The First NHL fic (won't be the last . . . I'm already working on the next one . . .)
Title: Housewarming
Fandom: NHL
Pairing: Johan Hedberg/Kari Lehtonen
Rating: R
Summary: Johan has an attitude about Kari's house.
Notes: Inspired by this oldish article about Kari's house. Thank you to chlorate for the beta read and to floranna for help with the Finnish!
Johan doesn't come over to see the house until July. Even Kari's parents have already come from Finland to see it before Johan finally returns one of Kari's offseason calls and shows up at the front door, looking up at the roof with a frown. Kari has to take his arm and pull him inside before he starts making comments about the improper installation of the gutters. Johan keeps winning awards for being the best player in the organization when it comes to encouraging his teammates and quietly leading by example, but of course he hasn't been that way with Kari.
"It's big," Johan says as they walk through the foyer. "For one person."
"It's not that big," Kari says, though it is. He has three brothers and he shared one windowless apartment bedroom with them when he was growing up. When two of them came to visit a few months earlier he felt claustrophobic again, even inside this house with its fifteen rooms. Johan keeps a modest townhouse close to the arena during the season. He eats only organic food and drinks maybe one beer a week, and whenever Kari gets lunch at McDonalds on the way to practice he pictures Johan sitting beside him in the car and shaking his head with somber disappointment.
"Check this out," Kari says, pointing to the multicolored lights that hang over his kitchen table. For some reason his heart is racing and he's showing Johan all of the things that will definitely annoy him, like the video game room that used to be a library. Johan narrows his eyes at the lights.
"You look like you've gained some weight," he says, though he's not looking at Kari now. Kari shrugs.
"I always do," he says. "When we're not playing. Just a little. Do you want something to drink?"
"Where are your hockey things?" Johan asks.
"In storage," Kari says. Johan looks at him with alarm. "I don't like to show off," Kari says, and then he feels ridiculous. As if he even has so many trophies. Johan smiles and Kari tries not to see the meanness in it.
He takes Johan out to the backyard and shows him the hot tub. Johan makes faces at the palm trees.
"Those are non-native plants," he says.
"So are we," Kari says, and he heads back for the house.
*
The next time Kari sees Johan is at one of the charity functions. He's so generous with the fans, and especially children. He's generous with everyone but Kari, and Kari refuses to believe that the reason could be as obvious as jealousy. Johan simply isn't that petty, and he always seems so satisfied with his life. He talks about not having natural talent as if he's privileged, because it makes him work harder. He almost never leaves the rink during the season. Kari doesn't, either, but with Johan it's different. He seems less terrified.
"I had one of these at the zoo last month," Kari says as he and Johan are handing out popsicles to fans who will line up for pictures after they've gotten their hands sticky from the treats. "All kids and their mothers. It was fun."
Johan doesn't say anything. He's smiling warmly at people as they thank him. Once, Exelby complained that most female hockey fans are dogs and Johan got angry and told Exelby that he was a dog. Everybody laughed, Exelby the hardest.
"You should come over," Kari says when the picture-taking is through. Johan's line was longer than his, just by a bit: Johan was named one of the 50 sexiest people in Atlanta in December. Kari thinks sometimes that his face is the secret of his constant calm. Of course he's okay with what life hands him, as long as he looks the way he does.
"It's still early," Kari says when Johan doesn't answer. Johan is packing up his things, gifts from fans. He looks up at Kari with his usual irritating, placid expression.
"And what will we do?" he asks.
"Whatever you want," Kari says, and he can't decide which of them is being more suggestive. Kari made it fairly clear last year that he's in love with Johan. It's not as if he's happy about it; Johan infuriates him more than anything. But it's a fact of his life and he doesn't make it a secret. During the season he would weasel his way into Johan's hotel room and fall asleep on his bed, rolling close to him when he woke during the night. When they were out for dinner Kari would drink too much and tell Johan about a boy who used to corner him in the bathrooms at school and try to kiss him, and how he didn't really mind it so much.
"You are the type of person people will follow around and try to kiss," Johan said, smiling as if he was being very clever. Kari thought this was much more likely to happen to Johan, but maybe it's true that Kari seems more available to attack. People are afraid of Johan. Kari is, anyway. Kari is taller and younger but he doubts very much that, head to head, he would prevail as the stronger of the two of them.
"Here we are at your palace," Johan says when they arrive. It's still light out, and Kari hasn't eaten anything but a popsicle all day. His stomach is growling, and before they get out of the car Johan reaches over and flattens his hand against it.
"You're not taking care of yourself," Johan says. He looks at Kari, his hand still on his stomach. Kari is nothing but a frantic heartbeat under his touch.
"Yes, I am," Kari says, but it's true that he hasn't been. Everything Johan says is true.
Inside the house, Kari doesn't put any lights on. The sky outside is pale purple and everything seems calm and pretty, like Johan, who follows Kari into the kitchen like he's waiting to find out why he's here. Kari goes to the bar and makes two screwdrivers.
"Here," he says, handing one to Johan. "Here's to training starting up next week."
They click their glasses together and drink. Johan doesn't wince or complain about the vodka. He walks over to the glass doors that look out on the landscaped back yard, and Kari stands at the counter, watching him.
"Are you nervous?" Kari asks. He's talking about the start of the season, mostly.
"I'm always nervous," Johan says.
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am. It's the secret of my success."
"So, after two years you're finally going to start telling me your secrets?" Kari grins and tries to make a joke of it. Johan is not a monk, even if he wants to pretend. He must want something.
Johan turns from the door. He's not drinking much, but Kari has already finished his.
"I think I should make you dinner in this fancy kitchen," Johan says. Maybe he's trying to be kind but it feels like a joke told at Kari's expense. "I bet you've never touched your mixing bowls."
"I have," Kari says, a lie. Actually only his mother has. She cooked nonstop during his parents' visit and he still has plastic containers full of dumplings and meatballs in his freezer.
Kari sits at one of the bar stools in the kitchen and drinks more vodka while Johan cooks. He has little to work with, but he seems to be making some sort of stir fry out of leftover steak and some wilted vegetables that the trainers have told Kari to put in the blender and drink for breakfast every morning.
"You don't drink kossu?" Johan asks when Kari pours himself a refill.
"I can't find it here," Kari says. "Only that Finlandia stuff, and it's horrible."
"I think you just like our liquor better," Johan says.
"Your liquor?"
"Absolut is Swedish." Johan nods to the bottle on the counter. "Didn't you know that?"
"Is that why it's so cheap?" Kari asks, and he smirks when Johan looks up.
"Someone who owns a palace could afford better, maybe."
"You could afford something even bigger now that you've got your contract," Kari says, annoyed with Johan's self-satisfied assessment of Kari's life. Johan signed an extension back in June, and he will be in Atlanta for awhile. Kari wants to do the same, but his agent tells him he should wait and weigh his options. Kari knows he's right. He still needs to learn a few things about what life in Atlanta will be like if he stays.
Johan ignores Kari's comment about his pretense of peasanthood and dumps the things he's chopped up into a big pan that he's heated on the stove. Kari watches Johan's shoulder blades move under his t-shirt as he stirs.
"What's the first liquor that ever got you drunk?" Kari asks, embarrassed in the silence that follows as their meal sizzles in the pan.
"Budweiser," Johan says, and Kari laughs.
They eat at the table, which Kari hasn't done since his parents left town. Just as he does in restaurants on the road, Johan concentrates on his meal and makes no attempt at conversation.
"I used to think you were quiet because maybe your English wasn't so good," Kari says when the situation grows desperate, the drone of his empty, too-big house buzzing around them. Johan keeps his eyes on his plate.
"I've been here longer than you," he mutters.
"I know. But I thought, maybe. I don't know. Never mind."
Johan is ten years older than him, and Kari feels weightless and foolish when he thinks of their age difference. And good, too, because it makes trailing around after Johan like a dog less embarrassing somehow.
After they eat, Kari tries to wash the dishes, but Johan tells him he's doing it wrong and takes them out of his wet hands. He makes jokes about maids and Kari pours himself another drink.
"Will you stay for dessert?" Kari asks while Johan dries his hands.
"Don't be crude," Johan says.
He does stay, and they watch television together in the living room. Kari has satellite TV, and he turns on a Canadian summer league game. Kari waits for a joke about having too many television channels, but Johan just sits quietly with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Are you hoping I'm injured again this year?" Kari asks after he's had another drink, laughing stupidly at his own bad joke. Johan turns to look at him, and he's not even frowning.
"Of course not," he says. Kari puts his head in Johan's lap and beams up at him. He knows that Johan won't shove him away, even if he doesn't really want this. It is the only way he knows how to be generous with Kari, who has everything.
"Do you wish they would trade me?" Kari asks. Johan's arms are uncrossed now, but his hands are flopped down at his sides.
"You're still a Jokerit," Johan says. It was the name of Kari's team in Finland. The Jokers. Kari wants to beg for just one hand on his forehead, but instead he sits up with a groan.
"If I were you I would hate me," Kari says, and it's true; it would be so hard, sitting and waiting, not getting to play. Kari loves and hates the games when Johan plays, for the opportunity to watch him and the helplessness he feels as he does. He sits at the end of the bench and counts the seconds until Johan skates over to towel his face while the girls clean the ice. Nothing else ever makes him feel as small as sitting there and looking up at Johan when he's huffing and red-faced and so absorbed in the game that he doesn't hear anything Kari says. But maybe he never hears any of it anyway.
Johan scratches his fingers down Kari's back and Kari shuts his eyes, slumped forward with his back to Johan.
"Min liten gullebit," Johan says, soft and low as he scoots closer. "You think that I hate you?"
"What did you say?" Kari asks, half-turning. He remembers barely ten words of Swedish from school but he's pretty sure that began with my. His skin feels hot and his stomach hurts. Maybe Johan is just making fun of him in Swedish now.
"You want to know all of my secrets, hmm?" Johan says. Kari turns and finds himself almost in Johan's arms, Johan's face just inches from his. Kari never cared about blue eyes until he saw Johan's, and now he understands everyone who has ever treasured them. He's afraid, and wants to grab on to something, but only Johan is there.
"Just tell me what you said." Kari can barely get his voice working, and speaking English when he's so close to someone else will always feel strange.
Johan puts one hand on the small of Kari's back, and Kari sits up straighter, as if Johan is reprimanding him for his posture. This draws their faces closer, and Johan touches Kari's cheek.
"My little gold piece," Johan says. "That's what I said. You seem so lonely in this house. Like a coin waiting in a bank."
"I am," Kari admits, his voice breaking, but he says it in Finnish, thank God, and when he falls against Johan to kiss him he forgets the whole house and the quiet noise it makes all day. Johan's arms close around him and they become his residence. Pressed against Johan, breathing like a maniac and huddling in close: this is where he will live from now on.
*
The season starts and things go wrong for the team right away. Johan tries to keep his teammates' spirits up but Kari can see how he frets. In the dressing room the two of them are often alone, not members of the clumps of Russians or Canadians. They are the goalies, always left to their own devices, as if their position requires more quiet contemplation than anything else.
On a road trip to Pittsburgh they lose badly and Kari is invited out with the others. They call him Kärppä after a win and a variety of words in French and Russian that all translate roughly to 'fag' when they lose. It's friendly enough, and they call each other the same things, but Kari worries about the teasing on behalf of Johan, because his reputation seems more worth protecting.
Kari turns the others down and goes knocking on the door of Johan's room instead. He takes a long time to answer, but Kari is beginning to realize that, off the ice, Johan takes a long time to do anything. He even gets pensive about shaving and will spend several minutes just staring at himself in the mirror, not out of vanity but as if he's carefully considering what his next move should be.
"I was shit tonight," Kari says when Johan lets him inside. Johan is soft and shower-scented in his 2006 Playoffs t-shirt and official team sweatpants. He walks into the room ahead of Kari and the door snaps shut behind them with a click. The room looks just like Kari's, only neater. Johan's shoes are tucked into the corner near the door, by his suitcase.
"No one played well," Johan says sadly. His mp3 player is on the bed, the headphone wires splayed out like the limbs of a spent bedmate. Kari picks it up and plugs in the ear buds; Tom Petty is playing. Johan likes American pop music but Kari still prefers to listen to music in his own language, though really he's not very musical at all.
Johan takes the headphones from Kari's ears and turns the little machine off. He sets it on the bed stand and walks back to put both of his hands on Kari's face. His fingertips are callused like those of anybody who's spent most of his life clutching a hockey stick. Kari tips his chin back and tries not to moan as Johan rubs the points of his jaw and then his neck, pressing harder there.
"Sometimes this is the best part of my day," Kari says. He's lying; it always is. Johan probably knows this. He sweeps a hand through Kari's messy hair and murmurs some endearment as he leans down to kiss him on the mouth.
"What are you calling me now?" Kari asks, letting Johan crawl on top of him and press him to the mattress. He keeps meaning to start a list. Sometimes when they're in bed together he asks Johan to teach him words in Swedish, but he always falls asleep to the sound of Johan's instruction.
Johan licks into Kari's mouth and then sits up a little, considering the question, as if he's struggling to come up with the right word in English.
"Blond," he says, touching Kari's hair again. "Blondie."
"You're blond, too." Kari locks his legs around the small of Johan's back; his cock was hard when he came through the door, and already it's so full that it hurts.
"No, I'm not," Johan says, frowning earnestly. Kari laughs and leans up to kiss him. Maybe in Sweden Johan's hair is called brown, or red. It's a little bit of everything.
Johan is quiet when they fuck, limiting himself to grunts, but Kari moans and babbles, saying all kinds of things that he wouldn't want Johan to hear in English: I feel empty when you're not in me, I wish I could live in your bed, every time you look at me I can feel your cock pushing into my ass. It feels good to say everything out loud and still keep his secrets. Johan never asks him what he's said when they're through.
When Kari comes for Johan it feels different than it ever has with anyone else. He feels alive and in danger of losing something forever, of being stolen away. Johan kisses him as he winds down and returns to earth, calling him a gold coin, his gold coin. Kari just calls him Jo-Jo, which sounds just like yes, yes in Kari's language.
"Tomorrow," Johan says when Kari is retying his shoes. "Come to practice early and I'll show you what you're doing wrong with your feet."
Kari wants to shout, If I wasn't so young you wouldn't presume to give me direction from your place on the bench, but mostly he's just upset that Johan won't let him stay.
*
Two months into the season, things are still disappointing. The team's record isn't good, and Johan won't sleep in Kari's bed overnight. He won't even nap with him between practice and game time. The best Kari can get is Johan in the hot tub as the weather gets colder. He smells so much like the ice against the chlorine and the heat.
"Why don't you just move in here?" Kari says, pretending to be joking. He's always trying to get Johan drunk so that he won't be able to drive home, but it never works.
"It makes me nervous," Johan says. "Such a big house."
"It wouldn't be so big if you were here."
Johan smiles in a way that makes Kari mad. He doesn't like the way Johan's eyes wrinkle at the corners sometimes, as if Kari is a foolish child whose stupidity is amusing only because of his related youth. He doesn't feel so young this season, he feels tired and heavy and slow. He wants to ask Johan if he ever felt this way at twenty-four, but he's afraid Johan would take it the wrong way.
"What are you doing for the All Star break?" Kari asks, moving over to sidle up beside him. Johan slips a wet arm around Kari's shoulders and Kari wilts against him.
"You want me to stay here in your palace during the break, is that it?"
Kari chews his lip, trying not to show that he's hurt by this. Johan rubs his thumb across Kari's shoulder with a rhythm that suggests that none of this is worth talking about, and Kari hates that he's half hard every time he starts to get angry with Johan.
"I don't care what you do," Kari says, and Johan laughs at his petulance, then leans in to kiss him before he can whine in protest.
*
They get in a fight one night during a home game, when Johan is playing. Kari feels antsy and Johan seems as if he's sleepwalking around the goal, overwhelmed. It makes Kari embarrassed to see someone who takes him by the hips and makes him scream as he fucks him look so impotent on the ice. When Johan comes over to towel his face during the time out Kari gives him a snotty look that says everything. It's unlike him, but Johan has been breaking his heart now for months.
"It's Hossa," Kari says, because he's scored on Johan twice already. "You know him."
"Not as well as you do, I'm sure," Johan says sharply. He's out of breath, and the patheticness of him in the moment makes Kari's jaw tighten. There must be no worse feeling, he thinks, than to humiliate yourself for someone again and again and then find that they are capable of the same humiliation you've known.
"You seem tired," Kari asks, keeping his voice low, but nobody pays attention the goalies and their muttered conversation at the end of the bench, anyway. "Were you out late last night?"
"That's your real concern, is it?" Johan shakes his head in disgust before skating away. Kari takes the towel Johan left and flings it back over his head, again feeling like he's the one who will always be the fool, the joker, even when it's Johan out there playing like a clown. He'd called Johan the night before and got no answer. Johan has already told him twice that he doesn't like talking on the phone and is unnerved by the sound of his mobile's ringtone. Kari changed Johan's ringtone to a Coldplay song that Johan always turns up when it comes on the radio in Kari's car, but apparently that wasn't the problem.
After the game, Kari goes home and drowns in the silence of the house. Even in the video game room with Grand Theft Auto blaring, he can still hear it ringing in his ears like a taunt. He thinks of Johan home alone in his townhouse, and how the quiet must be different there, not so full of echoing expectancy. Or maybe Johan isn't alone; maybe he has someone else to scream for him on the nights when he doesn't follow Kari home.
Kari has a few drinks and walks out into the backyard with his mobile. It's cold outside, only forty degrees but he's already become soft and American and has grown to love summer. He calls Johan and is so drunkenly focused on what sort of message he'll leave that he's taken off guard when Johan actually answers.
"Jo-Jo," Kari says, stumbling a little, as if Johan has shoved him with his voice, which is already full of accusation. "What are you doing?"
"I was sleeping -- what's wrong with you? It's late."
"Late?" Kari looks up at the moon as if he can tell time by it.
"Go to bed, pojke."
"Don't call me a boy."
"So you do listen to me sometimes. You are a boy, gullebit, always crying over something."
"I'm not, and you're lucky. You give me reason to."
"Because I let Hossa score on me? Yes, I'm sure he's never scored on you."
"You think I'm calling in the middle of the night to talk about the game?"
"I don't think you know what you're doing, Kari. Even when you play. You don't know, you just do it. You have something I don't."
"And that makes me an idiot."
"Nej, Kari!" He continues in exasperated Swedish and Kari hangs up when he recognizes the word for woman.
*
They're both alone for Christmas, with not enough time to fly home and neither of their families willing to move their celebrations to America. Kari buys a little plastic tree from Target and strings lights on it clumsily, lonely for his mother and the way she would clean the house frantically before the holiday. Kari sends her money now but she still won't hire a maid because she doesn't trust anyone with her things. He spends all morning on the phone with his family on Christmas Eve; it's almost midnight there and they are lethargic as they take turns to talk to him, passing the phone around, most of them drunk. Johan comes through the door with groceries and Kari grins at him from the bottom stair in the foyer, where he's been sitting for hours, hunched up around the phone.
"What's all this?" Kari asks as he follows Johan into the kitchen, where he's unpacking an impressive variety of things from Whole Foods, his real motherland.
"My kitchen is too small," Johan says, not looking up from the cheeses and butcher-paper packages he's stuffing into Kari's empty fridge.
"Are you throwing a party in my house?" Kari asks.
"Yes, and you're not invited."
Kari watches Johan work for an hour and then flees to the hot tub when Johan complains that Kari is getting under his feet. He sits with his arms folded on the edge of the tub and smiles out at the yard, watching Johan work through the kitchen windows. Johan had no sisters so he had to help his mother in the kitchen as a boy. Kari thinks of making a joke about how maybe he's not the woman in their relationship after all, but when Johan brings him a cup of homemade glögi he just smiles and thanks him.
"Come sit in here with me," Kari says, standing up to kiss Johan, the cold wind stinging his back. Johan swats at Kari's bare ass and kisses his nose.
"After dinner," he says. Kari is already worried, wondering if Johan will stay the night. He feels like he's being teased to death with this attention, always just shy of what he really needs. He puts his robe on and follows Johan back to the house, marching across the crunchy brown grass with bare feet. Johan returns to the kitchen, which is full of just nearly familiar smells. Kari falls asleep on the sofa in the living room, and when he wakes up there are candles lit over the fireplace. He laughs to himself; of course Johan is a traditionalist. Their traditions aren't the same, but here in America they're similar enough.
"Jo-Jo?" he calls. The kitchen has grown quiet now, and it's already beginning to get dark outside, though it's only five o'clock. Kari rolls onto his side sleepily and watches Johan walk into the living room, a glass of glögi in his hand. He sits down on the sofa beside Kari and Kari hoists himself up to wrap his arms around Johan's shoulders. He smells like cloves and flour, and Kari would lock him inside this house forever if he could.
"You aren't going to dress for dinner?" Johan asks as Kari takes his glass and drinks from it; the glögi has brandy mixed into it now.
"I'll dress for dinner," Kari says, shrugging off his robe. "But it's not dinner time yet, hmm? Where did you find those candles?"
"I got them at the store. I got you a present, too."
"Goody." Kari pulls Johan's fruity GQ turtleneck over his head. He's so warm beneath it, and Kari wishes so much that they could leave the games with their equipment still on and come straight back to Kari's house to tear everything off until they reach each other's feverish skin. It's not the same after they've showered and dried. Kari has always wanted to stay inside the delirium of the game for as long as possible, to merge right into his normal life from the rink. As if he has a normal life; as if bringing Johan here isn't like having all of that with him, too.
They have sex on the couch, and Kari is quieter than usual in the presence of the Christmas candles, mostly just breathing hard into Johan's mouth, though he does say please close to a thousand times, in a reverent whisper, and in English, because it's one of the few English words he prefers to the Finnish translation, and also because, now, he wants Johan to understand.
"Please what, gullebit? Please what?" Johan asks, huffing his words down onto Kari's face. Kari is naked and wrapped desperately around him, and Johan still has his pants and shorts on, pushed down just enough. Kari doesn't answer his question, and Johan must not really need to know, because soon he's thrusting hard into Kari, his face pressed to Kari's chest as he tries to keep down his moans. Kari pulls on Johan's hair and he curses and finally lets loose the scream of pleasure Kari has been wanting to hear, shoving in deep as he comes.
They nap thinly afterward, Johan's pants still twisted around his legs and Kari still throbbing with the new history they've just written. Johan is so wrecked by this, finally, pink-faced. Kari is as cozy as an infant, wrapped between Johan and the couch cushions, and he could sleep without dinner but he sits up to yawn because he doesn't want to seem ungrateful for all of Johan's work.
"Where's my present?" he asks, feeling pleasantly ridiculous, naked in his professionally decorated living room with his understudy's cock leaking onto the white leather couch.
"I'll get it." Johan rolls onto his back and pulls his pants up. "It's in the kitchen."
"Oh, wait, wait a minute." Kari bends down to kiss him until they're both laughing into each other's mouths.
The present is a bottle of kossu, a good brand that makes Kari remember the first time he drank it. He tells Johan the story as they pass the bottle back and forth after dinner, overstuffed with food and sitting by the gas fireplace, which Johan has already dismissed as inferior to the real thing.
"The older guys on the Jokerit," Kari says. "They thought it would be funny to get me drunk."
"I bet it was."
"A little. Mostly I got really sick."
Johan makes an exaggerated noise of pity and pulls Kari down until his head is resting against Johan's chest. Kari has never seen Johan drunk before, of course, and he can't stop laughing at the phenomenon, thought mostly Johan is just as quiet as usual, only smiling a bit more.
"Happy Christmas," Kari says, rolling toward the fireplace and pulling Johan's arm so that he rolls with him, until he's snug against Kari's back. "I hope you know you're too drunk to drive."
"So you've got me here," Johan says, his mouth moving in Kari's hair. He pushes his leg through Kari's and wraps him up tighter. "I'm your, uh. Fånge."
"What is that?"
"You know, um. Prisoner."
Kari goes stiff and Johan laughs. He licks Kari's neck until he squirms and whines and tells him to quit.
"It's not so bad in Swedish," Johan says. "Maybe in English it's captive, yeah? Not prisoner. What's your word for this? What would you call me?"
"Rakas," Kari mumbles, and he hopes that Johan has no reason to know the Finnish word for love.
*
The second half of the season is better for the team, and Kari tries not to panic when Johan goes into lockdown mode and does nothing but practice, eat health food and get eight hours of sleep per day. Kari rebels by seeing other men, and one woman, though mostly to her he just talks about his ex-girlfriend, who is actually Johan, and when he forgets to use 'she' instead of 'he' the girl just thinks his English is poor and that he's confusing his pronouns. She doesn't call him back, and he can't bring himself to sleep with any of the men, because he's afraid they would poison him for Johan, who still shows up at the house on rare off days, and who brought him a sticky cake that was probably homemade on his name day. Kari has never done anything to mark a name day and can only remember his mother mentioning his a few times during his childhood. He wonders why Johan feels he needs to go to such lengths to have an excuse to come to the house, as if Kari would turn him away without a proper reason.
Most of the time they get to spend together is during practice and the games, when they only see each other in twenty second intervals between time outs, and between periods in the dressing room. Kari will hover if Johan is getting attention from the trainers, until one of them barks at him in Russian to back off. Sometimes Johan looks at him with sympathy when he receives this treatment, but mostly he narrows his eyes as if he agrees wholeheartedly.
There's no game on February 14, and two of the guys Kari has been seeing call him up and ask for dates, the American holiday making them feel lonely. He agrees to go to Nikolai's Roof with the better looking one, a guy who works for Suntrust and doesn't seem to realize that Kari plays professional hockey. He also seems to think Kari is Russian, and Kari doesn't correct him or tell him that he hates Nikolai's Roof and Russian food in general. Being with the others is like punishing himself for not being with Johan, as if he needs to take part in his own torture, as if Johan isn't doing an effective enough job.
He's getting dressed when he hears the door open and shut downstairs. Johan doesn't have a key, but Kari leaves the door unlocked during the day just in case, and sometimes at night as well. Johan strolls into Kari's bedroom as if it's his, too, and puts his arms around Kari's waist, kissing his neck while Kari frowns into the mirror above his bureau, still smoothing his hair. Johan hasn't been to the house in weeks and hasn't even looked twice at him in three days, so absorbed in his fool's hope of saving the team's already ruined season.
"What are you doing here?" Kari asks. "You can't just march in here anytime you like --"
"So why don't you post a guard at the door?" Johan asks, ignoring this as he untucks Kari's freshly dry cleaned shirt and fumbles at the buttons with one hand while he sneaks the other up underneath the shirt to scratch his short nails over Kari's back.
"Stop," Kari says, though he's not struggling, and is in fact leaning back against Johan to breathe him in. "I'm going out."
"That's fine," Johan says, reaching down to palm Kari's cock through his trousers. Kari groans, but it doesn't come out sounding like the protest he intended to vocalize. He turns to lick Johan's neck in a quick little swipe of his tongue, taking only a taste of him.
"It's not fine," Kari says, because he wants to stay in, of course, to stay in his house with Johan and pretend that it belongs to both of them, that this is Johan's bedroom and he can walk into it whenever he likes. He keeps thinking about Christmas Day, when he woke up on the living room floor with Johan, who was grumpy and complaining about a cramp in his neck. Before he could flee Kari dragged him out to the hot tub, claiming the heat would help his sore muscles, and there Johan had melted again, pulling Kari into his lap and kissing him long and slow, their cocks sliding together under the water. When he dressed to leave after breakfast Kari reminded him that nothing would be open, that he had nowhere to go, and Johan stayed, all day, lazy with Kari on the sofa and proving surprisingly good at video games.
Johan meets Kari's eyes in the mirror and smiles in a way Kari rarely gets to see, as if it's not part of a judgment he's making. He sighs with what sounds like contentment and squeezes Kari's chest, kisses his ear. Kari feels panicked, as if Johan is using all the air in the room and there's nothing left for him.
"Someone is waiting for me," Kari says. Johan is still kissing Kari's neck, moaning a little as if Kari is a hot loaf of bread and Johan is dreaming of eating slice after slice. Johan finally seems to hear what Kari has said and blinks at him in the mirror.
"What?"
"I have an appointment."
"A date?"
"I don't know. Yes. Johan --"
Johan lets go of him and rushes out the bedroom door as if he's suddenly realized he's in the wrong house. He's cursing in at least two different languages, and Kari chases after him, feeling too precisely like he does after a loss in a shootout, as if he's wholly responsible for the end of the world.
"Jo-Jo, please, wait," Kari says, grabbing Johan's arm once he catches up to him in the hallway. Johan whirls around, his eyes dark with fury, and it's just like seeing him in the dressing room after that sort of loss. Nothing can skin Kari to the bone like one look of accusation from Johan.
"I won't go," Kari says, pulling at Johan, wanting to move backward up the stairs and start again. "I was only going to because you weren't here, you don't call me, you don't even look at me --"
"You're a fool," Johan says sharply. "It's men you've been going around with, yes?"
"Nothing -- I haven't done anything, I don't even kiss them --"
"You'll get caught. People here like that even less than back home. Do you not know who you are, Kari? That people see you, they recognize you? You would be humiliated, you could lose everything!"
"Is that why you're angry, you're my agent now, worried about my money?" Kari would be sobbing if he wasn't so furious. He wants Johan to slap him and tell him he can't see others because he belongs to him, but this is so typical, something he should have expected.
"You think you know better than me, then go get fucked by somebody else," Johan says, turning again, and Kari falls on him, pulling him backward. Johan jerks forward but Kari won't let him go, his eyes finally beginning to water.
"Please, Jo-Jo, I'm sorry, please believe me, I don't do anything with them, I just wanted someone to talk to you, you won't talk to me --"
"That's not what you want," Johan says, turning again and grabbing Kari's arm. "You don't want to hear me talk, you don't listen to anything I say."
"Please, I do." Kari is beginning to cry now and he doesn't care; if it keeps Johan here he will sink to the floor and kiss his shoes. "I want everything from you, only you, don't pretend you don't know that you break me, you break me."
He knows it's not the right word, really, but he must get the message across, because Johan doesn't leave. He stands stiffly for a moment as Kari sobs against his chest, and the dark suspicion that Johan is enjoying this descends over Kari, that this is some sort of revenge for having to play second fiddle to a younger man. Maybe it's been Johan's plan all along, carefully orchestrated just to destroy Kari and nothing more. Kari looks up at him, terrified and half-convinced that this must be true.
"Please," Kari cries. "I love you," he adds, in Finnish of course, and Johan lets out his breath. He puts his hands on Kari's shoulders and then grabs enough of his shirt to drag him back toward the stairs.
Kari allows Johan to pull him back into the bedroom and toss him onto the bed. Kari recognizes the look on Johan's face, and it's one he has only ever seen on the ice. Johan flips Kari onto his stomach and rips his pants and shorts down, then pushes the now-wrinkled shirt away so that Kari's back is exposed. He slicks himself hastily with the lotion on Kari's bedside table, which Kari used to jerk off to thoughts of Johan just hours earlier. But he can't enjoy this now, not purely, because Johan has said nothing and Kari is so afraid that he will take this from him and then leave for good.
"Please, Jo-Jo," Kari says, still sobbing in quick spasms. He has no idea what he's begging for now. Johan puts his hand in Kari's hair and yanks just a bit, pulling his head back until Johan's mouth is against Kari's ear. He says something in Swedish and then pauses, still holding Kari's hair, as if he's considering whether or not he should translate, knowing that Kari is too frightened now to ask.
"You break me, too," Johan says roughly before releasing him. He moves back and pushes into Kari without much warning, slowing up when Kari shouts in pain. It quickly fades to the hot sting that Kari loves, and he pushes himself back onto Johan's cock, whimpering like a girl and not caring that he's reduced himself to this disheveled state, even if it's what Johan secretly wants. He wants to give Johan everything anyway.
"Kovempaa," Kari begs mindlessly, again and again, and by now Johan has learned the Finnish word for harder. His grip on Kari's hips is so tight, and Kari thinks of how each finger will leave a tiny bruise, and how his uniform pants will rub raw against the sore spots, making him remember the smell of Johan's sweat and the cologne he wore when he came to the house on Valentine's Day, expecting Kari to be waiting patiently. Kari sobs against the mattress as he comes, Johan's hand pumping his cock and emptying him out.
When they're through they lie in a helpless tangle, Kari half-undressed and Johan still in his shirt and trousers, his cock softening against the unzipped fly. His eyes are unreadable, and he lets Kari hold him but remains limp in his arms.
"Now you can go see the men you don't fuck with my come leaking out of you," Johan says. It sounds unnatural on him, too crass, and Kari knows then how badly he's hurt Johan. He feels proud for a moment, or just glad to know that he can hurt him at all. He kisses Johan's forehead and strokes his hair.
"They're nothing," Kari says. "You're everything, Jo-Jo, you're the only real man I've ever known."
"You need people too much," Johan mumbles, not looking Kari in the eye. He hasn't, really, since they had sex. "You're weak."
"You're glad about that," Kari says. "I think."
Johan sits up on his elbow and frowns down at Kari as if he's just told Johan that water is fire and black is white. He touches Kari's forehead with cautious fingertips, still frowning.
"You think I want you to be weak?" he asks.
"Maybe, yeah. So that you can have me like this."
Johan shakes his head. "My job is to make you stronger," he says. "That's what they told me when I came here. We had a meeting, the coaches and me. They told me I would never be number one, the starter, and I knew that. They said my job was to teach you and push you and make you not so soft and young. I didn't want to do it this way. I knew it would hurt you and help me, what we're doing, and that's not why they brought me here, to make you softer. But Kari, gullebit, you would come to my room and smile at me and climb into my bed, and I couldn't fight anymore. You broke me, too, you know that you did."
Kari pulls Johan back down to him, and this time Johan wraps around him eagerly. They lie like that for awhile, twisted together and still mostly out of breath. It's beginning to get dark outside, and Kari thinks of the man he stood up at Nikolai's Roof, and of the whole unspectacular world outside of this room. He feels blessed the way he's always been told that he should feel, chosen.
"I want you to live in my house," Kari says. "No one has to know."
"Gullebit, all you do is want. That's the nature of money, wealth, gold. More and more and more. That's what you'll always want."
"So what? Does that mean I've finally turned into an American?"
Johan laughs and leans up to kiss him, and Kari rolls onto his back, pulling Johan on top of him. He'll always have to guide him around a bit, pulling him this way or that. He thought it was because Johan didn't want to be pulled, but that's not it at all. He needs it, to be taught how to want and be selfish and belong in someone's bed. Kari wraps his legs around Johan's back and Johan tips his chin back, looking down at Kari from beneath his eyelids.
"Then I'm your prisoner," Johan says. "Does that mean I made you stronger, stronger than me?"
"No," Kari says. "You know I'm yours, too."
They order Pizza Hut for dinner and the delivery boy tells them that Valentine's Day is the busiest day of the year. In Finland it's called ystävänpäivä, Friendship Day, and it's true that once there was a boy in school who chased Kari around, trying to kiss him, because he was small and blond and weak enough to relent. Once, on Friendship Day, there was a messy bundle of wildflowers in Kari's chair when he arrived at school in the morning. He knew it was the boy, Alpo, and he knew, though Alpo mostly terrified him, that he would be bent for the rest of his life by those crumpled flowers more than anything.
He and Johan eat their pizza in front of a bad American movie, and Kari falls asleep with his head on Johan's thigh, Johan's fingers spread through his hair. He wakes up afraid, the details of the house sinking into him first: all the white furniture and the high ceilings, the noise of the television. He sits up with alarm and sees Johan slumped beside him, deep in sleep, his mouth open slightly and his beard just beginning to grow in. Kari turns the TV off and looks around the dark living room. It's so different now, all of it, the walls and the floor and the coffee table with the half-empty pizza box. It's what it should be, finally, nothing that the decorator could have accomplished: a quiet place for Johan to sleep, and rooms that will now house Kari's whole heart, not just the paltry remains that he's clung to since Johan was brought here to make him strong.
Fandom: NHL
Pairing: Johan Hedberg/Kari Lehtonen
Rating: R
Summary: Johan has an attitude about Kari's house.
Notes: Inspired by this oldish article about Kari's house. Thank you to chlorate for the beta read and to floranna for help with the Finnish!
Johan doesn't come over to see the house until July. Even Kari's parents have already come from Finland to see it before Johan finally returns one of Kari's offseason calls and shows up at the front door, looking up at the roof with a frown. Kari has to take his arm and pull him inside before he starts making comments about the improper installation of the gutters. Johan keeps winning awards for being the best player in the organization when it comes to encouraging his teammates and quietly leading by example, but of course he hasn't been that way with Kari.
"It's big," Johan says as they walk through the foyer. "For one person."
"It's not that big," Kari says, though it is. He has three brothers and he shared one windowless apartment bedroom with them when he was growing up. When two of them came to visit a few months earlier he felt claustrophobic again, even inside this house with its fifteen rooms. Johan keeps a modest townhouse close to the arena during the season. He eats only organic food and drinks maybe one beer a week, and whenever Kari gets lunch at McDonalds on the way to practice he pictures Johan sitting beside him in the car and shaking his head with somber disappointment.
"Check this out," Kari says, pointing to the multicolored lights that hang over his kitchen table. For some reason his heart is racing and he's showing Johan all of the things that will definitely annoy him, like the video game room that used to be a library. Johan narrows his eyes at the lights.
"You look like you've gained some weight," he says, though he's not looking at Kari now. Kari shrugs.
"I always do," he says. "When we're not playing. Just a little. Do you want something to drink?"
"Where are your hockey things?" Johan asks.
"In storage," Kari says. Johan looks at him with alarm. "I don't like to show off," Kari says, and then he feels ridiculous. As if he even has so many trophies. Johan smiles and Kari tries not to see the meanness in it.
He takes Johan out to the backyard and shows him the hot tub. Johan makes faces at the palm trees.
"Those are non-native plants," he says.
"So are we," Kari says, and he heads back for the house.
*
The next time Kari sees Johan is at one of the charity functions. He's so generous with the fans, and especially children. He's generous with everyone but Kari, and Kari refuses to believe that the reason could be as obvious as jealousy. Johan simply isn't that petty, and he always seems so satisfied with his life. He talks about not having natural talent as if he's privileged, because it makes him work harder. He almost never leaves the rink during the season. Kari doesn't, either, but with Johan it's different. He seems less terrified.
"I had one of these at the zoo last month," Kari says as he and Johan are handing out popsicles to fans who will line up for pictures after they've gotten their hands sticky from the treats. "All kids and their mothers. It was fun."
Johan doesn't say anything. He's smiling warmly at people as they thank him. Once, Exelby complained that most female hockey fans are dogs and Johan got angry and told Exelby that he was a dog. Everybody laughed, Exelby the hardest.
"You should come over," Kari says when the picture-taking is through. Johan's line was longer than his, just by a bit: Johan was named one of the 50 sexiest people in Atlanta in December. Kari thinks sometimes that his face is the secret of his constant calm. Of course he's okay with what life hands him, as long as he looks the way he does.
"It's still early," Kari says when Johan doesn't answer. Johan is packing up his things, gifts from fans. He looks up at Kari with his usual irritating, placid expression.
"And what will we do?" he asks.
"Whatever you want," Kari says, and he can't decide which of them is being more suggestive. Kari made it fairly clear last year that he's in love with Johan. It's not as if he's happy about it; Johan infuriates him more than anything. But it's a fact of his life and he doesn't make it a secret. During the season he would weasel his way into Johan's hotel room and fall asleep on his bed, rolling close to him when he woke during the night. When they were out for dinner Kari would drink too much and tell Johan about a boy who used to corner him in the bathrooms at school and try to kiss him, and how he didn't really mind it so much.
"You are the type of person people will follow around and try to kiss," Johan said, smiling as if he was being very clever. Kari thought this was much more likely to happen to Johan, but maybe it's true that Kari seems more available to attack. People are afraid of Johan. Kari is, anyway. Kari is taller and younger but he doubts very much that, head to head, he would prevail as the stronger of the two of them.
"Here we are at your palace," Johan says when they arrive. It's still light out, and Kari hasn't eaten anything but a popsicle all day. His stomach is growling, and before they get out of the car Johan reaches over and flattens his hand against it.
"You're not taking care of yourself," Johan says. He looks at Kari, his hand still on his stomach. Kari is nothing but a frantic heartbeat under his touch.
"Yes, I am," Kari says, but it's true that he hasn't been. Everything Johan says is true.
Inside the house, Kari doesn't put any lights on. The sky outside is pale purple and everything seems calm and pretty, like Johan, who follows Kari into the kitchen like he's waiting to find out why he's here. Kari goes to the bar and makes two screwdrivers.
"Here," he says, handing one to Johan. "Here's to training starting up next week."
They click their glasses together and drink. Johan doesn't wince or complain about the vodka. He walks over to the glass doors that look out on the landscaped back yard, and Kari stands at the counter, watching him.
"Are you nervous?" Kari asks. He's talking about the start of the season, mostly.
"I'm always nervous," Johan says.
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am. It's the secret of my success."
"So, after two years you're finally going to start telling me your secrets?" Kari grins and tries to make a joke of it. Johan is not a monk, even if he wants to pretend. He must want something.
Johan turns from the door. He's not drinking much, but Kari has already finished his.
"I think I should make you dinner in this fancy kitchen," Johan says. Maybe he's trying to be kind but it feels like a joke told at Kari's expense. "I bet you've never touched your mixing bowls."
"I have," Kari says, a lie. Actually only his mother has. She cooked nonstop during his parents' visit and he still has plastic containers full of dumplings and meatballs in his freezer.
Kari sits at one of the bar stools in the kitchen and drinks more vodka while Johan cooks. He has little to work with, but he seems to be making some sort of stir fry out of leftover steak and some wilted vegetables that the trainers have told Kari to put in the blender and drink for breakfast every morning.
"You don't drink kossu?" Johan asks when Kari pours himself a refill.
"I can't find it here," Kari says. "Only that Finlandia stuff, and it's horrible."
"I think you just like our liquor better," Johan says.
"Your liquor?"
"Absolut is Swedish." Johan nods to the bottle on the counter. "Didn't you know that?"
"Is that why it's so cheap?" Kari asks, and he smirks when Johan looks up.
"Someone who owns a palace could afford better, maybe."
"You could afford something even bigger now that you've got your contract," Kari says, annoyed with Johan's self-satisfied assessment of Kari's life. Johan signed an extension back in June, and he will be in Atlanta for awhile. Kari wants to do the same, but his agent tells him he should wait and weigh his options. Kari knows he's right. He still needs to learn a few things about what life in Atlanta will be like if he stays.
Johan ignores Kari's comment about his pretense of peasanthood and dumps the things he's chopped up into a big pan that he's heated on the stove. Kari watches Johan's shoulder blades move under his t-shirt as he stirs.
"What's the first liquor that ever got you drunk?" Kari asks, embarrassed in the silence that follows as their meal sizzles in the pan.
"Budweiser," Johan says, and Kari laughs.
They eat at the table, which Kari hasn't done since his parents left town. Just as he does in restaurants on the road, Johan concentrates on his meal and makes no attempt at conversation.
"I used to think you were quiet because maybe your English wasn't so good," Kari says when the situation grows desperate, the drone of his empty, too-big house buzzing around them. Johan keeps his eyes on his plate.
"I've been here longer than you," he mutters.
"I know. But I thought, maybe. I don't know. Never mind."
Johan is ten years older than him, and Kari feels weightless and foolish when he thinks of their age difference. And good, too, because it makes trailing around after Johan like a dog less embarrassing somehow.
After they eat, Kari tries to wash the dishes, but Johan tells him he's doing it wrong and takes them out of his wet hands. He makes jokes about maids and Kari pours himself another drink.
"Will you stay for dessert?" Kari asks while Johan dries his hands.
"Don't be crude," Johan says.
He does stay, and they watch television together in the living room. Kari has satellite TV, and he turns on a Canadian summer league game. Kari waits for a joke about having too many television channels, but Johan just sits quietly with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Are you hoping I'm injured again this year?" Kari asks after he's had another drink, laughing stupidly at his own bad joke. Johan turns to look at him, and he's not even frowning.
"Of course not," he says. Kari puts his head in Johan's lap and beams up at him. He knows that Johan won't shove him away, even if he doesn't really want this. It is the only way he knows how to be generous with Kari, who has everything.
"Do you wish they would trade me?" Kari asks. Johan's arms are uncrossed now, but his hands are flopped down at his sides.
"You're still a Jokerit," Johan says. It was the name of Kari's team in Finland. The Jokers. Kari wants to beg for just one hand on his forehead, but instead he sits up with a groan.
"If I were you I would hate me," Kari says, and it's true; it would be so hard, sitting and waiting, not getting to play. Kari loves and hates the games when Johan plays, for the opportunity to watch him and the helplessness he feels as he does. He sits at the end of the bench and counts the seconds until Johan skates over to towel his face while the girls clean the ice. Nothing else ever makes him feel as small as sitting there and looking up at Johan when he's huffing and red-faced and so absorbed in the game that he doesn't hear anything Kari says. But maybe he never hears any of it anyway.
Johan scratches his fingers down Kari's back and Kari shuts his eyes, slumped forward with his back to Johan.
"Min liten gullebit," Johan says, soft and low as he scoots closer. "You think that I hate you?"
"What did you say?" Kari asks, half-turning. He remembers barely ten words of Swedish from school but he's pretty sure that began with my. His skin feels hot and his stomach hurts. Maybe Johan is just making fun of him in Swedish now.
"You want to know all of my secrets, hmm?" Johan says. Kari turns and finds himself almost in Johan's arms, Johan's face just inches from his. Kari never cared about blue eyes until he saw Johan's, and now he understands everyone who has ever treasured them. He's afraid, and wants to grab on to something, but only Johan is there.
"Just tell me what you said." Kari can barely get his voice working, and speaking English when he's so close to someone else will always feel strange.
Johan puts one hand on the small of Kari's back, and Kari sits up straighter, as if Johan is reprimanding him for his posture. This draws their faces closer, and Johan touches Kari's cheek.
"My little gold piece," Johan says. "That's what I said. You seem so lonely in this house. Like a coin waiting in a bank."
"I am," Kari admits, his voice breaking, but he says it in Finnish, thank God, and when he falls against Johan to kiss him he forgets the whole house and the quiet noise it makes all day. Johan's arms close around him and they become his residence. Pressed against Johan, breathing like a maniac and huddling in close: this is where he will live from now on.
*
The season starts and things go wrong for the team right away. Johan tries to keep his teammates' spirits up but Kari can see how he frets. In the dressing room the two of them are often alone, not members of the clumps of Russians or Canadians. They are the goalies, always left to their own devices, as if their position requires more quiet contemplation than anything else.
On a road trip to Pittsburgh they lose badly and Kari is invited out with the others. They call him Kärppä after a win and a variety of words in French and Russian that all translate roughly to 'fag' when they lose. It's friendly enough, and they call each other the same things, but Kari worries about the teasing on behalf of Johan, because his reputation seems more worth protecting.
Kari turns the others down and goes knocking on the door of Johan's room instead. He takes a long time to answer, but Kari is beginning to realize that, off the ice, Johan takes a long time to do anything. He even gets pensive about shaving and will spend several minutes just staring at himself in the mirror, not out of vanity but as if he's carefully considering what his next move should be.
"I was shit tonight," Kari says when Johan lets him inside. Johan is soft and shower-scented in his 2006 Playoffs t-shirt and official team sweatpants. He walks into the room ahead of Kari and the door snaps shut behind them with a click. The room looks just like Kari's, only neater. Johan's shoes are tucked into the corner near the door, by his suitcase.
"No one played well," Johan says sadly. His mp3 player is on the bed, the headphone wires splayed out like the limbs of a spent bedmate. Kari picks it up and plugs in the ear buds; Tom Petty is playing. Johan likes American pop music but Kari still prefers to listen to music in his own language, though really he's not very musical at all.
Johan takes the headphones from Kari's ears and turns the little machine off. He sets it on the bed stand and walks back to put both of his hands on Kari's face. His fingertips are callused like those of anybody who's spent most of his life clutching a hockey stick. Kari tips his chin back and tries not to moan as Johan rubs the points of his jaw and then his neck, pressing harder there.
"Sometimes this is the best part of my day," Kari says. He's lying; it always is. Johan probably knows this. He sweeps a hand through Kari's messy hair and murmurs some endearment as he leans down to kiss him on the mouth.
"What are you calling me now?" Kari asks, letting Johan crawl on top of him and press him to the mattress. He keeps meaning to start a list. Sometimes when they're in bed together he asks Johan to teach him words in Swedish, but he always falls asleep to the sound of Johan's instruction.
Johan licks into Kari's mouth and then sits up a little, considering the question, as if he's struggling to come up with the right word in English.
"Blond," he says, touching Kari's hair again. "Blondie."
"You're blond, too." Kari locks his legs around the small of Johan's back; his cock was hard when he came through the door, and already it's so full that it hurts.
"No, I'm not," Johan says, frowning earnestly. Kari laughs and leans up to kiss him. Maybe in Sweden Johan's hair is called brown, or red. It's a little bit of everything.
Johan is quiet when they fuck, limiting himself to grunts, but Kari moans and babbles, saying all kinds of things that he wouldn't want Johan to hear in English: I feel empty when you're not in me, I wish I could live in your bed, every time you look at me I can feel your cock pushing into my ass. It feels good to say everything out loud and still keep his secrets. Johan never asks him what he's said when they're through.
When Kari comes for Johan it feels different than it ever has with anyone else. He feels alive and in danger of losing something forever, of being stolen away. Johan kisses him as he winds down and returns to earth, calling him a gold coin, his gold coin. Kari just calls him Jo-Jo, which sounds just like yes, yes in Kari's language.
"Tomorrow," Johan says when Kari is retying his shoes. "Come to practice early and I'll show you what you're doing wrong with your feet."
Kari wants to shout, If I wasn't so young you wouldn't presume to give me direction from your place on the bench, but mostly he's just upset that Johan won't let him stay.
*
Two months into the season, things are still disappointing. The team's record isn't good, and Johan won't sleep in Kari's bed overnight. He won't even nap with him between practice and game time. The best Kari can get is Johan in the hot tub as the weather gets colder. He smells so much like the ice against the chlorine and the heat.
"Why don't you just move in here?" Kari says, pretending to be joking. He's always trying to get Johan drunk so that he won't be able to drive home, but it never works.
"It makes me nervous," Johan says. "Such a big house."
"It wouldn't be so big if you were here."
Johan smiles in a way that makes Kari mad. He doesn't like the way Johan's eyes wrinkle at the corners sometimes, as if Kari is a foolish child whose stupidity is amusing only because of his related youth. He doesn't feel so young this season, he feels tired and heavy and slow. He wants to ask Johan if he ever felt this way at twenty-four, but he's afraid Johan would take it the wrong way.
"What are you doing for the All Star break?" Kari asks, moving over to sidle up beside him. Johan slips a wet arm around Kari's shoulders and Kari wilts against him.
"You want me to stay here in your palace during the break, is that it?"
Kari chews his lip, trying not to show that he's hurt by this. Johan rubs his thumb across Kari's shoulder with a rhythm that suggests that none of this is worth talking about, and Kari hates that he's half hard every time he starts to get angry with Johan.
"I don't care what you do," Kari says, and Johan laughs at his petulance, then leans in to kiss him before he can whine in protest.
*
They get in a fight one night during a home game, when Johan is playing. Kari feels antsy and Johan seems as if he's sleepwalking around the goal, overwhelmed. It makes Kari embarrassed to see someone who takes him by the hips and makes him scream as he fucks him look so impotent on the ice. When Johan comes over to towel his face during the time out Kari gives him a snotty look that says everything. It's unlike him, but Johan has been breaking his heart now for months.
"It's Hossa," Kari says, because he's scored on Johan twice already. "You know him."
"Not as well as you do, I'm sure," Johan says sharply. He's out of breath, and the patheticness of him in the moment makes Kari's jaw tighten. There must be no worse feeling, he thinks, than to humiliate yourself for someone again and again and then find that they are capable of the same humiliation you've known.
"You seem tired," Kari asks, keeping his voice low, but nobody pays attention the goalies and their muttered conversation at the end of the bench, anyway. "Were you out late last night?"
"That's your real concern, is it?" Johan shakes his head in disgust before skating away. Kari takes the towel Johan left and flings it back over his head, again feeling like he's the one who will always be the fool, the joker, even when it's Johan out there playing like a clown. He'd called Johan the night before and got no answer. Johan has already told him twice that he doesn't like talking on the phone and is unnerved by the sound of his mobile's ringtone. Kari changed Johan's ringtone to a Coldplay song that Johan always turns up when it comes on the radio in Kari's car, but apparently that wasn't the problem.
After the game, Kari goes home and drowns in the silence of the house. Even in the video game room with Grand Theft Auto blaring, he can still hear it ringing in his ears like a taunt. He thinks of Johan home alone in his townhouse, and how the quiet must be different there, not so full of echoing expectancy. Or maybe Johan isn't alone; maybe he has someone else to scream for him on the nights when he doesn't follow Kari home.
Kari has a few drinks and walks out into the backyard with his mobile. It's cold outside, only forty degrees but he's already become soft and American and has grown to love summer. He calls Johan and is so drunkenly focused on what sort of message he'll leave that he's taken off guard when Johan actually answers.
"Jo-Jo," Kari says, stumbling a little, as if Johan has shoved him with his voice, which is already full of accusation. "What are you doing?"
"I was sleeping -- what's wrong with you? It's late."
"Late?" Kari looks up at the moon as if he can tell time by it.
"Go to bed, pojke."
"Don't call me a boy."
"So you do listen to me sometimes. You are a boy, gullebit, always crying over something."
"I'm not, and you're lucky. You give me reason to."
"Because I let Hossa score on me? Yes, I'm sure he's never scored on you."
"You think I'm calling in the middle of the night to talk about the game?"
"I don't think you know what you're doing, Kari. Even when you play. You don't know, you just do it. You have something I don't."
"And that makes me an idiot."
"Nej, Kari!" He continues in exasperated Swedish and Kari hangs up when he recognizes the word for woman.
*
They're both alone for Christmas, with not enough time to fly home and neither of their families willing to move their celebrations to America. Kari buys a little plastic tree from Target and strings lights on it clumsily, lonely for his mother and the way she would clean the house frantically before the holiday. Kari sends her money now but she still won't hire a maid because she doesn't trust anyone with her things. He spends all morning on the phone with his family on Christmas Eve; it's almost midnight there and they are lethargic as they take turns to talk to him, passing the phone around, most of them drunk. Johan comes through the door with groceries and Kari grins at him from the bottom stair in the foyer, where he's been sitting for hours, hunched up around the phone.
"What's all this?" Kari asks as he follows Johan into the kitchen, where he's unpacking an impressive variety of things from Whole Foods, his real motherland.
"My kitchen is too small," Johan says, not looking up from the cheeses and butcher-paper packages he's stuffing into Kari's empty fridge.
"Are you throwing a party in my house?" Kari asks.
"Yes, and you're not invited."
Kari watches Johan work for an hour and then flees to the hot tub when Johan complains that Kari is getting under his feet. He sits with his arms folded on the edge of the tub and smiles out at the yard, watching Johan work through the kitchen windows. Johan had no sisters so he had to help his mother in the kitchen as a boy. Kari thinks of making a joke about how maybe he's not the woman in their relationship after all, but when Johan brings him a cup of homemade glögi he just smiles and thanks him.
"Come sit in here with me," Kari says, standing up to kiss Johan, the cold wind stinging his back. Johan swats at Kari's bare ass and kisses his nose.
"After dinner," he says. Kari is already worried, wondering if Johan will stay the night. He feels like he's being teased to death with this attention, always just shy of what he really needs. He puts his robe on and follows Johan back to the house, marching across the crunchy brown grass with bare feet. Johan returns to the kitchen, which is full of just nearly familiar smells. Kari falls asleep on the sofa in the living room, and when he wakes up there are candles lit over the fireplace. He laughs to himself; of course Johan is a traditionalist. Their traditions aren't the same, but here in America they're similar enough.
"Jo-Jo?" he calls. The kitchen has grown quiet now, and it's already beginning to get dark outside, though it's only five o'clock. Kari rolls onto his side sleepily and watches Johan walk into the living room, a glass of glögi in his hand. He sits down on the sofa beside Kari and Kari hoists himself up to wrap his arms around Johan's shoulders. He smells like cloves and flour, and Kari would lock him inside this house forever if he could.
"You aren't going to dress for dinner?" Johan asks as Kari takes his glass and drinks from it; the glögi has brandy mixed into it now.
"I'll dress for dinner," Kari says, shrugging off his robe. "But it's not dinner time yet, hmm? Where did you find those candles?"
"I got them at the store. I got you a present, too."
"Goody." Kari pulls Johan's fruity GQ turtleneck over his head. He's so warm beneath it, and Kari wishes so much that they could leave the games with their equipment still on and come straight back to Kari's house to tear everything off until they reach each other's feverish skin. It's not the same after they've showered and dried. Kari has always wanted to stay inside the delirium of the game for as long as possible, to merge right into his normal life from the rink. As if he has a normal life; as if bringing Johan here isn't like having all of that with him, too.
They have sex on the couch, and Kari is quieter than usual in the presence of the Christmas candles, mostly just breathing hard into Johan's mouth, though he does say please close to a thousand times, in a reverent whisper, and in English, because it's one of the few English words he prefers to the Finnish translation, and also because, now, he wants Johan to understand.
"Please what, gullebit? Please what?" Johan asks, huffing his words down onto Kari's face. Kari is naked and wrapped desperately around him, and Johan still has his pants and shorts on, pushed down just enough. Kari doesn't answer his question, and Johan must not really need to know, because soon he's thrusting hard into Kari, his face pressed to Kari's chest as he tries to keep down his moans. Kari pulls on Johan's hair and he curses and finally lets loose the scream of pleasure Kari has been wanting to hear, shoving in deep as he comes.
They nap thinly afterward, Johan's pants still twisted around his legs and Kari still throbbing with the new history they've just written. Johan is so wrecked by this, finally, pink-faced. Kari is as cozy as an infant, wrapped between Johan and the couch cushions, and he could sleep without dinner but he sits up to yawn because he doesn't want to seem ungrateful for all of Johan's work.
"Where's my present?" he asks, feeling pleasantly ridiculous, naked in his professionally decorated living room with his understudy's cock leaking onto the white leather couch.
"I'll get it." Johan rolls onto his back and pulls his pants up. "It's in the kitchen."
"Oh, wait, wait a minute." Kari bends down to kiss him until they're both laughing into each other's mouths.
The present is a bottle of kossu, a good brand that makes Kari remember the first time he drank it. He tells Johan the story as they pass the bottle back and forth after dinner, overstuffed with food and sitting by the gas fireplace, which Johan has already dismissed as inferior to the real thing.
"The older guys on the Jokerit," Kari says. "They thought it would be funny to get me drunk."
"I bet it was."
"A little. Mostly I got really sick."
Johan makes an exaggerated noise of pity and pulls Kari down until his head is resting against Johan's chest. Kari has never seen Johan drunk before, of course, and he can't stop laughing at the phenomenon, thought mostly Johan is just as quiet as usual, only smiling a bit more.
"Happy Christmas," Kari says, rolling toward the fireplace and pulling Johan's arm so that he rolls with him, until he's snug against Kari's back. "I hope you know you're too drunk to drive."
"So you've got me here," Johan says, his mouth moving in Kari's hair. He pushes his leg through Kari's and wraps him up tighter. "I'm your, uh. Fånge."
"What is that?"
"You know, um. Prisoner."
Kari goes stiff and Johan laughs. He licks Kari's neck until he squirms and whines and tells him to quit.
"It's not so bad in Swedish," Johan says. "Maybe in English it's captive, yeah? Not prisoner. What's your word for this? What would you call me?"
"Rakas," Kari mumbles, and he hopes that Johan has no reason to know the Finnish word for love.
*
The second half of the season is better for the team, and Kari tries not to panic when Johan goes into lockdown mode and does nothing but practice, eat health food and get eight hours of sleep per day. Kari rebels by seeing other men, and one woman, though mostly to her he just talks about his ex-girlfriend, who is actually Johan, and when he forgets to use 'she' instead of 'he' the girl just thinks his English is poor and that he's confusing his pronouns. She doesn't call him back, and he can't bring himself to sleep with any of the men, because he's afraid they would poison him for Johan, who still shows up at the house on rare off days, and who brought him a sticky cake that was probably homemade on his name day. Kari has never done anything to mark a name day and can only remember his mother mentioning his a few times during his childhood. He wonders why Johan feels he needs to go to such lengths to have an excuse to come to the house, as if Kari would turn him away without a proper reason.
Most of the time they get to spend together is during practice and the games, when they only see each other in twenty second intervals between time outs, and between periods in the dressing room. Kari will hover if Johan is getting attention from the trainers, until one of them barks at him in Russian to back off. Sometimes Johan looks at him with sympathy when he receives this treatment, but mostly he narrows his eyes as if he agrees wholeheartedly.
There's no game on February 14, and two of the guys Kari has been seeing call him up and ask for dates, the American holiday making them feel lonely. He agrees to go to Nikolai's Roof with the better looking one, a guy who works for Suntrust and doesn't seem to realize that Kari plays professional hockey. He also seems to think Kari is Russian, and Kari doesn't correct him or tell him that he hates Nikolai's Roof and Russian food in general. Being with the others is like punishing himself for not being with Johan, as if he needs to take part in his own torture, as if Johan isn't doing an effective enough job.
He's getting dressed when he hears the door open and shut downstairs. Johan doesn't have a key, but Kari leaves the door unlocked during the day just in case, and sometimes at night as well. Johan strolls into Kari's bedroom as if it's his, too, and puts his arms around Kari's waist, kissing his neck while Kari frowns into the mirror above his bureau, still smoothing his hair. Johan hasn't been to the house in weeks and hasn't even looked twice at him in three days, so absorbed in his fool's hope of saving the team's already ruined season.
"What are you doing here?" Kari asks. "You can't just march in here anytime you like --"
"So why don't you post a guard at the door?" Johan asks, ignoring this as he untucks Kari's freshly dry cleaned shirt and fumbles at the buttons with one hand while he sneaks the other up underneath the shirt to scratch his short nails over Kari's back.
"Stop," Kari says, though he's not struggling, and is in fact leaning back against Johan to breathe him in. "I'm going out."
"That's fine," Johan says, reaching down to palm Kari's cock through his trousers. Kari groans, but it doesn't come out sounding like the protest he intended to vocalize. He turns to lick Johan's neck in a quick little swipe of his tongue, taking only a taste of him.
"It's not fine," Kari says, because he wants to stay in, of course, to stay in his house with Johan and pretend that it belongs to both of them, that this is Johan's bedroom and he can walk into it whenever he likes. He keeps thinking about Christmas Day, when he woke up on the living room floor with Johan, who was grumpy and complaining about a cramp in his neck. Before he could flee Kari dragged him out to the hot tub, claiming the heat would help his sore muscles, and there Johan had melted again, pulling Kari into his lap and kissing him long and slow, their cocks sliding together under the water. When he dressed to leave after breakfast Kari reminded him that nothing would be open, that he had nowhere to go, and Johan stayed, all day, lazy with Kari on the sofa and proving surprisingly good at video games.
Johan meets Kari's eyes in the mirror and smiles in a way Kari rarely gets to see, as if it's not part of a judgment he's making. He sighs with what sounds like contentment and squeezes Kari's chest, kisses his ear. Kari feels panicked, as if Johan is using all the air in the room and there's nothing left for him.
"Someone is waiting for me," Kari says. Johan is still kissing Kari's neck, moaning a little as if Kari is a hot loaf of bread and Johan is dreaming of eating slice after slice. Johan finally seems to hear what Kari has said and blinks at him in the mirror.
"What?"
"I have an appointment."
"A date?"
"I don't know. Yes. Johan --"
Johan lets go of him and rushes out the bedroom door as if he's suddenly realized he's in the wrong house. He's cursing in at least two different languages, and Kari chases after him, feeling too precisely like he does after a loss in a shootout, as if he's wholly responsible for the end of the world.
"Jo-Jo, please, wait," Kari says, grabbing Johan's arm once he catches up to him in the hallway. Johan whirls around, his eyes dark with fury, and it's just like seeing him in the dressing room after that sort of loss. Nothing can skin Kari to the bone like one look of accusation from Johan.
"I won't go," Kari says, pulling at Johan, wanting to move backward up the stairs and start again. "I was only going to because you weren't here, you don't call me, you don't even look at me --"
"You're a fool," Johan says sharply. "It's men you've been going around with, yes?"
"Nothing -- I haven't done anything, I don't even kiss them --"
"You'll get caught. People here like that even less than back home. Do you not know who you are, Kari? That people see you, they recognize you? You would be humiliated, you could lose everything!"
"Is that why you're angry, you're my agent now, worried about my money?" Kari would be sobbing if he wasn't so furious. He wants Johan to slap him and tell him he can't see others because he belongs to him, but this is so typical, something he should have expected.
"You think you know better than me, then go get fucked by somebody else," Johan says, turning again, and Kari falls on him, pulling him backward. Johan jerks forward but Kari won't let him go, his eyes finally beginning to water.
"Please, Jo-Jo, I'm sorry, please believe me, I don't do anything with them, I just wanted someone to talk to you, you won't talk to me --"
"That's not what you want," Johan says, turning again and grabbing Kari's arm. "You don't want to hear me talk, you don't listen to anything I say."
"Please, I do." Kari is beginning to cry now and he doesn't care; if it keeps Johan here he will sink to the floor and kiss his shoes. "I want everything from you, only you, don't pretend you don't know that you break me, you break me."
He knows it's not the right word, really, but he must get the message across, because Johan doesn't leave. He stands stiffly for a moment as Kari sobs against his chest, and the dark suspicion that Johan is enjoying this descends over Kari, that this is some sort of revenge for having to play second fiddle to a younger man. Maybe it's been Johan's plan all along, carefully orchestrated just to destroy Kari and nothing more. Kari looks up at him, terrified and half-convinced that this must be true.
"Please," Kari cries. "I love you," he adds, in Finnish of course, and Johan lets out his breath. He puts his hands on Kari's shoulders and then grabs enough of his shirt to drag him back toward the stairs.
Kari allows Johan to pull him back into the bedroom and toss him onto the bed. Kari recognizes the look on Johan's face, and it's one he has only ever seen on the ice. Johan flips Kari onto his stomach and rips his pants and shorts down, then pushes the now-wrinkled shirt away so that Kari's back is exposed. He slicks himself hastily with the lotion on Kari's bedside table, which Kari used to jerk off to thoughts of Johan just hours earlier. But he can't enjoy this now, not purely, because Johan has said nothing and Kari is so afraid that he will take this from him and then leave for good.
"Please, Jo-Jo," Kari says, still sobbing in quick spasms. He has no idea what he's begging for now. Johan puts his hand in Kari's hair and yanks just a bit, pulling his head back until Johan's mouth is against Kari's ear. He says something in Swedish and then pauses, still holding Kari's hair, as if he's considering whether or not he should translate, knowing that Kari is too frightened now to ask.
"You break me, too," Johan says roughly before releasing him. He moves back and pushes into Kari without much warning, slowing up when Kari shouts in pain. It quickly fades to the hot sting that Kari loves, and he pushes himself back onto Johan's cock, whimpering like a girl and not caring that he's reduced himself to this disheveled state, even if it's what Johan secretly wants. He wants to give Johan everything anyway.
"Kovempaa," Kari begs mindlessly, again and again, and by now Johan has learned the Finnish word for harder. His grip on Kari's hips is so tight, and Kari thinks of how each finger will leave a tiny bruise, and how his uniform pants will rub raw against the sore spots, making him remember the smell of Johan's sweat and the cologne he wore when he came to the house on Valentine's Day, expecting Kari to be waiting patiently. Kari sobs against the mattress as he comes, Johan's hand pumping his cock and emptying him out.
When they're through they lie in a helpless tangle, Kari half-undressed and Johan still in his shirt and trousers, his cock softening against the unzipped fly. His eyes are unreadable, and he lets Kari hold him but remains limp in his arms.
"Now you can go see the men you don't fuck with my come leaking out of you," Johan says. It sounds unnatural on him, too crass, and Kari knows then how badly he's hurt Johan. He feels proud for a moment, or just glad to know that he can hurt him at all. He kisses Johan's forehead and strokes his hair.
"They're nothing," Kari says. "You're everything, Jo-Jo, you're the only real man I've ever known."
"You need people too much," Johan mumbles, not looking Kari in the eye. He hasn't, really, since they had sex. "You're weak."
"You're glad about that," Kari says. "I think."
Johan sits up on his elbow and frowns down at Kari as if he's just told Johan that water is fire and black is white. He touches Kari's forehead with cautious fingertips, still frowning.
"You think I want you to be weak?" he asks.
"Maybe, yeah. So that you can have me like this."
Johan shakes his head. "My job is to make you stronger," he says. "That's what they told me when I came here. We had a meeting, the coaches and me. They told me I would never be number one, the starter, and I knew that. They said my job was to teach you and push you and make you not so soft and young. I didn't want to do it this way. I knew it would hurt you and help me, what we're doing, and that's not why they brought me here, to make you softer. But Kari, gullebit, you would come to my room and smile at me and climb into my bed, and I couldn't fight anymore. You broke me, too, you know that you did."
Kari pulls Johan back down to him, and this time Johan wraps around him eagerly. They lie like that for awhile, twisted together and still mostly out of breath. It's beginning to get dark outside, and Kari thinks of the man he stood up at Nikolai's Roof, and of the whole unspectacular world outside of this room. He feels blessed the way he's always been told that he should feel, chosen.
"I want you to live in my house," Kari says. "No one has to know."
"Gullebit, all you do is want. That's the nature of money, wealth, gold. More and more and more. That's what you'll always want."
"So what? Does that mean I've finally turned into an American?"
Johan laughs and leans up to kiss him, and Kari rolls onto his back, pulling Johan on top of him. He'll always have to guide him around a bit, pulling him this way or that. He thought it was because Johan didn't want to be pulled, but that's not it at all. He needs it, to be taught how to want and be selfish and belong in someone's bed. Kari wraps his legs around Johan's back and Johan tips his chin back, looking down at Kari from beneath his eyelids.
"Then I'm your prisoner," Johan says. "Does that mean I made you stronger, stronger than me?"
"No," Kari says. "You know I'm yours, too."
They order Pizza Hut for dinner and the delivery boy tells them that Valentine's Day is the busiest day of the year. In Finland it's called ystävänpäivä, Friendship Day, and it's true that once there was a boy in school who chased Kari around, trying to kiss him, because he was small and blond and weak enough to relent. Once, on Friendship Day, there was a messy bundle of wildflowers in Kari's chair when he arrived at school in the morning. He knew it was the boy, Alpo, and he knew, though Alpo mostly terrified him, that he would be bent for the rest of his life by those crumpled flowers more than anything.
He and Johan eat their pizza in front of a bad American movie, and Kari falls asleep with his head on Johan's thigh, Johan's fingers spread through his hair. He wakes up afraid, the details of the house sinking into him first: all the white furniture and the high ceilings, the noise of the television. He sits up with alarm and sees Johan slumped beside him, deep in sleep, his mouth open slightly and his beard just beginning to grow in. Kari turns the TV off and looks around the dark living room. It's so different now, all of it, the walls and the floor and the coffee table with the half-empty pizza box. It's what it should be, finally, nothing that the decorator could have accomplished: a quiet place for Johan to sleep, and rooms that will now house Kari's whole heart, not just the paltry remains that he's clung to since Johan was brought here to make him strong.