(no subject)
Title: Don't Say Anything
Author: Me, more_unknown
Pairing: Evgeni Malkin/Sidney Crosby. . .Evgeni's POV.
Summary: Oh, those unspoken bonds. Gotta love 'em.
Rating: I'm gonna say R for this chapter. It starts out sweet and then it gets kind of adult and nasty.
Chapter: 3 of 4, probably.
Disclaimer: Don't own, didn't happen, I really hope Evgeni doesn't pick up girls like this in real life. Wooooo.
Still dedicated to jisforjane.
Next chapter is the REDEMPTION CHAPTER. No making out in this, unfortunately. But I'm working up to a total love-fest, I promise. I guarantee hotness or your money back.
I was lead through the labyrinthine hallways of the house by a hand that had so loosely laced its fingers with mine, suddenly almost half-asleep, following the smell of his aftershave and the soft padding of his footsteps on plush carpet. I was entranced.
Clint Eastwood turned out to be a guy who ran around in a cowboy hat doing silly things in the American West. And Sid tried to explain Westerns to me--their plots, what he called their stock characters, their resolutions, the importance of guns. All of this he did on a little sofa in front of a tiny television in a disused guest bedroom, holding my head to his chest as if I were a child, stroking my messy hair affectionately. I was too tired to think or understand a single thing he said to me. But his body felt solid underneath me and, with the volume turned down, I was quickly lulled to sleep by the repetitive images of Clint Eastwood doing whatever the hell he was doing, an image of manhood that was totally unrecognizable from the ones I'd grown up with. I slept, surrounded by the sounds of his heartbeat intermingling with puffs of muted gunfire.
I could feel myself the next day coming out of a dream, suddenly cold all over again. Gray morning light leaked through a window on the far side of the room, and we were awake--well, he was awake, and I was barely clinging to consciousness. He was standing over me, picking up his socks with a hardened expression on his face. I hadn't slept much. I wasn't sure if he'd slept at all. I caught myself watching his movements, each muscular part moving gracefully despite the sleep deprivation--I recalled how huge his ass was and how we always made fun of it in the locker room. For once I didn't want to make fun of it--as if I could have come up with the words. I wanted to grab him and throw him down on the sofa next to me and touch it for myself. I looked at him sleepily, and smiled, but he wasn't smiling back. We had practice.
"Get up," he said. "We can't be late for this." I knew the tone extremely well, but I'd only heard it in hotel rooms and on the floors of living rooms in houses where we'd partied and echoing off of the tile walls in bathrooms where I'd puked. It was his "captain" voice, his "responsible" voice. I hated it even as it could keep me from self-destructing. It had saved me a lot of times from a lot of bad decisions. I didn't miss practices and I pushed myself to the limits as much as I could, and anytime I doubted myself I thought back to that tone. It helped.
I did not, however, appreciate it first thing in the morning after being kissed passionately and then rocked to sleep like a baby. I felt blamed--blamed for keeping him up, blamed for our imminent lateness, the little sore muscles that happen when two tall guys try to sleep in each other's arms on a fucking love seat. But hadn't he let this happen? Hadn't he started it? Oh, no. What were we even doing? Was this even appropriate? I couldn't tell. I wanted it to be, but I knew it wasn't. Before I knew it, I was wide awake and wracking my brain for the right words with which to express anger. . .but sometimes things just come out. I stood up, and started gathering my things.
"Fuck you," I said. I was good at saying, "Fuck you." The sounds were simple and no one ever questioned my intentions with it.
"What?" Sid said back to me. He was confused, but not hurt. That pissed me off even more. What about me?
"Fuck. . .you. Sid." I said. My English was failing me, except for profanity, which I knew so very well. "This. . .me? No. Not me. You." I wasn't making any sense, and I was well aware, but nothing else came to mind. My proficiency with English should have been solid in that moment. I would have used words like "confused" and "angry" and "desperate." Instead, I just said, "Fuck you."
"See, I knew this was going to happen," he was saying. "I have a certain responsibility to uphold, Evgeni, and I'm really sorry. I still have to be your captain and your friend before anything else. This can't happen unless we're both on the same page."
I tried to understand those words, but my brain wouldn't let me. "Don't tell me what to do," I said. I was impressed with myself after I said it. I sounded fluent. Oh so briefly. I enunciated properly. It was such a mantra. I said it again before I left the room and charged down the stairs, feeling like a bull who had just been shown the red. I was ready to make something happen.
I could go to practice on my own--I didn't need him to hold my hand for that. I knew how to drive and I knew how to show up on time. The best part was when I got there before him. I gave him the best look I've ever given anyone when he just walked into the locker room a full twenty minutes after me. It was a look of pure contempt and pure hurt. My eyes were mournful, scolding, disappointed. My mouth was actually closed. It made his mouth open. I might not say much, but I can give a lot away by the way I look. Sid could have done himself a favor by remembering that.
I'm going to apologize in advance, because after practice that day there are a lot of blank spots in my memory. I somehow managed to cover every Pittsburgh bar I'd ever been to in a single night, and at each one I ordered whiskey, straight up, and drank it until my throat was coated in the stuff. I don't think I breathed much. When there was a jukebox I put on "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Rolling Stones and tried not to look too foreign or too drunk. But it was Pittsburgh, so nearly everyone knew who I was, anyway. I ran my fingers through my hair a lot--it was being unruly. I tried to look upstanding.
Most importantly, I was trying to figure out how I could get a girl to come home with me. This is harder than it sounds. Not only does she really have to want you, but she has to be drunk enough to think that it's a good idea. Especially if you don't speak a common language, have never met before, and you're going solo that evening. It's all about commonalities. Sometimes, it's as simple as getting lucky. You might sit down next to a girl just as she's downing the last of far too many beers, and she'll notice, beautifully, drunkenly, that both of you have brown eyes. Other times, you have to work at it, but she'll notice you eventually. She might not want anything special out of you, but she'll get what she wants nevertheless. It's just up to you to make her seek it. Does it sound like I am speaking from experience? I'm really not. You've got to be kidding me.
I'd had some bad luck at the last bar trying to start a conversation. I'd started off with a simple, "Hey." Which led to her rattling off her life story and asking me questions that I stood no chance of understanding. "What do you drink?" I'd asked, because I was more than happy to buy her something. That hadn't gone over well. She was one of the ones that actually wanted to talk. I'm patient, but not that patient, especially not when I'm that drunk. When I didn't talk as much as she wanted me to, mostly because I simply couldn't follow the conversation, she left with her friend. Whatever. So at the next one I huddled myself in a corner with more whiskey and watched the people walk by and around. I was going to get more drunk, if not lucky.
A shorter girl with black hair sat down next to me just as I was starting to zone out completely. She was ridiculously drunk, and, if her eyes and behavior were any indication, she'd been smoking, too. She bought me more alcohol and talked to me and was content to let me just smile and nod and say things like "yes" and "oh?" and "thank you." I had successfully made her seek me. I was good at it. She could tell what I wanted as soon as I looked at her.
And she was as pretty as she was drunk. Though now I don't remember much else about her. Except that at some point we were making out in the doorway of my bedroom and I wasn't enjoying it and then my phone vibrated and I had to answer it and Sid was yelling at me and she got bored and said, "Fuck this," and walked out. What was her name? I think it was Melody. Not kidding.
I woke up alone on my own floor with my phone vibrating next to my head in a small puddle of what was either drool or vomit or both. I didn't answer it.
I stripped off all of my bar-hopping accoutrements--my black jeans, my button-down shirt, my torn-up fuck-me-now face. I curled up in the fetal position on my bed, naked, shaking, trying to ignore the urge to run to the bathroom to get on my knees in front of the toilet and let the whiskey phlegm fly. My phone was still vibrating. I knew who it was. But I didn't particularly want to say anything to Sidney Crosby at that point. I was starting to remember bits and pieces of our phone conversation, and it made me want to puke, but out of disgust at myself.
I extracted my phone from its little puddle of human disgustingness, and it started vibrating again. This time I answered, and held it a decent distance from my face. "Hello?" I said, dreading whatever was coming next.
"Where were you last night?" he said, flatly, obviously pissed.
"What?"
"I called you around ten and asked you to come to my place to talk. You laughed, you said okay, and then you never showed up. I wasn't necessarily worried, but. . ." The last part was a lie. Sid worries about his laundry. He's scared that he's going to put it in and it's going to disappear forever. I've seen him do laundry before. He checks fifteen minutes after the cycle starts to make sure it's still there. At least, that's my theory on why he's peeking in there like he's going to catch a burglar.
"I'm. . .sorry," I said. "I got drunk."
"No shit," Sid replied. "When I called you at one in the morning to ask where you were, I heard a girl laughing in the background. And you told me to go fuck myself because you were about to fuck someone, too."
"No. I didn't," I said. The pitch of my voice had risen. I couldn't think of an explanation for my behavior that would come out well in English. "Whiskey," I said. "Ruins everything." The word "everything" seemed to have two extra syllables. It rolled out of my mouth like a dump truck.
"It pretty much does, doesn't it?" he said. He was patronizing me now, for sure.
"I am really, really, really. . .sorry," was the only thing I could say. "Sorry" was always a hard word for me. It hurt my pride to say it.
"I'm angry at you. You hurt me."
"You? You hurt. . .me, too," I said. I felt like a stroke victim. My hangover was beating up my skull and I could barely speak anyway.
"Should I have been less harsh?" he asked, rhetorically. He didn't mean it.
"Yes," I said quickly. I definitely meant that.
"Well, I'll see you soon, Geno," he said, and hung up. I thought that half of me wanted to punch him and the other half wanted to have a night alone with him in a private hotel room, kissing him, teasing him, making him beg for more. He deserved both.
Then I realized that it was actually one-third of me that wanted to punch him, one-third of me that wanted a night alone with him in a hotel, and one-third of me that wanted to projectile vomit all over the bathroom. I ended up succumbing to that latter third before dragging my sorry ass to practice, my skin flush, my bones chilled. I hoped to God I wouldn't have to spend too much time with him. But I have no idea if God was listening or not.
Author: Me, more_unknown
Pairing: Evgeni Malkin/Sidney Crosby. . .Evgeni's POV.
Summary: Oh, those unspoken bonds. Gotta love 'em.
Rating: I'm gonna say R for this chapter. It starts out sweet and then it gets kind of adult and nasty.
Chapter: 3 of 4, probably.
Disclaimer: Don't own, didn't happen, I really hope Evgeni doesn't pick up girls like this in real life. Wooooo.
Still dedicated to jisforjane.
Next chapter is the REDEMPTION CHAPTER. No making out in this, unfortunately. But I'm working up to a total love-fest, I promise. I guarantee hotness or your money back.
I was lead through the labyrinthine hallways of the house by a hand that had so loosely laced its fingers with mine, suddenly almost half-asleep, following the smell of his aftershave and the soft padding of his footsteps on plush carpet. I was entranced.
Clint Eastwood turned out to be a guy who ran around in a cowboy hat doing silly things in the American West. And Sid tried to explain Westerns to me--their plots, what he called their stock characters, their resolutions, the importance of guns. All of this he did on a little sofa in front of a tiny television in a disused guest bedroom, holding my head to his chest as if I were a child, stroking my messy hair affectionately. I was too tired to think or understand a single thing he said to me. But his body felt solid underneath me and, with the volume turned down, I was quickly lulled to sleep by the repetitive images of Clint Eastwood doing whatever the hell he was doing, an image of manhood that was totally unrecognizable from the ones I'd grown up with. I slept, surrounded by the sounds of his heartbeat intermingling with puffs of muted gunfire.
I could feel myself the next day coming out of a dream, suddenly cold all over again. Gray morning light leaked through a window on the far side of the room, and we were awake--well, he was awake, and I was barely clinging to consciousness. He was standing over me, picking up his socks with a hardened expression on his face. I hadn't slept much. I wasn't sure if he'd slept at all. I caught myself watching his movements, each muscular part moving gracefully despite the sleep deprivation--I recalled how huge his ass was and how we always made fun of it in the locker room. For once I didn't want to make fun of it--as if I could have come up with the words. I wanted to grab him and throw him down on the sofa next to me and touch it for myself. I looked at him sleepily, and smiled, but he wasn't smiling back. We had practice.
"Get up," he said. "We can't be late for this." I knew the tone extremely well, but I'd only heard it in hotel rooms and on the floors of living rooms in houses where we'd partied and echoing off of the tile walls in bathrooms where I'd puked. It was his "captain" voice, his "responsible" voice. I hated it even as it could keep me from self-destructing. It had saved me a lot of times from a lot of bad decisions. I didn't miss practices and I pushed myself to the limits as much as I could, and anytime I doubted myself I thought back to that tone. It helped.
I did not, however, appreciate it first thing in the morning after being kissed passionately and then rocked to sleep like a baby. I felt blamed--blamed for keeping him up, blamed for our imminent lateness, the little sore muscles that happen when two tall guys try to sleep in each other's arms on a fucking love seat. But hadn't he let this happen? Hadn't he started it? Oh, no. What were we even doing? Was this even appropriate? I couldn't tell. I wanted it to be, but I knew it wasn't. Before I knew it, I was wide awake and wracking my brain for the right words with which to express anger. . .but sometimes things just come out. I stood up, and started gathering my things.
"Fuck you," I said. I was good at saying, "Fuck you." The sounds were simple and no one ever questioned my intentions with it.
"What?" Sid said back to me. He was confused, but not hurt. That pissed me off even more. What about me?
"Fuck. . .you. Sid." I said. My English was failing me, except for profanity, which I knew so very well. "This. . .me? No. Not me. You." I wasn't making any sense, and I was well aware, but nothing else came to mind. My proficiency with English should have been solid in that moment. I would have used words like "confused" and "angry" and "desperate." Instead, I just said, "Fuck you."
"See, I knew this was going to happen," he was saying. "I have a certain responsibility to uphold, Evgeni, and I'm really sorry. I still have to be your captain and your friend before anything else. This can't happen unless we're both on the same page."
I tried to understand those words, but my brain wouldn't let me. "Don't tell me what to do," I said. I was impressed with myself after I said it. I sounded fluent. Oh so briefly. I enunciated properly. It was such a mantra. I said it again before I left the room and charged down the stairs, feeling like a bull who had just been shown the red. I was ready to make something happen.
I could go to practice on my own--I didn't need him to hold my hand for that. I knew how to drive and I knew how to show up on time. The best part was when I got there before him. I gave him the best look I've ever given anyone when he just walked into the locker room a full twenty minutes after me. It was a look of pure contempt and pure hurt. My eyes were mournful, scolding, disappointed. My mouth was actually closed. It made his mouth open. I might not say much, but I can give a lot away by the way I look. Sid could have done himself a favor by remembering that.
I'm going to apologize in advance, because after practice that day there are a lot of blank spots in my memory. I somehow managed to cover every Pittsburgh bar I'd ever been to in a single night, and at each one I ordered whiskey, straight up, and drank it until my throat was coated in the stuff. I don't think I breathed much. When there was a jukebox I put on "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by the Rolling Stones and tried not to look too foreign or too drunk. But it was Pittsburgh, so nearly everyone knew who I was, anyway. I ran my fingers through my hair a lot--it was being unruly. I tried to look upstanding.
Most importantly, I was trying to figure out how I could get a girl to come home with me. This is harder than it sounds. Not only does she really have to want you, but she has to be drunk enough to think that it's a good idea. Especially if you don't speak a common language, have never met before, and you're going solo that evening. It's all about commonalities. Sometimes, it's as simple as getting lucky. You might sit down next to a girl just as she's downing the last of far too many beers, and she'll notice, beautifully, drunkenly, that both of you have brown eyes. Other times, you have to work at it, but she'll notice you eventually. She might not want anything special out of you, but she'll get what she wants nevertheless. It's just up to you to make her seek it. Does it sound like I am speaking from experience? I'm really not. You've got to be kidding me.
I'd had some bad luck at the last bar trying to start a conversation. I'd started off with a simple, "Hey." Which led to her rattling off her life story and asking me questions that I stood no chance of understanding. "What do you drink?" I'd asked, because I was more than happy to buy her something. That hadn't gone over well. She was one of the ones that actually wanted to talk. I'm patient, but not that patient, especially not when I'm that drunk. When I didn't talk as much as she wanted me to, mostly because I simply couldn't follow the conversation, she left with her friend. Whatever. So at the next one I huddled myself in a corner with more whiskey and watched the people walk by and around. I was going to get more drunk, if not lucky.
A shorter girl with black hair sat down next to me just as I was starting to zone out completely. She was ridiculously drunk, and, if her eyes and behavior were any indication, she'd been smoking, too. She bought me more alcohol and talked to me and was content to let me just smile and nod and say things like "yes" and "oh?" and "thank you." I had successfully made her seek me. I was good at it. She could tell what I wanted as soon as I looked at her.
And she was as pretty as she was drunk. Though now I don't remember much else about her. Except that at some point we were making out in the doorway of my bedroom and I wasn't enjoying it and then my phone vibrated and I had to answer it and Sid was yelling at me and she got bored and said, "Fuck this," and walked out. What was her name? I think it was Melody. Not kidding.
I woke up alone on my own floor with my phone vibrating next to my head in a small puddle of what was either drool or vomit or both. I didn't answer it.
I stripped off all of my bar-hopping accoutrements--my black jeans, my button-down shirt, my torn-up fuck-me-now face. I curled up in the fetal position on my bed, naked, shaking, trying to ignore the urge to run to the bathroom to get on my knees in front of the toilet and let the whiskey phlegm fly. My phone was still vibrating. I knew who it was. But I didn't particularly want to say anything to Sidney Crosby at that point. I was starting to remember bits and pieces of our phone conversation, and it made me want to puke, but out of disgust at myself.
I extracted my phone from its little puddle of human disgustingness, and it started vibrating again. This time I answered, and held it a decent distance from my face. "Hello?" I said, dreading whatever was coming next.
"Where were you last night?" he said, flatly, obviously pissed.
"What?"
"I called you around ten and asked you to come to my place to talk. You laughed, you said okay, and then you never showed up. I wasn't necessarily worried, but. . ." The last part was a lie. Sid worries about his laundry. He's scared that he's going to put it in and it's going to disappear forever. I've seen him do laundry before. He checks fifteen minutes after the cycle starts to make sure it's still there. At least, that's my theory on why he's peeking in there like he's going to catch a burglar.
"I'm. . .sorry," I said. "I got drunk."
"No shit," Sid replied. "When I called you at one in the morning to ask where you were, I heard a girl laughing in the background. And you told me to go fuck myself because you were about to fuck someone, too."
"No. I didn't," I said. The pitch of my voice had risen. I couldn't think of an explanation for my behavior that would come out well in English. "Whiskey," I said. "Ruins everything." The word "everything" seemed to have two extra syllables. It rolled out of my mouth like a dump truck.
"It pretty much does, doesn't it?" he said. He was patronizing me now, for sure.
"I am really, really, really. . .sorry," was the only thing I could say. "Sorry" was always a hard word for me. It hurt my pride to say it.
"I'm angry at you. You hurt me."
"You? You hurt. . .me, too," I said. I felt like a stroke victim. My hangover was beating up my skull and I could barely speak anyway.
"Should I have been less harsh?" he asked, rhetorically. He didn't mean it.
"Yes," I said quickly. I definitely meant that.
"Well, I'll see you soon, Geno," he said, and hung up. I thought that half of me wanted to punch him and the other half wanted to have a night alone with him in a private hotel room, kissing him, teasing him, making him beg for more. He deserved both.
Then I realized that it was actually one-third of me that wanted to punch him, one-third of me that wanted a night alone with him in a hotel, and one-third of me that wanted to projectile vomit all over the bathroom. I ended up succumbing to that latter third before dragging my sorry ass to practice, my skin flush, my bones chilled. I hoped to God I wouldn't have to spend too much time with him. But I have no idea if God was listening or not.