In which the gay bar is Stalberg's idea and Kaner doesn't notice Jon pretending to be his boyfriend.

"Once there were two hockey players. One had great hair. One had a lot of brothers. This is their story." Or, Kris Letang gets a hug and Marc Staal meets a nice boy. Inspired by Morning to Wake You

It turns out that buddyfucking your best friend without shit getting weird requires constant vigilance.

The only jobs for which no man is qualified are human incubators and wet nurse. Likewise, the only job for which no woman is or can be qualified is sperm donor. -Wilma Scott Heide

“So, you Skype your boy a lot or something?” Kaner asks when he’s been there for a little while and heard Segs talk about Tyler enough to catch a clue. There’s something odd in his voice--a little plaintive, like he’s asking, so how do you deal with it? Segs hesitates, shrugs. Says, “Yeah, something like that.” Inside his head, Tyler laughs.

"We'll make this work somehow, sweetheart, won't we?" he said, swaying back and forth a bit as it warmed up. It probably made him look stupid, but he'd discovered there were a lot of stupid-looking things he'd do to keep his baby girl happy.

or, the many times Tyler Seguin tried to come out on Twitter and no one believed him.

Geno is sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for why Sidney has a dresser drawer full of sex toys, but right now he's drawing a blank.

Sidney is starting to get a reputation amongst the Pens for being the go-to guy for free childcare. Or, five times Sidney babysat and one time someone babysat for him.

His mom had told him not to fall in love with houses; so had his dad, made some crack about them being worse than women, son, while his mom fake-punched him in the arm and then added, "and like people, it's what's underneath that matters, Johnny." But this is the first house he's looked at that he's liked, though he doesn't know why: it's got narrow, pointy windows with stone pieces on the tops like eyebrows, and it sits between its larger, tidier, neighbours like a poor cousin. Johnny thinks it maybe just needs someone to love it; and then he thinks: fuck.

They’ve had this connection for nearly as long as they’ve known each other; Patrick doesn’t know why it happened, what made it so that out of all the people in the world, it’s Johnny and only Johnny whose thoughts he can read, but there it is. One day it was just Patrick in his head, and the next, he’d woken up with the background awareness of Johnny in there too, and a panicked, thumping voice saying, Oh, shit. You too?

Generally speaking, Kaner is the kind of girl you hear before you see coming. In some cases, literally. --- AKA the one where Jonny accidentally watches Kaner and Segs fucking over skype.

None of them have discussed the fact that Duncs is dating knock-off Seabses, because what can they really do about it?

Claude gets a new car. Cameron doesn't like it.

Kaner apparently starred in a porno at some point in his life. Jonny becomes very, very invested in watching it. Repeatedly.

“People who want to eat my grilled cheese for dinner should learn not to interrupt the delicate purchasing process with their unwelcome mockery,” Claude says. Danny and Claude move to Berlin. Nothing really changes, until everything does.

"Yes, Kaner," Sharpy's saying as Jonny sits down next to them with a beer. "It would indeed be gay to measure your teammates' dicks to find out whose is biggest."

This wasn't supposed to happen. In the lists of things Brent wasn't expecting, this is at least third on the list, after 'being able to talk to animals' and 'growing wings' (but before 'zombie apocalypse').

“We should have sober sex,” Patrick says, rolling his neck until it pops loudly. He really should be thinking about getting up off of the floor. “Why would we do that?” Jonny asks, twisting to look down at Patrick like he just suggested that they throw puppies into traffic.

P.K. finally gets Carey to come hang out over the summer.

The third time, Sidney is taking out the trash, and the boy is having a staring match with a raccoon.

Some things are trickier than expected when you've had surgery on both wrists.

It's one thing to know that Kaner and Tazer are weird about each other, and another thing to actually see it. (or: several people who unfortunately had to interact with them, and one time they got to be alone).

Last week Sidney had said, "We're totally fucked," and started hyperventilating; Geno had made calming noises for the next hour. Then Sidney'd gone out and had to deliver semi-positive soundbites, since apparently he is now the face of the "we can still have a season, please don't give up on us, we are trying so fucking hard" contingent.

Being telepathic saves a ton of money on phone bills. In which Jeff and Mike develop telepathy after they're traded from Philadelphia.

So ‘Zhenya’ is a private name. It’s something Sid says to wake Geno up late at night when he’s half-asleep on the couch and needs to be cajoled to bed. It’s something Sid calls him first thing in the morning when Geno's made him breakfast instead of letting Sid eat his sad granola another day. It’s the name Sid whispers when he hugs Geno after a win and tells him he’s proud.

“I’ve had that since I was eighteen,” Sidney moans. “My grandma gave it to me after the draft. It’s my good luck necklace.”

Eric’s always been pretty discreet about hooking up with people, Cam can’t remember ever actually seeing him leave with anyone on these team outings. Most of the time he seems perfectly content to hang out with the team, hang out with Cam, even though he could hook up with just about anyone easily enough. Very easily, Cam thinks, a little grimly, as Eric ducks his head a little and the lights catch in his hair.

[He's gotten good at not touching people, and he knows that his methods are considered weird by the internet and most of the world, but they keep him sane and focused on hockey. It's not so bad on the ice, when hockey's the only thing, and there are inches of pads and cloth between skin and skin. Off ice, he developed a habit of shoving his hands as far into his pockets as they could go, until a PR agent told him in high school that it made him look sullen and untouchable. After that, he took to just barely sticking his fingers in his pockets, a more subtle "don't touch me" that doesn't make him slouch too badly. He's beginning to realize that that the action is possibly more awkward than just sticking his hands all the way into his pockets, but it's habit now, and hard to break.] Or, Sidney is telepathic, which explains 95% of his idiosyncrasies.

Five+one people who assumed Cam and Eric were dating.

Taylor Hall doesn't think a destroyed slice of chocolate cake, a broken bed and his line-mates wearing his clothes necessarily means anything. The rest of the team don't agree.

Patrick writes his name on Jonny's to-send Christmas cards. It leads to feelings.

jonny washes patrick's hair; patrick doesn't hate it.

Jeff made a good decision choosing hockey over figure skating. That doesn't mean he's let go of it completely.

Do you remember the first time you saw the stars? The first time you looked up and realized there were an infinite number of worlds that humanity had left to discover? I don’t know how old I was when I first yearned to go up there; it’s all I’ve ever known. And I can tell you this — even though I have seen more worlds than I ever imagined, even though I have sacrificed so much to do this, I have never lost that desire to explore, or that profound amazement that I feel when I look up into the infinite wonder of the skies. - Captain Manon Rhéaume

["Dude," Jonny says. "You don't need to tell my girlfriend about the like seven times total we hooked up."] Lindsey is mistaken, Jonny is confused, and Kaner is uninformed (but has talked all of this out with his girlfriend like sensible people do).

Geno will maintain until his dying day that the first time he sets the house on fire is definitely not his fault.

AU. Jonny's a hockey player, Patrick's a figure skater, they meet in a book shop.

Evgeniya Malkin was absolutely not expecting to hook up at the NHL Awards.

sometimes you have to go down before you can go out.

Carts acts all shocked about Mike being willing to live with him, which, seriously. "Where did you pick up this idea that I'm a douchebag?" demands Mike. "If anything, you should be the one skeeved out about living with a dom." Carts snorts. "I've built up an immunity to your skeeviness." "Then we don't have a problem," says Mike. "Come on, Arnold's gonna flip his shit."

Kane blows past Toews' D and circles around, looking for an opening... and he finds one, taking a hard slapper, and Toews gets a piece of that.

For fifteen years, Sidney has lived on the palace grounds in Petrograd. In that time, he has spoken to Prince Evgeni five times.

They've been hooking up for more than a year, undefined and mostly unspoken, when Johnny first speaks French in bed with Kaner.

And of course, because Sharpy is the most ill-mannered Canadian ever, he opens up the newspaper like he doesn't have the most entertaining thing in Chicago across the table from him anyway. He's totally pretending to read it, just to make Patrick salty, but two can play at that game, so he snatches the Sunday inserts out of the folds, smirking at Sharpy. But he glances down and staring up at him, looking like, all of eighteen and strangely soft and sweet is Jonathan fucking Toews.

Stiles wants to win for America, okay? He wants to bone that constipated expression off of Derek Hale’s face on a bed strewn with American flags while Bruce Springsteen plays in the background and a bald eagle watches through the window with a single tear rolling down its cheek.

Sidney Crosby has a problem, Jonathan Toews helps him solve it.

It’s extra great—whenever Jo’s losing, she always makes like their running point tally competition isn’t real. Tonight’s true to form: when Trish holds up three fingers and points at herself, then two before pointing at Jo, Jo actually scoffs as she pokes at a couple chicken breasts with the tongs, trying to find the best one.

As road roommates and partners in crime, Burish and Sharpie consider it their god-given responsibility to torment the young stars on their team. One night, they get more then they bargained for.

Sid and Geno are superheroes. Sid has an easier time of it than Geno does.