oh my gosh this full quote: “celebrini and smith, good friends, push each other. you should see those two before the game. they play their own little game of soccer—you know how guys play soccer before the game? they play their own little game of soccer, and—I don’t even know the point of it, but all I know is that they’re both laughing, and they’re having a great time, and they’re loose. I don’t know if they feel pressure. I don’t think that they do. I think they’re just enjoying the moment. and why not, when they’re that talented?”
in my humble opinion, the moment you know you or a friend truly in it as a sports fan is if you have beef with sports reporters. officially in the trenches
I was wondering why so many of the notes on this were about hockey (???) and I didn't expect the answer to be "the captain of the Maple Leafs is selling a healing electromagnetic amulet" but here we are
Why has no one written a rarepair fic of the Sebastian Aho(s) falling in love?!?! There’s one horny fic but I need someone to embrace the chaos and write them getting married.
Prompt: Palex where Alex comes to Pato for a sleepover in his bus because he can't fall asleep alone
A/N: Don't ask me the timeline of anything, idk. Anyway, found out Alex apparently has a fear of lightning and I ran with it.
The rumble of thunder through the bus lot is what pulls Pato from his sleep, a sound that roils through, bringing Pato’s consciousness with it. The lightning that flashes, casts shadows of his blinds across the ceiling and illuminates the messy state of his room for a blink, is quick to follow.
Pato groans, muffles the sound into his pillow when he turns on his side and curses the weather.
The storm had been forecasted, discussed in their meeting the night before because it is meant to be slow-moving, still sitting above them come morning and impacting the practice session he sorely needs. The rain that beats against his window would normally be appreciated, soothing in nature, if not for the fact that it is what will be keeping him out of the car come tomorrow. Ovals and their temperament, their unreliability, and the fact that they can kill, have killed, aren’t safe to drive on in wet conditions. Pato wouldn’t want to take the risk, not for a practice session, but he is itching to get in the car.
May is already weighing heavy on him, despite the fact that the month is still in its infancy, still ripe with potential and promise. Pato cannot help but think twenty steps ahead, can’t help that his brain seems to be working in overdrive these days, especially where the 500 is concerned. It’s exhausting, which is another reason he curses the storm. He needs sleep.
Thunder rumbles again, louder this time, enough to shake the bus. Enough that Pato misses the knocking until it comes again, frantic. He could pass it off as storm noise, if not for how it echoes and sound far closer than what is brewing in the sky above.
Grumbling, he pulls himself from the bed and pads down the length of the bus, wiping at the sleep crusted in the corners of his eyes. He opens the door mid-yawn, not expecting anyone, but least of all the man who stands on the first step shivering in his soaked through pajamas.
“Alex?”
Alexander Rossi looks up at him through the rain beading on his lashes, squints when it drips and joins the rest of the cascading trails down his face.
“Hi.”
“Hi?”
“Can I come in?” He shivers again as if for emphasis, curls his arms tighter where he’s wrapped them around his torso. His shirt is plastered to his soaked through frame, sleeves tight against the swell of muscle. Pato stares, wondering for a moment if he’s maybe dreaming, before Alex tacks on a feeble, “Please?” and his voice, trembling just as much as he is, pulls Pato back to his senses.
He moves out of the doorway, motions for Alex to enter, and then Alexander Rossi is standing in the entryway of his bus and dripping water in a puddle on the linoleum. His shoes leave muddy tracks, before he looks down and notices the mess.
“Sorry,” He mutters to Pato before kicking the sneakers off, standing in the puddle of water in his socks once he does.
“It’s okay,” Pato promises. His bus isn’t the sanctity of cleanliness that Alex’s is, there’s enough half empty water bottles and piles of clothes scattered around to attest to that. But Alex probably can’t see the mess in the dark of the bus. He isn’t looking at anything anyway, just the floor beneath him, his socks changing color where the water is soaking into them.
Pato isn’t sure what to say, what to do, shuffles around Alex from where he’d been standing with his hand still on the door and then makes for the kitchen so he can flip the switch to illuminate the small space. The light has them both flinching, blinking against it, even though it’s dim because Pato has it on a slider and always keeps it on the lowest setting. It casts Alex in a new light, makes his soaked through state even more apparent. Their buses are on opposite sides of the lot, which means Alex has run through the grass and the mud, braved the torrential downpour that now beats against the windows, to stand in one spot on Alex’s bus and shiver.
“Are- do you- do you want a change of clothes?” Pato asks. They’re not the same size, but Pato thinks he maybe has a hoodie or two that are oversized on him.
Alex swallows, nods, “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”
Pato wouldn’t have offered if he did.
He doesn’t look at Pato, still keeps staring at that same spot on the floor. Alex doesn’t ever speak much, but he doesn’t show up at Pato’s place at close to three in the morning without explanation either. They’re friendly, friends even, but Pato is used to long text conversations and casual flirting, not whatever this is. He’s out of his element, Alex too if his stilted behavior is any indication.
Rifling through the bit of clean laundry he still has, Pato is able to procure a tan hoodie. There’s a stain on the front, probably from spilled food, but it’s clean. Alex doesn’t seem to mind, which is strange too, just peels his shirt from his body without preamble and wipes himself down with the towel Pato offers too before sliding the hoodie on.
Pato tries not to stare, fails, watches as Alex runs to towel over his chest, his arms, the expanse of his abdomen. He’s seen Alex shirtless before, worked out with him occasionally and seen him strip out of his fireproofs when he got too overheated, but never in the intimacy of his temporary home. Never when Alex was so close. Alex dries at the water along his v-line, and Pato’s mouth goes a little dry.
He forces himself to look away, makes himself a glass of water and chugs it while leaning against the sink so he can maybe not feel so thirsty that he thinks about dropping to his knees and licking away the rain dotting Alex’s skin himself. Alex doesn’t seem to notice, just slides on the hoodie and then strips out of his socks, adding them and his shirt in a soggy pile next to his shoes.
“Thanks,” Alex says when he’s dressed, no longer standing in the puddle, but across from Pato in the small space of the kitchen. He’s leaned back against the door of the bathroom, arms crossed over his chest again, eyes still not quite meeting Pato’s.
“No problem.” Pato sips from his water now, casts a look at Alex over the rim of the cup.
“I-“ Alex starts, shifts against the door, sighs, “I don’t like storms.”
The thunder rumbles again outside as if to accentuate Alex’s point. He tenses, noticeably, fabric of the hoodie stretched tight across his shoulders.
“Oh,” Pato says, for lack of anything better. Alex didn’t seem like the sort to be afraid of anything, least of all thunderstorms.
“I- it’s the lightning really. Or just- just the whole thing. I don’t know. Mainly the lightning.”
“Oh,” Pato says again, still unsure what he’s meant to do here, “Okay.”
“Sorry, it’s stupid,” Alex says, forces out a laugh, but Pato knows when he’s faking something so it’s not hard to miss the tension in his tone. He glances up at Pato for a second, quickly looks back down, finds another spot on the floor to study with avoidant interest. Pato’s never seen him like this. Quiet, annoyed, yes, but awkwardly picking at the sleeve of Pato’s hoodie with anxious fingers, that’s a new one.
“No, it’s not stupid,” Pato assures him, sets the cup of water down behind him, “Sorry, man, I don’t mean to be an asshole.” He steps closer to Alex, sets a hand over where Alex is pulling on the hoodie at his bicep and then releasing it, repeating the behavior again and again with increasing agitation. Alex flinches at the contact, eyes darting to Pato’s holding for a second before they leave again. He’s biting at his bottom lip nervously, enough that Pato can see blood beading up when he pulls at a loose bit of skin to hard. Alex licks it away quickly, ducks his head further like he’s ashamed.
“It’s not stupid, honestly. What do you need me to do? How can I help?”
Alex shrugs, shakes his head.
“Come on, Alex. You came here for a reason, let me help. Please.”
“It’s dumb,” Alex says, quiet, ashamed. The thunder comes again, and he tenses impossibly tighter, goes so rigid in Pato’s grasp that Pato can feel it. The bus does little to help, just keeps rocking with the wind that gusts against it and doing nothing to mute the cacophony of noise that is the rain pounding against the roof. The storm is picking up, and Alex is only growing more and more agitated with it.
“Alex, I want to help,” Pato pushes. He hates this, hates seeing Alex practically trembling in the dim light of his bus, looking smaller than he should. He’s exhausted, and he can see Alex is too in the dark circles under his eyes and his weary expression. They need to sleep, they both need this rain to end. Alex because he clearly can’t stand the storm itself, Pato because he needs to get in his car tomorrow, drive out the anxiety and frustration that’s crawling up his spine. He curses Indiana weather again, mentally gives it the finger, it responds with a clap of thunder so loud the bus shakes with it.
Alex’s face goes white, his grip on his own bicep goes so tight Pato can see it, feel it beneath where he’s got his own hand resting atop Alex’s. It must be painful, has to be, because he’s gripping skin and muscle with enough force his knuckles are going white too.
“Hey, woah, it’s okay.” He soothes Alex like a spooked horse, pulls the man’s hand away from where he’s attempting to bruise his own arm, lets him grip his hand instead. “You’re okay, dude. All good.”
“S-sorry,” Alex stutters out, choked sounding. He’s squeezed his eyes shut, just as tight as the rest of his body, leaning against the door behind him heavily for support. His breathing comes out ragged, unnatural. “I need- I need to lay down. Please. Under something, with someone. Just- I can’t- I don’t like being alone when it’s- when it’s like this.”
Hence running through the rain and to Pato’s door. Pato remembers Alex telling him Hinch was out of town, gone to Miami for the Formula 1 race. He wonders if that’s who Alex would have run to instead, assumedly he had not been the first choice. They’ve endured plenty of storms during this season and the last, but this is the first time Alex has shown up at his door seeking shelter.
Carefully, still handling Alex with all the care one would a particularly frightened thoroughbred, he takes him by the wrist and leads him back to his room. Alex follows, numbly, blindly, trusting Pato fully. Pato has contended with his fair share of nervous system overloads, understands the way you feel frayed and exposed, like a raw nerve. He doesn’t blame Alex for shutting down.
Alex’s sweatpants are still wet from the rain, and Pato doesn’t have a pair that would fit him.
“Do you want to sleep in these?” He asks, gently tapping against the waistband of the clothing.
Alex shakes his head.
“Okay if I take them off?”
Alex nods.
It’s not the way Pato had envisioned undressing him, and he does so with a gentleness he had not pictured either, sliding the elastic band down past the hem of his briefs, the muscle of his thighs, and then letting them pool around his ankles so Alex can step out of them when Pato pulls him forward and eases him down onto the bed. Alex sits on the edge for a minute while Pato crawls in behind him, all rigid and unmoving, and then falls back on the pillow with a sigh of relief when Pato grabs his arm and pulls him down. He is taller than Pato, longer than him, but the height doesn’t factor much once they’re laying parallel. Pato holds him, Alex turns himself around to bury his face against the crook of his neck. The blanket Pato eases over him ends up pulled to his ears.
When lightning flashes, illuminates the room, Alex’s breath stutters.
“Okay,” he soothes, “You’re okay.”
Part of him wonders at the fear, wonders what it is in the lightning that causes Alex to press closer to him. Come morning maybe he will ask, or maybe he will text Hinch, or maybe he will say nothing at all, and Alex will leave once the sun arrives. This could become something they aren’t meant to talk about, like the flirting and the texts that Alex sends when he’s drunk and alone. Just another thing they step around, until the next storm that Alex comes knocking during.
Pato holds him closer, closes his eyes and inhales the scent of him, the sharp copper scent of rain and skin that isn’t really Alex at all, but will be what Pato recalls when he thinks of this night.
“You’re okay,” Pato promises, because the bus doesn’t muffle much sound, but it keeps out the rain. Alex lets him run a hand down his back, muscles jumping under the touch, coiled so tightly he can’t hide the reaction. Pato does so until Alex begins to relax against him.
Slowly, his own exhaustion begins to return. Despite the rain still pounding down on the roof, beating against the window in sheets, the noise begins to lure him toward unconsciousness. He’s warm under the blanket with Alex, almost unbearably so, but it’s also comfortable. He likes the extra weight on the mattress beside him, how Alex dips toward him, they dip toward each other, with the weight of their bodies at the center of the bed. Alex has nuzzled himself right under Pato’s chin, so that his breath is warm when it ghosts along his neck.
Warmth and heat and a familiar hand clutching at his hip, this is how Pato falls asleep.
In the morning, Alex is still there, snoring softly, body relaxed. One quick look at his phone assures him they can stay in this moment for longer, Pato’s engineer having texted to let him know practice is, predictably, delayed. It’s easy, for a moment, to fantasize a life in which this is normal. Where he might, one day, wake up with Alex in his arms and it will feel like home. Certainly it is the closest Pato has come in recent weeks, since leaving Monterrey and having to pack his life into a bus, an Airbnb, a hotel room over and over and over again. Alex is one of the constants now. Next to Elba, he is usually the first person to text Pato in the morning. Often, it is to ask him if he wants to work out, go for a walk – because Alex doesn’t run – and now, for a moment, he is here. It feels right.
Pato, harshly, hopes they have another storm.
He doesn’t wake Alex, just sets his phone back down on the nightstand and carefully eases himself back to where Alex is curled against him. Alex mumbles in his sleep at the movement. It’s nonsensical, not even words, but Pato can feel them because Alex is so close to him that his lips ghost along the exposed column of his neck.
“It’s okay,” Pato calms him once more, another hand down his back, down the fabric of his hoodie that Alex is now stretching out and claiming, “Go back to sleep, it’s okay.”
“M’kay,” Alex mutters.
Pato smiles.
Sun is beginning to filter through the blinds, despite the rain still pattering against the window, and Alex continues to sleep.
May I ask for some more detail on breeding programme verse... Tell me more about the team PR people spinning a love story to cover up Sid's bad behaviour? Tell me more about Sid having to play Geno's sweet happy pregnant omega in public while seething inside? Please?
i've been noodling on this for a bit so apologies in advance for the unhinged length of this brain dump.
i think it's like. breeding programs are very traditional, right? historically omegas were essentially used as currency. they were highly favored because they had a higher probability of producing dynamic children--alphas who could inherit and carry on the lineage, and omegas who were very valuable because they would bring in large dowries for high-compatibility matches.
now, obviously as society evolved these practices and the optics around them shifted. modern omegas have many more rights than they did even in the early 20th century when north american sports leagues formed and adopted breeding programs with the goal of producing athletically gifted children who would in turn "grow the game".
in the last decade or so there's been a big cultural shift, and the league has had to play catch up. they're giving a lot of lip service to supporting more progressive ideologies, so their messaging now is like entering into our breeding program isn't mandatory to be drafted into the nhl, but we're honored that so many of our players have been fortunate enough to find their match within our league. It speaks to the caliber of people who choose to play for us, and the nhl's long standing commitment to creating a supportive environment for our players and their families.
so of course they're still going to test everyone and provide them compatibility results--it's basically a free service they provide their players (you're welcome), and they roll it into the health and fitness assessments so they can't opt out--but they're not making anyone breed with their matches. that would be illegal. and if most of their players choose to do it, because hockey players are a pretty traditional bunch and the unspoken messaging is don't rock the boat, they're not going to push back on that.
and let's say in this version of the verse that russian players are not allowed to participate in the breeding program, because russian law mandates that their offspring are put back into their own leagues. so this naturally others the russian players, and there's a fair bit of xenophobia around all of it.
okay, so all that said (lol sorry), here's the setup: sid, as an extraordinarily talented omega, has been media trained within an inch of his life from a young age. he's never been stupid enough to outright say he has no intention of entering into the nhl's breeding program since that is still the pervasive expectation, but he's talked around it in ways that give him plausible deniability--i'm not really thinking about being bred right now, i'm just focused on playing the best hockey i can for as long as i can--but even saying that much ruffles some feathers and gets the pundits talking.
he's relieved when the compatibility results from his draft are very low across the board so there's no pressure on him immediately. he gets retested every year, and it's always the same. he gets a lot of shit for it from every corner--alphas trying to scruff him or bite him on ice to induce a heat and get him bred that way, pundits speculating that maybe the league is covering for him because he's frigid, or barren, or queer (gasp). on the other side of the spectrum people wonder if he actually is pushing back on the archaic breeding programs and either vocally supporting him, or demanding he make a public statement to help turn the tides for other athletes in less privileged positions.
sid mostly tunes it out, and considers it the price he pays for getting to play and not having to take a season off every couple of years to push out a kid. it's not that he doesn't want kids eventually, it's just that hockey has always mattered more, and he's never been comfortable with the idea of being pushed into a match with someone.
enter geno. let's say he finally comes over to the nhl when he's 20 and sid's in his mid-30s, edging right up against his window of fertility closing. the league and even the team is starting to get really anxious that Sid really won't ever find a compatible match within their program, and they won't be able to capitalize on his offspring (imagine the marketing push when sidney crosby's alpha kid gets drafted).
i think in this version of events they're not immediately friends. geno is kind of shy and doesn't speak great english, and is a little in awe of the legendary sidney crosby. that coupled with it being drilled into him that he's not to touch any slutty north american omegas, he's gotta keep his seed for russia or whatever, means he's pretty wary of sid in general.
and i think for sid's part, he's just confused. he and geno don't really spend any time one on one, but he can't stop noticing him in a way that feels really overwhelming. and he starts having breakthrough heats constantly. everyone thinks it's the beginning of the end of his fertile period, and the league gets super pressed about it, throwing even the low-compatibility alphas at him during these mini heats to try to force a weak bond. but sid's not receptive to any of them.
i think maybe he finally corners geno after one of these instances. he's all churned up with a breakthrough heat and resentful that the team's breeding coordinator is trying to push him onto these subpar alphas who don't even smell right or have hands half as silky as geno's. he decides fuck it, and gives in to what he actually wants. they hook up, and afterward sid has very complicated feelings about it. geno's a rookie, sid's his captain, and geno's playing so well sid doesn't want to be a distraction, plus it's stupid of him to mess with an alpha. but neither of them can help themselves.
sid sets the terms early on, they can fool around but no penetrative sex, which geno agrees to because obviously he'd get in major trouble with russia if it ever came out that he was fucking canada's precious little omega. but sid keeps pushing the boundaries. he's so hungry for geno all the time, it's like he can't think of anything else when he's not actively playing. he pulls him into closets, into hotel rooms on the road, begs him to sneak out of gonch's house and come over. it goes from hands and mouths only, to just the tip, to you can fuck me but don't come in me, to it's fine as long as you don't knot.
i don't think that either of them realize that they're highly compatible and have essentially been cultivating a bond over a period of months, but it all comes to a head when Sid goes into full heat which triggers geno's rut and well. not only are they fully bonded but sid is fully knocked up.
the team is pretty conflicted about it. on one hand, they're relieved sid finally bred with someone, on the other geno is russian which complicates things on both sides of the equation. there will be a PR nightmare to deal with when they announce Sidney has finally bonded and bred and oh by the way it's with a russian rookie, and on Geno's end there will be massive legal ramifications with russia. the only real play they have is to court public approval by spinning it as some fairy tale, true mates love story and hoping that backs russia into a corner. (suspend your disbelief here.)
so things are really tense. sid is afraid and feels guilty and ashamed for the position he’s put them in—after all, he started it—and geno is torn between fear of what russia will do, and his tender feelings for sid alongside his burgeoning alpha instincts to take care of his pregnant mate.
they have to move in together, and sid throws a fit about it but ultimately gives in because he understands the optics are important. despite the fact that he can't even look at geno and doesn't want to be anywhere near him out of a mixture of misdirected anger and self-preservation, he doesn't want geno to have to face any significant consequences for sid's inability to control himself.
he freezes geno out in private but plays along in public, letting the pens' media team get shots of them smiling at each other, of geno's big hand spread at the small of his back, and one of sid in the blurry foreground, his mark a garish smudge of red against the backdrop of white ice, and geno in focus in the background, watching him from the bench with a gentle expression.
that lasts as long as it takes for geno to realize that sid is often sick at home where he keeps his distance from geno, but almost never when they're at the rink together or doing staged PR shit. he puts his foot down about sleeping in the same bed and letting geno touch him, and they inevitably start fucking again. sid pushes it to be harder and meaner than geno wants it to be, and it kind of wars with his instinct to treat a pregnant omega gently, but he also knows what sid's trying to prove-- that who he is, an omega who has carved a name and a legacy for himself in an alpha-dominated league without ever having an equal to lean on, is not going to be subsumed by being pregnant and mated. so he gives sid what he wants.
but he also begins to gently bully sid into spending more time with him and starts subtly courting him. little gifts, his favorite sweets, bringing him socks when his feet are cold, and leaving worn clothes around the house strategically so sid can steal them as often as he needs.
i think sid assumes geno is just playing the game. there have been so many staged moments, it's blurring the lines between what's just between them and what's being shared more broadly on geno's instagram or the pens socials. but then geno gets hurt--maybe a big hit, or his shoulder injury from rookie year?--and sid finds himself instinctively going into caregiver mode. and it's....nice. it's nice to take care of someone, and he can admit it's been nice to be taken care of by geno over the last few weeks.
so he starts reciprocating the courting behaviors, and things start to get painfully tender between them as they get closer, and sid gets more obviously pregnant.
and then the hammer drops with russia. they tell geno he either needs to come back to russia permanently, and bring his subpar western bride with him so the KHL can have the claim to their kid, or his russian citizenship will be revoked.
they get into a huge fight about it and sid is like okay well obviously we have to go i can't make you give up your home because i wanted your dick so bad, and geno finally just like. takes him down and bites him hard over his mark until he goes limp and says something cliche like i spent my whole life dreaming of the nhl, and now i'm here and i get to play with the best player in the world every day, and i get to come home and be with the best person in the world every night, and i'm not giving that up for anything. i'll make my home here with you, and maybe one day russia will change its mind but if they don't, okay. i made my choice and it's the right one.
so who knew, it turns out jen was right and they do have some fairy tale, true mates love story.
dededos
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
titsay
germansingergirl
