For All You Young Hockey Players Out There, Pay Attention
For All You Young Hockey Players Out There, Pay Attention, by thursdaysfallenangel ( @thursdaysfallenangel) Rating: Explicit Word Count: 147k
Dean Winchester knows two things about hockey, two things his dad made sure he knew. One, hockey is a guyâs sport, and two, hockey is family. Hockey meant Sam and Bobby and Benny and Victor and Gabriel and hell, his entire team. So when Victor gets traded, Russian-star-turned-new-teammate Castiel Krushnic becomes a threat. As much as Dean hates him for that, the longer he sticks around, the more he begins to threaten that first rule too. Deanâs been taught his whole life that those who play hockey should not be captivated by deep accented voices and the way a guy handles his stick, so how the hell is he supposed to justify what heâs starting to think about Cas? All Dean wanted at the beginning of the season was to win, and now all he wants to do is figure out how he feels about Cas and how to deal with it without ruining his career and tearing his family apart.
I am always a fan of a slow burn, enemies to lovers fic, and this fic DELIVERS. Watching the development of Dean and Cas' relationship and how their feelings slowly deepen from friendship and into love is the best part of this fic.
Dean and Cas start out as teammates who can barely stand to be in the same room with each other, let alone play hockey together. Dean is resentful that Cas has taken his best friend, Victor's, place on the team and he makes it his mission to make Cas as miserable as possible. When Dean figures out that making Cas miserable isn't really conducive to winning hockey games, he tries to make friends with him, and well... The rest is history.
I loved this fic for the amount of action it shows -- even if you're not a really big hockey fan, you can still understand everything that's happening in the fic, and the way the author describes the action makes you feel like you're right in the middle of it. It also develops first the friendship and then the love between Dean and Cas realistically. Dean tries to fight against his feelings for Cas as best he can, but you can tell all through the fic that he's fighting a losing battle.
Since this is a hockey fic, there is homophobia, internalized and not, subtle and not. The author doesn't shy away from that, or the fact that the sport of hockey itself is not particularly welcoming to LGBTQ+ players, but this fic exists in an idealized world where Dean and Cas aren't ostracized for being queer.
If you're looking for an action packed, enemies to lovers, slow burn fic that will leave you cheering at the conclusion, look on further! You'll be rooting for Dean and Cas all the way through.
