.

We’ll make whatever deal we settle on conditional on an late summer announcement.

They’re making sure his victory laps aren’t tainted; they don’t want to spoil Chicago’s party either. He tells Jonny right after, though - he only cries a little. Jonny’s also the first one he tells when the call finally comes.

“It’s Dallas,” he says, laying on his childhood bed in Buffalo. “I’m going to Dallas.”

It’s not the worst situation he could be in. Dallas has weaknesses, but it’s not like he was sent to Vancouver or something. Plus, Sharpy’s coming with him.

The Stars are steadily on the rise, and then they give Patrick two things on the first day of training camp that will make all the difference in Patrick’s first year in Texas.

First they give him an alternate captaincy - a real and permanent one. There’s nothing honorary or contingent about it. We want you to really take on a leadership role here. You’ve got experience on multiple cup winning teams, and we think you’re ready to step up here.

“I thought they’d give it to you,” Patrick tells Sharpy later.

“This isn’t Chicago, Pat. You’re nobody’s little brother anymore,” Sharpy says, and then ruffled his hair. “Ok, you’re still mine, but you know what I mean.”

The realization is strangely liberating. He’ll miss Jonny fiercely - and he does - and losing that security is kind of terrifying. Yet, the fact is that, up until that moment, Patrick’s entire career has existed in the context of Kane and Toews.

So, Patrick’s new A feels different than any other he’s worn before. The crisp white on bright green feels heavier, but grounding in a way that Patrick’s never experienced before.

The second thing that Dallas gives him blows the first out of the water, though. The Stars sign a young KHL star and effectively bestow upon Patrick Artemi Panarin.

They set the 2015-2016 season on fire. Patrick’s breaking personal records, skating harder, and having even more fun playing that he thought was possible. Every time that Panarin’s body slams into Patrick’s in celebration he’s afraid that he’s going to burst, too full of simple hockey joy.

Patrick’s always had trouble finding a linemate who could keep up with him - turns out the right guy was hiding in St. Petersberg and doesn’t speak more than a lick of English. Patrick couldn’t care less, though, because their understanding of each other goes far beyond words. On the ice it’s like a sixth sense - and off the ice it isn’t much different.

Sharpy’s got a new baby so Patrick limits himself to one dinner a week with him and Abby as not to get in the way. There also aren’t any Russian players on the Stars besides Artemi - Patrick knows how they tend to stick together - plus the kid seems kind of shy, at least out of his element as he is not speaking the local language. So Patrick’s first step in taking his A seriously is to make sure that his new liney is looked out for. It doesn’t take long until Artemi is sticking to Patrick like a bur, and they’re getting along so famously through their language barrier that Tyler starts claiming they can read minds.

“Ok, what am I thinking right now?” he asks Patrick one day after a game against the Oilers.

“That your faceoffs sucked today and how embarassing that is considering McDavid wasn’t even in the lineup,” Patrick deadpans as he pulls his pads off.

Artemi shakes with a brief burst of laughter and Tyler seems to care much more about that than the insult to his person.

“The fuck! Last week I asked you if you were hungry and you looked at me like I had two heads!”

That just makes Artemi’s brow furrow a little and he looks to Patrick, tilting his head to the side in question. Patrick just smiles and shakes his head once, which smooths out the expression on Artemi’s face.

“Dinner?” he asks, absently bumping his fist against his stomach.

Artemi nods enthusiastically and Tyler just sputters indignantly.

The Russian’s English improves quickly though, helped along by the amount of time he spends at Patrick’s. It’s easy to hang out since they live in the same building. It also doesn’t hurt that Patrick’s pointedly turning over a new leaf in Dallas and not putting himself in any situations that might end in trouble, and Artemi doesn’t party, or even drink, during the season either, so they end up very much homebody-buddies. At the beginning they get along with No-English-Required activities like Mario Cart or watching tape, but slowly they move on to movies and dumb TV.

“English homework,” Artemi once mumbles in his defense when Patrick tries to turn the channel away from a zany cooking competition show.

Patrick highly doubts that Iberico Ham is going to be on Artemi’s vocab test, but he’s not going to argue. He’s honestly just too charmed by the kid. Artemi’s too much a sweetheart to exploit Patrick, but he wonders what Artemi could get away with if he tried.

Luckily, Artemi seems content with the window-side corner of Patrick’s couch and a ride to practice in the mornings.

That first year they make it to round two of the playoffs before going out against the Sharks in game seven. It sucks in the moment, but then they’re planning for next year, and there’s a surprisingly familiar feeling in Patrick’s chest. It’s… exciting being a part of something new again. The team is hungry. Jamie wants it desperately. Artemi and the city want it. Patrick wants to give it to them. He wants it for himself.

There’s no shame in the locker room on clean out day. It’s not a bunch of false platitudes when they say that they’re close, that they know where thier holes are and that they’ve got something here that will be great with just a few adjustments.

“When we get it, Temi, I’m gonna hand it to you,” Patrick says when the reporters finally clear out. “Gonna put it in your hands.”

Artemi presses his shoulder into Patrick’s, looking down at his toes before glancing up at Patrick out of the corner of his eyes. He smiles mischievously.

“Maybe - I put in yours.”

Patrick barks out a laugh, and for the first time in years, he feels like he’s truly only looking forward, his past like balloons instead weights trailing behind him.

“It’s a deal.”

I hope people can get into this even though the premise is a little risky. Also fun fact, this first fic is a SICK FIC. BECAUSE THERE JUST ARENT ENOUGH IN THE WORLD. The above was literally like all the seriousness to get it set up and then it’s gonna be like... hurt/comfort adorable soft trash. Hope you like it!

#7288 #8872 #hockey RPF #RPF #my fic

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