summary: 10 things you hate love about frank langdon
pairing: fem!reader x frank langdon
warnings/tags: abby and kids do not exist in this universe, enemies to lovers!!, frank is a bit of a dick in this (but in a hot way), mention and description of a patient death and the events of pittfest, mysoginistic interns!, reader gets black out drunk in this, swearing, fluff, angst, usual medical descriptions that you’d expect from the pitt!
notes: i love the concept of this fic sm, I haven't written enemies to lovers in a hot minute
likes, reblogs, comments are very much appreciated!
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one.
Frank Langdon was arrogant.
Every doctor and surgeon had a little bit of an ego, sure. It was practically a job requirement.
But Frank Langdon had somehow mastered the ability of getting under your skin in a way no one else did, possessing a particular kind of arrogance that crawled in and nested there.
The kind that smirked at you across lecture halls.
The kind that leaned too close over your shoulder during labs.
The kind that always, somehow, knew exactly which buttons to press.
It had started in med school.
You’d been paired together for a semester-long assignment during your second year, a fact that had nearly made you consider dropping out on principle alone.
"I graduated summa cum laude, you know."
Frank said it casually, leaning back in his chair like the statement was an objective fact rather than an insufferable introduction.
"That's nice."
You didn’t look up from your textbook spread across the library table between you. Highlighting and neatly scribbled notes littered the pages in organised colour-coded sections. Frank’s side of the table, meanwhile, looked like a tornado had swept through it.
His brow furrowed slightly.
"Oh yeah? What were you, valedictorian or something?" He drawled.
"Actually yes." You answered smoothly, flicking over the page. "I just don't feel the need to announce it to anyone that will listen."
He blinked, staring at you for a moment before he let out a low whistle.
"Geez, alright Ace."
You finally glanced up at him at that, irritation pulling at your brow.
"Don't call me that."
The words left your mouth before you could stop them.
And judging by the way his lips twitched, Frank knew instantly he’d struck gold.
The nickname stuck.
It followed you through the rest of med school like a disease. Across lecture halls and internships and far too many crowded house parties.
Sometimes it was murmured under his breath when you answered a question before everyone else. Sometimes it was tossed across a room with an infuriating grin. Sometimes, rarely, it softened into something almost fond when the two of you were the last ones left in the library the night before an exam.
And like the nickname, you couldn’t seem to shake Frank Langdon either.
You thought graduation would finally free you from him.
And for a short, glorious period of time, it did.
Until the two of you matched at PTMC. Both in the emergency department.
"Long time no see Ace."
You looked up from the chart in your hands and felt genuine despair shoot through you.
"You have to be fucking kidding me."
Frank’s grin widened immediately, blue eyes bright with something dangerously close to delight.
You felt like you were right back at med school, the two of you instantly competing over everything. In particular, the attention of Dr Robby, who seemed to have decided that one of you could be his favourite, he just annoyingly refused to pick who.
And as your residency dragged on, Frank Langdon's arrogance never waned. He never got a humbling that you so desperately hoped for.
If anything, it only got worse.
Because -
two.
Frank Langdon was good.
Like, really good.
The kind of good that made senior attendings pause to watch him work. The kind that made nurses trust him instinctively during traumas. The kind that made you grit your teeth every time he pulled off something impressive with that smug look still plastered across his face.
Which only made his arrogance more unbearable.
Because the asshole actually had the skill to back it up.
"Did you hear about Langdon's intubation today?"
You barely glanced up from your chart as Samira fell into step beside you.
"No, but I'm sure he'll find a way to tell everyone himself before the end of the shift."
Samira ignored the jab entirely, completely unphased due to the volume of them she'd heard over the years.
"There was so much swelling you literally couldn't see anything."
You paused, your pen stilling against the chart. "So what, you're saying he did it blind?"
"Completely." Samira nodded. "Robby said he did it perfectly too."
A reluctant pulse of admiration twisted in your chest before you shoved it back down where it belonged with a small huff.
"Nice."
The word came out clipped.
You dropped the chart onto the counter and headed toward the break room before Samira could catch the grimace on your face.
Hour ten of your shift was always when the headaches started.
Like clockwork, tension coiled up the back of your neck and settled at the base of your skull. The fluorescent lighting suddenly became too bright. The overlapping conversations too loud.
You shut the break room door behind you with a quiet exhale and reached for the medicine cabinet.
The door opened again just as your fingers closed around the Advil.
"You hear about my intubation today Ace?"
You rolled your eyes automatically before even turning around as you shut the medicine cabinet.
“I did.”
You grabbed a mug from the cupboard, acutely aware of his gaze following you across the small room.
“Nice work.”
The words were stiff, rolled unnaturally off your tongue, said with an attempt at forced casualness which instead resembled something pained.
Frank blinked.
Then slowly, his mouth curved into a grin.
“Wow.”
You finally looked over at him at that.
He was leaning against the doorway with his arms folded across his chest, scrubs stretched tight over his forearms, a smirk present on his face.
“Was that a compliment I just heard? Are you feeling ok?”
This time you rolled your eyes openly as you threw the Advil down your throat.
“I’m mature enough to acknowledge when a peer does something impressive, Langdon.”
His brows lifted slightly. “A peer? Is that all I am to you after all these years?"
He placed a hand over his heart. “You wound me.”
Your eyes narrowed. “Describing you as a peer is my way of being nice.”
You could see that a laugh was threatening to spill from his lips.
You turned toward the sink before your own expression betray you. You rinsed the mug beneath lukewarm water, missing the way his eyes tracked down your figure.
“Or maybe you just don’t want to admit that you’re jealous I practically performed a miracle.”
You let out a humourless laugh.
“Don’t worry, I perform miracles too.”
You set the mug down harder than necessary before glancing back at him.
“I just don't feel the need to announce it to anyone that will listen."
You saw his jaw tick slightly, indicating that you’d finally penetrated his thick ego shield.
“You’re a real ball of sunshine today Ace.”
You smiled sarcastically. “Only for you Langdon.”
three.
Frank Langdon loved to rest his arms on things.
Whether it was one arm leant lazily against the nursing station, both folded across his chest when he was thinking, or both braced on either side of your monitor as he loomed over you while you dictated.
His arms were always….there.
It was irritating and more importantly, it was distracting.
Like right now, as a team of you prepped a trauma patient for transport to the OR.
Frank stood on the other side of the gurney, his gloved hands curled around the metal rails as he leant forward. His forearms flexed as he adjusted his grip, the veins there straining, just visible in the harsh fluorescent lighting.
Your gaze lingered, traitorous and immediate, tracking the movement of his hands as he tightened his hold on the bed frame. Your eyes ghosted upwards at the shift of muscle beneath fabric, his biceps straining slightly with the motion.
A flurry of images hit you.
His arms around your waist.
His arms flexed as he held his weight above you, steady and controlled, while he-
“Think she’ll make it?”
His voice cut through your thoughts cleanly.
You blinked, snapping your head up too fast.
He was already looking at you, with that infuriating, calm focus fixed directly on your face like you were the only thing in the room that required dissecting.
His tongue brushed briefly over his lower lip. A habit you first observed in med school and had never successfully un-noticed since.
You despised how your body reacted to it.
You turned away too quickly, hiding your burning face under the guise of discarding your gloves into the bin.
“50/50.” You answered, praying your voice was even as you spoke.
You shook your head slightly as you tried to shake yourself out of whatever this was.
You could not find Frank Langdon attractive.
That was not an option. Not a consideration. Not a thing your brain was allowed to do.
You wanted to slap yourself.
“I’m thinking more 70/30.” You heard him remark.
And just like that, mercifully, the fantasy collapsed.
four.
Sometimes, it felt like Frank Langdon could read your mind.
“Incoming trauma, two minutes out.” Dana announced in the middle of the pitt, red phone pressed to her ear. “MVA involving a single car and a motorcycle. The rider’s in a bad way.”
“What’s free?” Robby asked.
“Trauma one.”
You glanced up at Robby as he called out your last name.
“-and Langdon, with me.”
Frank didn’t answer - he was already following you.
You were already scrubbing in as the ambulance bay doors burst open. The gurney rattled violently over the polished floors.
“What have we got?” Robby asked.
“Rider unhelmeted. Found unconscious on scene. Hypotensive en route, tachycardic. GCS eight.” The paramedic answered as they wheeled the patient into the bay.
The room shifted and swelled around you - fluorescent lights too bright, the hum of equipment, the controlled chaos snapping into place like muscle memory.
“C-spine?” Robby asked.
“Immobilised.”
The patient was a young man. Early twenties. Dirt and road rash smeared across his face and chest, chest rising unevenly beneath cut fabric and exposed skin.
“Alright, transfer in three, two-“
Everyone moved together, sliding the patient onto the bed in one practiced motion.
“Airway appears patent but compromised.”
You leaned forward, placing your stethoscope on his chest.
“Reduced breathing sounds on the left.”
Frank was already there on the opposite side, his hands steady as he moved his fingers across the rib cage.
“Subcutaneous emphysema.” He said. “Likely pneumothorax.”
“Pulse-ox is dropping.” Perlah announced. “Eighty-eight and falling.”
“Alright get ready to intubate.” Robby ordered.
“Wait.”
The word left your mouth before you could second-guess it.
Every head turned slightly.
You leaned closer, eyes moving over the monitor, then the uneven rise of his chest, the subtle shift in breathing effort.
“He’s compensating.” You said. “This isn’t primary airway failure yet. If we intubate now without addressing the thoracic injury he'll drop further.”
“Ace is right.” Langdon agreed. “We should do needle decompression first.”
“Left second intercostal space, midclavicular line.” You added. “If it’s tension physiology, that’s what’s driving the instability.”
Everyone turned to Robby, waiting for his call.
The smallest of nods, the slightest flicker of approval.
“You heard them.”
You moved instantly, prepping the site, antiseptic swab snapping across skin, fingers precise as you located the rib landmarks through trauma and swelling.
Frank held the patient steady as the needle went in.
The hiss came instantly.
The patient’s chest expanded easier this time.
“Stats stabilising.” Perlah confirmed.
“Better.” Frank observed.
You exhaled through your nose, already shifting focus. “We still need definitive imaging. He’s not out of the woods, we’re likely dealing with associated haemothorax or pulmonary contusion.”
“Agreed.”
Frank didn’t look at you when he said it.
But somehow, the two of you were entirely in sync anyway.
“Chest tube tray.” Robby ordered. “Let’s move.”
The rest of the procedure blurred into controlled motion - scalpel, incision, blunt dissection, the familiar gravity that settled over a trauma room when everyone locked into the same rhythm.
And through all of it, Frank moved instep with you.
When you moved, he made space like it was instinct. When you reached for instruments, they were already halfway to your hand. When you spoke, he didn’t interrupt - he simply factored your words into the next step.
It was infuriating how seamless it felt, dangerous how easy it was.
“Tube’s in.” Frank said finally.
“Bilateral breath sounds confirmed.” You spoke.
A beat.
Then Robby stepped back, stripping his gloves off.
“Good call both of you.”
You looked up as he pushed open the swinging doors.
“You aren’t staying?”
He gestured between you and Frank.
“I know when I’m not needed.”
Your eyes met Frank’s briefly.
A smile flickered between you before either of you could stop it.
-
The ambulance bay was quieter than the pitt, but not by much. The afternoon sun glared off the cracked bitumen, the distant echo of monitors still lingered in your ears like a phantom rhythm.
You rolled your shoulders back, trying to shake off the adrenaline that always persistently lingered after a trauma.
“Good work in there.”
You glanced out of the corner of your eye to see Robby.
“Thanks.”
Silence stretched between the two of you.
His gaze shifted between you and the doors leading back inside.
“You know.” He said slowly after a moment. “You and Langdon work well together.”
You scoffed lightly. “When we’re not at each others throats, you mean.”
Robby’s eyes twinkled with amusement, dipping his chin down to conceal it. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
You exhaled, leaning back against the brick wall.
“Yeah." You admitted. "We do.”
It came out quieter than you intended.
You knew immediately that Robby noticed.
“But if you ever tell him I said that, I’ll deny it completely.”
Robby’s mouth twitched.
“Noted.”
“And, I’ll tell everyone about the time I caught you nearly in tears over a cockroach in the break room.”
Robby turned to you. “It had wings.” He said flatly.
"You still screamed like a little girl.”
five.
Frank Langdon could be thoughtful, when he wanted to be.
It was never loud. Never performative. It didn’t announce itself the way everything else about him did. No smug commentary, no pointed remarks, no expectation of recognition.
It was quieter than that, easy to miss if you weren’t paying attention.
You saw it in fragments over time, tucked into the spaces between the chaos.
The way his voice would soften when he spoke to patients. Or the way he’d comfort them when he thought no one else was listening.
You’d seen him pay for taxi fares out of his own pocket. You’d seen him quietly remove hospital cafeteria food from a patient's tray and replace it with sandwiches from the deli over the road.
None of it fit easily with the version of Frank Langdon that lived in your head.
And that was the problem.
Because the longer you worked with him, the more difficult it became to keep those versions separate.
You were on hour nine of a shift.
School holidays had transformed the ER into something louder, hotter, more chaotic than usual. The kind of chaos that didn’t spike cleanly, but accumulated in layers until the entire department felt stretched too thin.
The air carried a constant noise of beeping monitors, overlapping voices, crying kids, the scrape of gurney wheels against linoleum.
Like usual, your shoulders had started to tighten without permission, creeping up to your ears no matter how many times you tried to square them.
A slow, familiar clamp at the base of your neck. The kind that crept upward until it turned into something debilitating behind your eyes.
You half-heartedly tried to do your physio exercises in the breakroom before eventually giving up and opening the fridge instead, reaching automatically in for the Red Bull you knew was stashed behind someone’s abandoned lunch bag.
You paused.
A ziplock bag sat neatly on top of your lunchbox.
A plain glazed donut stared back at you through the plastic, alongside two Advil.
You stared at it.
You’d heard that upstairs had sent their usual trolley of unethical donuts down earlier. You’d been drowning in back to back traumas, only resurfacing long after all of the plain glazed, your favourite, were gone.
Or so you'd thought.
You looked over your shoulder. Was this meant for you? Surely not. Someone must have just accidentally chucked it on top of your lunchbox.
Your stomach grumbled.
Although, it looked intentionally placed. Maybe you could eat it and if the owner came asking for it later you could just-
You turned slightly at the sound of your name to see Perlah standing in the doorway.
“Robby’s looking for you.”
You hesitated only briefly before placing the bag back into the fridge, all thoughts of the donut dissolving as you heard the trauma code ring out over the loud speaker.
An hour later, the headache had settled in fully.
You leaned against the desk, elbows planted either side of the computer as pain pulsed behind your eyes. The words on the screen blurred at the edges.
You blinked rapidly, rubbing at your temples as you tried to massage some of the thrumming away.
“You need to take your Advil earlier.”
The voice came from above you.
You looked up to see Langdon towering over you.
“What?”
He slid something towards you.
The donut and Advil now sat on a napkin, a cup of water beside it.
"Your shoulders always start tightening around hour nine." He said. "Which means the headache peaks around now because you never take the Advil early enough."
You stared at him for a moment, then your eyes flickered down to the napkin.
"What's the donut for?"
His mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly.
"Increased blood sugar helps stabilise headaches." He answered smoothly. "And you haven't eaten lunch today."
You surveyed the donut suspiciously.
“Jesus Christ I haven’t poisoned it.” He huffed as he nudged it closer to you.
“Eat.”
You hesitated for a moment.
"...Fine." You relented as you pulled it in front of your keyboard.
"...thank you."
His eyes lifted sharply at that.
"Don't thank me. This is entirely for my own benefit."
You frowned.
"When you've got a headache you're somehow even more annoying than usual."
Your eyes narrowed immediately.
"You're welcome."
He was already stepping away before you could respond.
You stared down at the donut for a second longer, your stomach tightening hopefully at the smell of sugar.
What you didn’t see was Frank lingering at the end of the corridor just long enough to make sure you actually took the Advil.
Just long enough to watch you finally take a bite, observing the small act of compliance like it mattered more than it should.
You didn’t know that he’d had to almost physically fight Donnie for the last plain glazed donut because he knew they were your favourite.
You didn't know that he'd been buying the double strength Advil and sneaking it into the medicine cabinet for the last six months because he'd noticed your headaches getting worse.
What you did know, was that it was irritating when he did shit like this without explanation.
Because it reminded you that there was more under all of the bolstering and ego. Something softer, something complex.
Something that made you want to peel him apart layer by layer just to understand what lived underneath.
Even when you absolutely shouldn’t.
six.
You couldn’t escape Frank Langdon’s eyes.
It wasn’t just that he looked at you often, it was the timing of it. You would glance up from a chart, be mid-sentence in a handover, reach for a new pair of gloves, and there he would be. Already looking. Already watching.
Those piercing blue irises never seemed to settle on you for long, but they always found you again. It was infuriatingly precise. Like some internal compass had been set to your presence without your permission.
“Are you going to knock off drinks tonight?”
The voice pulled you back into the present. You blinked, realising you’d been staring blankly at your tablet for long enough that the screen had dimmed.
Holland was leaning against the edge of your desk, casual in a way that was unique to interns, half confident, half desperate for approval.
“Oh uh, I don’t know. Maybe.” You said half heartedly.
“Oh c’mon doc, it’ll be fun.” Holland’s grin widened as he studied you, searching for a crack in your resistance. “Especially if you’re there.”
You huffed a small laugh.
“Nice try Holland, but this one here likes to be in bed by 9pm.” McKay smirked as she walked behind you.
Your brow furrowed. “What’s wrong with that?“
“Nothing, if you’re like 80.” Holland shot back, making you roll your eyes.
“I do go out.”
McKay let out a snort that was entirely unconvinced. “Sure you do.”
You straightened slightly, feigning offence. “I just like to keep my work and personal life seperate, so I can avoid doing things like oh I don't know..." You trailed off, pretending to ponder.
"Falling off a table in front of my coworkers in the middle of a drunken rendition of Mamma Mia?" You suggested, raising a brow pointedly at McKay.
McKay flipped you off cheerfully without even slowing down.
Holland, undeterred, was still hovering like a persistent shadow over your desk.
“So… is that a yes?”
“You interns are nothing if not persistent.” You grumbled.
“I prefer passionate.”
You studied him for a moment.
“If you leave me alone to let me finish my charting, I’ll consider it.”
“I’m taking that as a yes.” Holland grinned, tapping the table once triumphantly, like the matter was closed. “See you tonight doc.”
You exhaled through your nose in reluctant amusement as he finally backed away.
Only then did you look up properly.
And, like you always seemed to do, your eyes met Langdon's from across the room.
Something unreadable flickered across his face - too fast to catch, too controlled to decode. It vanished before you could even decide whether you had imagined it.
-
Later, you found yourself alone with him in the trauma bay.
You were halfway through de-scrubbing when his voice cut through the sterile hum.
“Didn’t realise you had a thing for interns.” Langdon remarked as he yanked off his gloves, the latex snapping softly against his wrist.
You glanced over at him as you united your gown.
“Huh?”
“Holland.” He clarified, like it should have been obvious.
You frowned. “What about him?”
“He was flirting with you.”
You scoffed immediately. “No he wasn’t.”
Langdon stopped mid-movement, staring at you like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“There’s no way you’re that oblivious.” He said flatly.
Your brow knitted. “I’m not oblivious.”
“You are if you don’t notice the way he looks at you.”
You tilted your head slightly. “How does he look at me?”
“Like-“ Langdon cut himself off. His jaw tightened once before he looked away.
“Never mind.” He muttered, scrunching his gloves into a ball and lobbing it into the trashcan with practiced aim.
“Well if he’s flirting with me, maybe I can wrangle a free drink out of him.” You said lightly.
Frank stilled. Not dramatically, but enough for you to notice the tension settling across his shoulders. The brief curl of his fingers before he forced them open again.
You weren’t sure what reaction you were expecting, but it certainly wasn’t the one you got.
When he looked back at you, his expression had hardened slightly around the edges.
“So you’re going tonight?”
You lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “I might.”
He shook his head slightly.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He pushed open the glass doors, holding it open for you to pass through first. “Just thought I’d be free of you in a few hours.”
Your eyes narrowed as you stepped past him.
“Don’t worry." You shot back, "I’ll make sure to sit at the opposite end of the table.”
-
The bar the pitt crew frequented was already too crowded for your liking by the time you arrived.
It was loud in a way that pressed against your skin. The kind of place where conversation blurred into overlapping noise and every surface felt slightly sticky.
You’d been nursing a wine for the better part of an hour, perched on the edge of the booth, perfectly content listening to everyone else talk.
"I'll be back." You murmured to Samira beside you, sliding your unfinished glass toward her.
"Don't get lost." She teased.
You threaded your way through the crowd toward the bathroom, shoulders brushing strangers, the air growing hotter the further you moved from your group.
“I can’t believe she’s here.”
“Who?”
You froze when you heard the sound of your last name.
It wasn’t spoken loudly, but it cut through the noise anyway.
“I know, Holland actually managed to convince her.”
You slowed instinctively.
A cluster of interns stood near the bar, half-leaning into each other, already loosened by alcohol and confidence. All oblivious to the fact you were only a few feet away.
“It wasn’t hard, just had to smile at her and call her doc.”
A few of them laughed.
“She definitely has cat lady energy."
"In all fairness." Someone else said. "She is hot. Just way too fucking uptight."
"Seriously." Another voice added. “You can tell she’s never relaxed a day in her life."
The laughter swelled again.
The words landed like barbs in your chest.
The air felt suddenly too thin, too sharp. Your fingers curled instinctively around nothing.
“Holland, honestly, do everyone a favour and take care of her tonight so maybe she chills the fuck out next shift-"
You turned before you could hear the rest, not sure if you'd be able to bear hearing more.
Heat burned behind your eyes as you pushed through the crowd, swallowing the emotion down so aggressively it turned sharp inside your chest. You rerouted, diverting your course to the bathroom back to your table.
There were plenty of other doctors at PTMC who had sacrificed their social lives for this job. Robby and Langdon were self professed life long bachelors because of their obsession with work. But the difference was, they were men.
By the time you reached the booth again, anger had replaced humiliation almost entirely.
As you approached your table, Samira glanced up at you.
"Hey, you ok?" She asked.
"Never better." You answered smoothly, sliding back into the booth as you let the anger spark into something different.
You gestured to the bar.
"Want to get wasted?"
-
What neither you or the interns had realised was that Frank had been standing further down the bar waiting to order. And he had heard every word.
"Hey."
The interns turned.
Frank stood there holding two untouched beers, expression unreadable.
“Maybe be careful of how you talk about your seniors.” Frank said, too calmly for it to be genuine.
Holland, who’d already had one too many, snorted.
“Come on man, you of all people know what she’s like.”
Frank’s jaw ticked.
“I know that she’s a brilliant doctor who deserves your respect."
"Respect?" Holland laughed. "We all see the way you talk to her." Holland continued, the alcohol flowing through his veins hindering his ability to realise that he was walking into a death trap.
Frank stepped forward just enough that the space between them shifted.
"Don't ever try and conflate your working relationship with what her and I have." He spoke evenly, his voice lowering just enough.
A hush descended over the interns.
"And from now on I suggest you watch your fucking mouth." He continued, his eyes moving from Holland to flit over the group. "Because if I hear any of you breath another bad word about her, I'll personally ensure that none of you make it through this internship."
No one dared to speak or move.
"Are we clear?”
Holland swallowed. “Crystal.”
-
You had never been one to hold your alcohol well, and tonight was no exception.
Three shots and four drinks in and your vision was blurring at the edges. You and Samira had managed to convince Dana and a few of the other nurses to join in, the group of you giggling and slurring like a bunch of underage teenagers.
And still, every so often, despite the bodies and the noise and the light, Frank's eyes would find yours.
You had no idea what time it was when you stumbled out of the bar.
The night air hit your face like relief and exhaustion all at once. You dropped onto a bench without fully deciding to, legs slightly unsteady, head tipping back toward the night sky. The music from the bar seeped out into the quiet street, carried by the faint breeze.
You could hear foot steps approaching.
You didn't need to look to know who it was.
"How's your night going?"
You blinked slowly up at him.
"Was going great until about two seconds ago."
Frank studied you carefully. "How much have you had to drink?"
"You tell me." You squinted.
His eyes narrowed slightly, but he sat beside you anyway, close enough that you could feel the warmth that radiated off his body.
"I'll answer for you." You continued, hiccupping as you folded your arms over your chest. "Not enough."
"You should have some water."
You let out a fake a gasp. "Is Frank Langdon worried about me?"
Despite himself, a small smile tugged at his mouth. "Worried about dealing with you hungover tomorrow? Definitely."
That pulled a laugh out of you. "Don't worry." You said as you leant back. "I've got the next two days off so you'll get a break from me."
He didn't answer you as you looked back up at the sky, your eyes settling on the full moon hanging above the two of you.
Instead, he watched you for a moment longer than necessary, like he was trying to place something unspoken.
"Do you think I'm uptight?" You blurted out.
Frank's brows jerked upward.
"Is that a trick question?"
The teasing disappeared immediately when he saw your expression shift.
"Maybe I should just go adopt some cats and embrace it." You mumbled, barely audible as you hugged your arms around yourself.
"Hey." He said, making you look up at him.
"So what if you're uptight?" Frank asked. "It means you care. Means you don't half-ass things."
A pause.
"Because uptight implies...I don't know.." You let out a small sigh as you glanced down at your hands. "That I'm boring or annoying, or both."
"You're definitely not boring." He said immediately.
"But yes." He added after a beat. "You are definitely annoying."
That loosened a real laugh from you this time.
Frank watched it happen carefully, something softer flickering across his face.
"But I like that about you." He added quietly, almost like he hadn't meant to say it out loud.
You shot him an incredulous look. "Sure you do."
"I do." He insisted.
"Uh huh." Your lips pursed in amusement. "Don't pretend like you wouldn't give me a personality transplant if you could."
"I wouldn't." This time he sounded firmer, too focused on proving you wrong to realise that he was giving away too much.
"I wouldn't change anything about you." He repeated, his eyes locking onto yours.
"I like you. Just as you are."
The words hung between you for a moment.
You stared at him as your body suddenly completely still.
And then the espresso martinis and tequila shots reminded you that they were still swirling around in your stomach, causing a wave of nausea to rip through you.
The colour drained from your face as the alcohol, the heat, the exhaustion - everything surged through you at once.
Frank noticed it instantly.
"Come on, let's get you home."
-
The walk up to your apartment was a blur of stairs, half-coherent instructions, and Frank’s hand steadying you at your elbow whenever you swayed too far.
By the time he guided you inside, you were well beyond the point of being able to remember anything.
Too drunk to notice the way Frank's eyes trained on the interior of your apartment, gaze lingering on family photos, books, decorations, anything that provided him a glimpse of who you were outside of work.
He got you into bed, moving around your space with a familiarity that made it feel like he'd been here a hundred times before.
You watched as he placed a glass of water and a packet of painkillers on your bedside table.
Then he paused.
Your pink bedspread was patterned with tiny cherries.
A smile tugged unexpectedly at his mouth.
"Try not to vomit all over your fancy bedspread." He remarked.
You looked up at him blearily.
There was something dangerously fond in his voice now.
You watched him hover for a moment, like he was trying to convince himself to leave.
"Thank you."
A smile, small and private, broke through.
"Don't mention it Ace."
He turned to leave when your hand caught his forearm lightly.
He stopped immediately.
"Hey." You whispered.
"What's wrong?" He asked, already shifting back toward you instinctively.
You studied him for a long moment, as if something about his face had changed shape in the quiet. Frank suddenly became aware that your hand was still on his arm.
"Your eyes have a little green in them."
Frank froze.
The words had been spoken so softly he almost thought he imagined them.
He swallowed, glancing down at the floor as he tried to reconcile the emotions flooding his nervous system, tried to formulate a response.
But when he looked at you again, you were already gone - head tilted slightly, lashes fluttered close, breath even, asleep mid-thought.
He stayed there for a moment longer than he should have.
Then he left quietly, closing the door behind him like he was afraid to disturb whatever had just changed between the two of you.
seven.
Frank Langdon could make you laugh like no one else could.
It wasn’t just the words he said. Like everything else, it was the timing of them.
The way he seemed to sense the exact moment your thoughts started tipping somewhere too heavy and quietly redirected them before you could sink too far into yourself, like he refused to let it stay there too long.
Ever since that night out at the bar, things had shifted between the two of you.
Not dramatically. Not in any way anyone else would have been able to point at and name.
But there had been a change in the space between interactions. Less friction. Less sharpness for the sake of it. The edges of your usual back-and-forth softened into something that almost resembled ease - like both of you had, without discussion, agreed to stop pressing on eachother’s bruises.
You couldn’t remember much from that night. Couldn't even remember how you'd gotten home. You only had fragments to analyse - warmth, noise, Frank’s voice close enough to feel like it belonged somewhere under your skin.
"I like you. Just as you are."
That part, unfortunately, you remembered perfectly.
The words had settled somewhere deep and stubborn inside you, resurfacing at the worst possible moments. Mid-shift. Mid-sentence. In the brief seconds before sleep when your brain stopped pretending it wasn’t still at work.
And now, weeks later, you were still carrying them around like something you hadn’t figured out how to put down.
The unspoken truce between you and Frank held anyway.
Sharper jabs were replaced with quieter ones, almost always softened with half-hearted eye rolls and almost-smiles neither of you acknowledged.
If anyone else noticed it, they didn't say it out loud, careful not to disrupt whatever delicate peace treaty had been formed.
You’d been having a good shift, until hour eleven.
Your patient, a young woman with a soft, girlish face that made her look even younger. She’d come in complaining of vague chest discomfort with a documented history of anxiety. No other significant past medical history. Stable vitals on arrival.
She'd been sweet, telling you all about how she had finally worked up the courage to book flights to Italy for the summer.
Then she crashed.
Chest compressions were already underway when you arrived, the rhythm of them loud and brutal in the confined space. Someone was bagging her. Someone else was calling out time intervals.
"Epi’s in." Jesse confirmed.
You were already moving, hands automatically checking rhythm on the monitor, eyes scanning for anything reversible.
Nothing.
Still PEA.
"Again." You said, voice steady in a way you didn’t feel as you swapped in for compressions.
The bedframe rattled faintly beneath the force of it.
Time stretched in that strange, distorted way it always did during arrest, both too fast and painfully slow at once.
You all paused again, stepping away to look at the monitor for another rhythm check.
"Call it."
Robby's voice cut through the room.
"We can still try-" You began.
"You've been going for twenty minutes." Robby voice stayed calm, firm. "Call it."
The room shifted like it always did when a resuscitation failed. That invisible collective acknowledgment that the line had been reached.
You reluctantly moved your hands away from the patients chest, your gaze lingering on her glassy eyes that would never blink again.
You felt your chest tighten.
You glanced down at your watch. "Time of death, 5:17pm."
Your voice remained clinical despite the way your throat had started closing around the words.
Silence settled over the room.
The monitors still beeped softly in the background, almost offensively alive compared to everything else.
"Does she have next of kin listed?"
Robby glanced down at your hands that had started to tremor slightly. Something soft flickered across his face.
"I'll do it."
You shook your head before he even finished the sentence.
"No." Your voice tightened slightly. "She was my patient. I can do it."
A pause.
Robby studied you for a second longer than necessary, then nodded once.
"Ok."
The room began to reset around you, people stepping back, lowering their voices, the clinical transition from emergency to aftermath already beginning.
But your hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
-
The wind up on the roof of PTMC was colder than expected. Sharp against your skin, grounding in a way that almost hurt.
You sat curled against the wall with your knees tucked to your chest, staring at your shaking hands.
“Heard you had a rough one.”
You turned your head.
Frank was standing a few steps away, hands tucked into his pockets.
“She was only 19.” You murmured, shaking your head. “I just had to tell her parents that their daughter isn’t coming home.”
You turned your head away as he sat down beside you, wiping at your face quickly before he could fully register it.
“I’m sorry.”
"I should have checked for a PE risk or a structural issue or-"
"She presented exactly like most young patients with anxiety do. None of us would have done anything differently." Frank interrupted gently.
You inhaled sharply. "But if I'd just-"
"Ace."
Your nickname, said like that, cut through the spiral before it could finish building.
You looked at him.
His gaze dropped briefly to your hands.
Then, slower, like he was deciding rather than acting, he reached forward and wrapped his hands around yours.
"This wasn't your fault."
The contact grounded you in a way that felt unfair.
The warmth of him grounded you instantly in a way that felt deeply unfair.
You swallowed hard and nodded once.
"I don't know how Robby and Dana are still here." You admitted quietly. "How they just keep... showing up."
Frank raised a brow. "Have you met them? They're both completely unhinged."
Despite yourself, a small sound escaped you - half laugh, half broken exhale.
"I didn't realise unhinged was an official medical diagnosis."
"It is according to me.” He nodded solemnly. “Right alongside basketcase and whacko."
That got another laugh out of you, sharper this time. More real.
He tilted his head slightly, watching you like he was checking whether it had actually worked.
"There we go." He said quietly.
You looked down then.
His hands were still around yours.
"I’m scared to know what you'd diagnose me with." You said after a moment, voice steadier now.
A corner of his mouth lifted slightly.
"You're your own medical condition entirely." He answered. Pausing as he tried to think of the best way to describe it.
"Ace-itis."
That made you laugh again, properly this time, breath catching slightly at the end, the heaviness in your chest loosening just enough for you to breathe deeper.
Frank watched it happen like it mattered more than it should.
When the laughter faded, the silence between you felt strangely easy.
After a moment, he shifted slightly but didn’t let go of your hands.
“You want to go get a drink or something?”
The question was casual, but it didn't feel like it.
You blinked at him once, processing it slowly through the fog of adrenaline and exhaustion.
A joke rose automatically to your tongue, something defensive, something sharp, but you swallowed it as you studied him.
“Only if the first rounds on you.”
He smiled faintly.
“After the day you’ve had, I’ll even get the second.”
eight.
Frank Langdon could also make you cry in a way no one else could.
Because when he turned on you, it felt like being shut out of something you hadn’t realised you were standing inside of, something that you suddenly didn't want to leave.
It was the day of Pittfest.
It was also the day for new interns and residents, which meant a whole slate of fresh faces trying too hard while the rest of the ER oscillated between mentorship and survival mode.
The halls were louder than usual. Too many voices overlapping, too many unfamiliar footsteps echoing off the linoleum floors.
And through all of it, there was Frank.
You noticed it within the first hour.
Something was off.
He moved like his body was running half a step ahead of everything - conversations, people, decisions. His voice came too quickly, clipped at the edges. His attention snapped between patients and staff with an intensity that didn’t feel controlled so much as driven. Like his nervous system had been turned up too high and forgotten how to come back down.
His pupils were slightly too wide under the fluorescent light, sweat gathered faintly at the back of his neck despite the air conditioning.
And worst of all - his arrogance, usually carefully calibrated, was unfiltered.
Loud.
You caught yourself watching him repeatedly throughout the shift.
Each time, you told yourself you were imagining it.
Then another hour passed.
Then another.
Eventually, you found yourself avoiding him entirely, because something about the way he looked today made you think of a system running too hot right before it failed.
You just hoped that whatever was going on with him would settle and he wouldn’t sweep up too many people in his chaos.
That hope lasted until you heard raised voices coming from trauma two.
You were already moving before you consciously decided to.
Even from the doorway, you could tell the atmosphere was off. A room holding its breath in the wrong place.
Frank was at the centre of it.
One of the new interns, Trinity, stood across from him, her body rigid, eyes wide. You had a brief thought that she resembled a frightened lamb.
Frank’s voice cut through everything.
“-stupid or arrogant, you need to realise that you are a beginner.” His voice was loud and unforgiving.
“Which means your job is to shut up, listen, and learn, because so far today the only thing you have been successful at is proving repeatedly that you know nothing.”
Trinity’s eyes widened slightly when she spotted you over his shoulder. You couldn’t decide if it was a silent plea or a warning.
Frank turned slightly at that movement.
For one brief second, his expression faltered when he saw you, like seeing you had been pulled back into himself.
Then immediately it hardened again, too fast to hold onto.
You swallowed, attempting to regain your composure as you glanced between them.
“Santos.” Your voice was level as you tilted your head towards the exit. “Dr McKay needs help in Room 4.”
Relief crossed Trinity’s face so quickly it was almost painful.
She nodded once, eyes darting between the two of you before escaping the room like she’d been given permission to breathe again.
The moment she left, the air changed again.
You turned back to Frank slowly, taking a few steps toward him so you were fully enveloped by the room.
He was still standing there, hands half-curled at his sides, like he’d been interrupted mid-impact and didn’t know what to do with the energy still in him.
“What the fuck was that?”
His eyes snapped to yours.
“What the fuck was what?”
His tone made you bristle.
“Don’t do that.” You said sharply. “Don’t stand there pretending you don’t know what you just did was completely out of line.”
“Have you worked with her yet?” He shot back, words tumbling out too fast. “She’s arrogant and-and completely incapable of-“
“It doesn’t matter.” You interrupted. “That is not how we talk to rookies. Actually, it’s not how we talk to anyone.”
Frank scoffed, sharp and humourless.
“Didn’t realise you were the tone police.”
The agitation radiating off him made you instinctively want to step back.
Your gaze sharpened.
“What is going on with you today?” You demanded. “You’re all twitchy and acting completely fucking manic-“
You stopped when you caught it.
Because you saw it properly now you were up close. His pupils were too dilated, not situational, not lighting, not stress.
Something else.
Something your brain immediately started assembling pieces around before you could stop it.
Sweats at his hairline, restless movement in his jaw, the uneven pacing of his breath.
And then the memory surfaced - uninvited, unwelcome.
Back pain from when he’d helped his parents move. Been too cheap to hire movers, he’d joked.
A prescription.
You remembered him mentioning it offhand weeks ago - something about weaning off them, something about not needing them anymore.
The realization hit so hard it almost made you feel sick.
You went still.
Frank noticed immediately.
Something defensive shifted across his posture like he’d followed your thoughts to their conclusion before you even spoke.
“Frank.” You said slowly.
Your voice softened involuntarily. Careful in a way that didn’t match the argument anymore. Weeks of quiet moments and softened edges bleeding into the argument without permission.
“Are you having withdrawals?”
There was a beat of silence.
Something flickered across his face.
Not denial first, not anger.
Something closer to pain, mixed with a semblance of something like surprise, maybe at the sound of his first name leaving your lips, or being caught, you weren’t certain.
And then it vanished.
“What?” He said, voice sharp enough to cut, “are you seriously trying to ask me if I’m a drug addict?”
“No, I-“ You started immediately, stepping forward again.
But he was already unraveling faster than you could catch.
“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Bitterness curled through every word now. “Get your competition shipped off to rehab so you can be the only golden child of the ER.”
Your breath caught painfully.
“That’s not fair.”
"Isn't it?" He studied you for a moment, his eyes intense and unblinking. "This place isyour whole life, it makes sense that you'd be dying to have Robby's attention all to yourself."
The words, slung like arrows, found their mark with deadly accuracy. They penetrated your thick skin, embedding themselves somewhere deep behind your rib cage.
Not because they were true, but because they were thrown like they were, like they were designed to hurt you.
Your throat tightened.
“I don’t know what has gotten into you.” You said quietly, voice shaking now despite your efforts. “But I seriously suggest you stop talking before you say something you can’t take back.”
For a moment something in him wavered. A crack.
Like he could suddenly see you again instead of whatever he was fighting.
Your bottom lip was quivering now.
For a second, he looked horrified by it.
And then his expression closed again, like a door slamming shut.
“Don’t worry.” He said flatly, void of any emotion as he stalked past you. “I was just leaving.”
You stood there frozen for a few seconds before the tears finally came, sliding down your face in hot, fat tracks.
Anger crashed through you almost instantly afterward.
Not just at Frank, but at yourself.
Because you hadn’t cried when you heard interns say horrible things about you, hadn’t cried when you’d lost a patient. You’d been on the brink, but never quite fallen off the ledge.
But somehow, Frank Langdon was the one to push you off it.
And that terrified you more than anything.
Because it meant you’d let him get under your skin in a way that you never thought he would. And now, you didn’t know if you could ever scrub yourself clean of him.
nine.
Frank Langdon left without saying goodbye.
You stood in the descrubbing bay long after your gloves had been peeled off and discarded, staring at nothing in particular. The curtain that separated you from the trauma bay still fluttered slightly, like the room itself hadn’t settled yet.
You didn’t want to move. Didn't want to pull back the curtain and see the blood soaked floor beyond it.
Because if you did, it would become real in a different way. Not just something you survived, but something that stayed.
A dull headache pulsed steadily behind your eyes. Your shoulders ached with tension. Your body felt disconnected somehow, like part of you was still moving even though you’d stopped minutes ago.
Your mind was struggling to process what you'd just witnessed. How many people you saved. How many you didn't.
You swallowed hard against the tightness in your throat.
For one strange second, you genuinely thought you might pass out.
The curtain shifted. You flinched before you could stop yourself.
“Sorry.”
The voice was quiet and all too familiar.
Your stomach dropped before you even turned.
Blue eyes met yours.
Frank stood in the doorway, still in scrubs. Hair slightly dishevelled. Exhaustion carved into his face in ways that you were sure mirrored yours.
The mass casualty had left no room to think about him as anything other than another set of hands beside you. But now, standing here with him again, every emotion you’d shoved aside came flooding violently back.
“What do you want, Langdon?”
Your voice came out flatter than intended as you turned away again, like movement alone might protect you from whatever this conversation was about to become.
"I came to apologise... about earlier." He said quietly. "That was fucked up."
"Yeah. It was." You said.
A humourless breath escaped you.
"Although now it feels kind of trivial after-" You stopped yourself before your brain could drift back toward everything you’d all just witnessed.
You turned back properly then - freezing when you saw the raw emotion on his face.
"I'm really sorry."
This time, you weren’t entirely sure he was only talking about the argument anymore.
You took a step towards him.
"What happened Frank?" You asked quietly.
His jaw tightened.
For a moment, he didn’t answer.
"I fucked up Ace." He admitted, his voice cracking slightly, like it cost him something to say it out loud.
"Really badly."
Your expression softened before you could stop it, and that seemed to break something in him further.
"I think I need help." The confession came out barely above a whisper as tears pooled in the corner of his eyes.
You took a step toward him instinctively.
"Ok." You said immediately, nodding slowly. "Ok. We can get you help."
"Jesus-" He cut himself off, squeezing his eyes shut for a second like he was trying to physically reset himself. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you... like you pity me."
"Jesus Christ Langdon, I don't pity you I-" You stopped yourself, breath catching slightly as you realised what you were about to say.
"I care about you."
The honesty of it startled even you.
Frank went still.
"You do?" He asked.
There was no teasing in his voice now. No arrogance. Only something small and uncertain underneath it that made your chest ache unexpectedly.
"Yeah." You said, softer now. "Even though it pains me to admit it."
That got the smallest flicker of something, his eyes never leaving your face.
"Which is why we're going to figure this out." You continued, stepping closer again without thinking about it. "Whatever this is, we can sort it out, we can-"
You never got to finish your sentence.
Because Frank Langdon kissed you.
It was sudden - like something inside him had snapped beneath the weight of everything he’d been holding back.
You froze completely at first. Hands half-raised, breath caught, brain refusing to process the shift from conversation to collision.
Frank pulled back abruptly, eyes wide, mouth parted.
“I- oh my god." He breathed heavily. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I-”
You grabbed the front of his scrubs and pulled him back down before he could finish.
The second kiss wasn’t hesitant.
It was years of tension collapsing all at once into something sharp and immediate and impossible to take back.
Frank made a quiet sound against your mouth like he still couldn’t quite believe this was happening. Like he couldn’t quite believe you were kissing him back.
Then, just as suddenly, he pulled back. His breathing uneven, chest rising too fast.
"I'm sorry." He shook his head as he took a step away from you, like he needed the physical distance to stop himself. "I can't- I can't do this."
"Frank-"
But he was already gone.
You didn't see him again after that.
Not in passing, not in corridors, not in all the strange little spaces where the two of you had somehow built an entire relationship out of arguments and eye contact and timing.
You found out a week later from Dana that Frank had admitted himself into a treatment program that same night.
And then he disappeared from your life for ten months.
ten.
The thing you hated the most about Frank Langdon was that you didn't hate him.
Not even a little bit, not even at all.
You’d known it long before you admitted it to yourself. But that moment - that kiss- had made it undeniable in a way you couldn’t pretend to ignore anymore.
And that was the problem.
Because hatred would’ve been easier than this constant, aching awareness of him existing somewhere just beyond your reach.
Fourth of July shifts were universally hated at PTMC.
Too hot, too loud, too many fire-work related disasters waiting to happen.
You could already feel a faint film of sweat start to coat the back of your neck as you opened your locker that morning.
Footsteps approached behind you.
You peered around the locker door out of habit, ready to say good morning to whichever poor colleague was stuck with you on this shift.
Your brain short circuited.
Frank Langdon stood there.
Cap on. Backpack slung over one shoulder. Like he belonged somewhere casual, somewhere outside of this building entirely.
Like he hadn’t disappeared from your life for ten months without a word.
You stared at him for a moment.
Then he opened his mouth, your name formed silently on his lips.
You slammed your door shut with finality, then walked straight past him without saying a word.
Your pulse roared in your ears, your heart bashed against your ribcage.
You knew he’d be coming back, you knew you would have to see him again eventually - you just didn’t think it would be today.
You didn’t think it would hurt this much either.
-
The shift was unbearable in the quietest possible way.
Every time you turned a corner, you expected him to be there. Every time you reached for a chart, you expected his voice behind you.
Every time someone called your name, your body reacted before your brain caught up - a stupid, pathetic flicker of hope you immediately hated yourself for.
And then there were the moments he was there.
Hands steady, voice controlled, face carefully neutral in the way only Frank Langdon could manage when he was actively trying not to look at you.
Even then, you could feel his eyes on you wherever you moved.
It made your skin feel too tight.
By hour four, you had already done two traumas with him. Your body slipped back into your old rhythm together so naturally it made you feel sick.
By hour eight, your scrubs were starting to cling to you in a way that felt suffocating.
By hour ten, your tension headache had made itself home again.
By hour fourteen, you thought you might scream if you stayed in the same room as him any longer.
The stairwell was empty when you found it.
Quiet in the way hospital spaces rarely were - concrete walls absorbing sound instead of reflecting it. The air was cooler here, industrial and slightly damp, smelling faintly of disinfectant and metal.
You pressed your back against the wall and closed your eyes for half a second.
Just one breath.
Just one moment where you didn’t have to think about him.
Your eyes snapped open when you heard the door open.
Frank stood in front of you, his chest rose and fell slightly faster than usual, like he’d decided to follow you on impulse and was only now catching up with the consequences.
You straightened immediately.
"I just want to talk." He spoke, taking a step toward you slowly like you were a wild animal he didn't want to spook.
"There's nothing to talk about Langdon."
He paused. "You know that's not true Ace."
"Don't call me that."
Your voice came out sharper than you intended.
His expression flickered.
“Please Ace just-"
"I said stop." You cut him off again, stepping back slightly without meaning to. "You don’t get to call me that anymore. Not after-"
You stopped.
The words jammed in your throat.
Because saying it out loud meant making it real in a way you weren’t sure you were ready for.
His gaze didn’t move from yours.
"Not after what?" He asked quietly.
Something in your restraint finally cracked, frustration pouring out of you.
"I wrote to you in rehab." You said, voice tightening. "Even after everything, I wrote to you. And you didn't write back."
Pain flashed openly across Frank's face.
"I'm sorry."
You shook your head.
"You kissed me Langdon. And then you disappeared without a word and then you just - just appear without any warning, like nothing happened." Your voice grew louder as you spoke, trembling despite your best efforts.
"I didn't want you to get caught up in any of this."
"That wasn't your call to make." You snapped back. "I can make my own decisions."
"You don't think that I know that?" He answered, his own tone sharpening. "There's more to this then my addiction."
"I know."
Frank's eyes flared in surprise.
You exhaled shakily.
"Robby and Santos have been glaring at you all day. And I saw the way he looked at you last year before you left.” Your jaw clenched. “It doesn't take a genius to figure it out."
Frank watched you for a moment, his surprise morphing into one of disbelief.
"And you're saying what? You wouldn't have exiled me too?”
"No. I would have been there for you, if you'd given me the chance to."
His expression faltered as he shook his head slightly.
"What?" You challenged, taking a step towards him. "You don't believe me?"
"You hate me." He countered.
You stared at him, then let out a breath somewhere between exhaustion and disbelief.
"Jesus Langdon, I don't hate you.” You snapped. “And that's precisely the problem."
A pause.
He took a step closer.
"I didn't plan on kissing you like that."
You swallowed as you looked at him, all your frustration seeping out of you.
"Then why did you?" You murmured.
For a moment he didn't answer.
"Because I don't hate you either."
This time when he looked at you, there was something different. Like he wasn’t looking at you as competition, or a colleague, but something more exposed than either of you had ever allowed before.
"You're all I thought about in rehab."
Your heart stuttered violently.
Frank laughed softly under his breath, humourless.
"You're all I've thought about since med school, really."
"That can't be-"
"It is." He cut in gently. His eyes dropped briefly toward the floor.
“Ever since you sat across from me with your colour coded textbooks and looked at me like you wanted to kill me.” A small smile tugged briefly at his mouth.
Your breath caught.
“That's probably why I was always such a dick to you.” He glanced back up. “Because it was the only time you ever really looked at me."
The stairwell felt too small suddenly. Too warm, too honest, too vulnerable.
"It's always been you Ace.” His voice softened. “I just didn’t know what to do about it.”
You swallowed hard.
"You left." You said quietly.
"I know." He said immediately. No defence. No excuse. Just truth.
“I panicked. I wasn't thinking straight."
A beat.
"And I’ve regretted it every day since."
He took another step towards you.
"The kiss, or you leaving?” You whispered.
His eyes heals yours steadily.
"You know which one."
Now he was close enough that you had to tilt your head slightly to keep eye contact. Close enough that you could see the small flecks of green scattered through his eyes.
"I don't think I can keep pretending that I don't want you anymore." He admitted.
Silence hung between the two of you.
"Say something." He said quietly. "Please."
The space between you was nothing and everything at once.
"Frank.." You breathed out.
"Yeah?"
"I don't want to pretend anymore either."
Frank swallowed, his eyes flickering down to your mouth.
"I'd really like to kiss you again.”
Whatever restraint you still had left finally broke.
You fisted his scrubs in between your fingers, guiding him down to your mouth.
The kiss wasn’t careful this time.
It wasn’t confused.
It was real in a way that almost hurt.
Like years of wanting each other had finally run out of places to hide.
Frank’s hand came up immediately to cradle your jaw, anchoring you there like he was afraid you might disappear if he let go.
You pulled him closer against you, one hand threading through his hair. You felt your back hit the wall, a small breath escaping your mouth at the impact.
The stairwell door creaked somewhere nearby.
You both broke apart instantly.
You turned, but there was no one there.
Frank looked back at you, breathing unevenly now, a grin slowly pulling at his mouth.
"You know what I just realised?”
"Oh god.” Your fingers scraped lightly against the back of his neck. “What?”
“I never got to tell you I performed a closed cervical reduction like thirty minutes ago.”
Your eyes widened. "Are you serious?"
"Completely." His smile grew as he ghosted his thumb over your jaw. "Guess that's two miracles I've performed today."
You snorted despite yourself. "That was terrible, even for you."
"I know." He smirked as he leant forward, his mouth hovering over yours. "You love it though Ace."
Your smile widened helplessly as you rolled your eyes.
"Just shut up and kiss me Langdon."
-
Robby glanced over his glasses to see Abbot making his way towards him, his face slack like he was trying to process something.
“Why do you look like you’ve just seen a ghost?” Robby asked.
“Because I’m traumatised.”
“I think we all are.”
“No.” Abbot shook his head gravely. “Somehow this was worse than anything I’ve seen in here.”
Robby raised a brow as Abbot shuddered.
“I just caught your two protégées making out in the stairwell.”
“Huh.”
Robby glancing down casually at his watch.
“Well I'll give them credit."
Abbot's eyes narrowed. "For what?”
Robby shrugged as he turned back to his screen.
"They lasted longer than I thought they would.”
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Summary: you don’t realize how much you’ve been shrinking yourself to fit into someone else’s life until you’re forced to look at the pieces. It starts with an Olympic gold medal and a boyfriend who laughs when your entire sport is treated like a political punchline. But it shifts with Sidney Crosby in the Milan cold, pointing out the devastating difference between a boy you have to make excuses for and a man who actually respects you. Sometimes, moving on isn’t just a breakup … it’s an absolute upgrade
summary: you're back at the olympics determined to have a fresh start in big air after a career-threatening injury, while sidney chases one last gold as he faces uncertainty beyond his hockey career. amid the pressure, the two of you connect over the fear of pursuing your dreams at the highest level.
warnings: age gap (12 years but it doesn’t get mentioned a ton), this does not mimic real events (e.g. changed winner of gold, snowboarding + hockey happening in the same city), mentions of sid retiring, description of knee injury, whatever the opposite of a slow burn is
wc: 18.5k
DAY ONE
The Olympic village was strange at night.
The lights were too bright for the hour, the floors too clean, the air too full of languages folding over one another. Trays clattered, chairs scraped, someone somewhere always laughed too loudly because adrenaline didn’t know how to switch off just because the clock said it was past ten.
The Canadian men’s hockey team pushed through the glass doors in a sluggish wave of red jackets and tired shoulders. Sidney moved with them, nodding absently as Brad Marchand told a story beside him.
Practice had run long. Hard, tight, disciplined. Cooper was on them all, nitpicking the tiny errors. Sidney could still feel the burn in his legs, the dull heaviness of travel sitting behind his eyes. It was only seven p.m. local time, but back in Pittsburgh it was past one in the morning — hours beyond when he would normally be asleep. They’d been here over a week, and yet his body wasn’t totally adjusted. He rolled his neck slowly, scanning the dining hall as they grabbed trays.
That’s when he heard the noise. It wasn’t just the usual buzz that fills the air; it was sharper and brighter. It was a burst of laughter, ringing through the room. Sidney’s eyes flicked across the room on instinct, mild annoyance forming before he’d even fully registered why.
Across the dining hall, at a long table cluttered with pasta bowls and scattered red-and-white gear, a cluster of athletes leaned toward a single focal point. A girl sat at the center of it — animated, flushed, incandescent in a way that didn’t fit the late hour.
Her hair, still slightly damp at the ends, fell in loose waves around her shoulders. Her cheeks were pink from cold air or exertion — maybe both. She was mid-story, hands slicing through the air as she reenacted something that Sidney couldn’t quite make out. When she laughed, she tipped her head all the way back, unrestrained, unselfconscious.
Sidney exhaled through his nose. “Unbelievable,” Nathan muttered, not unkindly, just tired.
Sidney understood the sentiment. The team had barely been in the country for seventy-two hours. Jet lag still pressed down on all of them. Everything felt a half-second slower than it should. And yet she looked like she’d just stepped off a podium.
One of her coaches clapped her firmly on the back. “Every single run,” he said, pride evident even from across the room. She covered her face with both hands, laughing again as her teammates erupted.
Sidney adjusted his tray, pretending to examine the salad options while his attention drifted back to her table. He caught fragments of what she was saying.
“I thought I’d over-rotated — I swear — I was like, ‘well, that’s it,’ and then it just stuck.”
Her voice carried easily. She radiated adrenaline. Relief. Joy. His mouth twitched despite himself. He grabbed grilled chicken, vegetables, rice, the same as everyone else, and followed his teammates to a table. But his attention didn’t follow his body. It stayed across the room. You didn’t seem tired. If you were jet-lagged, you masked it with adrenaline and joy. Sidney couldn’t force himself to look away.
“Who is that?” Devon Toews asked quietly, glancing over with mild curiosity. “Figure skater?”
“Too loud,” Brad Marchand muttered. “Figure skaters are quieter.”
Cale Makar leaned back in his chair, studying you more carefully. “Oh, I know who that is.”
“Who?” Sidney asked. A little too quickly, but they didn’t notice.
“Y/n L/n. The big air snowboarder.” Cale answered. “She’s the one who had that brutal crash four years ago in Beijing. Tore her knee apart in finals. Everyone’s been talking about her ‘big return’.”
Sidney remembered that moment. You were Canada’s next big thing in snowboarding, and you were all over the winter Olympics promotion in 2022. Your qualifying runs had been flawless, which meant you would drop last in the finals. The entire country was watching when you pushed off the lip for your first run. You felt it the second you left the jump — the grab was late. A split second, nothing more. But it was enough. Your board drifted off-axis, your body overcorrected, and suddenly the landing wasn’t beneath you anymore. You hit hard. Your knee twisted under you before the rest of you followed. The broadcast caught your scream before the crowd went silent.
But across the dining hall now, she laughed again, untouched by that memory.
Devon’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Nathan continued, still watching you. “Came back this season swinging. She’s been landing everything in training, apparently. Tocchets been buzzing about it.”
Brad let out a low whistle. “So she’s good, good.”
“Very,” Nathan said. “Could medal. If she keeps that up.”
Across the room, as if sensing something, you glanced up. Your eyes scanned briefly before they met Sidney's. It was quick, then unexpectedly, you smiled. It wasn’t a big one, just the corner of your mouth lifted. Sidney’s spine went a little straighter. He dropped his gaze immediately, pretending intense focus on his rice.
Across the table, Tom Wilson smirked. “You gonna go say hi?”
He didn’t look up. “Eat your food.”
But his ears felt warm.
Later that evening, the village had quieted. Not fully, but enough that Sidney’s footsteps sounded a little bit louder than normal. He pushed open the door to the training and recovery room, expecting solitude. He liked it here at night. The steady rhythm of bikes spinning lazily, the low hum of the NormaTec machines, the faint smell of antiseptic in the air. It was like a respite for him.
He stepped inside, already rolling his shoulders, when he heard a familiar voice. “…and then he’s like, ‘we’re not adding another cork,’” you were saying, your voice echoing slightly off the tile walls. “As if I haven’t been throwing it since I was sixteen.”
A man’s deeper voice responded, amused. “You were also sixteen and invincible.”
“I’m still invincible,” you shot back, and the splash that followed told him you’d kicked water.
Sidney paused just inside the doorway. You were sunk shoulder-deep in an ice bath at the far end of the room, hair piled messily on top of your head now, damp strands clinging to your temples. Your skin was flushed from the cold, goosebumps rising along your arms.
The older guy beside you — mid-fifties maybe, solid build, wearing a Team Canada jacket — had to be your coach. Sidney swallowed and moved quietly to a mat across the room, grabbing a foam roller. He lay back, positioning it beneath his quads, and began to roll.
He focused on the muscles in his legs. He absolutely did not look at you. But then you laughed again, loud and bright, and he couldn’t help himself. You were gripping the edge of the tub now, jaw tight as the cold started to bite deeper. The bravado in your voice had softened slightly.
“Okay,” you muttered. “This is where I regret every life choice.”
Your coach smirked. “Three more minutes.”
“Three? That’s not what you said.”
“I said ‘a few.’”
“You’re a liar.”
Sidney’s mouth twitched despite himself.
He rolled forward, stretching out his hip flexor, trying to focus on the dull ache in his legs instead of the way your shoulders tensed against the cold. He didn’t mean to look again. He really didn’t. But when you inhaled sharply and stood, water cascading down your body in a rush, his eyes lifted instinctively.
Water streamed over your shoulders and down the clean lines of your torso, tracing every defined edge before splashing back into the tub. You were in a team-issued sports bra and matching biker shorts, nothing flashy, just functional — but it didn’t hide the strength of you. Your abs tightened as the cold air hit, sharp and sculpted from years of landings and lifts and endless core work. There was nothing delicate about it. It was earned power.
Sidney’s breath caught before he could stop it.
He’d spent his entire life around elite athletes. He knew what dedication looked like. He knew the hours it took to build a body like that — the discipline, the sacrifice, the pain. And yet seeing it on you, in that unguarded moment, felt different. His eyes dropped immediately. Not because he didn’t want to look.
Because he shouldn’t. You were a teammate in this strange, temporary Olympic ecosystem. Another athlete chasing something fragile and enormous. He prided himself on control — on keeping things compartmentalized, professional, steady. He didn’t let his mind drift where it didn’t belong. But it drifted anyway. Because the simple truth, the one he didn’t need to overthink, was that he just found you really, undeniably pretty.
He noticed your legs, your unbelievably toned legs that would give Sidney a run for his money. They were sculpted and strong, no doubt from dozens upon dozens of hours of snowboarding in your life. That’s when he spotted the scar. It ran long and pale against your skin, carving up from just below your knee toward mid-thigh. It wasn’t thin or subtle. It was thick in places, slightly raised.
You stepped carefully out of the tub, grabbing a towel from the hook. You were mid-sentence — “If I lose a toe to frostbite, I’m blaming you”— when you caught it. His lingering eyes. They weren’t gawking or pitying, just stuck staring at your knee.
You glanced down at your knee, then back up at him. “Don’t worry,” you said lightly, drying off your skin. “It looks worse than it is.”
Sidney blinked, heat rushing up his neck. “I wasn’t— I didn’t—”
You grinned. “I tell people I got it in a bull-riding accident,” you continued casually. “Sounds way cooler than ‘I fucked up a simple trick at the Olympics and busted up my knee.’”
Sidney let out an involuntary huff of laughter before he could stop it. “A bull-riding accident?” he echoed.
You shrugged, beginning to pat your legs dry. “You’d be surprised how many people just accept that without follow-up questions.”
Sidney laughed, the sound low and surprised, like it had been pulled out of him before he could filter it. There was a beat. Then you tilted your head.
“You’re Sidney Crosby,” you said, like you were confirming something obvious but still wanted to hear it out loud.
He huffed lightly. “Yeah.”
“I thought so.”
He waited for the usual follow-up — the long-winded praise, the childhood posters, the “my dad loves you” speech. Instead, you stuck out your hand.
“I’m Y/N.”
It caught him off guard enough that he blinked. “I know,” he admitted.
You smirked. “Oh? Stalking the snowboarding coverage?”
“My teammate mentioned you at dinner,” he said quickly, then winced internally at how that sounded.
You laughed. “Ah. So I’m team gossip already.”
“Not gossip,” he corrected, stepping closer and taking your hand. Your fingers were cold when they wrapped around his, fresh from the ice bath. “We just uh… we remember the crash.”
Sidney regretted it as soon as it left his mouth. Why are you bringing up her almost career-ending injury to her in your first conversation? Your expression shifted, only slightly, but he caught it. The brief flicker of something heavier behind your eyes.
“Yeah,” you said, softer now. “Most people do.”
Silence settled, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Not quite.
“You coming back like this,” he added carefully, “that’s… impressive.”
You studied him for a long moment. Then, lightly again, because you seemed to prefer that, you shrugged. “Well. I’m invincible.”
He smiled at that. A real one this time.
Your coach clapped his hands once. “Alright, superstar. Let’s get you out before you start flirting with national icons.”
Your eyes widened slightly. “Oh my God.”
Sidney felt his ears go hot again.
“I am not—” you started, then stopped, laughing. You slung your bag over your shoulder. “Good luck in your next game, Sidney.”
He nodded. “You too. When’s your next competition?”
“I have qualifiers the day after tomorrow.”
He held your gaze for half a second longer than necessary. “I’ll be watching.”
Something shifted in your expression again — smaller, quieter. “Yeah?” you said.
“Yeah.”
You smiled. Not the loud one, not the cocky one. Something in between. And then you were gone, the door swinging shut behind you with a soft click. The room felt too quiet after.
Sidney stared at the space you’d occupied for a moment longer before lowering himself back onto the mat. He placed the roller beneath his legs again. He rolled forward slowly, muscle over foam, the steady pressure grounding. He told himself that was all it was — curiosity. Respect for another athlete. Nothing more. But his mind drifted anyway.
He’d watched that crash four years ago from his childhood home during the All-Star break. Everyone had. The scream, the way your body folded wrong on the landing, the stillness after. He remembered thinking, fleeting and uncomfortable, that could be it. Not just a season. A career. A dream that had been building since childhood, cut clean in a second. Hockey had taught him how thin that line was.
Now you were here. Laughing. Arguing about adding another cork, as if your knee had never betrayed you. Like fear was something you’d already met and decided not to keep.
He shifted the roller higher up his thigh. Comeback stories always sounded romantic from the outside. Redemption. Resilience. But he knew what they actually were — early mornings when no one was watching. Doubt that settled in the quiet. The private negotiations with your own body. The way you had to convince yourself to trust it again.
You had done that. And you were younger than him. The thought slid in quietly, almost unnoticed.
These Games felt different. He hadn’t said it out loud — wouldn’t. Not to the media. Not to the guys. But there was a finality humming beneath everything. His body still responded when he asked it to. He was still effective. Still sharp. But time wasn’t something you beat forever. You just outlasted it as long as you could.
He pressed his forearm over his eyes for a moment, breathing steadily.
What happens when it ends?
He didn’t let the question finish forming. There would be other things, there always were. But hockey had been the spine of his entire life. His time was measured in seasons instead of years. You were fighting to prove you could still fly. He was trying not to think about the day he wouldn’t.
Sidney put the roller and the mat away, begging his mind not to think about the thoughts that had been plaguing him for a while now. His mind rolled back to you. He exhaled slowly. No one had left him feeling like that in a long time. Curious and a little off balance.
DAY TWO
Even before his alarm goes off, Sidney’s awake, staring at the ceiling of his room. The air hums faintly with distant footsteps and muffled laughter in the hallway belonging to other athletes moving through their own rituals, their own nerves.
Quarterfinals. It shouldn’t rattle him like this. He’s played in more elimination games than some of his teammates have played seasons. He’s worn the maple leaf so many times it feels stitched into his skin. And still his stomach twists.
Practice is sharp and fast. Everyone feels connected and ready for tonight. Inside, though, there’s that buzz. Afterward, instead of heading back to his room to lie still and overthink, he veers toward the village gym. He tells himself it’s just to flush the legs. Just to spin out the extra energy.
The gym smells like rubber and sweat, sunlight spilling through the windows, glinting off the weight rack. And there you are. You’re on a mat near the mirrors, one leg stretched long, the other bent carefully in front of you. A resistance band loops around your knee. You’re pulling it slow and controlled, jaw clenched in concentration as your quad tightens. He pauses for half a second. You glance up, a small smile spreading across your face.
“Hey,” you say, pushing a stray piece of hair off your cheek.
“Hey,” he answers, suddenly aware of how big and awkward he feels standing there.
There’s a beat where neither of you quite knows what comes next. Sidney puts his head down and crosses to the stationary bikes and swings a leg over one, adjusting the resistance higher than usual just to have something to focus on. The pedals begin to turn. His thighs burn in that steady, controlled way he likes.
But his eyes keep drifting. You’re careful with your knee. He notices that immediately. The way you ease into each stretch. The slight hesitation before you deepen it. The way your hand hovers there sometimes, as if you’re reminding it, ‘we’re okay, we’re okay’. He wonders what it took to come back from something that bad. Wonders if you ever look at the scar and feel angry.
Across the room, you’re pretending not to look at him. You’re supposed to be counting reps. Supposed to be focusing on alignment and breath. Instead, your gaze keeps flicking up to the mirrored wall.
His compression shirt clings to him as he leans forward, dampened slightly along the spine, molded to the shifting planes of his back. Each pull of his shoulders draws the fabric tight, outlining the quiet strength there — the defined ridge of muscle beneath his shoulder blades, the subtle taper of his waist. It’s the kind of build that looks effortless, but you know comes from years of dedication to his sport.
When he stands up lightly to increase the resistance, you can see the controlled power in his legs. My god his legs. You drag your gaze back to your form. Your breath. Your counting. But you keep catching fragments of him in the mirror, and your eyes are back on him. It would be easier if he weren’t so unfairly, quietly… attractive.
Across the room, he glances up again. And this time, you’re not fast enough to look away.
You swallow and finally break the silence. “So,” you say lightly, changing out the resistance band to a higher tension. “When do you compete next?”
He looks over, almost surprised you asked. “This afternoon,” he says. “Quarterfinal.”
Your eyebrows lift. “Today?”
“Yeah.”
You tilt your head. “And you’re here?”
He huffs out a quiet laugh. “Couldn’t sit still.”
You lean forward more, stretching out your quad. “Pre-game jitters?”
He hesitates, then nods once. Honest. “A little.”
You grin. “You’ve played, what, over twenty seasons?”
“Twenty-one,” he corrects automatically.
“Twenty-one,” you repeat. “I thought pre-game butterflies were supposed to disappear with age.”
He raises an eyebrow at you. “Are you calling me old?”
“I mean, at your age, shouldn’t you be knitting or something?”
His mouth curves into a smile. “At my age?”
You shrug, biting back a smile. “Maybe some bingo with the others in the retirement home.”
He laughs — really laughs this time — and it does something strange and warm to your chest. “Wow,” he says, shaking his head. “Brutal.”
You stand up out of the squat, meeting his eyes. “Relax. You wear it well.”
“Wear what?” he asks.
“Twenty-one seasons,” you say softly. “It looks good on you.”
For a second, the gym feels smaller. You hadn’t meant for the words to land the way they did. But now they’re there, hanging between you. The pedals slow under his feet.
You hadn’t been blind to the age difference. You’re twenty-six — still figuring things out, still collecting firsts, still feeling like the world is something you’re actively running toward. He’s thirty-eight — lived-in confidence, long seasons behind him, a body shaped by time and repetition and resilience. There’s history in him. Experience. Weight.
You should notice those twelve years more. But it doesn’t change a thing. If anything, it makes him more compelling. Because the attraction isn’t just physical — though God, that would be enough on its own. It’s the way he carries himself, how patient he is.
He stands, swinging one leg off the bike. Up close, he feels even taller. Broader. The warmth of exertion still clinging to him. You catch the faint scent of clean sweat and something crisp — soap, maybe.
Your pulse stutters again. Twelve years older. Still doesn’t matter. Not when he looks at you like that. Not when your stomach flips just from standing this close.
Sidney grabs his water bottle mostly to give his hands something to do. He’s faced down Olympic pressure, game 7 do-or-dies, and entire arenas chanting against him. And somehow this, standing a few feet away from you, feels riskier.
He clears his throat. “Do you… um.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Do you want to come? To the game.”
You blink. “What?”
“The quarterfinal,” he says quickly. “Against Czechia. I mean, if you’re busy or have training or— it’s fine if you can’t. Just thought I’d—”
“I want to go,” you interrupt. The words tumble out without hesitation. His flustered rambling stops. “You do?”
“Yeah,” you say, smiling now. “I’ve never actually been to a professional hockey game in person before.”
He stares at you like that information alone has shifted the balance of the universe. “Well,” he says, recovering slightly. “We should probably fix that.”
You step back toward your mat, trying to steady the sudden rush in your chest. “I’ll be there.” He nods, a grin tugging at his mouth as he heads toward the door.
“Try not to knit too hard before puck drop,” you call after him.
He glances over his shoulder. “Careful,” he says. “I might score just to prove the old guy still has it.”
You watch him leave. And for the first time that morning, the nerves in your knee and in your chest don’t feel quite so heavy.
Later, in the cafeteria, you scan the room for familiar faces. The snowboarders are loud in the way only adrenaline and youth make you loud. Trays clatter. Someone is reenacting a near miss from practice with exaggerated arm movements. You slide into the seat beside them, trying to look casual.
“Anyone want to come to hockey tonight?” you ask, spearing a piece of fruit you don’t really plan on eating.
Three heads swivel toward you. “Hockey?” Scott repeats, like you just suggested competitive puzzle making
“Yeah. Quarterfinal. Canada vs. Czechia.”
A pause. “When did you become such a hockey fan?” Clara laughs.
Your stomach tightens for half a second. Not from guilt exactly, but from the awareness that the truth would come out sounding too obvious. You shrug, reaching for your water. “My dad’s obsessed. Like, borderline unhealthy. I grew up watching it. Playoffs, Olympics, random Tuesday night games. It’s basically background noise in our house.”
It rolls off your tongue easier than expected. They groan in sympathy. “Ohhh, okay. That makes sense. Trauma bonding with your childhood TV schedule.” Scott nods
“Exactly,” you say, grateful for the direction the teasing takes. “Consider this me honoring my roots.”
They buy it. Of course they do. Your life has always been half-truths and media answers and polite deflections. This is nothing.
“Fine,” Val says. “We’ll go. But if it’s boring, you owe us dessert.”
“It won’t be boring,” you say before you can stop yourself.
And boring it wasn’t. The game was fast and demanding. It took a minute to get a handle on tracking the puck. But once you did, you couldn’t help but notice how often it was on Sidney’s stick.
You watch him receive a pass from his teammate and go flying up the middle of the ice. A Czech forward closes on him, but he slips past between the boards. You lean forward without realizing it. He passes to a teammate in the middle before bolting up to open ice on the left side of the net.
Scott mutters something beside you, but you don’t hear it. Because you’re watching the way he refuses to drift. He’s constantly moving hard. Even when the puck leaves his stick, he doesn’t stop moving. He crashes the net, ties up a defender, digs in the corners. He’s talking constantly, directing traffic, pointing, tapping sticks. It’s captivating watching an athlete command their space like that. There’s urgency in him tonight. Not panic. Not recklessness. Just this relentless insistence. As if the game will bend if he leans on it hard enough.
Midway through the second period, the score is tight. 1-1. Czechia is structured, suffocating. The game threatens to stall. And then Sidney takes over. He wins a faceoff cleanly, pulls it back, immediately spins off his check, and slides into the high slot. The return pass finds him in stride. He doesn’t dust it off. He just snaps it. The puck whistles past the goalie’s glove and the arena detonates.
You’re on your feet before you even process it, heart slamming, shouting something incoherent as the red light flashes behind the net. He doesn’t celebrate wildly. Just a sharp exhale, a fist pump, teammates crashing into him.
By the third period, he’s everywhere. Backchecking hard enough to break up a two-on-one. Winning battles along the wall against players younger and bigger. Blocking a shot late in the game and hopping right back up without a second thought.
The final minutes stretch thin with tension. Czechia pulls its goalie. Six attackers swarm. Sidney stays on the ice. He’s exhausted, you can see it now in the heavier rise of his chest, the damp hair curling at his temples, but he digs in anyway. He wins another draw and chips the puck out. Chases it down himself and pins it deep, burning precious seconds.
When the horn finally sounds, Canada up by just one goal, the sound feels physical. It presses against your ribs. He tilts his helmet up, his cheeks flushed and eyes bright. And for a second, amidst the chaos and the cameras and the maple leaf waving everywhere, he looks almost boyish. Relieved. Alive. When he lifts his head and scans the stands, you swear his eyes catch yours for half a heartbeat. And your pulse answers before your mind can.
DAY THREE
When you wake up, before a pale line of sunrise appears in the sky, your heart is already beating fast like it knows what day it is. The qualifiers aren’t for another seven hours, but you’re already on edge. You close your eyes again and try to will yourself back to sleep, but your brain won’t cooperate. It keeps replaying the run order (you’re going eighth out of twenty-nine), the weather forecast (it’s going to be just over freezing during the competition).
You sit upright. Your knee aches. It’s not a pain, more like a memory. Of Beijing. You swallow hard and swing your legs over the edge of the bed. There’s no point pretending you’ll sleep again.
The Village cafeteria is quieter than you’ve ever seen it. A few early risers, but the emptiest you’d seen it since you’d arrived. You load your tray without really thinking—eggs, fruit, a slice of toast, coffee you don’t even want but feel like you should drink. You yawn as you carry your tray towards the tables.
And that’s when you see him. He’s sitting alone near the windows, shoulders slightly hunched, hoodie pulled over a Team Canada tee. A mug cradled in both hands. He looks up as if he feels you staring.
For half a second, you consider turning around. Instead, you walk over. “Couldn’t sleep either?” you ask softly. He smiles. It’s small and private, which doesn’t look like the one he gives cameras. “Guess not.”
You slide into the seat across from him. Up close, he looks exactly like he always does on television, calm and steady, but there’s something tired around his eyes.
“You’ve got qualifiers today,” he says.
You blink. “You remember?”
He shrugs lightly. “Kind of hard to forget.”
You stir your coffee even though you haven’t added anything to it. “Yeah. I go eighth today.”
He nods once. “That why you’re up?”
“Partly.” You hesitate. “And partly because my brain won’t shut up.”
He studies you carefully. Not invasive. Just… attentive. “About your knee?” he asks gently.
The question lands softly, but it still makes your breath hitch. You hadn’t told him much about Beijing. Most people know the highlight version—the crash, the injury, the long rehab—but they don’t know what it felt like. The way the air disappeared from your lungs when you realized you were short on rotation. The split second of weightlessness before gravity made its decision.
You stare down at your plate. “Yeah,” you admit. There’s a pause. Not awkward. Just Sidney giving you space to talk. “It comes back sometimes,” you say quietly. “The crash. I’ll be at the top of the ramp, and suddenly it’s like I can feel it again. The pain.” He doesn’t interrupt. “I tried a trick I’d only landed twice in training,” you continue. “I thought I needed it. Everyone else was pushing so hard. The sport was evolving so fast. I thought if I didn’t go bigger, I’d be invisible.”
You laugh softly, but it doesn’t feel funny. “Turns out I wasn’t ready.”
“You going for it again?” he asks.
You meet his eyes. “Yes,” you reply. “But it’s different now,” you add quickly. “The sport’s moved forward. Spins are cleaner, rotations are bigger. I’ve added another half spin into the setup. It’s controlled. I’ve landed it more than twice this time.”
He leans back slightly, considering. “You scared?” he asks.
You exhale slowly. “Yeah.”
There it is. Honest and exposed in the quiet morning light. You expect him to tell you not to be. To give you some cliché about believing in yourself. Instead, he says, “Good.”
You frown. “Good?”
“Good,” he repeats, steady as ever. “If you weren’t scared, I’d be worried.”
You tilt your head. He wraps both hands around his mug. “Fear means you understand what’s at stake. It means you respect it. The ice, the ramp, the moment. The guys who scare me are the ones who think they’re invincible.”
A corner of your mouth lifts. “You don’t look scared out there.”
He huffs quietly. “That’s the job.”
You study him. The way he sits—still, contained, like he’s holding something in. “So what do you do with it?” you ask. “The fear?”
He thinks about it. “I shrink it,” he says finally. “I don’t let it turn into this big, career-defining monster. I make it about the next shift. The next faceoff. The next detail I can control. I can’t control the crowd. Or the headlines. Or whether a puck hits a skate and goes in. But I can control my first three strides. My stick position. My breathing.”
You nod slowly, absorbing it. There’s a beat of silence. The sky outside has shifted from navy to pale gold. A few more athletes trickle into the cafeteria, but the world still feels hushed.
You glance at him again. “You don’t have practice until this afternoon,” you say. “Why are you up?”
He hesitates. It’s just a flicker, but you catch it. “I always get up early on tournament days,” he says at first, default answer ready. Then he exhales. “But that’s not really it.”
You wait. He looks down at the table, then back at you. And for the first time since you met him, he looks less like a legend and more like just a man.
“I keep thinking about what happens after,” he says quietly.
“After this tournament?”
“After hockey.”
The words hang between you.
You blink. “You’ve got years left.”
He gives you a look that says he knows you don’t quite believe that. “I’ve given my whole life to this,” he continues. “Since I was a kid. Every decision, every summer, every relationship. It’s all been built around being a hockey player.” His jaw tightens slightly. “I don’t know who I am without this.”
The vulnerability in his voice catches you off guard. “And this,” he adds, gesturing vaguely, meaning the Olympics, the flag stitched on his chest. “It’s Canada. It’s everything. Gold is the standard. Anything less…” He swallows. “In my head, it’s failure.”
You lean back in your chair, studying him the way he studied you earlier. “You really believe that?”
He shrugs, but there’s no humor in it. “It’s what people expect.”
“Or is it what you expect?”
He doesn’t answer. You take a breath. “Can I tell you something?” you ask. He nods. “When I was in rehab after Beijing,” you begin, voice steady but soft, “there was a week where I couldn’t bend my knee past ninety degrees. The doctor said it was normal. The physio said it was progress. But I went back to my house and cried because I thought that was it.”
His eyes lift to yours. “I thought my career was over. Not because anyone told me it was. But because I couldn’t imagine being anything else. I didn’t know how to exist without the version of me that flew off jumps.”
You wrap your hands around your own mug now, mirroring him. “And you know what scared me most?” you continue. “It wasn’t losing competitions. It wasn’t missing podiums. It was people not caring anymore. It was walking into a room and not being the snowboarder.”
He listens like he’s memorizing every word. “I had to figure out who I was when no one was watching,” you say. “And I hated it at first. It felt empty. But eventually, I realized… I’m not valuable because I land a trick. I land tricks because of who I am.”
He’s very still now. “My stubbornness. My discipline. My curiosity. The way I handle pressure. Those things didn’t disappear when my knee did. They were still mine.” You lean forward slightly. “Hockey isn’t who you are. It’s how you express who you are.”
His breath catches almost imperceptibly. “You think when you retire, you suddenly stop being disciplined? Or driven? Or someone who makes the people around him better?” you ask gently. “Those are yours. The rink just gave them a stage.”
He looks out the window for a long moment. Sidney wasn’t used to being given advice. It’s been a long time since he was a rookie. Since he was the guy struggling with the landscape of the NHL. He’d long been the one guiding others as they began their careers. He didn’t know how to swallow what you were telling him.
“And about gold,” you add, quieter now. “You want it because you care. That’s good. But you don’t get to measure your worth by a medal.”
He gives you a faint, almost incredulous smile. “Easy for you to say.”
“Is it?” you counter softly. “If I podium today, it doesn’t erase Beijing. If I don’t, it doesn’t erase the work I’ve done to get back here.”
You hold his gaze. “You making Canada proud isn’t about the color of the medal. It’s about the way you show up. The way you play. The way you carry yourself when it’s hard.”
The cafeteria noise grows slightly louder as more athletes wander in, but your table still feels like its own world. He exhales slowly. “You’re pretty good at this.”
“I’ve got a good teacher,” you reply softly.
A small smile spreads across his face — not the polished one, not the public one. The real one. For the first time since you woke up, your heart isn’t racing. And when you look at him now, he doesn’t seem like a man drowning in expectations. He looks like someone who just needed to be reminded that he’s more than the game.
Across the village, Sidney is frantically unlacing his skates. His fingers burn as he yanks at the laces, the tips stiff and numb from the cold of the rink. Practice had run long. Extra reps. Extra faceoffs. Extra shots he didn’t need but took anyway.
He doesn’t wait for the equipment guys. He pulls his helmet off, shoves it into his stall, and checks his phone. The livestream is already up and just showing the order. “Damn it,” he mutters under his breath. He does the quick math. If they’re on the first rider and you’re going eighth, Sidney has, what, ten minutes?
He’s already stripping out of his gear. Shin pads hit the floor. Shoulder pads tossed into his stall without their usual careful placement. His undershirt sticks to his back as he peels it off, sweat cooling instantly in the open air of the locker room.
Nathan notices first. “Whoa,” Nate says from across the room, leaning back against his stall. “You got somewhere to be? Or you just allergic to post-practice stretching now?”
Sidney doesn’t look up. “Just—uh. Gotta get over to the hill.”
Nate arches a brow. “The hill.”
Sidney grabs a towel and disappears into the showers. “Yeah.”
Water blasts on. He stands under it for barely thirty seconds, barely enough to rinse the sweat from his hair. He scrubs fast, mechanical. His heart is beating like he’s still on the ice doing reps. He keeps glancing toward the exit as if he can see the clock through concrete. When he steps back into the locker room, toweling his hair aggressively, Nate is still watching him with narrowed eyes.
“Sid.” He doesn’t respond. “Sidney.”
“What?” He pulls on a clean hoodie, dragging it over damp hair.
“Why exactly do you need to go to the hill?”
Sidney sighs. He should lie better than this. He’s had years of media training. But this is Nate. And he’s never been good at lying to his teammates. “They’re starting,” he says, quieter now. “She’s going eighth.”
Nate’s expression shifts immediately. The teasing sharpness softens into something knowing.
“Ohhh,” he says slowly. “We’re talking about her.”
Sidney shoots him a look. “Don’t.”
Nate grins. “The snowboarder.”
Sidney tugs on his shoes. “I just want to support her.”
“Sure you do,” Nate says. “That’s very noble. Very patriotic. Very team spirit.”
Sidney rolls his eyes.
Nate lowers his voice. “How serious is this, exactly?” Sidney hesitates, and that hesitation is all the answer Nate needs. “Oh,” Nate says again, this time with a smirk. “It’s serious, serious.”
“It’s not—” Sidney starts, then stops. He doesn’t even know how to define it yet. He just knows that when you’re standing at the top of that run, when the wind hits your face, and the whole world narrows to the lip of a jump, he wants to be there. Even if you can’t see him in the crowd.
Nate studies him for a second longer, then claps his hands together. “Alright. I’m in.”
Sidney blinks. “In?”
“I’m coming.”
“You don’t even—”
“I’m not passing on a chance to watch you fall in love,” Nate says solemnly. “Plus, I’ve never seen snowboarding live.”
Sidney shakes his head, already moving toward the exit. “Fine. But you have to hurry. I’m leaving now.”
“Bossy,” Nate mutters, grabbing his jacket.
“Where are you going?” asked Macklin as he stepped out of the showers, drying off his chest.
Nate doesn’t miss a beat. “We’re going to see Sid’s crush.”
Sidney stops in his tracks, groaning at Nathan's words. Macklin’s head snaps up fully. “His what?”
“She’s competing,” Nate says casually. “Snowboarder. Big air final.”
Macklin’s eyes widen like a kid who just found out there’s an after-party. “No way. Are you talking about that girl, what's her name… Y/n! You’re dating her?”
“It’s not like that,” Sidney insists, which of course makes it sound exactly like that.
“It’s totally like that,” Nathan says
Macklin is already on his feet, tugging on his Team Canada sweatsuit. “I’m coming.”
Sidney exhales sharply. “Guys, seriously, I don’t—”
“Are you kidding?” Macklin says. “This could be historic. I need to see this for myself.”
Nate slings an arm around Macklin’s shoulders. “We’re being supportive teammates.”
“You are not telling anyone,” Sidney says firmly, looking between them.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Nate replies, grinning.
Macklin nods eagerly. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a scout.”
“You don’t know that.”
Sidney shakes his head, but there’s no stopping them now. The three of them head out into the cold air of the village, breath visible immediately as they step outside. The walk feels longer than it should. Sidney checks his phone again as they move. Five riders have gone now. Mostly clean landings. Some big scores. He feels it in his chest. He knows you’re nervous. All he’s hoping is that you remember what he said. Shrink it.
Nate glances sideways at him. “You’re more nervous than before a gold medal game.” Sidney doesn’t deny it.
The three of them pick up their pace, running shoes crunching against packed snow as they round the last bend toward the big air venue. Music pulses faintly in the distance. The giant scaffolded ramp rises against the sky like something engineered by people who don’t believe in safety. They reach the entrance just as the announcer’s voice booms across the hill.
“Next up, riding in eighth position…”
Sidney freezes for half a breath. “That’s her,” he says.
They slip into the crowd, unnoticed beneath beanies and Team Canada jackets. The big screen flickers, cutting to you at the top of the run. You’re clipped in, helmet on, goggles reflecting the pale sky. Sidney feels his chest tighten. You look small up there. The starter waves you forward. You drop in.
It’s faster than it looks on TV. The crowd noise quiets as you build speed down the in-run, knees bent, body compact and balanced in a way that makes Sidney’s stomach flip. He knows what it feels like to accelerate toward something you can’t hesitate on. He knows that moment when you can’t second-guess.
You hit the lip. And then you’re flying.
Sidney’s breath catches. Actually catches. His fingers curl into fists at his sides. You soar higher than he expects. Higher than seems reasonable. You spin, controlled and fluid, board carving clean through air that looks too thin to hold you. For a split second, you hang there. And Sidney feels it in his ribs like someone’s pressing inward.
Then you come down. Hard. Hard enough that he winces instinctively, imagining his own knees taking that impact. But you absorb it like water. Smooth. Centered. Riding it out with only the slightest skid before straightening.
The crowd roars. Sidney exhales, a shaky, disbelieving laugh escaping him. “Holy—”
“That,” Macklin breathes, eyes wide, “is insane.”
On the screen, you glide to the bottom, slowing, unclipping one foot. You don’t celebrate. You just nod once to yourself. You stand there for a bit while the judges deliberate. Sidney watches the replays on the big screen. He watches the slowed-down version of you spinning in the air. He watches how you don’t hesitate as you land.
Finally, the score flashes up.
80.50.
Sidney studies your face on the screen. You give a small smile. Not overjoyed. Not upset. Measured. It puts you in third. “She’ll want more,” he murmurs.
Nate glances at him. “You know that?”
Sidney nods. “Yeah.”
Half an hour later, you’re back at the top. After everyone had gone, you were now in sixth. Sixth was plenty to get you into the finals. But you wanted more. The wind has picked up. Snow drifts sideways across the lens. Sidney shifts his weight, hands buried in his pockets, heart pounding.
You drop in again. This one looks just as clean to him. Same speed. Same precision. You take off. Another spin. Different grab. It looks massive from where he stands. Perfectly timed.
But this time you wobble on the landing. Your balance is slightly off, and to prevent yourself from completely falling, your hand comes down to the snow to steady yourself. You ride it out, but you’re already shaking your head before you fully slow.
“Why’s she shaking her head? That looked good to me,” Macklin says.
Sidney doesn’t answer. He’s watching you. On the screen, you pull off your goggles and press them to your helmet, lips tight. After a few replays, your score pops up on the screen.
72.50.
Sidney swallows. He hates that number for you. Hates the way disappointment flickers across your face before you smooth it away. He wants to be down there. Wants to tell you it’s still in reach.
“That’s good! That’s a good score!” Macklin says. Sidney appreciates his optimism, but he knows you want a good run to put you further up.
“She’s got one left,” Nate says quietly.
Sidney nods.
When your final run rolls around, you quiet the world around you. You close your eyes.
Sidney’s breath slows without him meaning it to. He mirrors you unconsciously.
Your shoulders rise. Fall. Rise again.
“Shrink it,” he whispers, barely audible even to himself.
You drop in. Faster this time. No hesitation.
Sidney can feel it. There’s something different in the way you carry yourself—less thinking, more instinct.
You hit the jump. Launch. And this one—
This one is perfect. Higher than the first. Cleaner than the second. You spin with a kind of calm violence, board locked to your hand, body tight and extended in exactly the right moments.
You come down. No skid. No adjustment. Just solid, powerful contact and a seamless ride out. For a half-second, the entire hill seems to hold its breath. Then the roar explodes. You can’t help it this time. You throw one arm up, a quick, sharp celebration before catching yourself. Sidney laughs, the sound punched out of him with relief. His eyes are bright. He doesn’t even realize he’s gripping Nate’s sleeve.
The score loads.
86.25.
It jumps you up the leaderboard instantly.
“Let’s go!” Macklin shouts.
That run put you into a qualifying position comfortably, but the fear was still there. There were still twenty-one riders, and at least half of them could knock you out of contention. But half an hour later, there are no changes to the top four, and you’re advancing to the finals in fourth. Sidney exhales like he was surviving something himself.
On the big screen, Sidney watches you hug your fellow riders, a wide, unguarded smile showing when you turn towards the camera. And he feels something shift in his chest. Not pride. Not exactly. Something deeper and warmer and terrifying.
Nate elbows him gently. “She’s unreal.”
Sidney nods slowly, eyes still locked on you as you hug your coach at the bottom.
“Yeah, you managed to pick someone cooler than you,” Macklin says, Nate elbowing him gently in the ribs.
On the screen, you’re still grinning — cheeks flushed, breath fogging in the cold — when you finally turn away from your coach. Sidney doesn’t even realize he’s stepped forward until Nate grabs the back of his hoodie.
“Easy,” Nate mutters. “You’re not subtle.”
But it’s too late. You’re scanning the edge of the venue now, helmet still on, goggles pushed up. You’re looking for someone — and the second your eyes land on him, you freeze. Your face splits into something brighter than the scoreboard, and you start towards him immediately.
Sidney’s stomach flips in a way that has nothing to do with hockey or pressure or legacy. He steps out from the cluster of fans, no longer caring if anyone recognizes him.
You don’t slow down. You launch yourself at him. Sidney barely has time to brace before your arms wrap around his shoulders and your boots leave the snow. He catches you automatically, strong hands locking around your back as you squeeze him like you’re trying to fuse the two of you together.
A full-body, big bear hug. The kind that knocks the breath out of him. He laughs into your shoulder. “Whoa— okay. Easy.”
“You made it,” you say against his hoodie, voice muffled but glowing. “You actually made it.”
“Of course I made it,” he replies, tightening his grip for a second before setting you back down carefully. “Wouldn’t miss that.”
You pull back just enough to look at him, hands still fisted in the fabric at his sides. Your eyes are bright — not just from the cold. “You were insane,” he says, and there’s no teasing in it. Just awe. “That last run? That was ridiculous. You were so high I thought you might not come down.”
You laugh breathlessly. “It felt high.”
“It looked perfect.”
Your smile softens at that, something quieter settling in. “I remembered.”
He tilts his head slightly. “Remembered what?”
You bump your shoulder into his lightly, like it’s a secret between you. “Shrink it.”
For a second, he just stares at you. Then he huffs out a disbelieving laugh, eyes crinkling. “You did.”
“Last run,” you nod. “I was overthinking. I could feel it. So I just—” You close your eyes briefly, inhaling the cold air the same way you did at the top. “Shrank it. Made it just the jump. Just the grab. Just the landing.”
Sidney shakes his head slowly, admiration written all over his face. “That’s exactly what you did. You looked locked in.”
You study him now, really look at him — damp hair still slightly messy from his rushed shower, hoodie thrown on too fast, laces not even fully tightened.
“You ran here, didn’t you?” you ask.
“Maybe.”
Nate clears his throat loudly from a few feet back. “He absolutely did.”
You glance past Sidney and finally register the extra bodies.
Your eyes widen slightly. “Oh my god.”
Sidney turns. “Right. Uh—”
Nate steps forward first, grinning. “Hi. We’ve heard a lot about you.”
You laugh, a little overwhelmed but glowing. “Thank you.”
Sidney laughs a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, uh, this is Nate and Macklin. They’re my teammates.”
“It’s nice to meet you both,” you said, sticking out your hand to shake theirs. “I’m Y/n.”
Sidney shifts back toward you, lowering his voice slightly. “Seriously. I’m proud of you.”
The word lands more heavily than he probably intended.
Your expression softens again. “It’s just qualifying.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says quietly. “You showed up when it mattered.”
You hold his gaze for a beat too long for this to be casual. Then his tone shifts, just slightly — a flicker of nerves underneath it. “You’re coming tomorrow, right?” he asks.
“Tomorrow?”
“Semifinal. Finland.” He shrugs like it’s no big deal, but his eyes give him away. “I think I might need that good luck.”
You raise an eyebrow. “Oh, so now I’m good luck?”
“You absolutely are,” Nate chimes in.
Sidney doesn’t break eye contact with you. “You need to be there.”
You pretend to consider it, rubbing a gloved hand against your chin. “Hmm. I don’t know. I’m pretty busy being an Olympic finalist.”
He steps half a pace closer. “I watched you fly thirty feet in the air. You can handle sitting in a rink for two hours.”
You grin. “Thirty-five.”
He huffs. “Show off.”
There’s that look again — the one that feels bigger than the village, bigger than the noise, bigger than the Games. “Okay,” you say finally. “I’ll be there.”
Relief flashes across his face so quickly it’s almost invisible. “Good,” he says. “I’ll play better if you’re watching.”
DAY FOUR
The hockey arena is louder than it was for Czechia. You feel it the second you step inside. The air is thick with noise, red jerseys everywhere, the deep rhythmic chant of “CAN-A-DA” rolling through the stands like thunder. It vibrates through the metal steps beneath your boots.
You wedge yourself between Scott and Clara, who are already halfway through a bucket of popcorn and have suddenly become know-it-alls about hockey since the last game you’d dragged them to. Your hands are tucked deep into the pocket of your Team Canada hoodie, fingers curled into the fleece. Your heart is pounding in a way that feels dangerously similar to the start gate.
It’s ridiculous. You’re not the one playing. But you know what it feels like to carry a nation’s expectations on your shoulders. To hear the roar of a crowd and know it’s both for you and because of you.
The first period is brutal. Finland clogs the neutral zone. Hits are heavier. Every inch is earned. You find yourself leaning forward every time he touches the puck. Watching the way he delays, the way he draws defenders toward him before slipping passes through seams that don’t seem real.
Midway through the second, tied 1–1, he drives the net. He absorbs contact from two Finnish defenders and still manages to shovel the puck across the crease for a tap-in. You, along with the rest of the arena, explode.
You’re thrilled for Sidney, but recognize the urgency in it. It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t for highlight reels. It was survival. It was a man refusing to let his ending come early. The game goes to overtime, tied 2–2.
You don’t realize you’re gripping your own knee until it aches. Over time is quick. Sidney doesn’t even get a chance to get on the ice. His teammate wins the draw. The defenseman regroups and skates to the offensive zone. One pass and the puck is rifled into the top corner. The red jerseys detonate. You’re on your feet, screaming, but your eyes search for him.
He doesn’t celebrate wildly. He exhales. He closes his eyes for half a second like he’s steadying himself against something invisible. Like relief weighs more than joy.
The village is electric that night. Canadians fill every common space, the watch party area full of patriotic fans with tired, euphoric smiles. You don’t go to the celebrations.
You sit cross-legged on your bed, ice wrapped around your knee, the television muted but still flashing highlights from the game you just watched. His assist. His minutes logged. The way he leaned over his stick at the end, chest heaving. You stare at your phone for a long second before typing.
what a fucking game. you okay?
The message sends. The three little dots don’t appear right away. You tell yourself you’re fine with that. They finally blink to life.
come by.
Your pulse trips.
His building is quieter than yours. The Canadian hockey players are nowhere to be heard. They know the work is not done; they know it’s too early to celebrate. Security nods you through without a second glance. Athletes visiting athletes isn’t unusual. No one asks why your stomach feels like it’s flipping inside out.
When he opens the door, he’s in grey sweats and a black Team Canada tee. His hair is still damp from the shower, curling slightly at the ends. There’s a faint bruise blooming along his jaw, reddish-purple already spreading beneath the skin. You step inside his room. It’s exactly how you imagined it would be: bed perfectly made, suitcase zipped and tucked against the wall. For a second, neither of you speaks. You suddenly feel very awkward having shown up at Sidney Crosby’s door the night before your finals.
“You shouldn’t be playing twenty-seven minutes in a semi at your age.”
Sidney’s mouth twitches. “You calling me old again?”
“I’m calling you stubborn.”
He leans back against the dresser, arms folding loosely across his chest. There’s a tiredness in his posture that he doesn’t let the cameras see.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he says, but there’s no edge to it.
“You texted me.”
He exhales through his nose, a half-smile ghosting over his mouth. “Yeah, I know, but you’ve got your final tomorrow,” he adds. “You should be resting.”
“I will.” You step closer without really deciding to. “Couldn’t sleep yet.”
“Nerves?”
You let out a small, humorless laugh. “I’ve got nerves about everything.” Sidney nods slowly as if your words land somewhere deep within him. Like he knows what it’s like to have a whole country’s expectations wrapped around your ribs.
“You don’t have to win gold to matter,” you say, almost absentmindedly. “You know that, right?”
“And you don’t have to land the biggest trick anyone’s ever seen to prove you’re not that girl from Beijing.”
You’re both quiet for a moment. Because somehow, in the middle of all this, you just understand each other — the pressure, the doubt, the quiet fears you don’t say out loud. You step closer until there’s barely any space between you. Close enough to see the scrape along his cheekbone. Without thinking, you lift your hand and brush your thumb just beneath it.
“You’re going to bruise.”
“I’ve had worse.”
Your hand lingers. His slides to your waist tentatively, like he’s waiting for you to flinch. You don’t. His hand is warm through the thin cotton of your shirt.
“I don’t want to think tonight,” he says quietly. “About medals. Or endings.”
“Then don’t,” you whisper.
The words barely leave your mouth before something shifts between you. The air tightens, charged and fragile. He studies your face like he’s memorizing it. His thumb presses lightly into your waist, testing, asking. You nod. It’s small, but it’s enough.
Sidney closes the distance first.
The kiss isn’t rushed. It isn’t reckless. It’s careful like he’s been holding it back for days and doesn’t trust himself not to ruin it if he moves too fast. His mouth is warm and soft against yours, tasting faintly like mint and a sports drink he probably chugged after the game. Your hands find his shirt instinctively, fingers curling into the fabric at his ribs. For a second, it’s just lips brushing. Then you exhale against him, and something breaks open.
His hand slides from your waist to your lower back, pulling you closer. You feel the solid line of him, the steady rise and fall of his chest, still not fully recovered from earlier. He kisses you deeper this time, and you feel it everywhere — in your stomach, in your fingertips, in the place beneath your ribs that’s been clenched for weeks.
Your knees nearly give when he pulls you closer, like gravity has shifted and he’s the only thing holding you upright. His mouth moves against yours with growing certainty, like he’s finally letting himself have something he’s been denying for too long. Your fingers slide up into the damp curls at the nape of his neck, and he exhales low and unsteady like the contact knocks the breath from him.
“Tell me if your knee—” Sidney starts quietly, pulling back just enough to look at you.
You cut him off with another kiss. “It’s fine.”
The laugh you breathe into his mouth is soft and warm, and something in his expression melts completely. Careful hands slide under your thighs, instinctively protective, like he can’t separate desire from the constant need to make sure you’re okay. He lifts you with surprising ease, steady and deliberate, and you wrap your legs around his waist automatically.
You can’t help the quiet laugh that slips out of you. It’s half giddy, half disbelieving, because this is ridiculous and overwhelming and somehow exactly what you needed. His forehead brushes yours as he walks you towards the bed, every step slow, measured, like he’s still giving you time to change your mind. You don’t. Your legs stay hooked around his hips, fingers pressing into the solid warmth of his shoulders.
Time slips. You’re not sure how much. Clothes end up scattered on the floor as the world outside his room dissolves into nothing but the soft, slow way his hands feel every inch of you. Later, you’re curled against him, cheek resting lightly on his chest. His heartbeat is slower now, steady and heavy beneath your ear. One of his hands drifts lazily along your arm, thumb brushing back and forth in absent, soothing strokes.
You feel him inhale, then exhale slowly like he’s gathering himself. “You should probably head back to your room soon,” he says, voice low. “You need some sleep before tomorrow.”
You blink at him, then squint slightly, a teasing smile creeping in. “…Are you kicking me out?”
“What? No — I — that’s not—” He pushes himself up on one elbow, flustered in a way that feels almost endearingly boyish. “I just meant — you need rest. I don’t want to— I wasn’t—”
The words tangle together, flustered and earnest all at once. He pushes himself halfway upright like he might need to physically clarify the situation, hands hovering awkwardly between reaching for you and not wanting to make it worse.
You burst into quiet laughter. “Sid,” you manage between breaths, reaching up to press your palm gently against his chest. “I’m kidding.”
He freezes, searching your face to make sure. When he realizes you really are just teasing him, a slow flush creeps up the back of his neck. “Oh my god,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his jaw.
“You looked horrified.”
“I just didn’t want you to think—” Sidney stops, exhales, then shakes his head at himself. “Never mind.”
Your laughter softens as you bring your fingers up to his jaw. “I know.”
His shoulders loosen after that, tension melting out of him again. His hand slides to your waist, resting there — not pulling you back down, not stopping you from moving away either. Just… holding. Eventually, you shift, reaching for your clothes. He sits up too, running a hand through his already-mussed hair, watching you with something thoughtful in his eyes. When you’re ready to leave, he walks you to the door. Your fingers brush once more before you step into the hallway.
“Good luck tomorrow,” he says quietly.
“Thank you, Sid.” You smile.
The door closes softly between you, but the warmth of him clings to your skin all the way down the quiet hallway. And inside your chest, everything feels calm. For the first time in weeks, the pressure doesn’t feel crushing. It’s just there. You know it’s there, but it doesn’t hang over your head like an anvil waiting to fall.
You fall into bed with the faint taste of mint still on your lips, his voice still low in your ears, his heartbeat still echoing somewhere beneath your ribs. Tomorrow will be loud. Tomorrow will be everything. But tonight, you sleep smiling.
DAY FIVE
The morning of the big air finals is the only time you actually sleep. Not the restless half-sleep you’ve been drifting through all week that kept being interrupted by anxiety about competition. This was real sleep. Deep sleep that went uninterrupted for hours, that settled into your bones.
Your alarm still feels rude, though. It cuts through the dark in sharp, repetitive chirps. You blink at the ceiling, disoriented for a second, warm and still and reluctant to exist. For a brief, dangerous moment, you think about snoozing it. Just ten more minutes. Just a little more of that weightless quiet.
But the word finals drifts into your awareness, slow and inevitable. Your stomach flips.
You groan softly and force yourself upright, rubbing your face with both hands. The nerves are there, humming under your skin — but they’re different today. They aren’t clawing at your ribs or making your chest tight. They feel contained. Like something held carefully in cupped hands.
“Welcome to Livigno snow park and the women's snowboard big air finals. Twelve of the very best riders on the planet, including two-time Olympic champion Anna Gasser, the number one qualifier Zoi Sadowski-Synott, and Canada’s very own comeback story, Y/n L/n.”
Music pulses from speakers somewhere below. Boots and boards scrape against tightly packed snow. Sounds overlap — coaches, competitors, announcers, volunteers, cameras clicking, radios crackling. Despite the noise, you feel comfortable. Your breath is steady, your pulse is slow and rhythmic.
You wait below for you and your group of six riders to take the sketchy elevator to the top of the scaffolding. You watch the first few riders drop in, one after another — spins, grabs, landings, cheers. Some clean. Some sketchy. One full crash that makes the crowd groan in sympathy before bursting into applause when the rider stands up.
The elevator shudders on its cables as it descends again, empty now, a metal cage dangling against a pale sky. From below, it looks impossibly small — a rattling box climbing into nothing. You flex your fingers inside your gloves, rolling your shoulders once, then again. Everything feels loose. Ready.
The elevator lands with a metallic clang. A worker waves your group forward. Boots thud against the grated floor as you step inside. Boards scrape. Someone’s glove brushes your arm. The gate slams shut with a heavy latch, then you begin to rise.
The metal hums beneath your boots. One rider is tapping her boot, another is repeating something under her breath—a mantra maybe. You don’t move. You’ve never felt this calm before a competition. And yet, you’re as steady as you can be right before the Olympic finals.
The wind greets you first. It’s stronger up here, blowing loose strands of hair across your goggles. The in-run stretches ahead like a narrow white runway disappearing into the sky. From this height, the landing looks miles away.
Your turn rolls around quicker than you anticipate. Your coach gives you a few words, but they go in one ear and out the other. You strap your boots onto your board, jumping once to make sure you’re secure. The starter gives you the okay, and you inch towards the slope.
“Canada’s Y/n L/n drops in next. The twenty-six-year-old is trying to come back from heartbreak. Her last run at a medal in Big Air was shattered when she crashed during her second run and had to have a total knee reconstruction. Now, four years later, Y/n says she feels stronger than ever.”
You jump sideways, dropping in goofy stance. Gravity grabs immediately—smooth, familiar acceleration pressing through your legs as the snow hisses beneath your base. Speed builds fast. Faster. The lip rushes toward you, but your body already knows the timing—knees compress, arms set, shoulders aligned.
You pop into the air, the scenery spinning in a blur. Your board rotates clean beneath you, movement crisp and controlled. Muscle memory and instinct thread together seamlessly. You feel the spin finish exactly when it should. No rush. No hesitation. Your board meets snow with a deep, solid compression that travels straight up through your legs. Ankles absorb, knees stack, core tight. A tiny wobble flickers through your joints — quick, electric — but it never turns into anything more. You ride it out.
The sound hits a moment later — the crowd detonating, cheers crashing over you as you glide down the landing and into the outrun. Your chest rises and falls once, twice. Heat floods through your body, bright and electric. That felt good. Better than good. You coast into the waiting area, unclipping your boots, glancing up toward the scoreboard. Time stretches strangely here, like it’s being pulled tightly between two hands. Your eyes stay trained on the blank board as the judges deliberate your score.
The board suddenly flashes.
89.00
A grin of pure satisfied certainty breaks across your face before you can stop it. You give the camera a wave, then head towards the waiting area to take the elevator from hell back up to the top of the scaffolding. Halfway there, you glance toward the crowd, and there he is. Sidney is standing at the front of the barricade with a big smile. His thumbs are up high, pride written all over his face. You flash him a grin and continue on.
Half an hour later, the mountain feels different.
The podium chances of riders who fell in their first run are in jeopardy — they’ll need to be perfect on their next two, and they know it. The others who had good runs now feel better, looser, as laughter and small talk fill the air.
The elevator jolts to a stop, and the doors slide open. Once again, your turn comes quicker than you expect. You strap in, tug your bindings tight, bounce once, twice. Your legs feel strong. Solid. But there’s a thin thread of something else now. Not fear exactly… just awareness. Precision matters more on the second run. Everyone pushes harder. Everyone risks more.
You slide forward to the start. The slope stretches ahead, pale and smooth. When you drop, the speed builds fast. Faster than the first run, the snow is colder now, harder, slicker beneath your base. When you pop off the lip of the jump, you spin. It’s fast and controlled. At first.
The world streaks into white and sky and color. Your board rotates beneath you, but midway through the spin, something shifts — just slightly. A fraction late. A fraction off-axis.
You try to correct. Your shoulders open too early. Your board almost comes around, almost. But your edge touches down first. It catches violently. The force whips your board sideways, and suddenly the ground is no longer beneath you. It’s beside you, and then you’re sliding, fast, uncontrolled, the packed snow scraping along your hip, your arm, your shoulder as momentum drags you down the landing.
In the crowd below, Sidney’s breath locks in his chest. The crowd goes suddenly silent. Not fading or gradual, just a complete and immediate silence. You lay there for a second, fearing the worst. You test your knee, bending it a few times. No pain. Medics are already moving toward you, boots pounding the snow, voices calling — but you push yourself upright before they reach you.
A wave of applause rolls across the venue. You lift a gloved hand toward the medics. “I’m good.”
They hover anyway, scanning your posture, your movement, but you give them a small nod and walk the rest of the way under your own power. You give the crowd an appreciative wave.
When you stop in the waiting area, you shake out your arms. The adrenaline is fading now, replaced by that strange hollow calm that follows a crash. You look up.
Sidney is already searching for you. When your eyes meet, you see it instantly — the tightness around his mouth, the tension in his shoulders, the way his hands are still gripping the barricade like he forgot how to let go. Worry. Real worry. You give him a small reassuring nod.
Your score flashes quicker this time.
18.25.
The number hangs there, almost comically small after your first run. A murmur moves through the crowd. You just exhale softly, then give the camera a casual wave like it doesn’t matter — like crashes are part of the job. Because they are. You step out of the waiting area and head straight toward the barrier. When you stop in front of Sidney, his eyes are scanning you head to toe, checking your posture, your stride, your balance — every detail.
“I’m okay,” you say immediately, voice calm, steady. “Don’t worry. I just hesitated in my takeoff.”
He searches your face like he’s trying to read something deeper. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
You smile more softly this time. “Yeah. Promise.”
His shoulders loosen slightly, but not fully. His gaze flicks once toward the jump, then back to you. “That looked bad.”
“It looked worse than it was,” you say lightly. “Just caught an edge. Happens.”
He still doesn’t look convinced. “You didn’t hit your head?”
“No.”
“Nothing twisted?”
“Nope.”
“What about your knee? Did you do anything to it?”
You laugh quietly.
“Sid…”
He exhales through his nose, then nods once, accepting it — mostly because you’re standing steady, breathing normally, looking completely like yourself. “Okay,” he sighs. “Just… remember? Shrink it. Don’t let the fear take up too much room.”
You nod, smiling softly. You give his hand resting on the barrier a small squeeze before stepping away, rolling your shoulders once to shake off the last of the adrenaline.
When your third and final run comes around, the top of the hill feels quieter than the previous two. Not because the crowd is quiet — the stadium is roaring, wind snapping against banners, music pulsing somewhere below — but because everything inside you has settled into something still. Heavy, focused, and clear.
Your gloves press against your thighs as you rock gently on your board, staring down the massive slope that drops away into the blinding white of the landing. The jump looks enormous from here. Bigger than before. Or maybe you’re just finally seeing it for what it is.
Your breath fogs the air in front of you. And then his voice slips in, steady and familiar, like it’s always been there.
Just shrink it.
You almost smile.
Shrink the fear.
The official nods.
You roll forward. The board glides, then gathers speed, edges humming against packed snow. The wind builds fast, slicing past your helmet, tugging at your jacket. Your knees compress automatically — years of muscle memory taking over where nerves used to live. No hesitation.
The world drops away, and you rise into nothing but open air and blue sky. The spin comes clean — faster than your first run, smoother than your second. Your body knows exactly where it is, exactly where it needs to be. Every movement is deliberate. Controlled. Yours.
Spot the landing. Extend. Impact.
Your board lands with a solid clap. There’s no wobble, there’s no waiver, there’s not even a slight drag of the hand. You brace for pain, in fact. You expect your right knee to crumble beneath you.
But it never comes. You ride it out clean, pushing upright, carving through the landing with complete control. You can’t help yourself when a scream tears out of you from so deep inside, like the ghosts of lingering injuries escaping.
You glide to a stop in the waiting area, shifting your goggles to your helmet and pulling down your balaclava. The grin on your lips is inescapable as you wave to the camera.
Noise swells to your right — louder than the general roar. Not just cheering. Shouting.
You glance toward the crowd behind you and spot Sidney. He’s half standing, half leaning over the railing, yelling something you can’t hear but absolutely feel. His teammates, all dressed in matching Lululemon Team Canada jackets, crowd around him. They clap and laugh, pointing down toward you like they can’t believe what they just saw. Nate’s got both hands in the air. Macklin is bouncing like he might launch himself over the barrier. A few others you don’t recognize are right behind him, shouting just as loudly.
They look completely unrestrained. Wild. Proud. Your chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with competition. You wave once, small but real. Then you turn back to the scoreboard.
Waiting stretches. Seconds feel elastic. Your heartbeat seems louder than the music. Louder than the announcer. Louder than everything. It feels like years. Then—
92.25
Your breath leaves you all at once. The total flashes next.
181.25
Gold medal position. For a moment, the world tilts — not from imbalance, but from sheer disbelief. Then the realization hits fully, bright and electric and impossible to contain. The grin plastered on your face gets even wider as an incredulous laugh escapes your mouth.
And before you even fully realize what you’re doing, you’re moving — boots crunching fast over snow, weaving past officials and equipment and people calling your name.
You reach Sidney, who’s leaning over the barriers almost at a run. You surge at him, engulfing him in a bear hug. The hug surprises you almost as much as it surprises Sidney. For half a second, your brain flashes warning signals: cameras, crowds, attention — public — visible. It feels weird. It feels terrifying. It feels like exactly where you want to be. So you don’t let go.
His jacket smells faintly like cold air and something clean and familiar. His arms tighten once around your shoulders, like he’s anchoring you there. Your heart is still racing when the announcer’s voice cuts sharply through the mountain air.
“Up next — the first of our final three riders—”
Reality rushes back in. You pull back slightly, but your arms stay looped around him. “Don’t get your hopes up,” you say, breath still uneven. “The last three riders are all really good.”
He doesn’t look at the scoreboard. Doesn’t look at the slope. Doesn’t look at the crowd screaming around you. He studies you. Only you. “I know,” he says quietly. “But that was yours. You rode that with conviction, not fear.” His voice steadies, warm and unshakeable. “No one can take that away from you.”
Your throat tightens.
A gloved hand taps your shoulder, a worker asking you to move back to the waiting area. You look back at Sidney, whose face is nothing but demure. Shrink it. You shuffle back, boots scraping against packed snow, the cold seeping through the soles. The waiting area feels smaller now. Tighter. Like the air’s been compressed by expectation.
From the top of the hill, the first of the three remaining riders rolls forward. She doesn’t hesitate.
She drops in aggressively—fast, controlled, like gravity is something she negotiated with long ago. Her speed builds instantly, board humming against the snow. Even from here, you can see how composed she is. No wasted movement. No correction. Just pure line.
She’s been like this all season. Technical. Clean. A perfectionist in the air. She hits the takeoff and explodes upwards. Her rotation is sharp, precise, perfectly timed. The grab is locked in, held like she’s suspended in glass, untouched by wind or pressure or consequence. Then she spots the landing, coming down smooth and centered. She absorbs the impact like it’s nothing and rides away clean.
You don’t realize you’ve been holding your breath until it leaves you in a long, slow exhale. You’ve never been good at predicting scores. Judges are fickle-minded, and it never did you any good to guess. Your eyes stay trained on the scoreboard, waiting for their judgment.
The scoreboard flickers.
90.75.
You swallow, eyes locked on the numbers as they update again—
88.25 + 90.75 = 179.00.
A strange warmth spreads through your chest—relief, sharp and immediate. You’re still in gold. Your shoulders drop slightly, tension leaking out in a slow, controlled release. But it doesn’t last long. Not fully. Not completely.
Because there are still two riders left. And the mountain is very, very quiet again.
The starter calls her name, and the energy shifts instantly. You can feel it — that tight, electric hum that rolls through the crowd when everyone knows something big is about to happen. She doesn’t just ride. She hunts. Always has. And right now, she needs something massive. She rolls toward the drop-in with that loose, dangerous confidence — shoulders relaxed, jaw set, like the risk is already decided and she’s just showing the world how it’ll look.
No hesitation at the lip. She sends it. Her takeoff explodes — fast, aggressive, board snapping upward as she hucks herself into the air. The spin is huge, floating, dramatic — the kind that makes people gasp halfway through because it feels almost too big to control. Mid-rotation — just a fraction behind. You see it before she does. Or maybe she sees it and refuses to accept it.
Her body snaps tighter, shoulders wrenching through the final degrees. She forces the rotation around with pure muscle and stubbornness, dragging time forward with her.
A deep, solid thud that you feel through the snow, through your boots, through your ribs. Her knees compress hard — almost folding — and one hand shoots down instinctively, fingers brushing the snow for balance. But she stays up. Not clean. Not effortless. But undeniable.
The crowd erupts anyway — that raw, impressed roar reserved for riders who land things they probably shouldn’t have. She rides it out fast, straight, shaking out her arm once like she’s throwing off the weight of the landing. When she glides into the waiting area, she doesn’t celebrate. She knows what that hand drag might cost.
Now everyone waits. The judges take their time. Longer than usual. The scoreboard stays blank, glowing, silent. You can hear boards scraping snow, muffled voices, the faint mechanical hum of the lift — all the little sounds that fill the space when anticipation stretches too tight.
She stares at the screen without blinking. You don’t realize you’re holding your breath until your chest starts to ache. Then—
89.00
A murmur ripples through the crowd. Quick math everywhere.
176.75.
She exhales sharply — not quite frustration, not quite acceptance. Just reality landing heavier than her trick did. She nods once, small and controlled, like she knew the risk when she left the lip. It’s not enough to slip past you, your name staying next to the ‘1’ on the podium tracker.
There’s one rider left.
She stands at the top longer than anyone else has today. She’s taking her time. Helmet tilted slightly downward. Shoulders loose. She’s not fidgeting or bouncing, no psych-up routine. She’s the reigning world champion. Ice in her veins. She’s owning the moment before it even begins.
You realize the entire venue is holding its breath with her. Then she drops.
Explosive. Immediate. No hesitation, no testing the speed, just full commitment straight out of the gate. Her approach is impossibly smooth, board tracking like it’s locked to rails beneath the snow. She hits the jump. And the world tilts. The takeoff is enormous — bigger than anyone else today, bigger than you thought was even on the table. The crowd gasps all at once, a sharp collective inhale that snaps through the air like a crack of thunder.
The spin is effortless. Like gravity forgot to apply to her. Her board slices clean arcs through the sky, every axis perfectly controlled, every movement deliberate but somehow weightless. It doesn’t look like rotation — it looks like drifting. Like orbit. You know, mid-air, that it’s massive.
She spots the landing early. Clean contact, her knees deep but in absolute control. The board tracks out smoothly, no chatter, no fight, no recovery needed. Just power and certainty carving straight down the landing. The sound hits next — the roar of the crowd crashing over the slope in waves.
She knows. You know. Everyone knows.,By the time she reaches the bottom, she’s already celebrating — one fist in the air, a sharp shout swallowed by the noise around her. Pure confidence. The kind that comes from delivering exactly what you meant to deliver.
You feel your stomach drop anyway. Because that was… unreal. She glides into the waiting area, still breathing hard, still buzzing. You catch her eye for a split second. There’s adrenaline there — but underneath it, certainty.
You both think she has it. The scoreboard stays blank. Seconds pass. Then more.
You feel like screaming as the impatience bubbles inside you. You try to run the math in your head. You know her first run score. You know what that jump looked like. You try to calculate what you need, what she needs, what this means —
90.00
A fresh surge of cheers rolls through the venue. Then the combined score flashes beneath it.
89.75 + 90.00 = 179.75
And suddenly the air feels very, very thin. You almost don’t believe it for a second. You just stare at it like your brain is refusing to process what it’s seeing. Then, the realization hits like a freight train.
You did it. You didn’t crash, you didn’t hesitate, you didn’t ride scared. You won.
A sound tears out of you before you even know it’s coming — sharp, raw, completely disbelieving. Half scream, half laugh, all emotion. Your board slips from your hand and clatters against the snow as both hands fly to your helmet, fingers pressing hard like you need something solid to hold onto or you might float away.
Your vision blurs instantly. Tears spill faster than you can blink them back. The lights smear into streaks. The scoreboard becomes nothing but glowing gold through water.
Someone slams into you from the side — arms wrapping tight around your shoulders. Then another. And another. Your fellow riders, laughing, shouting, and grabbing you as they celebrate for you. There’s a flurry of voices congratulating you and praising your comeback, but they just flow together.
You can’t even answer. You’re laughing and crying at the same time, breath coming in shaky bursts that don’t quite feel like enough air. Your chest hurts from smiling too hard.
When your fellow riders step back, you see him halfway over the rail, moving faster than any security guard can react. Sidney Crosby evading security, rushing towards you. He doesn’t care about the cameras. He doesn’t care about the flashing lights or the commentary, trying to make sense of what’s happening. He doesn’t even blink at the shouts from his teammates behind him—cheers, laughs, half-panicked calls.
He reaches you in a heartbeat, arms strong and certain. He pulls you in like you’re the one who just carried the weight of the world on your shoulders, like you’re the hero of this moment. You stumble slightly, but he steadies you, the press of his chest warm against yours. His hand finds your cheek, thumb brushing away a lingering tear, gentle enough to make your heart thrum like it might leap from your chest.
It’s strange. Terrifying, even. To be this close to him in public—here, in front of everyone. Cameras capturing every millisecond, commentators whispering into mics, the internet already lighting up. And yet… none of it matters. None of it exists. He leans in, just enough, pressing a delicate kiss to your forehead. His voice is soft, almost reverent, and it shakes something loose inside you.
“I’m so proud of you,” he says. You hear your name being called by someone, and suddenly, you’re being whisked away for the medal ceremony.
You step forward, heart pounding in a rhythm that feels louder than the crowd itself. When they place the gold medal around your neck, it feels heavier than you ever imagined—not just the weight of metal, but the weight of four years of rehab, the crash that almost ended everything, the nights you doubted yourself, the whispers that maybe you’d never be the same.
You lift it, letting it catch the sunlight, the reflection scattering like tiny fireflies over the crowd. And they respond—chanting your name, clapping, screaming. Every cheer lands like a pulse against your chest. You feel it all, but somewhere deep inside, you feel something else too: a quiet, unwavering pride that no one can see but you.
When you step down from the podium, you look straight for Sidney again.
He’s at the side where you left him, with a wide smile and clapping for you. You walk straight into his arms again—this time, less hesitant, more sure. The world has already seen you fall. Let them see you win, too.
He laughs softly against your temple, warm and real. “Gold medalist,” he says, testing the title on your shoulders like it belongs to you more than anyone else ever could.
You tilt your head up to meet him, eyes still shining, medal glinting between your collarbones. “Feels better than I imagined,” you whisper. And for the first time in years, it really does.
DAY SIX
You were supposed to be halfway home right now.
Your alarm had been set for five-thirty that morning, the flight info saved in a groupchat, and your boarding pass slotted safely in your passport. All your media obligations had been completed, including your sit-down interview with CBC. Your medal was in an inner pocket of your carry-on, ready to be taken out and explained to the Italian airport security. Everything was done. You had done what you came here to do.
But Sidney’s finals were tonight. So you changed your flight.
It was practical, really. Logical. Teammates stay for teammates. Olympians support Olympians. The Games are about unity, about standing together across sports, across disciplines, across pressure and sacrifice. That’s what you told yourself while clicking confirm change, while absorbing the painful rebooking fee without blinking.
It had nothing to do with the way his voice had softened when he told you he was proud of you. Nothing to do with how that moment had replayed in your head more times than your winning run. Nothing at all.
The arena feels wrong compared to the mountain. Mountains hold sound differently. They swallow it, stretch it thin, let cheers scatter into the sky like snow blown off a ridge. Even at their loudest, there’s space.
This place is pressure. Noise stacks on noise until it presses against your ribs. The roar rolls through the seats like thunder trapped indoors. Every chant reverberates in the metal bones of the building. The air smells sharp — ice, adrenaline, spilled beer, anticipation wound so tight it hums.
Canada vs. USA always feels big. Olympic gold makes it seismic. You sit a few rows up from the glass, wedged between family members, friends, staff — an ecosystem of quiet nerves wrapped in red and white.
When the red and white jerseys flow onto the ice, the arena swells with noise. You spot the ‘87’ skating around the edges. From up here, most people probably see composure, a man who’s fully in control. But you know better now. You see it in the tiny things. The way his stick taps impatiently on the ice, his eyes scanning every inch of the ice. His glove hand flexes once. Twice. A slow breath through his nose. A subtle roll of his shoulders like he’s resetting himself from the inside out.
And as the arena roars and the pressure builds, you feel it too — the weight of how badly he needs this. Not just to win. To carry everything that comes with being the one everyone believes will.
It’s chaos from the opening faceoff. No testing the ice. No cautious circling. Just immediate and violent speed, like both teams have been holding this in for years and finally let it go all at once.
The U.S. forecheck hits first and keeps hitting. They swarm in pairs, then threes, sticks snapping into passing lanes, bodies slamming through checks that rattle the glass. They’re younger — it shows in the quick accelerations and sharp direction changes.
Canada barely gets clean exits. Every breakout feels contested. Every touch pressured. The crowd noise never settles — it just shifts, rising and dipping like waves in a storm. Halfway through the period, it happens fast enough that your brain struggles to track it.
There’s a turnover at the blue line, and someone is just a fraction too slow handling the puck. The Americans pounce instantly — one stride, two, and suddenly it’s an odd-man rush slicing straight through center ice. The defense scrambles back, skates clawing for position, but the lane is already open. The shot comes off the stick in full stride. The net snaps back. American fans detonate. Flags are waving in the air, horns blast, and the chants start.
1–0.
Your stomach drops so hard it feels physical, like missing a step in the dark. The noise presses in on you, suffocating. You grip the handrails of the seat without realizing it. On the ice, though — no panic. Sidney doesn’t slam his stick. Doesn’t glare. Doesn’t even look frustrated. He skates straight to the crease, calm and purposeful, and taps the goalie’s pads — once, twice. Leans in close. Says something short. Quiet. Steady. Whatever it is, it isn’t dramatic or emotional. Just words of calm encouragement. And somehow, that calm radiates. You can see it in the posture of the players gathering for the next faceoff. Shoulders settle, sticks steady. They’re not rattled.
The clock bleeds out to the end of the period, then, with 3 minutes left, Canada goes to the power play. The shift in momentum is immediate. They set up cleanly, each player falling into their slot like a puzzle piece. The puck moves fast and crisp, tape to tape. The Americans chase, collapsing inward, sticks darting, trying to break the rhythm. But it stays intact. The puck slides to Sidney on the halfwall.
He lifts his head, scanning the field in front of him. One defender shades toward him. Then another. He holds the puck just long enough — just patient enough — that their structure bends. The space shifts. Lanes stretch open where none existed a second ago. He snaps the puck through the lane, right to the tape of Connor. The puck is in the back of the net in a flash. The red light flashes and the building erupts — a completely different sound now, deeper, fuller, relief exploding into joy all at once.
1–1.
You’re on your feet before you even realize you moved, screaming so loudly your throat burns. The people beside you are laughing, yelling, grabbing each other, the tension breaking like a snapped wire. On the ice, he barely celebrates. Just a tight fist pump and a helmet tap for Connor. And as the teams reset for the final seconds of the period, the energy has shifted completely. It’s no longer frantic or wild. The game has found its footing.
The second period doesn’t start so much as it tightens. Like someone pulled invisible wires through the rink and is slowly cranking them in.
There’s less glide now. Less space. Every puck battle lasts a second longer, every check lands a little harder, every turn of a skate blade sounds sharper, like the ice itself is under pressure. Players finish their hits with purpose, shoulders driving through bodies instead of brushing past them. Sticks clash. Glass rattles. The benches are louder too — shorter shouts, sharper instructions, constant motion.
You feel it in your chest every time the puck changes possession — that quick jolt of something could happen right now. Nobody is coasting anymore. Even line changes feel urgent, players launching over the boards like they’ve been forced off the ice for too long.
Halfway through the period, Canada carries the puck into the O-zone. It’s a clean entry that gets everybody set up. A shot is sent towards the net and is batted down by a stick. It drops in front of the crease, and suddenly, it’s a melee in front of the net. Sticks are jabbing at the puck, bodies are crashing into one another. Someone’s stick pokes the puck, and it kicks free. Somehow the puck finds Sidney—or maybe he finds it—and it’s on his stick and gone in a heartbeat, past the blocker of a goalie lunging in desperation. The light flashes red.
2-1.
You’re on your feet before you even realize you’ve moved, the cheer tearing straight out of your chest. Beside you, Stephanie grabs you like she’s known you your entire life, arms wrapping tight around your shoulders, shaking you as she cheers straight into your ear. You’re both laughing, shouting, bouncing. You were strangers less than an hour ago, and now you’re clinging to each other like lifelong friends because nothing else makes sense in a moment like this.
Down on the ice, his teammates swarm him instantly, enveloping him in a cluster of red and white. When Sidney breaks out of the pile, you watch his face. There’s no wild grin, there’s no disbelief. His jaw is set, his eyes are sharp. It’s determination.
The third period starts the game back where everything stopped. The Americans come in wave after wave after wave. If the puck is on a Canadian stick, an American jersey swarms them in less than a second. There’s no room out there, no room to breathe.
Your fingers curl tighter around the cold metal railing in front of you. You don’t realize you’re holding your breath until your lungs start to burn. The game begins to cycle. Clear, re-entry, shot, save, scramble, clear again, repeat. Every time Canada gets the puck out, the relief lasts maybe three seconds before it comes rushing right back in the other direction.
Then it happens. Eight minutes left. A shot from the blue line — harmless at first glance. Just a low, heavy drive through bodies stacked in front of the net. But someone’s stick catches it. The puck changes direction in an instant, a sharp, impossible deflection that sends it snapping past the goalie and into the back of the net.
2-2
The American section explodes into obnoxious chants, the kind that pound into your skull like a dull headache. Your stomach drops so fast it feels physical. For one wild second, the arena feels tilted. Unsteady. Like everything is about to slide out from under you. You look at Sidney. He doesn’t look afraid; there’s no panic in his eyes. He looks stubborn. His jaw is clenched tight, his shoulder pulled back. It’s refusal on his face. He will not lose today.
With five minutes left on the clock, Canada takes an o-zone draw. Sidney steps in to take it, snapping it back cleanly to his defenseman. The puck moves a lot, going back and forth between each defenseman, up to the winger, back to them again. Suddenly, one of them winds up and fires. The puck goes wide but rebounds loudly off the glass and drops in front of the net.
Sticks smack against one another, sending the puck free into the high slot. Perfectly placed. Nathan is right there when it comes free. He steps into it and unloads everything he has — a clean, violent slap shot that cracks through the noise like splitting wood.
Bar down. The sound is sharp and undeniable. Red explodes everywhere.
3-2.
He didn’t score the goal, but he’s the first one to Nathan's side. Sidney’s arms are around Nathan, shaking him. His face is lit up, wide and wild and fierce, like he’s twenty again and experiencing the joys of hockey for the first time.
Once everyone settles again, the game gets back underway. USA pulls its goalie, so they have six attackers on the ice. It becomes the longest two minutes of your life. Every clear feels like oxygen flooding your lungs after being underwater too long. Every blocked shot feels heroic. Every bounce feels dangerous.
With thirty-seconds left, the puck bounces towards the crease. A scramble ensues immediately. Red jerseys panic to clear the puck, blue jerseys clamber to shove it in the net. Someone dives, literally dives towards the puck. Fully outstretched, they smack the puck towards the blue line.
The clock ticks down. Everyone’s standing. The horn sounds. There’s no overtime, no dramatics. Just a pure, deserved win.
You spot Sidney on the bench. He rips his helmet off like he can’t get it off soon enough. His hair is damp and flattened, his face flushed deep with exertion and adrenaline, but his smile — his smile is blinding. Wide and bright and completely unguarded in a way you’ve never seen before. He floods the ice with the others.
One second, he’s visible, cutting hard across the surface, arms thrown wide, and the next, he vanishes into a crush of jerseys and limbs and shouting voices. They pile into him, around him, over him. He disappears entirely for a moment beneath the weight of it.
The swarm loosens, everyone hugging each other and basking in the moment together. Sidney doesn’t rush away. He moves from teammate to teammate with intention, gripping shoulders, pulling them into fierce hugs. He says something to each of them — short, quiet things you can’t even come close to hearing— but you can see what it does. The way their faces change. The way their laughter softens. The way some of them blink quickly and look away before grabbing him again.
He takes his time. Like he knows exactly what this moment means. Like he wants them all to carry it with them. You don’t realize you’re crying until Steph’s voice enters your ear.
“You’re not staying up here.”
You blink, turning as Stephanie grabs your wrist, already tugging you toward the aisle. Lauren Kyle appears at your other side like backup, smiling like she’s in on Stephanie’s plan. “Family and friends are going down,” Stephanie says, matter-of-fact.
“I— no, I don’t think—”
“He’d want you down there,” Lauren cuts in gently, but firmly. “Come on.”
You can’t even hesitate because then they’re pulling you down the steps, through the tunnel, and past security who are too busy managing the surge of people to question anything. The air shifts immediately — colder, sharper, filled with the smell of ice and sweat.
Your shoes hit the rink surface carefully, gripping the rubber mat laid across it. Players are everywhere — hugging parents, lifting siblings, laughing with teammates. Cameras sweep constantly, flashes bursting like tiny lightning strikes. The noise is overwhelming, but you barely hear any of it.
Stephanie and Lauren leave your side quickly, finding their husbands and jumping into their arms, and suddenly, you’re alone. Not physically — the ice is crowded, loud, bursting with movement — but the moment Stephanie and Lauren disappear into their husbands’ arms, the world seems to open around you, leaving you exposed.
You stand there for a second, heart hammering, hands cold despite the heat flooding your chest. Families and friends drift onto the ice in waves, careful steps turning into hurried ones as they reach the people they came for. You scan the chaos, trying to find him again.
Your fingers twist together in front of you, nerves creeping in now that the moment is real. You weren’t supposed to be here. You were supposed to be on a flight this morning, wheels up before warmups even started. He hugged you goodbye last night, thinking that was it — that you’d be watching from somewhere miles away. You never told him you stayed. You didn’t want to distract him. You wanted him to focus on the game he’s worked his entire life for.
For a second, doubt presses heavily in your chest. Maybe you should just watch from here. Maybe this is enough. You don’t belong in the middle of all that joy when he isn’t expecting you.
Then you see Sidney.
He’s skating slow circles through the chaos, still in full gear except for his helmet, hair damp and messy, face flushed from effort and adrenaline. But above all that, you can tell he’s happy. People keep stopping him. Teammates grab his shoulders. Staff pull him into hugs. Someone claps him on the back hard enough that he laughs. He thanks everyone — you can see it in the way his mouth moves, in the way he leans in, present with each person for a moment before moving again.
But he keeps looking around. Scanning. Searching for someone. For you? Sidney turns again, smiling at something someone says when he passes by. His eyes look around, then suddenly stop on you. A smile breaks out on his face. He weaves between groups of people, his focus never leaving you, and suddenly he’s right there, his arms around you.
The impact of him is warm and overwhelming — gear pressing against you, arms tight around your back, the faint smell of cold air and sweat and ice and something unmistakably him. He pulls you fully off balance, lifting you slightly. You cling to him just as tightly.
“I—” His voice is rough against your ear, breath uneven. “You stayed?”
You nod into his shoulder, laughing softly even as your throat tightens. “I stayed.”
His grip tightens. For a moment, Sidney just holds you. No movement. No awareness of anything else. His face presses into the side of your head, and you feel the way his chest rises and falls — fast, like he ran a mile instead of skated a few seconds. You barely take in the cameras that have settled around you. You don’t care, honestly. You don’t care about all the eyes on you, all the people jeering and whistling at the captain embracing the snowboarder. All you care about is him in this moment. He pulls back just enough to look at you, hands still anchored at your waist. His eyes search your face — disbelieving, bright, overwhelmed in a way you rarely see.
“I thought you’d gone back to Canada,” Sidney says softly.
“I didn’t want to distract you.”
He laughs softly. “Best distraction I’ve ever had.”
His hand comes up to your cheek, gently swiping away a tear you didn’t even know had fallen. Then he kisses you. Right there on the ice. There’s no hesitation. He’s so certain in this moment that all he wants is you.
His lips are still a little cool from the ice, but the heat of him follows instantly — breath, adrenaline, the lingering rush of the game still humming through his body. You can feel it in the way Sidney holds you, hands firm at your waist like letting go isn’t even an option his mind can process.
The kiss deepens without thought. His grip shifts — one hand sliding up your back, spreading between your shoulder blades, pressing you closer until there’s no space left between you at all. The hard edges of his gear dig in, grounding everything, anchoring you to the solid reality of him. When he finally pulls back, and not just to take a quick breath, it’s reluctant. His hands don’t leave your waist. His thumbs brush small, absent circles against your sides. His eyes come up to yours, and they’re softer than you’ve ever seen.
His hand slides up from your waist, coming to rest gently at the side of your neck, thumb brushing your jaw. “Hey,” he murmurs softly. You hum in response, still close enough that your noses almost touch. His voice drops even quieter, nearly lost beneath the noise of celebration around you. “Thank you for staying.”
The words land heavier than anything else tonight. They’re sincere. Full of warmth and relief and something that feels almost like vulnerability. Your chest tightens instantly. “Of course I stayed.”
LAST DAY
The next morning is the calmest and quietest it’s been since you arrived in Italy. Your suitcase wheels hum against the airport floor beside you. Sidney walks half a step behind, one hand hooked around the handle of his own bag, the other brushing yours every few strides like he keeps forgetting — or remembering — that he can.
Neither of you has said much since the car ride. There’s a lot to say, and it’s hard to find the right words.The departure board glows overhead, splitting the world into directions. Different gates. Different times. Different cities.
Your gate is 7. His gate is 16. You stop outside of your gate.
For a moment, people flow around you like water around a rock. Rolling suitcases. Coffee cups. Boarding passes. Someone is laughing too loudly nearby. A child is whining. An announcement echoes overhead that neither of you registers. You don’t want this to feel like an ending. But you also don’t want to pretend it isn’t something. Sidney shifts his weight, one hand sliding into his jacket pocket before coming back out again.
“I don’t really know what the… protocol is here,” he admits, voice low. “For… whatever this is.”
His gaze flicks between your eyes like he’s searching for the right answer there. You step a little closer without thinking. “I don’t think there is one.” He lets out a quiet breath that almost sounds relieved.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Because I don’t want this to be…” He gestures vaguely between you. “…a really nice moment that just… stays here.”
Your chest tightens. “Me neither.”
“Okay,” he says softly. “So… we don’t let it stay here.”
You nod. “We don’t let it stay here.”
“I’ve um… I’ve still got like two months left in the season, so if you’re ever in Pittsburgh…”
“And if you’re ever in the mountains in northern Quebec.”
Sidney huffs a soft laugh. He studies you for another long second… then steps forward and pulls you into him. It’s not the kind of hug people give when they’re already halfway turned toward leaving. It’s full. Solid arms around your back, one hand spreading between your shoulder blades like he’s anchoring you there. Your cheek presses against the front of his jacket, cool fabric over the steady warmth of him underneath. You can feel his breathing — deep, slow, controlled in the way he gets when he’s trying to keep something from showing. Your arms slide around his waist and hold him just as tightly. His chin rests lightly against the top of your head.
He doesn’t let go right away, but the hold softens — not loosening yet, just changing. Like he knows he has to release you eventually, but hasn’t decided when that moment becomes unavoidable. When he does lean back, it’s slow. His hands slide down your arms but don’t drop away — they settle around your elbows, still holding you close enough that there’s barely space between you.
He looks at you like he’s trying to fix every detail in his memory. Your face. Your eyes. The way you’re looking back at him. His mouth opens slightly, then closes. Whatever he almost says stays suspended somewhere behind his ribs. Your boarding group gets called over the speaker. You both hear it this time, but neither of you moves. His thumb brushes just under your cheekbone, slow enough to send warmth rushing through your chest.
“Can I…?” Sidney asks quietly. You nod before he finishes.
He leans in — unhurried, giving you every chance to meet him halfway. His forehead brushes yours first, a soft, grounding touch. You can feel his breath, warm and steady, mingling with yours. Then his lips find yours.
It’s slow at first, but when you lean in to him, that’s all it takes. The kiss deepens, your lips moving in perfect time with Sidney's. His hand shifts into your hair, fingers threading gently through the strands near the nape of your neck, holding you close but never pressing too hard. Your hands curl into the front of his jacket, grounding yourself in the steady warmth of him.
People move around you. Voices rise and fall. Another boarding announcement echoes. None of it matters. When you finally part, it’s only because breathing becomes necessary. Your boarding group gets called again — final call this time. Reality presses in. His hands slide down slowly, reluctantly, until they rest around yours. He squeezes once. Firm. Meaningful.
“I’ll call you,” he says.
“I’ll answer.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “I should hope so.” You give his hand a squeeze before letting go and stepping away. You turn toward the gate, boarding pass clutched in your hand — but before you reach the line, you glance back. He’s still there, exactly where you left him. He doesn’t move or check his phone; he just watches you walk to your gate. You lift your hand in a small wave. He mirrors it, but softer — more like a promise than a goodbye.
When you finally disappear down the jet bridge, something settles quietly in your chest. Because even as the distance finally starts to stretch between you, it doesn’t feel like something being lost — only something beginning to reach.
⋆ ˚｡⋆ pairing: steve harrington x reader (no specific pronouns used!)
⋆ ˚｡⋆ summary: after four years of being beat up, drugged, and almost killed too many times to count, steve suffers from severe headaches and minor hearing loss - aka steve headcanons
⋆ ˚｡⋆ warnings: none! just not proofread sorry
⋆ ˚｡⋆ a/n: @bartxnhood @keerysbrowneyes pspspspsp get over here
masterlist !
. . . it happened on the saturday after the fourth of july fiasco of 1985. steve harrington woke up that morning, the sun partially blinding him from behind his faded dark blue curtains. he rolled over, seeing the much too early time of day, and argued internally about getting up and being productive, or sleeping for at least another hour.
steve chose the latter, and after his glorious hour of added sleep, went downstairs to find some sort of food in his almost empty kitchen.
selecting a bowl of probably stale honeycomb cereal, he sat on his couch and turned on the tv.
however, when going to bed last night, he didn't remember turning the tv volume down beforehand. so why was it so low all of a sudden?
he turned it up, not reading the numbers going up the tv on the side, still confused how he can barely hear it.
steve rubbed both his ears, maybe he was still tired, he thought. he turned it up again, his eyes widening slightly as he noticed the volume level of the tv was now at forty-nine, when he used to be able to hear it perfectly at fiften, maybe sixteen.
at the newfound information, he shot up from his spot on the couch, and called you.
. . . it took both you and steve about a month to get used to his new found dilemma; hearing loss.
steve isn't surprised it's happened, considering all he's been through lately. but he's surprised it's hit him this quick, quite literally over night.
you make sure to talk a little louder when around steve now.
you always stand on the side of his good ear, and are happy to repeat anything when in a large group of people.
. . . steve has become quite a good lip reader. robin was the first to notice the change, a little confused why steve was suddenly looking at everyone's lips in a conversation.
after robin, the group slowly began to catch on. yet, no one was the first to announce it.
"do you think they all know?" steve asks while watching tv one night. his hearing has gotten slightly better, so now the tv volume settles around twenty-eight.
"know what steve?" you ask, genuinely curious.
"about my hearing. do you think the whole group has finally noticed?" you can hear the concern laced in his words. the shakiness indicating steve is starting to think he's becoming a burden, with everyone having to talk either louder or slower. all for him to understand simple sentences.
you easily shrug, "so what if they noticed? they're all your friends. a little thing like that isn't going to deter them away from you steve. they've all just adapted, exactly like we have." you lean over and kiss him on the cheek. he calms at your words, and action.
. . . as soon as steve, and everyone around him, had seemed to get used to his fractional hearing, another misfortune showed up on steve's door.
it started out as any regular shift at family video; steve stuttering in almost late due to the traffic near the high school, keith no where to be found (even though he's acclaimed to be the manager), and robin already yapping steve's good ear off in the first ten minutes of his time inside the dimly lit building.
it hits steve suddenly, as robin is going on and on about her upcoming date with vickie, the always dim lights seem to start pulsating to steve. they become entirely too bright, and robin's words seem to feel like their punching steve in the head. each syllable making his head dizzier than before.
"robin," he triee to get her to pause the conversation, yet the flustered girl keeps rambling.
"robin!" steve interjects, but soon regrets it as his own voice seems to make his pounding head worse. "please, i love you but if you keep talking, you won't make it to the date tonight."
and with that, steve takes the movie cart him and robin were distributing all the way to the other end of the store. he leaves a stunned robin in his place, but he simply can't care as his head feels as if it'll fall off his neck at any given moment.
. . . a week passes, and steve has cataloged on his calander. a tiny red dot drawn in the corner of five out of the past seven days. five days with nonstop headaches, and only two days of peace.
he sighs, already getting annoyed by the oncoming headache he can feel bloomomg in the back of his head.
it's not like steve never got headaches before. none of them felt like these though. sometimes the pain was all around his head, as if someone put a tight rubberband spanning from his forehead all the way to the other side.
others he felt behind his eyes, or by his temples, or simply on the top of his head.
by week two he's had enough. he began sifting through every drug store in hawkins for anything to relieve his worsening headaches.
he was lucky for a few days after finding something at the big buy a few minutes away from his house. however his body seemed to become immune to the medicine, as his headaches came back heavier and quicker.
. . . finally, you have a day off of work. you feel like you've been living at this small record store for weeks. you did love it. the smell, a record playing in the background while you helped customers find the perfect cassette player, and the easy small talk while standing behind the register. you truly love it, but you don't think you can go another minute of someone asking if you have abba's new release.
you don't bother going to your own home, instead driving the familiar path to steve's.
you don't even worry about knocking on the large wooden doors anymore. you've been over plenty of times that steve really can't be surprised when you walk through the foyer.
you set your belongings down in the kitchen, and make your way to the stairs, however something in the living room catches your eye.
the tv is on, and you see a figure laying on the couch. you know it's steve, yet it's odd to see him down here. usually he's up in his room when he's not at work or being bugged by dustin, or any member of the party.
"steve? are you okay?" you call out, but get no response back. you walk closer to the couch, and your heart practically breaks at the sight in front of you.
steve's laying on his couch, with his head propped up against one of the biggest pillows you think he has, as he's holding an ice pack to the other side of his head. the tv is on in front of him, yet no audio is making it's way through the living room.
you crouch down in front of him, making him look up towards you. the action resulting in steve wincing slightly at the new position.
"oh, hey honey," he barely whispers.
you're not dumb. you can take a wild guess at why steve seems to be miserable with pillows and an ice pack stuck to his head.
"headache?" you ask in a hushed voice, while staring to run your fingers through his hair. steve closes his eyes at the feeling after nodding.
he leans into your touch, as you rub softly over his scalp and back through his roots. you repeat the action a few times.
"do you want to go lay down in bed? i bet that'll be more comfortable than the couch," you offer, smiling as steve nods in response.
you help him up, walking behind him up the stairs while he continues holding the ice pack to his throbbing skull.
he immediately finds his bed once you're upstairs and in his room. you sigh, wishing there was something you could do to take his pain away.
you sit beside him silently, and resume running your hands through his brown locks. he once again leans into your touch.
in the span of the next minute, steve slowly makes his way into your lap. his head resting over your thighs, still holding the ice pack to the aching area.
"does the ice pack help?" you wonder.
steve only nods. you take a mental note, now going to be sure to keep multiple ice packs in steve's freezer as well as your own.
so steve lays there contently. the combination of the ice, the warmth of your thighs, the comfort of your fingers and the smoothness of the comforter under him slowly lulls him to sleep.
. . . steve gets used to the headaches now. he always carries some pain killers in his bag or keeps a bottle in tbe glovebox of his car. you do the exact same, never knowing when he might need one. dustin's even picked up on the small notion.
if things get too loud for steve, it's become a second nature of yours to notice just as fast as steve starts feeling that fuzzy pounding behind his eyes.
you two will sit in a quiet hallway of the squawk. you'll hold his hands gently while he begins breathing deeply beside you. you make sure to bring medicine and a water bottle with you, making sure he drinks at least half of it.
you don't know how long you sit there in silence, but you don't mind. really, you don't. you'll do whatever it takes to help steve with his headaches.
pairing: coach!steve harrington x teacher!reader
summary: your extremely professional relationship with coach steve may be under investigation by one (1) very observant six-year-old.
warnings: pure fluff, slightly suggestive, steve is just absolutely smitten, secret relationship, children being adorable, mention of marriage, post-s5 (2.3k)
. * ✦ . ˚ ✦ .
Little Eli Parker is zooming down the hallway on a Very, Very Important mission.
Six years old, sandy curls bouncing wildly with every step, he's panting hard through the wide gap between his two front teeth. One of the Velcro straps on his sneaker has come undone, flapping wildly as he skids to a stop just outside your classroom door.
5B
He doesn’t come all the way in. Just peeks around the frame, fingers gripping the edge as he rocks back and forth on his heels.
You pause mid-sentence, lowering the book you’ve been reading aloud. A few students crane their necks to look.
Eli’s bright blue mesh pinnie hangs crooked over his T-shirt, smudged with chalk dust and tiny white handprints—making it very clear which class he’s just sprinted away from. His cheeks are flushed, chest heaving like he’d forgotten the ‘no running in the halls’ rule until the very last second.
“Hey, Eli,” you call out gently. “You okay, honey?”
He sucks in a much-needed breath, eyes wide. “Um… miss you haveta come with me. Coach Steve says you need to!”
You tilt your head. “Coach Steve?”
He nods solemnly. “He said it’s a ‘mer-gency.’”
A ripple of whispers spreads through your fifth-grade classroom.
You blink, already pushing your chair back. “Did he say what kind of emergency?”
Eli shakes his head, serious as anything. “No. He just said we need to hurry.”
Your stomach gives a small, uneasy flip.
Eli isn’t the type to exaggerate. He’s sweet, careful. Reminds everyone when it’s time to line up after recess and always volunteers to erase the board without being asked. He's the sort of kid teachers trust without thinking twice.
If he’s the messenger, it’s because of something important.
“Alright, everyone,” you call to the class. “Keep reading quietly. I’ll be right back.”
A chorus of shuffling follows as you reach for your cardigan.
“Hurry, hurry,” Eli bounces on his heels, voice small but insistent.
Before you can answer, he reaches for your hand. His grip is tiny, warm, a little sticky—surprisingly strong. You find yourself getting dragged by his bouncy, determined steps, weaving past rows of lockers, dodging a cluster of kids heading to recess. He zigzags through the main hallway, past the water fountain, the art room, taking the shortcut through the library until you arrive at the wide, double doors leading into the gym.
The moment you push them open, chaos erupts.
Bright rubber dodgeballs zing through the air. Sneakers squeak across the glossy, lacquered floor. Laughter and triumphant shrieks ricochet off the walls, punctuated by the occasional, “Yes! Got you!” from victorious first graders.
Coach Steve's leaned casually against the far wall, clipboard tucked under one arm, whistle hanging loose around his neck. He’s sipping from a blue ceramic mug that reads World’s Best Teacher in chipped white lettering.
Only five months into the job, yet he’s already something of a legend here at Hawkins Elementary. The younger kids adore him—dodgeball days and ridiculous warm-up games where he pretends to be a shark, stalking the gym with dramatic dun-dun noises until they’re all shrieking with laughter. Older kids trust him in quieter ways, lingering after sex ed to ask questions they’re not brave enough to bring home.
Despite the nerves you remember from his first day, Steve has settled into teaching like it’s been waiting for him all along.
Right now, though, he’s fully in coach mode. Brow furrowed, stance wide, eyes tracking the game like it’s a championship match instead of a bunch of kids still learning how to throw straight.
“Out of bounds! That one doesn’t count.”
“Woah—no head shots, Jacob! C’mon, we talked about that.”
“You okay, Alex? I got you. Here, try it like this. Yeah, there ya go bud!”
Eli, who had been clutching your hand the entire walk across school, suddenly lets go and races toward his favorite teacher.
“Coach Steve! I did it! I got her!”
Steve looks up. Sees you.
And the grin that breaks across his face is so immediate, so fond, it'd be enough to give you both away if anyone was paying the tiniest bit of attention.
“Hey!” he laughs, stepping forward. “Nice work, buddy. Thanks for the help.”
You watch, eyes narrowed in confusion as he ruffles Eli’s curls and slaps a high five against his tiny palm.
Eli puffs up with pride and pivots to sprint back to the game.
“Whoa—hang on, pal.”
Steve drops to his knees, setting the clipboard aside as he reaches for the loose strap on Eli’s shoe. He fastens it with careful, practiced fingers, giving it a quick tug to make sure it’ll hold.
Your stomach melts a little at the sight of him crouched like that: focused, patient, so gentle with this kid who’s staring at him like he hung the moon.
“There we go, champ,” he grins, giving Eli's sneaker a little pat. “Good as new. Now go have fun, alright? Your team missed you.”
Eli nods hard, then rockets back into the game without another word.
Steve straightens and finally turns to you, eyes warm, smile soft—and just a touch guilty.
“Mr. Harrington,” you say, crossing your arms carefully, “what exactly is the emergency you pulled me out of class for?”
His mouth quirks sheepishly, hands slipping into his pockets.
“Well, I just…” He steps closer, dropping his voice. “Haven’t seen you all morning. I missed you.”
You blink.
“You—” A breathy laugh slips out before you can stop it. “You sent poor Eli to fetch me because you missed me?”
He nods like it’s the most logical thing in the world. “Yeah. He's my fastest kid.”
“No, that's not the...” you trail off, turning your head, failing completely to hide your smile.
Steve steps closer, angling the clipboard between you so that, to anyone looking in, it would look like you’re addressing some very concerning issues with the class roster.
Well, except for the part where his eyes are glued to your face.
There’s this soft intensity in his gaze that makes your breath hitch, just by holding it. You find yourself staring back, unable to look away, appreciating the faint creases around his temples, how they deepen with his smile, the plush curve of his bottom lip and the rounded apples of his cheeks as they get pushed upward.
“That’s better,” he murmurs, voice all deep and honey-warm. “Just needed to look at you for a second.”
You shake your head, cheeks warming despite yourself.
There’s a reason you’ve been keeping this thing with Steve a secret.
You both realized, pretty early on, that acting normal in a building full of nosy children and nosier adults was a losing battle. You had to learn to bend with it, catching tiny, fleeting moments in the spaces between, holding onto each one as tightly as you can.
It wasn’t perfect. Mrs. Kline, the school secretary, has definitely noticed the two of you laughing a little too freely by the copier. One of your students will occasionally squint at you during silent reading time, wondering why a tiny scrap of paper left on your table at lunch leaves you grinning for the rest of the day.
Still, you make it work.
A shared coffee in the teachers’ lounge before the morning bell. Standing side-by-side near the parking lot fence as the buses roll in. A granola bar tucked under your desk with a note folded impossibly small.
you look beautiful today ◡̈
He repeats the message to you now, even as you roll your eyes and try to look away.
“Seriously, I mean it," he murmurs, tracing your face with his eyes—the slope of your nose, the curve of your cheek—before lingering, unmistakably, on your mouth. “Want to kiss you so bad right now.”
You snort, nudging the sleeve of his sweatshirt with a finger. It’s soft, heather-gray, the Hawkins Elementary mascot faint and cracked across the chest.
“That’s deeply unprofessional of you, Mr. Harrington.”
He groans under his breath, brow creasing as he tips his head back. “God, I love it when you say it like that. Say it one more time?”
“Jesus—Steve!” you hiss, half-laughing, eyes darting toward the gym floor like the kids might suddenly develop super-hearing over the screech of sneakers and flying dodgeballs.
Instead of stepping back, he leans in closer, lips parted in that familiar half-pout, eyes full of mock agony. “Can’t help it, honey. You’re fucking killing me over here.”
“Language,” you warn him, simply out of pure habit.
He smirks, lips twitching.
From the far end of the gym, a group of kids cheer triumphantly, “Yes! Coach Steve! We won!”
You both jump back like you’ve been caught doing something much worse than grinning at each other like idiots.
“Uh—great! Great job, gang!” Steve calls, clapping his hands. “Let's get all the balls in the cart and then grab some water, yeah? Five-minute break.”
Then he leans back in, brows raised. “See? Total professional. I’m telling you.”
You shake your head. “You’re unbelievable.”
You’re still smiling when he pivots, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one’s paying attention. Satisfied, he turns back to you, brows drawn into a hopeful, pleading slant.
"C'mon," he murmurs, lifting the clipboard up like a partition. "I’ll get another game going. The kids won’t even notice. Just you... me...” He gestures between you, then toward the double doors leading outside. “Five minutes?”
You press your lips together, schooling your expression back into something stern. “Steve Harrington. I am not fucking you behind the school gym.”
"Language!" He gasps, mimicking your tone. “And jeez, who said anything about that? I was just gonna, you know, have a very professional conversation with you… about teaching.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh, c’mon, bab—"
“Coach Steve?”
Both of your heads snap down at the same time.
Eli stands there, chin tipped up, hands clasped neatly behind his back like he’s been waiting for his turn to speak. He’s rocking gently on his heels, eyes bright with curiosity as he looks between the two of you.
“Heyyy, buddy!” Steve laughs nervously, voice jumping up an octave. “What’s up? You okay?”
Eli nods.
Then, completely matter-of-fact, he asks:
“Coach Steve, when you marry her, can I come?”
Steve chokes on absolutely nothing.
“When—what?”
“When you get married,” Eli repeats patiently, like Steve’s just being a little slow today. “I wanna come.”
Steve squats down so fast he almost drops the clipboard.
“Eli,” he says carefully, “why do you think we’re getting married?”
Eli shrugs, unfazed. “’Cause you’re prac-tis married.”
“Practice… practice married?”
“Yeah. Like my Auntie Jen and her friend Mark at Thanksgiving.”
Steve blinks. “Okay, and what's... why do you think we’re practice married?”
Eli doesn’t hesitate. He points toward the front of the gym, in the general direction of your classroom. “’Cause you always wait for her outside her door.”
Steve opens his mouth. Closes it.
“And you bring her coffee. But you don’t bring us coffee.”
“Well,” Steve murmurs faintly, “that’s ‘cause you’re six.”
Eli shrugs again. “And you talk to her really soft. Like this,” he cups his hand around his mouth to demonstrate, whispering loudly. “Also, you always save her a chair at ass-em-blee.”
Steve rubs a hand down his face, glancing up at you before looking back at Eli. “That’s, uh… very observant of you, buddy.”
Eli isn’t done.
“And you make funny faces at her in the hallway. Oh! And you fixed her pencil sharpener. And, and, there was one time you looked at her, and you didn’t look away for one... two... three...” He glances down at his fingers and starts counting under his breath. “five... six... seven... eigh—”
“Okay!” Steve laughs loudly, holding up his hands. “Okay, buddy, I get it. That’s... that’s a long time.”
Eli nods, clearly pleased with himself. “Auntie Jen and Mark, they used to go everywhere together. And Mark fixed all the stuff around her house. Then later they got married for real.”
He looks between the two of you, satisfied.
“So. I think you’re practice married.”
You bite the inside of your cheek and crouch beside Steve. “Well... I think that’s a pretty solid theory, Eli.”
“Mm-hm, thanks,” he nods confidently. Then he spins back to Steve. “So, when you do the real one, can I come? I’m really good at sitting still. And my mom says when people get married they always eat cake. I love cake.” He spreads his arms wide. “Auntie Jen’s was this big!”
Steve presses his lips together, letting out a short, incredulous snort. “You know what, pal? Sure. Whe—if we get married, you’re more than welcome to come. And we’ll get the biggest cake we can find, okay?”
Eli beams. “Okay!”
He starts to run back to the group, then skids to a stop and turns around.
“Hey, Coach Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“You should ask her nicely,” Eli says, serious as anything. “With flowers. Mark did that.”
And then he’s gone.
Steve stays crouched, staring after him, jaw slack.
“…Did a six-year-old just give me relationship advice?”
“Mm, seems like it.”
He stands slowly, running a hand through his hair, eyes still following Eli as he rejoins the others.
“You think he spotted it before we did?” he asks quietly. “Back when... you know, we were still trying to figure out what we were doing?”
You smile. “Probably way before then.”
Steve's still distracted when you put your hand on his shoulder, quickly checking to see that no one’s watching before pressing a soft, fleeting kiss to his cheek.
He blinks, stunned. “Wha—no, wait, shit—”
He reaches for you a full second too late; you’re already headed for the door.
“Language. Have a good rest of your class, Mr. Harrington.”
Steve watches you go, hand frozen at his cheek.
Across the gym, Eli spots you and waves enthusiastically, completely unaware of just how accurate his little theory was.
The proof?
A small velvet box, tucked away in Steve’s bedside drawer, waiting patiently for the right moment.
. * ✦ . ˚ ✦ .
⋆ ˚｡⋆ pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader (established relationship)
⋆ ˚｡⋆ summary: steve realizes how he affects people twice in one day, after a confrontation with dustin henderson, then his girlfriend.
⋆ ˚｡⋆ warnings: SLIGHT S5 SPOILERS!!! use of y/n and she/her pronouns used, cursing, not proofread + kinda rushed writing idk if this is even good or not oh well
— masterlist !
⋆ ˚｡⋆ a/n: sooooooo s5 steve has a hold on in that stupid sweater of his 😝 also trust will be writing steve with hearing loss headcanons soon AND THIS IS FOR @keerysbrowneyes and @bartxnhood only (ily guys mwah)
☆★☆
she wasn't sure when, or if, she would see steve harrington again.
this however, isn't the first time she's thought this.
four times in the past four years, while y/n has known steve, he always, stupidly, wholeheartedly puts himself right in front of danger. as if the thought draws steve in like a magnet on an old fridge.
usually y/n is besides steve during the fight, whether it be them versus demogorgans in the byers' house, getting dragged into fighting demodogs by dustin henderson, or getting drugged by evil russians and being held captive under starcourt mall.
steve and y/n were always together.
but not tonight.
steve, dustin, nancy and jonathan were currently trapped in the upside down, along with hopper and el, while everyone else was fighting above.
in steve's defence, he wasn't planning on driving his precious beamer into the upside down to track a demogorgan. he was planning on meeting up with the others to go over the next phase in whatever plan they has concocted now. oh how wrong he was.
y/n hated waiting. waiting to hear if they were okay. hated waiting on if her closest friends and boyfriend were okay. hated waiting for any possible bad news.
she especially hated waiting up to hours on end just to get one single crack of signal coming from a walkie talkie in robin's hand.
y/n wasn't truly sure when the group reunited again in the right side up. her brain was like a fogged window. yes, she saw el, hopper and the others, even max mayfield, come back to the squawk. she was with them while they all walked inside, while lucas started filling max in and stuff she missed, and while dustin was ranting to hopper about all his theories. she was there when steve had shared his brilliant plan on how they could finally put an end to all of this from the wsqk radio tower.
yet, she hasn't said a word to steve.
hasn't said a word since he stepped out of the car next to dustin. hasn't said a word to him after finally seeing a smile on max's face in over a year. hasn't said a word since dustin and hopper were yelling over each other about wormholes and dnd.
she still hasn't uttered a word even as his sits right next to her, on the worn out couch in the squawk lobby, waiting for the all-clear from hopper to start with the final plan.
they sit in silence. the air became heavy as soon as the two were finally left on their own. their knees barely brush each other's as their breaths mix. y/n stares down at her fidgeting hands, as steve glances in her direction. he brings his large hand over both of hers. he decides to ignore the way she flinches at the contact.
"hey," he begins, "it's all gonna be okay." he sends her a smile, a non convincing one at that, but still a smile.
she still can't look at him, while letting out a shuddered breath. steve takes the silence as an invitation to keep talking. "i'm okay, honey. you're okay. everyone here is okay, and- and we're all ready to fight this evil again. hell, we even have will so who knows what c-"
"you don't get it," her voice cuts through steve's rambling like a knife. his lips meet as he fully faces her now. her eyes still won't meet his.
"what? what don't i get?" he begins rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.
y/n stands from the couch, her worried and tired eyes finally meeting steve's brown ones. her action has steve's hand falling against tbe scratchy fabric of the couch cushions, yet he doesn't move it. he's simply caught off gaurd.
"i can't keep doing this steve," y/n admits, "i can't keep watching you and the others keep going into danger. while me and joyce just sit here. in this stupid radio station, waiting for a signal or a message, fucking anything steve. i can't keep waiting-"
steve interrupts her as she begins picking at her hands, while her words were leaving her mouth faster than she intended them to.
"baby it's just one more crawl. we'll all be back by tonight, and we'll have defeated vecna by then, and boom, we're done."
steve's standing, with his hands coming up to rub soothing motions on y/n's shoulders.
she simply shakes her head, "no steve, i can't keep waiting-" her voice gets caught in her throat as tears begin to brim at the bottom of her eyes, like a dam just waiting to burst open, "i can't just sit here and wait-"
steve, as comforting as he's trying to be, cuts y/n off again, "but it's more than just waiting here. you guys are gonna be the first to know when we're safe, and put together, and on our way back," y/n starts frantically shaking her head, muttering out 'no's', but steve keeps trying to comfort the concerned girl.
y/n finally has enough, and shoves steve back in the middle of his (trying to be) triumphant speech.
"stop it, steve!"
he looks at her as if she just shot him twelve times. his breaths come out ragid, while blinking a few times to focus on the girl in front of him.
"i can't keep waiting for you to die!" y/n firmly admits in the open air. however her shaky breath and cracked words do little to show how much it truly worries her. "you keep leaving with the others, putting yourself out there in god-know-what kind of danger. fuck, you're probably always putting yourself in front of them, not caring whether you get hurt or not," she sucks in a breath, letting the salty, needed tears stream over her red cheeks.
she continues, "i hate not knowing if you're alive or not. i hate waiting here for some stupid signal," she hits steve in the arm three times, "just to know if you guys even made to wherever the hell dustin's lead you to now."
y/n doesn't care how many tears are staining her cheeks, or how wide her eyes might be, and doesn't notice how broken steve looks in front of her.
he lets her continue to hit him. continue to slap him. in the arms, the torso. he even lets her push him again. he tries to grab onto her hands, all while she still yells at him. but her phrases start coming out in broken sentences and thoughts.
"you're always being an idiot," she hits him in the arm.
"you're never here anymore," she shoves him, making him trip over his untied shoelace.
"i can't have you die on me!" her voice breaks into a million pieces as she throws herself against his rigid body. he instantly catches her thrashing frame, calming her in the matter of seconds.
her tears and cries are soon overlapped with contant, but soft, shushes from steve. her hands grip onto his jacket, as he holds her tight against him.
"please, steve," her voice is muffled, however she can't tell if it's because of her position of being pressed against his chest, or her sobs have simply ruined her voice. "please. i care about you too goddamn much. i can't- i can't do it steve-"
"hey, hey, it's okay," he instantly begins calming her again, before another wave of panic can make it's way through the girl. "i'm right here, i'm not going anywhere."
he starts swaying the two of them gently, rubbing the back of y/n's head. his mind is reeling, as metaphorical gears start turning. steve's starting to get déjà vu from the henderson boy. he takes in a deep breath.
"y'know, dustin said the same thing to me a few hours ago," steve begins, but doesn't dare break them apart.
"he told me," he pauses, finding his voice, but remembering how broken dustin had sounded. "dustin told me he can't go through it again. that he can't imagine what he'd do if something happened to me."
all y/n can do is nod in his arms, sighing as her breathing becomes normal again.
"i guess i wasn't thinking about how other people would feel if i was gone," steve's eyebrows furrow together, the crease between them becoming more prominent as his mind races, "i don't think i was really thinking at all."
silence fills the space again. it's a different silence than before. the old space feeling tight and restricted with unsaid concerns. however now, it almost feels lighter, as if someone opened all the windows and doors, letting some much needed air in.
y/n pulls back from steve, but doesn't dare leave his embrace. his arms still hold her waist, not risking letting go. he only brings one hand up to wipe away a few stray tears that were caught on her cheeks. his eyes flicker between her rosy cheeks, cracked lips, and worried tear filled eyes.
"oh baby," he simply states, his own voice betraying him.
"i'm sorry. i don't mean to worry as much as i do," she states, holding onto his jacket sleeves a tad tighter, "but i have to worry when it comes to you."
steve shakes his head, "no, not anymore. i swear to you, whenever i even start to get any stupid ideas, i'll run them by you first."
he leans his forehead against her own as she lets out an airy laugh at his compromise. she nods, "only as long as i get to come with you tonight, and make sure you don't do anything stupid."
