Patrick had a letter written on his wrist when he was born, small and even in black pen-print. Well, technically it started to show up a day after he was born, like a bruise that takes time to settle in. Patrick doesn’t remember, obviously, but his parents will tell him whenever he asks, how small it was and how it just... faded in, a little ‘J’.

The 'what if everyone played hockey instead' AU

“Geno? Are you okay? Physically,” Sid asks, which is good, because Zhenya doesn’t think he can put into words how he’s feeling emotionally. He imagines saying, The person I’ve loved for ten years finally took me to bed last night, but it turns out he didn’t want to, and now I can read his mind. No, thank you. “Feel fine,” Zhenya answers. “Even head feel fine.” And suddenly he realizes how fucking odd that is: he was concussed, and the room is brightly lit – he should be hiding under a blanket right now. He narrows his eyes and asks, “Sid, why head feel fine? What happen to concussion?” Sid takes a halting step closer to the bed and says, “Our bond, it’s—it’s a healing bond.” “Holy mother of God,” Zhenya breathes. So. They’re definitely not breaking the bond, then.

On the government's classified mutant register—and on the NHL's records—Sidney is listed as Sidney Patrick Crosby, Nova Scotia, Canada: Class Two. Death visions, skin contact required.

Magnitogorsk doesn’t hold much for him. He stares down the barrel of his future there: toiling away at a factory job, living and dying streets away from where he was born. He rubs the water-smoothed stone in his pocket, and thinks of the thunder of the waves. He knows that staying here will kill some essential part of himself. And so, he leaves. For PatriciaKoiFish, I hope very much that you like it :)

“We were playing a pickup game on a rink in my hometown and I high sticked him in the face and knocked his front tooth out. I thought he was going to be so angry but he looked at me like he wanted to hold out his bloody tooth to me and propose.”

This started with @whoacanada‘s wholly addictive NHL Bitty fics - one of which was an AU where Bitty didn’t go to the Seattle Schooners but the Pittsburgh Penguins. I hadn’t actually intended to write anything because (1) I don’t really write much these days and (2) I have weird, twitchy feelings about RPF (parts of which are completely hypocritical given I have read RPF before). If I had to attribute blame, though, it’s because of @itsybittle whose original reply was the one that made think of an actual story and sequence of events rather than just funny tags. In any case, here is a story about Eric Bittle and the Pittsburgh Penguins. I’m hoping you enjoy it and that none of the ‘you’ here involves anybody actually in this incredibly fictional (and no doubt out of character) depiction of real people (if it does, I apologise pre-emptively and would like to wish you luck in game 6!). PS. @itsybittle, hope you enjoy ;) PPS. yes, some of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins mentioned are completely made up.

"Being a star athlete changes you." And just when you think you're done, you become the face of an expansion team. Playing a winter sport in a desert. OR A (Dragon)Flower in the Desert

[8:03 am] is it considered unpatriotic to lose your virginity to a russian hockey captain? asking for a friend