Sidney wants to lose his virginity. Geno helps.

“Hello.” Zhenya looks up, and there’s a small boy on the other side of the counter. He smiles so wide that Zhenya can easily tell that he’s missing one of his two front teeth—kind of like Sasha but more adorable—and he’s got dimples in his round cheeks. In which Geno is a chocolatier and Sid really loves the truffles his son keeps buying for him.

Lots of people watch Geno. Like most people, really, at least let their eyes linger for a few seconds. For starters, he’s six foot three with a penchant for thick-soled combat boots and carefully sculpted hair arrangements that together can easily add 5 inches to his overall height. Then there’s the eyebrow ring, the purple streak through his dark hair, the smudged eyeliner, and typically, the tightest pants Geno can pour his fabulous if-he-does-say-so-himself ass into. All of those would be enough, any given day, to make people stop and stare. But today he’s also the guy most of North America watched in Prime Time last night, kicking ass and taking names as he as he swiped the Men’s Singles Gold from the clutches of that whiny fucking sore loser, Plushenko. So. Yeah, lots of people are watching him, but Sidney Crosby is not lots of people. He’s Sidney fucking Crosby.

The naiad moved in shortly after Sid finished his house, that first summer, a week after he filled the pool. He noticed some splashing one morning while he was eating breakfast, and when he went outside to investigate, she popped her head up out of the water, clung to the side of the pool, and hissed at him. “Uh,” Sid said, still holding a slice of toast in one hand. Dew from the grass chilled his bare feet. “Are you—hi?”

Jordie is a totally supportive brother, which is why he's hiring Jamie a stripper.

Kent Parson comes out and it's a bit of a train wreck, but not for the reasons you might think.

Bitty is in Annie’s, bent over his textbooks and wondering, not for the first time, why he decided to take French as a language (oh yes, it’s because so many old recipes are written in French, he’s going abroad there to study food history, can’t wait for the summer; half of fall and then winter semester until he goes, but that doesn’t help him now does it) , when he hears someone clear their throat. “Excuse me, is this seat taken?” Oh boy. Eric doesn’t even bother lifting up his head. “Sorry, not a girl and not interested.”

Travis goes into heat while in the bubble. The only problem is that Patty is 2000 kilometers away.

There was an empty bed, a bassinet, and a recliner. There was a sink, a window overlooking the city, and a small table. But none of those things registered because Nicky was standing in the middle of the room shirtless, with the tiniest baby Alex had ever seen cradled to his chest as he swayed. ———— Nicky adopts a baby and Alex falls in love.

The ESPN hockey anchors take a cheap shot. Bitty takes one back.

When Dan Erikson is assigned to write an article about Jack Zimmermann's years in college, he thinks he knows what he's getting into. Then he meets Professor Simpson, Jack's photography professor. [also known as: Good Guy Reporter Dan Erikson]

Jack looks at her and then puts her luggage down and leans in, grabs her into a full-body hug, right there on the sidewalk, holding her so close. She can’t remember when he last hugged her this hard. “He told his parents. About being gay. About us,” he says into her shoulder. “They were awful.”

Taylor loves it, everyone watching while he fucks himself on Adam’s dick and Adam’s hands are tight on his hips while he tells Taylor how good he looks, how everyone wants to be where Adam is. He loved it back in juniors and it’s even better now.

Geno is too injured to go to the 2017 All-Star Game, which would be bad enough if that wasn't also the weekend of Sidney's scheduled heat. Luckily, Alex Ovechkin is more than willing to help Sid through it.

A bracelet doesn't need to mean much, really.

The grainy cellphone photo on the cover of the magazine is of his own back, his red Samwell t-shirt. He's got a forearm braced on the wall, his other hand holding the face of someone small and blond, mostly blocked from view, who has his hands on Jack's chest and a blue hoodie tied around his waist. Emblazoned across the bottom of the cover are the words IS JACK ZIMMERMANN GAY? and it feels like someone just punched him in the stomach.

Soft hockey boys just trying to make it work.

Nicky wanted a family. He wanted a family very much, but not like this.

It hits him like a goddamn bus right after his and Crosby’s power play goal puts Canada up 5-0. Not the heat itself—that’s little more than a prickle under his skin—but the knowledge that one’s coming. Here. In Prague.

It was embarrassing, but Tom only realized he was in rut well into the last week of January. It was Thursday, and he was in Starbucks because Mike had mentioned, off-hand, that he was a little bit tired and needed some caffeine. Tom got to the front of the line, made eye contact with the pretty omega boy behind the register, and barely caught his drool with his own hand.

Landy is shaking his head next to him as he applies the scent blocker to his own upper lip. "I thought you guys were friends -- you've never smelled his heat pheromones before?" "What? I was friends with who?" Landy smacks Nate upside the head. "Crosby," he says, like it should be the most obvious thing in the world. Nate looks back out at the ice, where Sid is taking a faceoff, a bead of sweat dripping down his face. "Holy shit," he mutters.

“Guys?” Tom asks, yawning, as he pokes his head into the den. “Whoa! Whoa, okay,” he says. “I—” Andre laughs, loud, easy, so Tom doesn’t think he needs to run. “Stay,” he says, giving a lazy wave to the couch.

It coalesces somewhere around hour two, and then it’s suddenly, inescapably, achingly obvious. He takes a deep breath and realizes he’s just really, really horny. What the ever-living hell? -- Wherein curses are real, pride comes before a fall, and PK and Carey have to cope with a little more magic than anyone expected.

Andre just short-circuits people’s normal boundaries. Alex has even put down the Wales trophy.

Alex twists the ring around his finger as he watches Nick pace. He consented, everyone did, but in the privacy of their room, he seems much more on edge now about it. “Nicky,” he finally whines, sick of watching. Despite all his pacing, Nicky’s face is blank and Alex has no idea what he’s thinking. Nicky spins to face him. “I don’t want this.”

Miro hasn't even gotten a chance to meet Roman properly yet, since he only got to the team the day before, and now management is essentially assigning them to... fuck. Management is assigning them to fuck. The thought rings loud and clear in his head as he finally shakes Jim's hand and leaves the office. He can't remember the rest of the conversation, no matter how hard he tries. His brain is still stuck on management assigning him a fuckbuddy.

A hockey rookie joins the campus drag troupe. Sasha didn’t know they even had a campus drag troupe. Sasha hasn’t been paying a lot of attention.

Sometimes, when a player is having relationship trouble of some kind, he wakes up in bed with a retired player who wore the same number. In theory, the retired player gives some advice.

“You,” Alex says, pointing at him. “Me,” he continues, pointing back at himself. “Married.” “Oh,” Nicky says. “Oh.” [It doesn't go any smoother after that.]

When your love for someone or something changes, you get love fever. When you get love fever, you usually get a love rash: a nasty, persistent itch in the shape of flowers or birds or your lover's hands. Alex has always noticed that Nicky doesn't get love blisters, just like he's noticed how Nicky fumes after losses, and prefers lasagna to ziti, and likes his girlfriends to cut his hair. He just assumed Nicky was one of those lucky people, the ones who don't get the rash.

Nicky generally considers himself a fairly competent, attentive person, so the fact that it’s taken him years to figure out that Alex has been essentially dating him is...disappointing. And also exhilarating.

Nicky scores a hat trick, and gets an orgasm. Or three.

What is supposed to be a special night for them takes a seemingly nightmarish turn. (AKA the one where Nicky grows tentacles.)

There's no word in English rude enough for “holy shit, my long-term life partner turns into an angry crow once every ten years,” but there fucking should be.

Nicklas Backstrom knows that Alexander Ovechkin is his soulmate but they never talk about it.

Five people (well, technically six) who already knew Sasha and Nicky were together and the one person they surprised.

It isn't, Alex reflects inanely, the fact that Nicky isn't wearing his cuffs. They aren't even cuffs but magic-infused braided and inscribed leather bracelets, one on each wrist—Nicky pushes them up his forearms during every game. No, it's Nicky's anguished face when he takes them off.

A writer from Alex's past outs him in an essay. What's a guy to do but marry his former best friend?

“Think the storm did it,” Sasha tells the kids over lunch the next day. Andre got last place in their morning skate shootout contest, so he’s paying. “Did what?” Willy says through a mouthful of sushi. Sasha points at him with his chopsticks. “Your powers,” he says. “Snowzilla comes, suddenly everyone’s mutants? Something happened there, no other explanation.” Latts strokes his chin. “Didn’t the Flash get struck by lightning or something? It’s not totally crazy.”

“Best baby need best jersey,” Alex says blithely, which doesn’t actually answer the question. It does, however, tell Nicklas whose jersey it is, and sure enough when Alex lifts it up to put it back in the bag Nicklas can see the 8 and the 'OVECHKIN' emblazoned on the back. or, nicklas finds himself responsible for a baby. alex approves.

A wolfborn on an airplane was either unbearably reckless or a hockey player. Most of the time, both.

“So,” the first reporter asks, pushing forward in the scrum, “did you know about Alex Ovechkin?”

Alex loves his kids, he really does, but he also might kill them. That is, if they don't put him in a goddamn early grave first. (Cop bribing, theft of public property, and how to photoshoot your dick properly in order to seduce a teammate: all part of a captain's responsibilities to his rookies.)

This is an AU about a dick piercing.

In which alternate universe Boston had 4th pick and Washington had 5th pick in the 2006 draft, and in which alternate universe the NHL is kind enough make accommodations for players’ personal circumstances. For instance, to allow Washington to pick Alex Ovechkin’s absolutely true, definitely not fake, 100% not-made-up fiancé to come play for the Caps. “You what,” Alex says. “Alex Ovechkin’s who?” —and its aftermath, through the years.

“You can’t be picked if you’re married," Nicky says, like it's obvious. “I’m not married,” Alex replies. “You’re marrying me,” Nicky says, his jaw set. “You haven’t proposed."

It’s a game. It’s a game to see how loud he can be and not have anyone but Nicky hear him, a game to see what he can do without anyone but Nicky noticing.

Sid is almost 18 when he moves to Pittsburgh for a job--and the gay scene.

It’s going to be a big deal, his mother had told him, and Nicklas had listened. His mom’s not an idiot. It’s going to be a big deal, she’d promised, if and when you find them. It’s going to be more than you thought it would, and if and when you know it, you’ll know it for sure.

Hockey is hockey, and politics is politics. There are kings of the game, and there are kings in their crowns and robes, and there isn't usually much in the way of overlap. Things change every day, though, depending on how you look at them. -- In which there is a small tragedy, a great success, and a lot to learn about someone Sasha thought he knew awfully well.