What's the Use of Defense - Part 3
Fandom: Hockey RPF
Pairing: Sidney Crosby/Jonathan Toews
Rating: mature
Word Count: 8,120
AO3 here!
“It’s not serious, it was just one night.” Jonny knows it’s a lie as soon as he hears his own voice crack. Pat holds up one hand to stop him. “I will literally never be drunk enough to want to know about Crosby’s dick.”
Jonny huffs out a laugh, but his smile fades fast. “I left. I mean, I bolted, before he woke up.”
Jonny and Sid hook up at Sochi, and nothing is quite the same afterwards.
Jonny makes himself sleep on the plane for once, because he’s only got the 13th off and a bit of the following morning before they play the Preds, and then Sid’s got an afternoon game the next day against the Flyers and needs to fly directly there. It’s not a lot of time, but at least they’ll have one whole day without interruptions, and then it’ll be the end of the regular season. He hopes they’ll both be playing into the summer - he thinks the Hawks have another serious cup run in them, and the Penguins have been shakier this year but he still wouldn’t underestimate them. It’ll be off season soon enough though, either way, and they’ll have the summer to spend time together and see if they drive each other up the wall when they’re together 24/7. Jonny wants them to both go up to Canada together, maybe use one of their summer homes and just relax and fish.
He picks up Sid from a coffee shop downtown, both of them having agreed they didn’t want the attention of being spotted together at the airport. He’s actually chosen a mini-golf place instead of a regular golf course, thinking it might be less awkward that way. It only has a little bit to do with wanting to see if he can make Sid do that ridiculous laugh in person.
Apparently he can.
“I hope you realize I’m not going to go easy on you just because we’re surrounded by children,” Sid says.
“No,” Jonny grins, easy and wide, moving to stand right behind Sid, “but I could help you fix your stance if you’re so worried about winning.”
Sid chokes and swings against air.
“Maybe you should pretend you’re taking a swing at Bettman, if it helps your aim,” he suggests, just to be a dick.
Sid still ends up doing better than him, but they spend so much time bickering over the best angle to aim at the corners at the windmill that neither of them notices.
They’re picking at the last of their food in a little bistro down the road by the time Sidney pushes his plate away, clears his throat, and says, “This is going better than I expected.”
Jonny raises an eyebrow at him. “Did you really think it would be a disaster?”
Sid does this little half-laugh, but he sounds more self-deprecating than amused. “I thought you might panic again, actually.” He shrugs, rolling the paper from his straw up into a spiral and then unrolling it so he can tear it into pieces. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Jonny finds himself angry all of a sudden with whoever’s made Sid doubt himself in the past, even though he hardly has any moral ground to stand on. He tries to hide it and takes another sip of his drink, but Sid’s probably noticed anyway.
“It’s fine,” he says. “I’m just glad it’s going well.”
“It’s too bad we aren’t in the same conference,” Jonny muses, and that gets him a real laugh.
“This is better - can you imagine being constantly fed up with each other over scores every time we saw each other, or spending the entire season worrying about one of us knocking the other out of a cup slot?”
Jonny grimaces. He’d been thinking about being able to see each other more often if their teams played each other all the time, but - yeah, Sid’s probably right.
“Anyway,” Sid tells him, leaning forward with his arms folded on the table, “it’s not like you’re all the way in California, it’s a short flight, and we’ll have the summer, we’ll figure something out. If you want to keep doing this, I mean.”
Jonny just smiles at him and bumps their knees together under the table, and for right now, it’s enough.
They spend the rest of the day lazing around his house, watching a bunch of movies and eating Chinese takeout from the one place that makes chocolate fortune cookies. Sid finally drags them out of the house after dinner to go jogging, since he’s missing his practice time today. Jonny compromises by taking him out along the lake front so they can at least have a nice view. People are used to seeing him here, and he doesn’t get stopped too often by fans, especially not when the light’s this low. He does stick a Blackhawks ball cap on Sid’s head before they leave, and despite the face Sid makes at him, he keeps it on the whole time.
“I feel like I should take a photo of you in that. Good blackmail material,” Jonny says when they stop for a water break.
Sid rolls his eyes. “What’re you gonna do, sell it to Deadspin? They’d think my concussion was back.”
Jonny shrugs. “Think I’d be better off posting it online, start up trade rumors and see who panics first.”
Sid tucks his hands back into his pockets and straights up a little, defiant. “Alright, go ahead, take a picture.” Jonny grabs his cell phone out of his pocket but hesitates. “You sure? I’m not serious about posting it online, you know.”
“Yeah,” Sid tells him, “but it’d still be nice to have it, wouldn’t it?” He hunches a little, then says, “Besides, it’s good timing, we can slip it to our teams as an April Fool’s joke and see if any of them buy it.”
Jonny tries not to snicker, but he does take the picture. “I bet I can convince the rookies that we’re trading all of them for you.”
He texts it to Sid and emails it to himself later before he deletes it from his phone, that way he can pull it up later without worrying about anyone stumbling across it in his photo album before he’s ready to tell them. He looks at it again later that night while Sid’s down the hall in the guest bathroom, brushing his teeth. They’ve decided by some unspoken mutual agreement to take a step back; Jonny wasn’t sure if they’d just pick up from where they left off in Russia, and maybe if this was just a sex thing they would, but it’s like they’re trying to make sure they do this right this time around. Still though, he’s only human, so when he wakes up the next morning and drags himself into the kitchen to find Sid making them both protein shakes, he presses him up against the counter. Sid turns around and Jonny asks, “Can I…?” just as Sid slides a hand along his jaw and then pulls him in for a slow kiss.
Sid makes a face. “Morning breath,” he complains, then pushes one of the glasses over to him. Jonny sips it while he stares down the coffee maker his mom got him that he’s never been too great at working. It’s got all sorts of fancy programmable settings and he’s supposed to be able to set it up so it automatically makes coffee when he’s getting up, but the only time he tried that it bubbled over and he ended up scraping coffee grinds out of his floor. Patrick keeps threatening to buy him a Keurig - not that he dislikes them on principle, because they are pretty classy looking, but he’s sure Pat will end up filling his cabinets with obscurely flavored pods instead of, like, actual coffee. He flips a couple levers and lets out a quiet sigh of relief when it actually starts brewing. There’s been a few mornings where he hasn’t been able to get it to work, and has had to pick up coffee on his way to the rink and pretend he wanted cheap, burnt coffee.
Sidney’s watching him, drinking his own shake. “You’re playing us in two weeks. Do you need to be back in Chicago right away?”
Jonny hums and thinks about it. They actually have a three day break then, he can afford the time. “Don’t need to be back until the third.”
“Good. You should stay a little while.”
They spend the rest of the morning in comfortable silence on the couch, Jonny watching replays of the Preds vs Sabres game from a few days ago with one arm slung over Sid’s shoulder while he texts his sister. All too soon it’s time for him to head out to lunch and then the rink, and Sid’s getting up and stretching before he grabs his bag from the guest room.
“Hey,” Sid says, knocking their shoulder together companionably. “Sixteen days.”
“It’ll be like the world’s longest road trip,” Jonny deadpans, and makes sure to kiss him goodbye before he leaves for the airport. Thoroughly.
---
They text a little bit, mostly about things they’ve seen through the day. Sid tells him about the charity event they’re all supposed to bake for, and how most of the guys had their girlfriends or wives do it for them. He’d baked with Nathalie and the kids last year, but he’s determined to make a go of it in his own kitchen this time. Jonny gets delicious looking photos of some sort of sweet rolls covered in apple and cinnamon, and one of Sid trying to take a selfie, kind of blurry, but with streaks of flour all the way up in his hair. Jonny saves that one. The next photo he gets is of a pot on fire.
‘Maybe buy the caramel sauce,’ he advises.
Jonny texts him to complain when one of the guys waters his house plants with beer during a party and kills one of them; Sid sends him back a link to Home Depot’s cactus selection because he thinks he’s hilarious.
There’s not much reason to talk about hockey, actually - they do sometimes, about other team’s strengths and weaknesses, but there’s no point in them doing a play by play of their own games. It’s not as awkward to find other things to talk about as Jonny expected.
There’s a text waiting for him after they play the Sens that just says ‘tomorrow.’ The flight’s a few hours, but he spends it grinning and too distracted to even be annoyed at the loss.
---
Jonny is less amused when he looks up in the visitor locker room in Pittsburgh and realizes that, one, Patrick is missing, and two, Sharpy looks smug and pleased with himself. Those two things are never a good combination, and if he has to guess what Patrick’s up to…
Jonny groans. “I need to take care of something,” he tells Leddy.
Patrick’s not playing tonight, still out with a lower body injury, so he doesn’t actually need to be in Pittsburgh; he’d be home resting if he had any sense. He’d been oddly insistent on joining up with them for this leg of the road trip for ‘moral support’ and Jonny really should have seen this coming.
Patrick’s wormed his way into the Penguin’s locker room just as he’d feared.
“-and you’re not allowed to fuck him before we play each other, that’s totally cheating,” Jonny hears just as he walks in.
“Oh my god,” he groans. “Patrick, what the hell is wrong with you?”
The Penguins are staring at him as he grabs Pat by the scruff of the neck. Fleury looks like Christmas just came early. Jonny makes a note to never let him hang out with Sharpy, he doesn’t want to encourage any more of that.
“I’m so sorry,” he says to Sid, “I’m just going to… collect this. For fuck’s sake, Patrick.”
“I wasn’t done ye- wow, fuck you, don’t touch me there!”
Jonny shoves Patrick out the door, then turns back. “Seriously, I should have known he was planning something like this when he insisted on coming. Sorry, I’ll make it up to you.”
Someone in the back of the room whoops, and Jonny realizes how that sounded and winces. He does a little half wave at Sid, who at least looks more amused than angry, before he gives up on retaining any of his dignity and just hurries out so he can herd Patrick back to their own locker room.
“Are you actually five years old?” he hisses, then makes Pat sit down on the bench. “Just- look, just stay there and stop walking around or you’re going to end up being out even longer.”
“I was just trying to help,” Pat whines at him. “Like, you know, shovel talk.”
“I’m pretty sure he already figured you’d all go after him if anything happened, you fucking idiot, you didn’t need to break into their locker room for that.” He can’t stay angry for long, though; this time last year he would have been worried about the team being upset if he was outed, not sticking up for him in their own (totally unnecessary and kind of petty) way.
“Look,” he tells Patrick when he’s getting ready to go watch from the box, “it’s not that I don’t appreciate the thought, just, please stop threatening him off the ice.”
Jonny gets driven into the boards by Orpik in the second period, and that’s it, he’s out. Not until next season, probably, but there’s talk between the trainers and the medical staff about keeping him out until playoffs so that he’s able to heal up. Jonny grits his teeth as he watches his team lose from one of the staff rooms. It’s not an unreasonable strategy, though, to want their captain going into the playoffs in as good of shape as possible. He’s just going to be doing physical rehab and spending way too much time with Pat if that’s the case.
They won’t let him stay in Pittsburgh after the game, though; they want him to fly back so that he can check in with the rest of the trainers in the morning.
‘I’m okay,’ he texts to Sidney, knowing he’ll be checking his phone once he gets through with the post-game media. ‘Back by playoffs, they’re just being cautious. Have to go back to Chicago, check in with medical.’ He sends it, frowns, then quickly types out, ‘Sorry. Call me when you’re free, we’ll Facetime or something.’
---
By mutual consensus, they’re not in contact much once playoffs start. They both need to be focussed, and fortunately neither of them is the sort to take that as a personal slight. Jonny does send Sid a quick ‘Sorry, we’ll try and beat the Rangers for you’ after the Pens are knocked out, but he doesn’t expect and doesn’t recieve an answer. Then the Hawks are falling to the Kings, and that’s it - they’re out.
Jonny golfs between follow-up interviews, using the playing time to work his own feelings out without dumbass commentary, and leaves the half-beard he’s still got. He thinks it’s a pretty good visual on his ‘fuck it’ philosophy for the summer, even if Pat won’t stop calling him Wolverine. He finally gets a text from Sid midway through the Kings vs Rangers finals asking if he’d like a golfing partner.
‘One condition, though,’ Sid texts him. ‘The beard goes.’
‘I kind of like it. I’m working on a look.’
‘Too scratchy,’ Sid sends back. ‘I have Plans.’
Jonny grins, snaps him a photo of his razor, and books himself a flight to Pittsburgh.
Pairing: Sidney Crosby/Jonathan Toews
Rating: mature
Word Count: 8,120
AO3 here!
“It’s not serious, it was just one night.” Jonny knows it’s a lie as soon as he hears his own voice crack. Pat holds up one hand to stop him. “I will literally never be drunk enough to want to know about Crosby’s dick.”
Jonny huffs out a laugh, but his smile fades fast. “I left. I mean, I bolted, before he woke up.”
Jonny and Sid hook up at Sochi, and nothing is quite the same afterwards.
Jonny makes himself sleep on the plane for once, because he’s only got the 13th off and a bit of the following morning before they play the Preds, and then Sid’s got an afternoon game the next day against the Flyers and needs to fly directly there. It’s not a lot of time, but at least they’ll have one whole day without interruptions, and then it’ll be the end of the regular season. He hopes they’ll both be playing into the summer - he thinks the Hawks have another serious cup run in them, and the Penguins have been shakier this year but he still wouldn’t underestimate them. It’ll be off season soon enough though, either way, and they’ll have the summer to spend time together and see if they drive each other up the wall when they’re together 24/7. Jonny wants them to both go up to Canada together, maybe use one of their summer homes and just relax and fish.
He picks up Sid from a coffee shop downtown, both of them having agreed they didn’t want the attention of being spotted together at the airport. He’s actually chosen a mini-golf place instead of a regular golf course, thinking it might be less awkward that way. It only has a little bit to do with wanting to see if he can make Sid do that ridiculous laugh in person.
Apparently he can.
“I hope you realize I’m not going to go easy on you just because we’re surrounded by children,” Sid says.
“No,” Jonny grins, easy and wide, moving to stand right behind Sid, “but I could help you fix your stance if you’re so worried about winning.”
Sid chokes and swings against air.
“Maybe you should pretend you’re taking a swing at Bettman, if it helps your aim,” he suggests, just to be a dick.
Sid still ends up doing better than him, but they spend so much time bickering over the best angle to aim at the corners at the windmill that neither of them notices.
They’re picking at the last of their food in a little bistro down the road by the time Sidney pushes his plate away, clears his throat, and says, “This is going better than I expected.”
Jonny raises an eyebrow at him. “Did you really think it would be a disaster?”
Sid does this little half-laugh, but he sounds more self-deprecating than amused. “I thought you might panic again, actually.” He shrugs, rolling the paper from his straw up into a spiral and then unrolling it so he can tear it into pieces. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Jonny finds himself angry all of a sudden with whoever’s made Sid doubt himself in the past, even though he hardly has any moral ground to stand on. He tries to hide it and takes another sip of his drink, but Sid’s probably noticed anyway.
“It’s fine,” he says. “I’m just glad it’s going well.”
“It’s too bad we aren’t in the same conference,” Jonny muses, and that gets him a real laugh.
“This is better - can you imagine being constantly fed up with each other over scores every time we saw each other, or spending the entire season worrying about one of us knocking the other out of a cup slot?”
Jonny grimaces. He’d been thinking about being able to see each other more often if their teams played each other all the time, but - yeah, Sid’s probably right.
“Anyway,” Sid tells him, leaning forward with his arms folded on the table, “it’s not like you’re all the way in California, it’s a short flight, and we’ll have the summer, we’ll figure something out. If you want to keep doing this, I mean.”
Jonny just smiles at him and bumps their knees together under the table, and for right now, it’s enough.
They spend the rest of the day lazing around his house, watching a bunch of movies and eating Chinese takeout from the one place that makes chocolate fortune cookies. Sid finally drags them out of the house after dinner to go jogging, since he’s missing his practice time today. Jonny compromises by taking him out along the lake front so they can at least have a nice view. People are used to seeing him here, and he doesn’t get stopped too often by fans, especially not when the light’s this low. He does stick a Blackhawks ball cap on Sid’s head before they leave, and despite the face Sid makes at him, he keeps it on the whole time.
“I feel like I should take a photo of you in that. Good blackmail material,” Jonny says when they stop for a water break.
Sid rolls his eyes. “What’re you gonna do, sell it to Deadspin? They’d think my concussion was back.”
Jonny shrugs. “Think I’d be better off posting it online, start up trade rumors and see who panics first.”
Sid tucks his hands back into his pockets and straights up a little, defiant. “Alright, go ahead, take a picture.” Jonny grabs his cell phone out of his pocket but hesitates. “You sure? I’m not serious about posting it online, you know.”
“Yeah,” Sid tells him, “but it’d still be nice to have it, wouldn’t it?” He hunches a little, then says, “Besides, it’s good timing, we can slip it to our teams as an April Fool’s joke and see if any of them buy it.”
Jonny tries not to snicker, but he does take the picture. “I bet I can convince the rookies that we’re trading all of them for you.”
He texts it to Sid and emails it to himself later before he deletes it from his phone, that way he can pull it up later without worrying about anyone stumbling across it in his photo album before he’s ready to tell them. He looks at it again later that night while Sid’s down the hall in the guest bathroom, brushing his teeth. They’ve decided by some unspoken mutual agreement to take a step back; Jonny wasn’t sure if they’d just pick up from where they left off in Russia, and maybe if this was just a sex thing they would, but it’s like they’re trying to make sure they do this right this time around. Still though, he’s only human, so when he wakes up the next morning and drags himself into the kitchen to find Sid making them both protein shakes, he presses him up against the counter. Sid turns around and Jonny asks, “Can I…?” just as Sid slides a hand along his jaw and then pulls him in for a slow kiss.
Sid makes a face. “Morning breath,” he complains, then pushes one of the glasses over to him. Jonny sips it while he stares down the coffee maker his mom got him that he’s never been too great at working. It’s got all sorts of fancy programmable settings and he’s supposed to be able to set it up so it automatically makes coffee when he’s getting up, but the only time he tried that it bubbled over and he ended up scraping coffee grinds out of his floor. Patrick keeps threatening to buy him a Keurig - not that he dislikes them on principle, because they are pretty classy looking, but he’s sure Pat will end up filling his cabinets with obscurely flavored pods instead of, like, actual coffee. He flips a couple levers and lets out a quiet sigh of relief when it actually starts brewing. There’s been a few mornings where he hasn’t been able to get it to work, and has had to pick up coffee on his way to the rink and pretend he wanted cheap, burnt coffee.
Sidney’s watching him, drinking his own shake. “You’re playing us in two weeks. Do you need to be back in Chicago right away?”
Jonny hums and thinks about it. They actually have a three day break then, he can afford the time. “Don’t need to be back until the third.”
“Good. You should stay a little while.”
They spend the rest of the morning in comfortable silence on the couch, Jonny watching replays of the Preds vs Sabres game from a few days ago with one arm slung over Sid’s shoulder while he texts his sister. All too soon it’s time for him to head out to lunch and then the rink, and Sid’s getting up and stretching before he grabs his bag from the guest room.
“Hey,” Sid says, knocking their shoulder together companionably. “Sixteen days.”
“It’ll be like the world’s longest road trip,” Jonny deadpans, and makes sure to kiss him goodbye before he leaves for the airport. Thoroughly.
---
They text a little bit, mostly about things they’ve seen through the day. Sid tells him about the charity event they’re all supposed to bake for, and how most of the guys had their girlfriends or wives do it for them. He’d baked with Nathalie and the kids last year, but he’s determined to make a go of it in his own kitchen this time. Jonny gets delicious looking photos of some sort of sweet rolls covered in apple and cinnamon, and one of Sid trying to take a selfie, kind of blurry, but with streaks of flour all the way up in his hair. Jonny saves that one. The next photo he gets is of a pot on fire.
‘Maybe buy the caramel sauce,’ he advises.
Jonny texts him to complain when one of the guys waters his house plants with beer during a party and kills one of them; Sid sends him back a link to Home Depot’s cactus selection because he thinks he’s hilarious.
There’s not much reason to talk about hockey, actually - they do sometimes, about other team’s strengths and weaknesses, but there’s no point in them doing a play by play of their own games. It’s not as awkward to find other things to talk about as Jonny expected.
There’s a text waiting for him after they play the Sens that just says ‘tomorrow.’ The flight’s a few hours, but he spends it grinning and too distracted to even be annoyed at the loss.
---
Jonny is less amused when he looks up in the visitor locker room in Pittsburgh and realizes that, one, Patrick is missing, and two, Sharpy looks smug and pleased with himself. Those two things are never a good combination, and if he has to guess what Patrick’s up to…
Jonny groans. “I need to take care of something,” he tells Leddy.
Patrick’s not playing tonight, still out with a lower body injury, so he doesn’t actually need to be in Pittsburgh; he’d be home resting if he had any sense. He’d been oddly insistent on joining up with them for this leg of the road trip for ‘moral support’ and Jonny really should have seen this coming.
Patrick’s wormed his way into the Penguin’s locker room just as he’d feared.
“-and you’re not allowed to fuck him before we play each other, that’s totally cheating,” Jonny hears just as he walks in.
“Oh my god,” he groans. “Patrick, what the hell is wrong with you?”
The Penguins are staring at him as he grabs Pat by the scruff of the neck. Fleury looks like Christmas just came early. Jonny makes a note to never let him hang out with Sharpy, he doesn’t want to encourage any more of that.
“I’m so sorry,” he says to Sid, “I’m just going to… collect this. For fuck’s sake, Patrick.”
“I wasn’t done ye- wow, fuck you, don’t touch me there!”
Jonny shoves Patrick out the door, then turns back. “Seriously, I should have known he was planning something like this when he insisted on coming. Sorry, I’ll make it up to you.”
Someone in the back of the room whoops, and Jonny realizes how that sounded and winces. He does a little half wave at Sid, who at least looks more amused than angry, before he gives up on retaining any of his dignity and just hurries out so he can herd Patrick back to their own locker room.
“Are you actually five years old?” he hisses, then makes Pat sit down on the bench. “Just- look, just stay there and stop walking around or you’re going to end up being out even longer.”
“I was just trying to help,” Pat whines at him. “Like, you know, shovel talk.”
“I’m pretty sure he already figured you’d all go after him if anything happened, you fucking idiot, you didn’t need to break into their locker room for that.” He can’t stay angry for long, though; this time last year he would have been worried about the team being upset if he was outed, not sticking up for him in their own (totally unnecessary and kind of petty) way.
“Look,” he tells Patrick when he’s getting ready to go watch from the box, “it’s not that I don’t appreciate the thought, just, please stop threatening him off the ice.”
Jonny gets driven into the boards by Orpik in the second period, and that’s it, he’s out. Not until next season, probably, but there’s talk between the trainers and the medical staff about keeping him out until playoffs so that he’s able to heal up. Jonny grits his teeth as he watches his team lose from one of the staff rooms. It’s not an unreasonable strategy, though, to want their captain going into the playoffs in as good of shape as possible. He’s just going to be doing physical rehab and spending way too much time with Pat if that’s the case.
They won’t let him stay in Pittsburgh after the game, though; they want him to fly back so that he can check in with the rest of the trainers in the morning.
‘I’m okay,’ he texts to Sidney, knowing he’ll be checking his phone once he gets through with the post-game media. ‘Back by playoffs, they’re just being cautious. Have to go back to Chicago, check in with medical.’ He sends it, frowns, then quickly types out, ‘Sorry. Call me when you’re free, we’ll Facetime or something.’
---
By mutual consensus, they’re not in contact much once playoffs start. They both need to be focussed, and fortunately neither of them is the sort to take that as a personal slight. Jonny does send Sid a quick ‘Sorry, we’ll try and beat the Rangers for you’ after the Pens are knocked out, but he doesn’t expect and doesn’t recieve an answer. Then the Hawks are falling to the Kings, and that’s it - they’re out.
Jonny golfs between follow-up interviews, using the playing time to work his own feelings out without dumbass commentary, and leaves the half-beard he’s still got. He thinks it’s a pretty good visual on his ‘fuck it’ philosophy for the summer, even if Pat won’t stop calling him Wolverine. He finally gets a text from Sid midway through the Kings vs Rangers finals asking if he’d like a golfing partner.
‘One condition, though,’ Sid texts him. ‘The beard goes.’
‘I kind of like it. I’m working on a look.’
‘Too scratchy,’ Sid sends back. ‘I have Plans.’
Jonny grins, snaps him a photo of his razor, and books himself a flight to Pittsburgh.