Home Team Advantage (1/3) (Briere/Pronger) (R)
Title: Home Team Advantage
Author: madebymarienne
Sainted Beta: kyriacarlisle
Genre: Slash, Implied Het
Pairing: Daniel Briere/Chris Pronger (Philadelphia Flyers)
Rating: R
Warnings/Spoilers: Does Chris Pronger require his own warning? Possibly. Also, professional hockey is a dangerous business, and some injuries are to be expected. Likewise with occasional drunken shenanigans and profane language.
Author's Note: This was conceived and written well before the current season (and its unfortunate events, especially as pertaining to the team's captain). Therefore, it is to be considered AU as of the 2011-12 season home-opener.
Summary: Danny really, really wishes he knew what was going on.
Danny’s just considering crawling into his own bed, the boys down for the count after a day filled with pre-season tournament games, when his cell phone rings. The display reads “Chris Pronger,” and he answers more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.
Chris doesn’t even wait for Danny to get out more than a simple ‘hello’ before he’s biting out a tense “I need a favor.”
Danny’s been around the league too long to ask questions, especially not when someone like Chris is using that tone of voice. “Um, okay? What’s, ah, what’s going on?”
“Thanks. I’ll tell you when I get there.”
Danny doesn’t get a chance to point out that he’s got the boys tonight, or that if Chris has a dead hooker in his trunk (unlikely, but again, he’s been around the league long enough to know that anything’s possible) there had to be better people to call.
Chris shows up on the doorstep twenty minutes later, and whatever Danny was expecting, it certainly wasn’t this. Chris has a vaguely familiar blond child on his hip, a blotchy face pressed into his neck, and two more standing next to him. Danny frowns and opens his mouth to ask what the hell is going on, but Chris shakes his head and reaches down with his free hand to pat the taller child on the shoulder. “Come on, Jack. Mr. Briere’s going to show you where you can lie down while I take care of George, okay?”
Danny really, really wishes he knew what was going on. Because the first thing that comes to mind isn’t pleasant, and far too reminiscent of his own recent history for comfort. But Chris looks exhausted, and Jack is looking up at him with slightly glazed eyes, so Danny just sighs and steps out of the way to motion them inside. “This way, kiddo. Let’s get you guys to bed, eh?”
Jack follows obediently, trailed by his sister (Danny is 90% certain her name is Lilah, but it’s late and she doesn’t pop up in the locker room the way that the boys occasionally do). Chris breaks off in the living room, setting his armful down on the couch as the dogs look on curiously. Danny’s just grabbing the pillows from the guest room closet when he hears Chris go running down the hallway, followed by the unmistakable sound of a small child throwing up. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and turns back to the two children watching him from their perches on the bed. “Are you two feeling okay?”
“Mm-hmm.” Lilah yawns, nodding and rubbing at one of her eyes in a way that makes it clear she should have been in bed hours ago. Jack shakes his head, and Danny clamps down on his internal monologue before things can get nasty. He squats down in front of the older boy, and reaches out to press a hand to his forehead. Surprise, surprise, it’s hot. Once everyone’s settled, he and Chris are going to have words.
“Right, you two are apparently sleeping here for the night. Lilah - yes, she’s a good dog, isn’t she? But it’s late, you can pet Zoey in the morning. You know what,” Danny hoists Lilah back up onto the bed. “There you go. Or, hm.” He glances between the two children again. “Does anyone need to go to the washroom?”
* * *
An hour, two trips to the washroom, and some Children’s Motrin later, Danny finds Chris half-asleep on the couch with George lying next to him. There’s an empty bucket at the floor by their feet, a visible reminder of what Danny heard while putting the other two down. He leans down to grab it, because empty or not, floor-level is never a good idea with dogs, and the movement wakes Chris.
“What’s wrong?”
"The bucket goes on the coffee table. Trust me on this one."
Chris looks confused, but he doesn’t fight the suggestion. Instead, he blinks a few times and reaches up to run a hand over his eyes. The movement makes it clear that whatever’s going on, it’s got him just as wiped out as the kids, and Danny resigns himself to being a good friend and asking about it in the morning. So he does what you’re supposed to do when your teammate shows up wrecked on your doorstep, and offers him a more comfortable place to crash.
“The kids are in the guest room, but I’ve got a bed upstairs that’s a lot more comfortable than this if you don’t mind sharing.”
Chris makes a ‘lead on’ hand gesture and pulls himself to his feet, wincing as his weight redistributes. He stops in the doorway to Danny’s bedroom, expression flickering before he meets Danny’s eyes. “Thanks.”
Danny nods, and goes to the closet to grab one of his collection of spare pillows. “You wouldn’t be here unless there was a good reason, Chris. Get some sleep, we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Wake me up if they need me, eh?”
“Sure, of course.”
* * *
Danny does not, in fact, wake Chris when Lilah knocks on the open bedroom door three hours later, because there’s absolutely no reason to. All she wants is a glass of water, and Danny’s been doing this so long he barely even makes it to fully conscious before he’s got her tucked back into bed with her brother and her stuffed duck.
She was a little confused, but the fact that he’d been the one to handle putting her to bed had helped matters a lot. Chris’s snoring form on the other half of the bed probably hadn’t hurt matters, either, because it made it clear that her father was there, just asleep. Three-year-olds can be thankfully cooperative, that way.
The next morning is, Danny will come to realize, one of the few times in the full span of existence that he will ever get up before an unmedicated Chris Pronger does. But when the alarm goes off, Chris just sleeps dead through it, and doesn’t respond to Danny’s inquisitive poking with more than a twitch and a grumble.
It’s up to Danny to crawl out of bed and head downstairs to start the coffee. Thankfully, he finds George still asleep on the couch and the bucket mercifully unused. Zora seems to have decided that her job of the morning is living teddy bear, and is curled up against George’s feet. She gets down when he opens the back door, but he knows from experience that she’ll be right back up there as soon as she’s had her breakfast. He hopes the kid doesn’t mind; she’s used to his three boys, and they all just treat her as though she’s an actual teddy bear when they get sick.
It’s a bad move, dealing with the dogs before he gets the coffee going, but it’s easy to slip into morning autopilot mode once he’s sure that the Prongers are as settled as they’re going to be for the moment. He knows himself well enough to acknowledge that he badly needs coffee before he talks to the boys. They’re good kids, and it’s not like anything untoward is going on, but Danny has a feeling Chris doesn’t want anyone else knowing that he’s apparently been kicked out of his house.
Of course, Carson saves him the effort of breaking the news, in true pre-teen fashion.
"Dad! Caelan won't let me into the washroom! Can I use-" the question cuts off abruptly, and a moment later Carson appears in the doorway to the kitchen. "Is Chris Pronger sleeping in your bedroom?"
The question coincides with Lilah wandering into the kitchen from the direction of the guest room, grumbling to herself and dragging a dilapidated stuffed duck that’s roughly the size of Zora. "Daddy?"
Danny mutters under his breath, while giving Carson the universal parenting look of "NOT A WORD" and kneeling down in front of her. Carson just rolls his eyes and starts poking through the cereal boxes. "Your daddy's sleeping right now, sweetie. What do you need?"
She chews on her duck's foot for a moment, studying him and deciding if she's OK with this new development now that she's actually awake.
Carson, sadly, only stays quiet for so long. "She’s, um, Lilah, right?"
She turns to Carson, and apparently decides that he is the more interesting option than Danny just because. "Juice?"
"I, uh," he glances at his Danny, who shrugs and wishes he'd been given the opportunity to drink that first cup of coffee. "Yeah, okay. We can do juice."
She nods and hops up onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table, waiting patiently for him to bring her a glass of orange juice. "Um, you don't need, like, a sippy cup or anything, do you?"
"Not a baby! I use big girl cups."
"Yeah, I'll bet you do. Don't drop it, okay?"
Danny, having been caught in a moment of feeling like absolute chopped liver, suddenly realizes that this provides an opportunity to actually drink some of the newly brewed coffee.
Chris comes wandering down a few minutes later, hair standing up at all angles and grouchy as hell because Cam came bouncing into the bedroom because Caelan was still hogging the hall washroom the boys share.
"Tell me you have coffee." Chris peers around the kitchen and coughs, freezing for a moment as he tries to figure out if it’s a normal cough or a sick-cough. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be too serious, and he goes back to squinting at counter tops.
Danny grabs a mug from the cabinet and hands it over, pointing at the coffee maker. He lets Chris down half the mug before speaking, thankful yet again that Carson is proving more competent with a small child than he'd anticipated. "Feeling better?"
Chris nods, nose buried in his coffee as he drains the rest of the mug before going to get a refill. "Yes, thank you."
Second cup in hand, Chris presses a quick kiss to Lilah’s hair before he sinks down into one of the chairs next to her. She smiles up at him in greeting, but quickly turns her attention right back to her new target of fascination. Chris is just grateful she doesn’t look like she’s getting what George has. Danny watches, and wonders just what the hell is going on.
* * *
When they get home from practice five hours later, things are as calm as they’re going to get. Lilah’s at a playdate, all three of Danny’s boys are at school, and the Pronger boys are both asleep in the guest room. Danny has sent Carol home after a round of profuse thanks, because while the agency might have called her a “household assistant,” she’s also supposed to get advance notice if he’s using her during the school day.
He’s a nice person, so he lets Chris eat lunch before he clears his throat pointedly. Chris pokes at the deli paper that once held an impressively large turkey sandwich, and even though he doesn’t look up, it’s clear that Chris knows he’s reached the end of his grace period.
“Lauren left.”
Danny sucks in a breath, caught off-guard at the bluntness even though he really shouldn’t be. He very carefully sets down the apple he’s been playing with. Chris’s eyes are tight, and Danny can see lines that shouldn’t exist on his captain’s face. “I’m sorry, Chris.”
Chris looks up at that, and shakes his head as if to clear it. “She’s been gone six months, Danny. First, it was just for the summer, but one thing led to another. She’s in Cleveland, some dream job she’s always wanted, and it’s fine. Things were going fine. They are fine. But then George got sick, and Jack got sick, and the nanny’s appendix went.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“We’re keeping it quiet, and I’ve got it under control.” Chris shrugs. “The kids know, but we’re telling everyone else she’s just gone for work.”
“That’s… good, I guess?” Danny tries not to think about the absolute disaster that his divorce had been, even when he’d thought it was all ‘under control.’ Chris always seems more put together, though, so maybe he really does have most of it in-hand. “Um, is there anything I can do to help?”
“We’re doing fine.” Chris balls up the deli paper, clenching it in his fist. “With the kids sick, and everything. I just needed a few hours, that’s all. You’ve done this, the single dad thing.” He looks away, expression twisting as he peers out at the backyard.
“Yes, I have. And that’s why I’m asking, because I still need all the help I can get.” As if on cue, Danny’s cell phone buzzes. The display reads ‘School’, which means he doesn’t really have a choice about answering. “Look, just give me a sec, eh?” He stands up and wanders over to the living room door for some privacy. “Hello?”
“Mr. Briere? This is Sandy, from the nurse’s office. I’m afraid Cameron isn’t feeling well. Would you be able to pick him up early?”
If Danny’s grip on his cell phone tightens, it’s totally not his fault. “Of course, I’ll be there in half an hour.” When the call ends, he slides the phone back into his pocket, staring at nothing for a long moment before he walks back into the kitchen. “That was the school. They need me to pick Cam up, apparently he’s getting sick, too.” He grabs his keys off the counter, waving Chris off when the older man starts to stand. “Listen, for what it’s worth? I get it, I do. And you’re welcome to the guest room, or the couch, or whatever you need until you get things sorted out, yeah?”
Chris nods, sinking slowly back into the chair and looking like the only reason he’s not arguing is the fact that Danny clearly needs to leave. Danny stops in the doorway as another thought strikes him, “Hey, do you want me to grab Lilah while I’m out?”
“You don’t have to.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But I’m offering, and there’s no reason we need to take two trips to exactly the same neighborhood an hour apart. All I need is the booster seat.”
Chris fishes the keys out of his pocket, tosses them to Danny. “I’ll let them know you’re coming. Thanks.”
* * *
Things go downhill from there, as Danny really should have come to expect. Days bleed into weeks, and the kids drop like flies. Just as George is getting better, Caelan spikes a fever of 102. Then Lilah’s down, and Cameron comes back from Sylvie’s with something else, so while everyone might be back in school, they’re anything but healthy.
Regular season quickly becomes its own special kind of hell, less sleep and more stress worming its way around the whole collective mess that the “family hockey schedule” is becoming. Thus, Danny can most definitely be forgiven for being cranky when Chris starts with the tossing and turning on a night before a game when everyone else is sleeping soundly.
He’s intending to bitch Chris out, make an empty threat about the couch or the guest bed that’s now sitting in the storage portion of the basement. But the idea’s been percolating in the back of his mind for a while, and a man only has so much self-control when it’s midnight and there’s the chance for six hours of sleep and the guy next to you in bed won’t quit squirming.
“Have you had sex since Lauren left?”
Chris freezes, finally stopping with the whole shifting around every three seconds thing. “What?”
“That’s kind of what I thought.” Danny sits up, turning to face Chris and pulling the blankets off. “Roll over.”
Chris frowns, but does what he’s asked. It’s a reflection of exactly how tired both of them are that he doesn’t ask what Danny’s on about this time. Danny takes advantage of the lapse, and tugs Chris’s pajama pants down in one quick motion that works far better than he’d expected it to.
“What are you-”
“Just go with it, yeah?” Danny reaches over and wraps his fingers firmly around Chris’s soft dick, jerking a few times to make sure that there’s enough interest for this to work. He glances up to catch Chris’s gaze - definitely confused, but the spots of color high on his cheeks make it clear he’s desperate enough not to object - before leaning down and adding his tongue to the mix.
Giving a blowjob is less objectionable than Danny remembers, which is a major plus. It’s been over a decade since he did this, and he has mixed associations with those nights when they were on the road in Juniors, four to a room in the hotels where the washroom walls were too thin for true privacy.
A lack of continuing objection doesn’t mean that Chris stays quiet, despite Danny’s admonishment. There’s a low, steady stream of muttering that washes over Danny as he takes Chris into his mouth. “What are you… Oh, god, that’s your mouth… I’m not sure… God, yes, that.” There’s something deeply satisfying in the way that Chris’s hands scrabble at the sheets, strong fingers that catch and lose purchase as Danny walks himself through a skill he’d thought long since defunct.
Chris doesn’t last, and while Danny would like to take credit for it, he remembers far too well just how desperate he’d been six months after he and Sylvie called it quits, and that hadn’t been a total dry spell. So instead, he just reads the signs and makes sure not to choke as Chris shakes beneath him.
Chris is surprised, to say the least, when Danny scrubs the back of his hand across his mouth and says, like something perfectly ordinary just happened, “Now, would you please sleep?"
The whole situation has him off-kilter enough that he just nods and rolls over, letting the afterglow pull him under before he can examine the situation too carefully.
* * *
The next morning, in contrast, he’s twitchier than ever. He’s up first, because he’s always up first, but he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Since he finally got some sleep, he has just enough energy to keep moving around the kitchen like he's expecting surprise blow jobs to leap out at him from the cupboards if he stays still for too long. It gets worse after he throws on the first pot of coffee and it turns out to be a little on the strong side.
Danny staggers down sometime later, also having had just enough sleep to snap the adrenaline kick they've both been riding. He’s feeling more tired than he was before the 8 hours. He grabs a mug, and makes it halfway through a sip of coffee before the taste sinks in. He glances over at Chris, wondering what’s up, and that’s when he realizes that Chris is actively looking anywhere else. And eating a burnt bagel. Chris never burns breakfast; it’s the one meal he can consistently cook while half-awake.
Danny rolls his eyes, not caring in the least that he’s picking up Caelan’s bad habits. "Oh, come on. It's not like we woke up spooning or anything. It was entirely self-serving." Chris turns a shade of pink that should never, ever come within ten feet of Flyers Orange, and turns his attention back to sipping at the terrible battery acid he accidentally made. "Chris? Oh, for fuck's sake."
Chris attempts to cause a distraction by dumping the coffee and trying again, and proceeds to cause more of one than he wants to by dropping the filter and spilling the used grounds all over the counter.
Danny’s beginning to realize that maybe they had rather different teenaged experiences in Juniors.
"Chris, sit down."
"Look, I'll-"
"Chris. Sit. I'll make the coffee."
"Now wait just a-"
Danny puts a hand on Chris's upper arm, gentle. "Chris, please."
"We're not talking about this."
"You're right, we're not talking about this. Now. When I stop feeling like the living dead? We'll reconsider."
Chris is just tired enough, still, to go along with it, hoping that "reconsider" can become "stonewall." But then again, the thought of packing everyone up and heading home is overwhelming, to put it lightly. The kids have settled in, with Mario Kart grudge matches and an ongoing street-hockey scrimmage that’s resulted in some truly ridiculous scores. Lilah is surprisingly happy with the desperation-acquired daybed in the office-that-is-now-her-bedroom. And, honestly, she's been sleeping in the bunk bed in Carson's room as often as not. Chris is also absolutely convinced (mostly) of his ability to convince Danny that this isn't something they ever need to discuss.
That particular approach holds firm right up until the first erotic dream involving Danny's mouth. At which point it gains a helping hand from denial, denial, denial.
When it becomes seriously hard-to-deny and the cracks really come through, however, is when Danny finally wakes up first one morning. Chris is curled up around him and hard as a rock, nuzzling at his hair while still half-awake. At first, he just thinks Chris is on sleepy married-guy autopilot. It’s wholly understandable, all things considered - after all, Chris has only really been separated for about 6 months. Warm body in bed, the brain draws certain logical conclusions
Except when Chris's breathing changes and he wakes up, there's no startle. A resigned groan, but no startle - no involuntary tensing of surprise like Danny's expecting. In fact, Chris pulls him closer for a minute before letting out a sigh and starting to disentangle himself, because by the time Danny catches him, Chris has hit the stage of "Well, clearly part of me likes this, we're going to see if I can't appease it enough to get it to leave me alone until we're ready to move everybody home."
This is Chris giving in while he thinks no one will notice. Danny's facing away from him, very much the little spoon in this situation, so Chris assumes that Danny is still asleep (as he normally is). Danny feels a little guilty about it, like he's spying, but he apes sleep as well as he can; he's confused, but not quite frustrated enough yet to flip over and trap Chris in - whatever it is he thinks he's doing. And anyway, given the coffee catastrophe, he suspects that the result would be either running or yelling: it's too early for that, and he's pretty comfortable. If it happens again, though, he'll be prepared.
And it does happen again. This time, it's Chris's movements that wake Danny, and Danny himself is half-awake enough that he rolls over and slips an arm around Chris's waist and mutters something incoherent in French about going back to sleep.
Chris does freeze at that, because Danny has tended to sleep like the dead since they've been sharing a bed, mostly due to the heightened exhaustion they've both been operating under. Normally, Danny's a bit of a restless sleeper, but sharing a bed also helps him to settle.
When it becomes clear that Chris isn't planning to go along with the "go back to sleep" theory, Danny cracks his eyes open and prays he's doing the right thing when he says "I think this is later, non?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Danny can feel Chris trying to draw in on himself and away, without making obvious movements - he's so tense that he's almost twitching. "You - you really didn't do this, did you?"
"I'm married, Danny.”
"And so was I. No, I meant before that."
They're both still exhausted. Not only are they just finally getting over being sick, but they are professional athletes. Hard weeks take their toll. So Chris has an adrenaline spike, but he's too tired to do anything with it. And the bed is warm. And Danny's still holding onto him. While Danny might be smaller than him, it's a relative thing. He's still 5' 8(ish) of some fairly solid muscle.
So Chris gives him this confused and agitated look at the persistent query, shaking his head for a moment before stopping and peering more sharply at Danny. "Wait, does that mean-?"
Danny shrugs, not nearly as awkward as he maybe should be. It's probably because he's only mostly-awake and because Chris just feels good sort-of pressed up against him. "Not all of us had girlfriends all the time, or who lived where we billeted, and road trips in the Q fucking sucked."
He should be wary of talking about this, especially given the earlier reaction, but he trusts Chris at this point. In a way that being team didn't really translate to, because sure, he had trusted Richie as a captain and a friend, but he'd never seen Richie at three in the morning dealing with a puking six-year-old.
Chris isn't sure whether he's supposed to be more or less surprised by that little revelation. "And so you blew each other when you got bored?"
Danny makes a face at that, because even if it is kind of true, it sounds vaguely ridiculous when Chris says it like that. "Um, sort of? Not exactly. Sometimes, you just wanted someone you trusted, and girls were too much work. Or not there. You know?"
He blushes at that, letting his attention be captured by the way the shadows play just beneath Chris's exposed ear. Also, putting it that way implies that he was bored two weeks earlier, and he was - okay, he was frustrated, but mostly he was trying to help. "I wasn't bored that night. If that's what you're asking."
And Chris hadn't been, but he finds himself relieved at the answer all the same. He's also not sure he's up for stretching out this dialogue any further than it's already gone, because he has limits when it comes to things like discussing his feelings and sexual history.
Two nights later, he finds himself giving Danny a hand job after some subtle hinting gets him a really, really good blow job. The morning after, because it was definitely a one time thing, he tries not to think about what it might mean.
* * *
It’s a Thursday morning when coach takes Sean into his office and tells him they’ve decided to keep him on. The implication’s been there since the start of the season, but he didn’t want to assume or take Danny up on his offer of a spare room for a fellow Voltiguer alumni until he knew it would be permanent. Now that he knows, however, he catches Danny on the way out to their cars and says “Sure, I’ll take the room”.
Danny’s heart kind of stops, because in the midst of the whole Pronger-Family-Disaster mess he’d completely forgotten about offering Sean the guest room. But the kid is distressingly young, and his French is good, so when push comes to shove, he can’t bring himself to retract the offer, either. He gives the matter a night’s worth of worrying before he finally concludes he can tweak the basement to give Sean his own sub-apartment for a while. After all, Chris might be moving out in a week now that the kids are feeling better, and then he’ll have plenty of space again.
Chris is less than pleased, and expresses his opinion firmly and repeatedly behind closed doors, but in the end it comes down to the fact that it’s Danny’s name on the mortgage. The option of making the 2 mile trek back to his own house is always there, but change on that scale requires work, and everyone involved has hit the point where you don’t fix what isn’t broken (infighting amongst the children not withstanding, of course).
* * *
It’s the middle of November, coming up on American Thanksgiving with a vengeance, when Danny wakes in the night to find Chris missing. He knows it’s not one of the kids, because Chris can never manage to get up in the night without waking him, which means that Chris never made it to bed at all. He finds his roommate in the living room, methodically sorting and re-sorting the DVD-collection.
He might be new to handing Chris, but Danny is an old hand at hockey neuroses. He takes a seat on the couch and waits, watching Chris alphabetize the entire collection before deciding to go back and divvy them up by genre, first. Chris starts talking somewhere around Horror, the best that Danny can tell. It’s the first time he’s mentioned Lauren, outside of a few logistical comments, and Danny wonders if there’s an anniversary lurking at the edges of the calendar.
Chris’s voice is calm and detached as he finally explains just what happened over the summer that led to the separation, a factual relay without the flashy accent of detail. A summer internship that didn’t last the summer, and led to a fellowship with the guarantee of a continuing career. A return to the single life that was irresistible to a woman who’d always quietly missed the things she gave up to be a stay-at-home mother and household manager, despite how much she loved her husband and children.
By the time the DVDs are back in simple alphabetic order, Danny is making the occasional non-committal comment as Chris talks himself through his current opinion about the whole mess. He explains, in detail, to a beat-up copy of Transformers that even if Lauren reconsidered, he’s not sure that he’s willing to try again. That it’s not worth the damage to the kids when it doesn’t work out a second time, and that things are going to stay very much as they are for the foreseeable future. That’s when Danny decides that enough is enough, and drags Chris back to bed.
* * *
The goalies gossip, because goalies do. Bryz and Bob discuss the Pronger and Briere “situation,” mostly as a result of Bob pushing the issue, curious and excited and anxious to share his observations with his countryman. Bryz tries to discourage him, because the last thing he wants is for Chris to figure out they’re talking about him. He remembers Chris well from his time in Anaheim, and he knows that Chris hates being gossiped about within the locker room almost as much as he hates being handled.
"But last season they weren't like this. And you saw that Danny's shirt was too big again?"
"Perhaps there was a laundry problem. Sometimes it's better not to notice these things."
"But this is him. Not anyone, him. And Danny, you haven't heard about his divorce! SO BAD, everyone says."
"We do not notice. We do not ask. And I know Lauren - she would never let..."
"But she isn't here!"
"Sergei, leave it alone."
"But what if they are. It happens, you know." Bryz only barely avoids rolling his eyes. "Yes, Sergei, I am aware that it happens."
"There were these players on the Phantoms, who-"
"Sergei! I do not need to know this. I do not want to think about my teammates in bed. You should not be thinking about it. You need to find a girl, Sergei."
"I have a girl. What she needs is a visa."
”That can be fixed. I will *get* that fixed, give me a month. You need to keep your thoughts to yourself, before someone figures out what you’re talking about. Especially if you happen to be right, which you’re not.”
Bryz spends the next three weeks pulling strings and learning far more about what goes on in other NHL locker rooms than he’d really care to. He never realized things were so tame in Phoenix, even if Doaner had been kind of a wet blanket. The Russian Sewing Circle apparently has far too much time on its hands.
* * *
The goalies, odd though they are, aren’t the only ones who notice things. Claude’s been walking on eggshells around Danny since he moved out with minimal warning before the new season, but they were still road roommates and friends. At a certain point, that gives him the right to ask the kind of probing questions that might get a less courageous soul an ‘accidental’ high-stick & stitches in the middle of a scrimmage.
Nothing too serious, of course, but Claude is curious how things are going now that Danny’s back to single-parenting. Or, possibly, something else, because Claude’s been by just often enough to notice that Chris Pronger and his kids spend an inordinate amount of time in Danny’s living room.
Danny's honestly kind of startled by the questions, and then very flustered, and the answer gets distilled down to an awkward and tentative "no?"
Claude is less than impressed with Danny’s confidence. “Danny, face it, you don't know how to be alone." It’s downright obnoxious, coming from someone his age.
"What part of 'HE showed up on MY doorstep' do you not understand?"
"And then he forgot to leave? He's not a stray cat," Claude says.
"Lilah was sobbing into that duck she carries around - I was supposed to kick him out? He's having a - it's a rough year, okay?" Danny would like to explain, but there are secrets he doesn’t have the right to share. Not even with Claude. And a crying three-year-old just sounds so much more sympathetic and irresistible than a vomiting six-year-old.
Claude is still hovering on the edges of incredulous. "He's been there for a month, Danny."
Danny mutters under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing, I just forgot we were into November."
"Into? Danny, it's almost December. How long has Chris Pronger been sleeping on your couch?"
Danny takes too long to answer. He knows he does, but he’s just tired enough that words aren’t coming as quickly as they should. "Why is this all about me? Why don't you tell me something about you. How is domestic bliss with Meghan this week?"
"Because my living arrangements don't require a minivan? And she's fine. Apparently the way I load the dishwasher is annoying. Don't change the subject." Claude would have to be feeling a lot more generous than he is to allow Danny to slide by with that for a topic change.
"I'm not. And the minivan only works if we don’t have to haul around hockey gear."
"You know this?...Danny? Let me repeat: how long has Prongs been crashing with you?"
"I don't know, late pre-season? Ish?"
"How have you never mentioned this? How has he never bitched about that shitty couch?" Claude winces at a less than fond memory involving passing out after way too long gaming. Danny coughs awkwardly, again after a silence that has lasted for far too long.
"Okay," Claude says, "I'm assuming we'd have read about it in the paper if you'd gone furniture shopping with another one of us. And I took the boxspring, so…"
"Well, no, actually..." Danny thinks for a minute, and then nods decisively. "There was definitely an Ikea run or two in there.”
Claude returns to his previous state of general disbelief. "Prongs is sleeping on an Ikea mattress? Dude's tougher than I thought."
"Oh, no, that was just for the bed frames and dressers." Claude is really not sure what to say, because he's been picturing sleeping bags in the spare room. So he focuses on the slightly less nonsensical part. "Wait, how many beds did you buy?"
Danny thinks for a minute. "Two, maybe three, depending on how you count them?"
"Danny, I'm going to ask again, where is Prongs sleeping?"
"Before I answer that, I need you to know that this isn't what it sounds like."
By this point, Claude is baffled, but he can also do math.
"So, I've been letting him use my bed."
"Okay, so where are you sleeping?"
"I said it wasn't what it sounded like."
"Jesus Christ, Danny. Seriously? How is you... not what it sounds like? And please don't tell me it's 'no strings attached.' You don't do no strings attached."
This is really, really not a conversation Danny wants to be having. He hasn't even figured out for himself what it actually is - he certainly doesn't want leading questions from Claude being the things that force him to. Claude sort of stumbles and catches over the act itself, because there are places his mind really doesn't ever want to go.
"Can we just forget about this? Please?"
"No, Danny, we can't. Because not only am I worried about you, but I share a locker room with you guys. And just, god, why?"
"Yeah, that's it, we're done with this for tonight." Because Claude's making it sound sordid, and if Danny starts yelling, he's not going to stop for a while. Danny has no desire to do irreparable damage to his relationship with Claude.
| AO3 Link |
| Master Post |
LJ: | Part One | Part Two | Part Three |
Author: madebymarienne
Sainted Beta: kyriacarlisle
Genre: Slash, Implied Het
Pairing: Daniel Briere/Chris Pronger (Philadelphia Flyers)
Rating: R
Warnings/Spoilers: Does Chris Pronger require his own warning? Possibly. Also, professional hockey is a dangerous business, and some injuries are to be expected. Likewise with occasional drunken shenanigans and profane language.
Author's Note: This was conceived and written well before the current season (and its unfortunate events, especially as pertaining to the team's captain). Therefore, it is to be considered AU as of the 2011-12 season home-opener.
Summary: Danny really, really wishes he knew what was going on.
Danny’s just considering crawling into his own bed, the boys down for the count after a day filled with pre-season tournament games, when his cell phone rings. The display reads “Chris Pronger,” and he answers more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.
Chris doesn’t even wait for Danny to get out more than a simple ‘hello’ before he’s biting out a tense “I need a favor.”
Danny’s been around the league too long to ask questions, especially not when someone like Chris is using that tone of voice. “Um, okay? What’s, ah, what’s going on?”
“Thanks. I’ll tell you when I get there.”
Danny doesn’t get a chance to point out that he’s got the boys tonight, or that if Chris has a dead hooker in his trunk (unlikely, but again, he’s been around the league long enough to know that anything’s possible) there had to be better people to call.
Chris shows up on the doorstep twenty minutes later, and whatever Danny was expecting, it certainly wasn’t this. Chris has a vaguely familiar blond child on his hip, a blotchy face pressed into his neck, and two more standing next to him. Danny frowns and opens his mouth to ask what the hell is going on, but Chris shakes his head and reaches down with his free hand to pat the taller child on the shoulder. “Come on, Jack. Mr. Briere’s going to show you where you can lie down while I take care of George, okay?”
Danny really, really wishes he knew what was going on. Because the first thing that comes to mind isn’t pleasant, and far too reminiscent of his own recent history for comfort. But Chris looks exhausted, and Jack is looking up at him with slightly glazed eyes, so Danny just sighs and steps out of the way to motion them inside. “This way, kiddo. Let’s get you guys to bed, eh?”
Jack follows obediently, trailed by his sister (Danny is 90% certain her name is Lilah, but it’s late and she doesn’t pop up in the locker room the way that the boys occasionally do). Chris breaks off in the living room, setting his armful down on the couch as the dogs look on curiously. Danny’s just grabbing the pillows from the guest room closet when he hears Chris go running down the hallway, followed by the unmistakable sound of a small child throwing up. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and turns back to the two children watching him from their perches on the bed. “Are you two feeling okay?”
“Mm-hmm.” Lilah yawns, nodding and rubbing at one of her eyes in a way that makes it clear she should have been in bed hours ago. Jack shakes his head, and Danny clamps down on his internal monologue before things can get nasty. He squats down in front of the older boy, and reaches out to press a hand to his forehead. Surprise, surprise, it’s hot. Once everyone’s settled, he and Chris are going to have words.
“Right, you two are apparently sleeping here for the night. Lilah - yes, she’s a good dog, isn’t she? But it’s late, you can pet Zoey in the morning. You know what,” Danny hoists Lilah back up onto the bed. “There you go. Or, hm.” He glances between the two children again. “Does anyone need to go to the washroom?”
* * *
An hour, two trips to the washroom, and some Children’s Motrin later, Danny finds Chris half-asleep on the couch with George lying next to him. There’s an empty bucket at the floor by their feet, a visible reminder of what Danny heard while putting the other two down. He leans down to grab it, because empty or not, floor-level is never a good idea with dogs, and the movement wakes Chris.
“What’s wrong?”
"The bucket goes on the coffee table. Trust me on this one."
Chris looks confused, but he doesn’t fight the suggestion. Instead, he blinks a few times and reaches up to run a hand over his eyes. The movement makes it clear that whatever’s going on, it’s got him just as wiped out as the kids, and Danny resigns himself to being a good friend and asking about it in the morning. So he does what you’re supposed to do when your teammate shows up wrecked on your doorstep, and offers him a more comfortable place to crash.
“The kids are in the guest room, but I’ve got a bed upstairs that’s a lot more comfortable than this if you don’t mind sharing.”
Chris makes a ‘lead on’ hand gesture and pulls himself to his feet, wincing as his weight redistributes. He stops in the doorway to Danny’s bedroom, expression flickering before he meets Danny’s eyes. “Thanks.”
Danny nods, and goes to the closet to grab one of his collection of spare pillows. “You wouldn’t be here unless there was a good reason, Chris. Get some sleep, we’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Wake me up if they need me, eh?”
“Sure, of course.”
* * *
Danny does not, in fact, wake Chris when Lilah knocks on the open bedroom door three hours later, because there’s absolutely no reason to. All she wants is a glass of water, and Danny’s been doing this so long he barely even makes it to fully conscious before he’s got her tucked back into bed with her brother and her stuffed duck.
She was a little confused, but the fact that he’d been the one to handle putting her to bed had helped matters a lot. Chris’s snoring form on the other half of the bed probably hadn’t hurt matters, either, because it made it clear that her father was there, just asleep. Three-year-olds can be thankfully cooperative, that way.
The next morning is, Danny will come to realize, one of the few times in the full span of existence that he will ever get up before an unmedicated Chris Pronger does. But when the alarm goes off, Chris just sleeps dead through it, and doesn’t respond to Danny’s inquisitive poking with more than a twitch and a grumble.
It’s up to Danny to crawl out of bed and head downstairs to start the coffee. Thankfully, he finds George still asleep on the couch and the bucket mercifully unused. Zora seems to have decided that her job of the morning is living teddy bear, and is curled up against George’s feet. She gets down when he opens the back door, but he knows from experience that she’ll be right back up there as soon as she’s had her breakfast. He hopes the kid doesn’t mind; she’s used to his three boys, and they all just treat her as though she’s an actual teddy bear when they get sick.
It’s a bad move, dealing with the dogs before he gets the coffee going, but it’s easy to slip into morning autopilot mode once he’s sure that the Prongers are as settled as they’re going to be for the moment. He knows himself well enough to acknowledge that he badly needs coffee before he talks to the boys. They’re good kids, and it’s not like anything untoward is going on, but Danny has a feeling Chris doesn’t want anyone else knowing that he’s apparently been kicked out of his house.
Of course, Carson saves him the effort of breaking the news, in true pre-teen fashion.
"Dad! Caelan won't let me into the washroom! Can I use-" the question cuts off abruptly, and a moment later Carson appears in the doorway to the kitchen. "Is Chris Pronger sleeping in your bedroom?"
The question coincides with Lilah wandering into the kitchen from the direction of the guest room, grumbling to herself and dragging a dilapidated stuffed duck that’s roughly the size of Zora. "Daddy?"
Danny mutters under his breath, while giving Carson the universal parenting look of "NOT A WORD" and kneeling down in front of her. Carson just rolls his eyes and starts poking through the cereal boxes. "Your daddy's sleeping right now, sweetie. What do you need?"
She chews on her duck's foot for a moment, studying him and deciding if she's OK with this new development now that she's actually awake.
Carson, sadly, only stays quiet for so long. "She’s, um, Lilah, right?"
She turns to Carson, and apparently decides that he is the more interesting option than Danny just because. "Juice?"
"I, uh," he glances at his Danny, who shrugs and wishes he'd been given the opportunity to drink that first cup of coffee. "Yeah, okay. We can do juice."
She nods and hops up onto one of the chairs at the kitchen table, waiting patiently for him to bring her a glass of orange juice. "Um, you don't need, like, a sippy cup or anything, do you?"
"Not a baby! I use big girl cups."
"Yeah, I'll bet you do. Don't drop it, okay?"
Danny, having been caught in a moment of feeling like absolute chopped liver, suddenly realizes that this provides an opportunity to actually drink some of the newly brewed coffee.
Chris comes wandering down a few minutes later, hair standing up at all angles and grouchy as hell because Cam came bouncing into the bedroom because Caelan was still hogging the hall washroom the boys share.
"Tell me you have coffee." Chris peers around the kitchen and coughs, freezing for a moment as he tries to figure out if it’s a normal cough or a sick-cough. Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be too serious, and he goes back to squinting at counter tops.
Danny grabs a mug from the cabinet and hands it over, pointing at the coffee maker. He lets Chris down half the mug before speaking, thankful yet again that Carson is proving more competent with a small child than he'd anticipated. "Feeling better?"
Chris nods, nose buried in his coffee as he drains the rest of the mug before going to get a refill. "Yes, thank you."
Second cup in hand, Chris presses a quick kiss to Lilah’s hair before he sinks down into one of the chairs next to her. She smiles up at him in greeting, but quickly turns her attention right back to her new target of fascination. Chris is just grateful she doesn’t look like she’s getting what George has. Danny watches, and wonders just what the hell is going on.
* * *
When they get home from practice five hours later, things are as calm as they’re going to get. Lilah’s at a playdate, all three of Danny’s boys are at school, and the Pronger boys are both asleep in the guest room. Danny has sent Carol home after a round of profuse thanks, because while the agency might have called her a “household assistant,” she’s also supposed to get advance notice if he’s using her during the school day.
He’s a nice person, so he lets Chris eat lunch before he clears his throat pointedly. Chris pokes at the deli paper that once held an impressively large turkey sandwich, and even though he doesn’t look up, it’s clear that Chris knows he’s reached the end of his grace period.
“Lauren left.”
Danny sucks in a breath, caught off-guard at the bluntness even though he really shouldn’t be. He very carefully sets down the apple he’s been playing with. Chris’s eyes are tight, and Danny can see lines that shouldn’t exist on his captain’s face. “I’m sorry, Chris.”
Chris looks up at that, and shakes his head as if to clear it. “She’s been gone six months, Danny. First, it was just for the summer, but one thing led to another. She’s in Cleveland, some dream job she’s always wanted, and it’s fine. Things were going fine. They are fine. But then George got sick, and Jack got sick, and the nanny’s appendix went.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“We’re keeping it quiet, and I’ve got it under control.” Chris shrugs. “The kids know, but we’re telling everyone else she’s just gone for work.”
“That’s… good, I guess?” Danny tries not to think about the absolute disaster that his divorce had been, even when he’d thought it was all ‘under control.’ Chris always seems more put together, though, so maybe he really does have most of it in-hand. “Um, is there anything I can do to help?”
“We’re doing fine.” Chris balls up the deli paper, clenching it in his fist. “With the kids sick, and everything. I just needed a few hours, that’s all. You’ve done this, the single dad thing.” He looks away, expression twisting as he peers out at the backyard.
“Yes, I have. And that’s why I’m asking, because I still need all the help I can get.” As if on cue, Danny’s cell phone buzzes. The display reads ‘School’, which means he doesn’t really have a choice about answering. “Look, just give me a sec, eh?” He stands up and wanders over to the living room door for some privacy. “Hello?”
“Mr. Briere? This is Sandy, from the nurse’s office. I’m afraid Cameron isn’t feeling well. Would you be able to pick him up early?”
If Danny’s grip on his cell phone tightens, it’s totally not his fault. “Of course, I’ll be there in half an hour.” When the call ends, he slides the phone back into his pocket, staring at nothing for a long moment before he walks back into the kitchen. “That was the school. They need me to pick Cam up, apparently he’s getting sick, too.” He grabs his keys off the counter, waving Chris off when the older man starts to stand. “Listen, for what it’s worth? I get it, I do. And you’re welcome to the guest room, or the couch, or whatever you need until you get things sorted out, yeah?”
Chris nods, sinking slowly back into the chair and looking like the only reason he’s not arguing is the fact that Danny clearly needs to leave. Danny stops in the doorway as another thought strikes him, “Hey, do you want me to grab Lilah while I’m out?”
“You don’t have to.”
“You’re right, I don’t. But I’m offering, and there’s no reason we need to take two trips to exactly the same neighborhood an hour apart. All I need is the booster seat.”
Chris fishes the keys out of his pocket, tosses them to Danny. “I’ll let them know you’re coming. Thanks.”
* * *
Things go downhill from there, as Danny really should have come to expect. Days bleed into weeks, and the kids drop like flies. Just as George is getting better, Caelan spikes a fever of 102. Then Lilah’s down, and Cameron comes back from Sylvie’s with something else, so while everyone might be back in school, they’re anything but healthy.
Regular season quickly becomes its own special kind of hell, less sleep and more stress worming its way around the whole collective mess that the “family hockey schedule” is becoming. Thus, Danny can most definitely be forgiven for being cranky when Chris starts with the tossing and turning on a night before a game when everyone else is sleeping soundly.
He’s intending to bitch Chris out, make an empty threat about the couch or the guest bed that’s now sitting in the storage portion of the basement. But the idea’s been percolating in the back of his mind for a while, and a man only has so much self-control when it’s midnight and there’s the chance for six hours of sleep and the guy next to you in bed won’t quit squirming.
“Have you had sex since Lauren left?”
Chris freezes, finally stopping with the whole shifting around every three seconds thing. “What?”
“That’s kind of what I thought.” Danny sits up, turning to face Chris and pulling the blankets off. “Roll over.”
Chris frowns, but does what he’s asked. It’s a reflection of exactly how tired both of them are that he doesn’t ask what Danny’s on about this time. Danny takes advantage of the lapse, and tugs Chris’s pajama pants down in one quick motion that works far better than he’d expected it to.
“What are you-”
“Just go with it, yeah?” Danny reaches over and wraps his fingers firmly around Chris’s soft dick, jerking a few times to make sure that there’s enough interest for this to work. He glances up to catch Chris’s gaze - definitely confused, but the spots of color high on his cheeks make it clear he’s desperate enough not to object - before leaning down and adding his tongue to the mix.
Giving a blowjob is less objectionable than Danny remembers, which is a major plus. It’s been over a decade since he did this, and he has mixed associations with those nights when they were on the road in Juniors, four to a room in the hotels where the washroom walls were too thin for true privacy.
A lack of continuing objection doesn’t mean that Chris stays quiet, despite Danny’s admonishment. There’s a low, steady stream of muttering that washes over Danny as he takes Chris into his mouth. “What are you… Oh, god, that’s your mouth… I’m not sure… God, yes, that.” There’s something deeply satisfying in the way that Chris’s hands scrabble at the sheets, strong fingers that catch and lose purchase as Danny walks himself through a skill he’d thought long since defunct.
Chris doesn’t last, and while Danny would like to take credit for it, he remembers far too well just how desperate he’d been six months after he and Sylvie called it quits, and that hadn’t been a total dry spell. So instead, he just reads the signs and makes sure not to choke as Chris shakes beneath him.
Chris is surprised, to say the least, when Danny scrubs the back of his hand across his mouth and says, like something perfectly ordinary just happened, “Now, would you please sleep?"
The whole situation has him off-kilter enough that he just nods and rolls over, letting the afterglow pull him under before he can examine the situation too carefully.
* * *
The next morning, in contrast, he’s twitchier than ever. He’s up first, because he’s always up first, but he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Since he finally got some sleep, he has just enough energy to keep moving around the kitchen like he's expecting surprise blow jobs to leap out at him from the cupboards if he stays still for too long. It gets worse after he throws on the first pot of coffee and it turns out to be a little on the strong side.
Danny staggers down sometime later, also having had just enough sleep to snap the adrenaline kick they've both been riding. He’s feeling more tired than he was before the 8 hours. He grabs a mug, and makes it halfway through a sip of coffee before the taste sinks in. He glances over at Chris, wondering what’s up, and that’s when he realizes that Chris is actively looking anywhere else. And eating a burnt bagel. Chris never burns breakfast; it’s the one meal he can consistently cook while half-awake.
Danny rolls his eyes, not caring in the least that he’s picking up Caelan’s bad habits. "Oh, come on. It's not like we woke up spooning or anything. It was entirely self-serving." Chris turns a shade of pink that should never, ever come within ten feet of Flyers Orange, and turns his attention back to sipping at the terrible battery acid he accidentally made. "Chris? Oh, for fuck's sake."
Chris attempts to cause a distraction by dumping the coffee and trying again, and proceeds to cause more of one than he wants to by dropping the filter and spilling the used grounds all over the counter.
Danny’s beginning to realize that maybe they had rather different teenaged experiences in Juniors.
"Chris, sit down."
"Look, I'll-"
"Chris. Sit. I'll make the coffee."
"Now wait just a-"
Danny puts a hand on Chris's upper arm, gentle. "Chris, please."
"We're not talking about this."
"You're right, we're not talking about this. Now. When I stop feeling like the living dead? We'll reconsider."
Chris is just tired enough, still, to go along with it, hoping that "reconsider" can become "stonewall." But then again, the thought of packing everyone up and heading home is overwhelming, to put it lightly. The kids have settled in, with Mario Kart grudge matches and an ongoing street-hockey scrimmage that’s resulted in some truly ridiculous scores. Lilah is surprisingly happy with the desperation-acquired daybed in the office-that-is-now-her-bedroom. And, honestly, she's been sleeping in the bunk bed in Carson's room as often as not. Chris is also absolutely convinced (mostly) of his ability to convince Danny that this isn't something they ever need to discuss.
That particular approach holds firm right up until the first erotic dream involving Danny's mouth. At which point it gains a helping hand from denial, denial, denial.
When it becomes seriously hard-to-deny and the cracks really come through, however, is when Danny finally wakes up first one morning. Chris is curled up around him and hard as a rock, nuzzling at his hair while still half-awake. At first, he just thinks Chris is on sleepy married-guy autopilot. It’s wholly understandable, all things considered - after all, Chris has only really been separated for about 6 months. Warm body in bed, the brain draws certain logical conclusions
Except when Chris's breathing changes and he wakes up, there's no startle. A resigned groan, but no startle - no involuntary tensing of surprise like Danny's expecting. In fact, Chris pulls him closer for a minute before letting out a sigh and starting to disentangle himself, because by the time Danny catches him, Chris has hit the stage of "Well, clearly part of me likes this, we're going to see if I can't appease it enough to get it to leave me alone until we're ready to move everybody home."
This is Chris giving in while he thinks no one will notice. Danny's facing away from him, very much the little spoon in this situation, so Chris assumes that Danny is still asleep (as he normally is). Danny feels a little guilty about it, like he's spying, but he apes sleep as well as he can; he's confused, but not quite frustrated enough yet to flip over and trap Chris in - whatever it is he thinks he's doing. And anyway, given the coffee catastrophe, he suspects that the result would be either running or yelling: it's too early for that, and he's pretty comfortable. If it happens again, though, he'll be prepared.
And it does happen again. This time, it's Chris's movements that wake Danny, and Danny himself is half-awake enough that he rolls over and slips an arm around Chris's waist and mutters something incoherent in French about going back to sleep.
Chris does freeze at that, because Danny has tended to sleep like the dead since they've been sharing a bed, mostly due to the heightened exhaustion they've both been operating under. Normally, Danny's a bit of a restless sleeper, but sharing a bed also helps him to settle.
When it becomes clear that Chris isn't planning to go along with the "go back to sleep" theory, Danny cracks his eyes open and prays he's doing the right thing when he says "I think this is later, non?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Danny can feel Chris trying to draw in on himself and away, without making obvious movements - he's so tense that he's almost twitching. "You - you really didn't do this, did you?"
"I'm married, Danny.”
"And so was I. No, I meant before that."
They're both still exhausted. Not only are they just finally getting over being sick, but they are professional athletes. Hard weeks take their toll. So Chris has an adrenaline spike, but he's too tired to do anything with it. And the bed is warm. And Danny's still holding onto him. While Danny might be smaller than him, it's a relative thing. He's still 5' 8(ish) of some fairly solid muscle.
So Chris gives him this confused and agitated look at the persistent query, shaking his head for a moment before stopping and peering more sharply at Danny. "Wait, does that mean-?"
Danny shrugs, not nearly as awkward as he maybe should be. It's probably because he's only mostly-awake and because Chris just feels good sort-of pressed up against him. "Not all of us had girlfriends all the time, or who lived where we billeted, and road trips in the Q fucking sucked."
He should be wary of talking about this, especially given the earlier reaction, but he trusts Chris at this point. In a way that being team didn't really translate to, because sure, he had trusted Richie as a captain and a friend, but he'd never seen Richie at three in the morning dealing with a puking six-year-old.
Chris isn't sure whether he's supposed to be more or less surprised by that little revelation. "And so you blew each other when you got bored?"
Danny makes a face at that, because even if it is kind of true, it sounds vaguely ridiculous when Chris says it like that. "Um, sort of? Not exactly. Sometimes, you just wanted someone you trusted, and girls were too much work. Or not there. You know?"
He blushes at that, letting his attention be captured by the way the shadows play just beneath Chris's exposed ear. Also, putting it that way implies that he was bored two weeks earlier, and he was - okay, he was frustrated, but mostly he was trying to help. "I wasn't bored that night. If that's what you're asking."
And Chris hadn't been, but he finds himself relieved at the answer all the same. He's also not sure he's up for stretching out this dialogue any further than it's already gone, because he has limits when it comes to things like discussing his feelings and sexual history.
Two nights later, he finds himself giving Danny a hand job after some subtle hinting gets him a really, really good blow job. The morning after, because it was definitely a one time thing, he tries not to think about what it might mean.
* * *
It’s a Thursday morning when coach takes Sean into his office and tells him they’ve decided to keep him on. The implication’s been there since the start of the season, but he didn’t want to assume or take Danny up on his offer of a spare room for a fellow Voltiguer alumni until he knew it would be permanent. Now that he knows, however, he catches Danny on the way out to their cars and says “Sure, I’ll take the room”.
Danny’s heart kind of stops, because in the midst of the whole Pronger-Family-Disaster mess he’d completely forgotten about offering Sean the guest room. But the kid is distressingly young, and his French is good, so when push comes to shove, he can’t bring himself to retract the offer, either. He gives the matter a night’s worth of worrying before he finally concludes he can tweak the basement to give Sean his own sub-apartment for a while. After all, Chris might be moving out in a week now that the kids are feeling better, and then he’ll have plenty of space again.
Chris is less than pleased, and expresses his opinion firmly and repeatedly behind closed doors, but in the end it comes down to the fact that it’s Danny’s name on the mortgage. The option of making the 2 mile trek back to his own house is always there, but change on that scale requires work, and everyone involved has hit the point where you don’t fix what isn’t broken (infighting amongst the children not withstanding, of course).
* * *
It’s the middle of November, coming up on American Thanksgiving with a vengeance, when Danny wakes in the night to find Chris missing. He knows it’s not one of the kids, because Chris can never manage to get up in the night without waking him, which means that Chris never made it to bed at all. He finds his roommate in the living room, methodically sorting and re-sorting the DVD-collection.
He might be new to handing Chris, but Danny is an old hand at hockey neuroses. He takes a seat on the couch and waits, watching Chris alphabetize the entire collection before deciding to go back and divvy them up by genre, first. Chris starts talking somewhere around Horror, the best that Danny can tell. It’s the first time he’s mentioned Lauren, outside of a few logistical comments, and Danny wonders if there’s an anniversary lurking at the edges of the calendar.
Chris’s voice is calm and detached as he finally explains just what happened over the summer that led to the separation, a factual relay without the flashy accent of detail. A summer internship that didn’t last the summer, and led to a fellowship with the guarantee of a continuing career. A return to the single life that was irresistible to a woman who’d always quietly missed the things she gave up to be a stay-at-home mother and household manager, despite how much she loved her husband and children.
By the time the DVDs are back in simple alphabetic order, Danny is making the occasional non-committal comment as Chris talks himself through his current opinion about the whole mess. He explains, in detail, to a beat-up copy of Transformers that even if Lauren reconsidered, he’s not sure that he’s willing to try again. That it’s not worth the damage to the kids when it doesn’t work out a second time, and that things are going to stay very much as they are for the foreseeable future. That’s when Danny decides that enough is enough, and drags Chris back to bed.
* * *
The goalies gossip, because goalies do. Bryz and Bob discuss the Pronger and Briere “situation,” mostly as a result of Bob pushing the issue, curious and excited and anxious to share his observations with his countryman. Bryz tries to discourage him, because the last thing he wants is for Chris to figure out they’re talking about him. He remembers Chris well from his time in Anaheim, and he knows that Chris hates being gossiped about within the locker room almost as much as he hates being handled.
"But last season they weren't like this. And you saw that Danny's shirt was too big again?"
"Perhaps there was a laundry problem. Sometimes it's better not to notice these things."
"But this is him. Not anyone, him. And Danny, you haven't heard about his divorce! SO BAD, everyone says."
"We do not notice. We do not ask. And I know Lauren - she would never let..."
"But she isn't here!"
"Sergei, leave it alone."
"But what if they are. It happens, you know." Bryz only barely avoids rolling his eyes. "Yes, Sergei, I am aware that it happens."
"There were these players on the Phantoms, who-"
"Sergei! I do not need to know this. I do not want to think about my teammates in bed. You should not be thinking about it. You need to find a girl, Sergei."
"I have a girl. What she needs is a visa."
”That can be fixed. I will *get* that fixed, give me a month. You need to keep your thoughts to yourself, before someone figures out what you’re talking about. Especially if you happen to be right, which you’re not.”
Bryz spends the next three weeks pulling strings and learning far more about what goes on in other NHL locker rooms than he’d really care to. He never realized things were so tame in Phoenix, even if Doaner had been kind of a wet blanket. The Russian Sewing Circle apparently has far too much time on its hands.
* * *
The goalies, odd though they are, aren’t the only ones who notice things. Claude’s been walking on eggshells around Danny since he moved out with minimal warning before the new season, but they were still road roommates and friends. At a certain point, that gives him the right to ask the kind of probing questions that might get a less courageous soul an ‘accidental’ high-stick & stitches in the middle of a scrimmage.
Nothing too serious, of course, but Claude is curious how things are going now that Danny’s back to single-parenting. Or, possibly, something else, because Claude’s been by just often enough to notice that Chris Pronger and his kids spend an inordinate amount of time in Danny’s living room.
Danny's honestly kind of startled by the questions, and then very flustered, and the answer gets distilled down to an awkward and tentative "no?"
Claude is less than impressed with Danny’s confidence. “Danny, face it, you don't know how to be alone." It’s downright obnoxious, coming from someone his age.
"What part of 'HE showed up on MY doorstep' do you not understand?"
"And then he forgot to leave? He's not a stray cat," Claude says.
"Lilah was sobbing into that duck she carries around - I was supposed to kick him out? He's having a - it's a rough year, okay?" Danny would like to explain, but there are secrets he doesn’t have the right to share. Not even with Claude. And a crying three-year-old just sounds so much more sympathetic and irresistible than a vomiting six-year-old.
Claude is still hovering on the edges of incredulous. "He's been there for a month, Danny."
Danny mutters under his breath.
"What?"
"Nothing, I just forgot we were into November."
"Into? Danny, it's almost December. How long has Chris Pronger been sleeping on your couch?"
Danny takes too long to answer. He knows he does, but he’s just tired enough that words aren’t coming as quickly as they should. "Why is this all about me? Why don't you tell me something about you. How is domestic bliss with Meghan this week?"
"Because my living arrangements don't require a minivan? And she's fine. Apparently the way I load the dishwasher is annoying. Don't change the subject." Claude would have to be feeling a lot more generous than he is to allow Danny to slide by with that for a topic change.
"I'm not. And the minivan only works if we don’t have to haul around hockey gear."
"You know this?...Danny? Let me repeat: how long has Prongs been crashing with you?"
"I don't know, late pre-season? Ish?"
"How have you never mentioned this? How has he never bitched about that shitty couch?" Claude winces at a less than fond memory involving passing out after way too long gaming. Danny coughs awkwardly, again after a silence that has lasted for far too long.
"Okay," Claude says, "I'm assuming we'd have read about it in the paper if you'd gone furniture shopping with another one of us. And I took the boxspring, so…"
"Well, no, actually..." Danny thinks for a minute, and then nods decisively. "There was definitely an Ikea run or two in there.”
Claude returns to his previous state of general disbelief. "Prongs is sleeping on an Ikea mattress? Dude's tougher than I thought."
"Oh, no, that was just for the bed frames and dressers." Claude is really not sure what to say, because he's been picturing sleeping bags in the spare room. So he focuses on the slightly less nonsensical part. "Wait, how many beds did you buy?"
Danny thinks for a minute. "Two, maybe three, depending on how you count them?"
"Danny, I'm going to ask again, where is Prongs sleeping?"
"Before I answer that, I need you to know that this isn't what it sounds like."
By this point, Claude is baffled, but he can also do math.
"So, I've been letting him use my bed."
"Okay, so where are you sleeping?"
"I said it wasn't what it sounded like."
"Jesus Christ, Danny. Seriously? How is you... not what it sounds like? And please don't tell me it's 'no strings attached.' You don't do no strings attached."
This is really, really not a conversation Danny wants to be having. He hasn't even figured out for himself what it actually is - he certainly doesn't want leading questions from Claude being the things that force him to. Claude sort of stumbles and catches over the act itself, because there are places his mind really doesn't ever want to go.
"Can we just forget about this? Please?"
"No, Danny, we can't. Because not only am I worried about you, but I share a locker room with you guys. And just, god, why?"
"Yeah, that's it, we're done with this for tonight." Because Claude's making it sound sordid, and if Danny starts yelling, he's not going to stop for a while. Danny has no desire to do irreparable damage to his relationship with Claude.
| AO3 Link |
| Master Post |
LJ: | Part One | Part Two | Part Three |