Jonathan Toews is the billet brother Patrick never had. Or wanted. (A Sentinel AU in which the most far-fetched thing is Jonathan Toews going 24th in the draft.)

Sid’s gotten pretty used to total strangers asking him what he’s trying to prove, or telling him he wasn’t raised right, and they always expect it to bother him. He doesn’t tell them he hears much, much worse on the ice. When shit gets even worse than usual—when a ref calls him a brat when he’s arguing a call, when another team’s goon tries to put him on his knees five times a game—he sits on the bench and presses down on his chest protector, feeling the shape of the captain’s ring on its chain around his neck, until he doesn’t feel like throwing up anymore. Sid’s never had a dom, not even for a night, but he has his team, and that’s enough. That’s more than enough.

Instead of coming back from his concussion right away, Sidney takes some time to have a baby by accident.

“Vancouver!” Sid turns and shouts at the last second as she goes through the doors. “Vancouver!” Geno yells back. (Sochi timestamp.)

They met by accident, fate, Geno always says, three years ago.

Malkin’s table stays until closing time, still lingering over that bottle of Beluga when Sid comes out of the kitchen to start his nightly closing routine. He goes through the same checklist of jobs he does every night after the kitchen closes but before the bar does, tries to keep his mind on the tasks at hand, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice Malkin’s gaze tracking his movements, if he pretended that he can’t feel the heat of Malkin’s eyes on him as he moves around behind the bar. Sid tells himself to keep his head down, but when he does look up, just to test his theory, Malkin doesn’t even bother to look away, just holds Sid’s gaze, direct and unblinking with just the tiniest hint of a smile. The thing is, Sid’s notoriously bad at this stuff. He’s never had any working gaydar that he’s aware of, and he’s been wrong – very wrong – about this kind of thing probably more often, in his life, than he’s been right. So he assures himself this is just another one of those occasions where he’s definitely reading something incorrectly, imagining things, because there’s no way the captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins is, whatever – checking him out. That would be ridiculous.

Sidney would really like to be able to draw the line at being sexually attracted to his breath mints. Or, when Sidney was forced to do a whole lot of growing up

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.

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.

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

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.

At 27, Sidney's divorced, sharing custody of his daughter with his ex-wife, and has a reputation for renovating historic homes. He's just doing what he loves, but an audition tape he doesn't remember submitting to HGTV lands him a job offer in Pittsburgh. A few years later, it brings him the client that will change his life.

“I’m gonna be a groomsman,” Mitch says, then flops dramatically into the chair across from Auston, grabs Auston’s glass of whiskey, and takes a long sip. It burns as it goes down, and he makes a face. “Again.”

Mitch breaks up with his girlfriend of two years on a Tuesday.

Tkachuk’s trade from Calgary to Edmonton happened midseason, so he just shows up in the locker room on a Tuesday morning in early December with no announcement. He looks greasy and tired and wears a wrinkled suit. Leon can’t help but think that there's something odd about Tkachuk’s arrival in Edmonton. With all the effort that Tkachuk puts into establishing himself as a pest on the ice, he’s remarkably un-pest like on dry land.

It was just supposed to be a summer fling. An admittedly strange summer fling, because most casual hookups don’t come with ropes and gags and pet names. But still just a summer fling, because Kris Letang isn’t the kind of guy that wants a relationship. At least...he wasn’t that kind of guy. Now he’s not so sure.

"You know how every summer you joke about how I should collar you, for the league rule?" "Yeah?" Sid shoots a sideways look at Nate, but Nate is just sipping his beer, not looking back. "What if I took you up on that?"