i need no sympathy...
Hockey drabble because this how I deal with everything, including playoffs apparently.
Set in the Wolves of Chicago verse. pg-13, Jonny/Pat, Duncs/Seabs, Sharpy/Abby. Set the late night/early morning after the Game That Shall Not Be Named.
*
"I know we're better than this," Jonny said quietly from where he stood towards the front of the plane.
He didn't raise his voice, didn't have to since the whole plane was silent; even the engines sounded muted and subdued.
"I know we can play hockey, play it our way and win. We're going to get home, play through whatever suspensions we have to and we are going to win our third Stanley Cup.
"Understand?" Jonny looked around, his disappointment obvious.
He headed toward the back, where the Pack were spread out in the last couple rows; Sharpy was sitting a seat over from the aisle, looking grimly determined, his hand clamped onto Crow's thigh while the beta tried in vain to relax.
Shawzy was on Crow's other side, his face buried in the goalie's neck, while he curled into his side, the armrest was pushed up so they were pressed together as close as they could be while on an airplane.
Jonny frowned when he saw Seabs was in the row behind everyone else, hunched over and folded in on himself; and while everyone was unhappy -the whole airplane smelled like kerosene and bleach, it was making Jonny nauseous- Seabs was radiating an abject misery that even having Duncs' hand clamped down over the back of his neck wasn't helping.
He slipped into the aisle seat where Pat was already by the window.
"He won't talk to me," Pat murmured as he shifted enough to press his leg against his mate's; he tried to keep it unobtrusive, since a few of the newer guys were already giving Shawzy the side-eye. Pat didn't have the heart to go tell the two newest betas in their Pack to stop cuddling. Most of them seemed inclined to write it off as a weird AHL thing combined with the stress of two hard back-to-back loses.
"Or anyone else, either; not even Duncs," he added, low enough that even Sharpy would have trouble hearing.
Jonny grunted and rested his head on the seat. He needed to comfort Seabs, reassure him that whatever happened, Jonny would always be his Alpha and that he would always be Pack.
Jonny knew that; he felt it even -a member of his Pack in that much distress was like a physical ache in his chest. But.
"God, I'm so fucken pissed at him," Jonny admitted, his voice barely a murmur. "I don't care if Backes is an Alpha, Seabs knows better than to hit him like that on-ice.
"He just made the entire playoffs a hundred times worse for us -the refs are going to be on our asses more than any other team."
"The wolves will back off, though, you know that," Pat pointed out diplomatically. He squeezed the Apha's thigh in understanding, fast enough that most humans wouldn't notice it. "We respect that kind of brute strength, especially Alphas."
The last words were said slyly and with a smirk in Jonny's direction.
Jonny acknowledged the point with a slight smile; he knew a big part of the reason he was pissed was because his wolf was pleased with Seabs -pleased and smug and impressed because Seabs had hurt an Alpha-who-was-not-Pack, had knocked him unconscious with almost no effort.
His wolf, his Beta had done that, had proven both his strength and his Alpha's because he belonged to him, so his strength was the Pack's.
Jonny, on the other hand, knew exactly how problematic the whole thing was. It was made worse by the fact that, above everything else, they had to keep the secret, had to make sure no one who wasn't wolf or part of a Pack found out.
Seabs was probably struggling with similar feelings, if only with no Alpha-smugness and instead Beta-I-did-good-please-praise-and-pet-me.
"I'll talk to him when we land," Jonny told Pat, his voice loud enough that it carried through the entire plane; it would insure that the humans left them alone and would depart the plane faster than they normally would. "Discuss what happened, Captain to D-man."
Jonny exchanged a long look with Pat before he relaxed back into his seat and closed his eyes.
He felt Pat lean over him and talk to Sharpy in quiet whispers, making plans for him to go get Abby and the cubs before coming over to their apartment.
Whatever had happened out there, both man and wolf agreed that the Pack all needed to be there in the morning.
No matter what the morning brought, the Pack would survive together.
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