nicoleno but its ryan having a fight and breaking his nose AGAIN and he says that stupid thing during his interview like 'yeah no we'll see about the bubble for tomorrow. not sure about that' with a fucking smirk.
and when nico sees that he loses it and video calls him immediately. and stupid ryan is already bruising under his eyes and he looks rough.
'tell me you were kidding about that helmet'
'what hischier, you're worried about my pretty face ?'
and there it is, the grin, the swagger, the one nico knows he is hiding something.
'how badly does it hurt ?' he asks softly, his anger and frustration long gone as soon as he realises ryan is not okay.
'not a lot'
nico grits his teeth, because he can see right through his dumbass of a boyfriend and he just aches to be there and take care of him.
'don't do that, don't lie to me' whispers nico, now feeling a little sad that they are like that, always protecting themselves by instinct, as if showing vulnerability could be used against them. sometimes through the phone its hard to remember they are a team. through thick and thin, no matter what logo they wear on their jerseys.
ryan exhales, and his blue eyes soften. 'it hurts like a motherfucker' he admits, grimacing a little.
nico grunts and says, not unkindly 'well next time pick someone in your weight range, please ?'
ryan chuckles, a smile, a real one this time, stretching his lips. 'yeah sure. i can do that for you, baby'
nico rolls his eyes at the nickname but there is a blush on his cheeks he cannot hide. and he won't even try, because this is ryan. and he know how much that little shit likes to see him blush.
'go put ice on that before you look even more ridiculous' nico says before he throws him one last look and hangs up. this kid is gonna kill him.
nico hischier/ryan leonard. soulbond universe. some chatfic and some actual fic. 2,255 words.
as all things go in all our nicoleno universes, @orangestringoffate presented me an idea and we ran with it. she said:
Had a horrible thought. What if.
In the soulmate marks nicoleno AU nico was kinda a late bloomer compared to his friends/teammates. A lot of them found their soulmate in their early 20s and now he's 27 and like, he never had a problem with it. He trusted the universe and was patient, but a tiny part of him, at least in the last year, was aching for a connection. He wanted to find his person and love them and be loved. He wanted to start building a life together, he was ready. And then the universe sends him 21 year old ryan fucking leonard. (at Worlds 2026)
Nico has been wanting this so badly and like. the trade off is… here is your person literally made for you. but you can’t have him for real for many years to come still.
And ryan on the other side always hears from will, how amazing it is to be on the same team as your soulmate and now ryan got his soulmate and its a hockey player too but man, its hard.
and of course there’s soulmates who just don’t or can’t make it work. and he starts to wonder. if that’s going to be him. like he’s waited so long. he even wondered if there was someone out there for him at all. and now he found ryan. and it’s been weirdly bizarrely easy and nice. but how can this possibly work?
they get a tiny amount of time at the lake house because 1) this was totally unexpected (that they’d find each other) and 2) they’re not ready for anyone to know and 3) nico’s fam will be here for the summer very soon.
so like they have a night or two. and the second day is so hard because they just found each other and they’re still kind of reeling with it all. they get like 36 hours to be together and talk for the first time and they barely get going when ryan has to leave. like they’re barely learning about each other. tentative around each other. it’s so fucking weird that they are soulmates. it’s already starting to feel so nice but like, it is so weird. how and why?! how and why would the universe set this up? what if either of them never played hockey? would they have ever found each other? hurts to think about. and it hurts to think that they just got here and ryan has to go. when, how will they ever see each other? should they even try? should they just… accept that they’re soulmates but it doesn’t always work out, and just… break it off now before it gets too entangled? good to meet you good to have had these two days but we know this can’t work so let’s move on now and find other people to love even though it will never be as good as a soul bond but… it is what it is.
-
and they do try. they try for months. and life is basically normal for both of them. but with a tiny little ever-present ache right in the heart because they know the other one is out there. it’s so hard knowing that. but they each try and they don’t communicate all summer long and just try to move on.
but the Devils have to play the Capitals a few times a year in this upcoming 2026/27 season so like. inevitably they’re going to see each other on the ice.
and they do.
and it hurts.
and nico can’t take it any longer.
and he knows he’s an absolute crazy person for doing this but he waits outside the capitals’ visitor locker room after the game. waits for ryan. other players are filing out, confused, why is nico hischier standing around here?
and ryan eventually comes out and when he looks up they make eye contact and they both instantly feel it. an electrifying spark at just eye contact. and nico says, “come with me. please. we’ll get dinner and talk.” and ryan agrees. he couldn’t do anything but agree.
-
and so they go, in nico’s car. and they don’t end up getting food. nico just parks them somewhere quiet and alone. it’s dark. it’s quiet. they’re both just staring out the windshield and neither know what to say. there’s just so much feeling, though.
nico starts, finally. says the entire summer has been hard. they had that tiny window after Worlds and then they agreed that they couldn’t make it work and to just make a clean break of it.
but all summer long and pre season nico has been distracted. his brain knows this is for the best, but his soul knows ryan is out there. he supposed if they never saw each other again perhaps the ache would fade slowly and he’d be able to love someone else eventually.
but they’re going to keep seeing each other at games. nico can’t avoid it. laying eyes on ryan is like reigniting what’s already burning under his skin.
he can’t forget. it won’t fade.
so. if ryan really wants him to try, to try to forget and to move past this, and for them to live lives without a soul bond union then he’ll do that. he’ll try really hard to do that, and let ryan go. let ryan try to find love and joy. that’s what a soulmate would do, right? be selfless. even if it hurts. if ryan wants that - for real - nico will try.
and ryan looks over at nico in the driver’s seat. his pretty blue eyes are so emotive. his expression is sad. nico is sad, too.
“I tried meds, you know.” he says and nico’s eyebrows shoot up.
“what?”
“yeah. I started taking a bond disrupter… a few weeks after I got home from Worlds. my doctor said if a soul bond can’t be fulfilled then the meds were an option so I could move on, but. I didn’t like how it made me feel.”
nico’s heart cracks in half. “how… how did it make you feel?”
“like I couldn’t feel you, anymore. maybe it sounds dumb but after I left switzerland I still felt like… like my body, my soul… all of me knew you were out there and too far away. and it hurt too bad and I couldn’t cope so.”
“so. so is it done, then?” nico asks.
“I stopped taking the meds. I hated it. i’d rather feel you and miss you, than forget you.”
-
nico can hardly believe what he’s hearing, and it breaks his heart even further to hear ryan went to such measures. he knew some people did. took the meds and broke the bonds and moved on. that ryan was desperate enough to try hurt him so badly because… because nico kind of did this, didn’t he? he was the one who said they should just try to forget it and move on because logistically it wasnt going to work. this, ryan’s desperation, is nico’s fault.
“i’m sorry,” he says, and it’s barely more than a whisper. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it would be like this.”
and that’s the truth. he’d never had a soulmate before. he didn’t know how genuinely bone-deep that connection would be once it was ignited by their first words.
but ryan’s absence had been felt so deeply, even after just a couple of days together. nico had felt that deep ache in his bones when they said their goodbyes. he’d wanted to kiss ryan goodbye. one last kiss. but he knew that would only make it worse. he’d driven ryan to the airport and didn’t get out of the car to say goodbye because it was just. it wasn’t worth it. they were making a clean break.
but it had hurt. watching him go. nico knew it would for a little while but it was for the best to just let the bond fade. from everything he’d read he knew it would never go away completely. soulmates were for a reason. but it was possible he could love someone else. maybe one day.
but the summer pledged onward and pre season came and nico still felt this tender ache in his ribs that wasn’t getting any less painful. he thought about ryan - what little he knew about him - often. in the gym, making lunch, at night in bed. he was pretty sure getting himself off thinking about the soulmate he was trying to forget was counter productive but.
he remembered ryan’s pretty blue eyes, and his freckles, and his laughter. ryan’s big, loud, laugh.
and. and the note. the note ryan left before they left for the airport that nico found when he returned. the note that nico brought back to america and tucked safely away in his bedside table drawer, hidden away behind watch boxes and phone chargers. “thank you for letting me see what it could have been. i’ll always have this.”
and when he got the season’s schedule and saw the first time they’d play the Capitals nico decided that he had to try. he had to try and see if ryan… if ryan could forgive nico for daring to suggest they try to let the bond die.
and now, hearing that ryan had been in deep enough pain to seek medical intervention… nico’s heart bleeds for ryan. he feels horrible.
ryan smiles sadly at nico, shrugging a bit. “i tried, and I couldn’t do it.”
“so are.. are you..” nico doesn’t know what the question he needs to ask is.
“if you are,” ryan answers anyway.
nico is. he has to be. the universe made them, picked them, destined them for each other.
“please,” nico says, quiet but sure.
“okay,” ryan nods, a little grin breaking across his face. “i was promised dinner. you gonna deliver on that or what?”
nico laughs, caught off guard but full of delight. he nods, starts his car again.
“first date?” nico asks, reversing out of the spot and driving away.
“i’d say my mom told me no sex on the first date but we’ve already done that,” ryan smirks and nico blushes.
he remembers. they’d kissed for the first time, naked in the lake, and ran back to the house to finish what they’d started in the warmth of nico’s bed. and it had been incredible. he’d had plenty of good sex in his life but getting to see and touch and feel and know ryan’s body, his soulmate’s body, gave the experience that extra edge that nico had clung to in his memory on lonely nights at home.
“I won’t tell,” nico says and ryan laughs and nico feels, for the first time in months and months, that he’s going to be okay.
-
so they go to some hole-in-the-wall jersey diner where no one will bother them. and they talk and talk and talk about everything.
their fears and hopes and wonders about making this thing work. they’re soulmates. they want to feel that strengthening bond flow through them.
nico hopes they can tolerate the difficulties. ryan fears nico may give him up again. and then it will be so much worse than the summer was. ryan needs to know nico is dead dead dead serious because he’s already felt the pain of his soul yearning for its mate and he’d tried to medicate the agony away and it was all too much. he needs nico to be so serious or else he’s walking away. tonight. because he can’t get any hope only to have to feel that devastating plunge of separation in his heart again.
nico is serious. he felt it too. he yearned for ryan too. he knew he’d fucked up. he wanted to make it right.
how? he doesn’t know.
he loves the devils. he loves his team. but he'd leave. he knows the nhl have made accommodations for soulmates before, but maybe not two players. they’ve moved a player to a team in a city where his child receives cancer treatment, so as not to separate the player from his soulmate and his child.
nico doesn’t think there’s ever been trades to put two soulmates on the same team. not publicly for that reason anyway. he knows about those guys - maybe ryan’s friends even? - in san jose. but that wasn’t deliberate, it was blind luck.
“i’ll talk to my agent,” nico offers, takes a sip of his coffee. “i’ll ask for soulbond accommodation. i’ll go to DC. “
ryan stares at him. stunned. this is the second time they’ve ever sat across from one another and nico is offering to leave his team for this? for their bond?
maybe he really is serious. damn.
“the league can’t keep us apart. The WHO and the United Nations… the Human Rights Committee… they all agree that forceful separation of a soulbonded pair is inhumane and leaves lasting negative health effects. emotional and physical. soulmates have the human right to be together if they both want it. the league has to agree. they have to.”
ryan wants to be anywhere but this diner. he wants to kiss nico. touch nico. hold on to nico.
he pulls his wallet out, slaps some cash on the table to cover their bill.
“let’s go. we have to go. take me to your place. now.”
ryan can’t hold out until then so he pushes nico up against his car in the diner parking lot and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him.
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