Geno can't. Sidney won't.

Sidney groans, because this is ridiculous. “I think I’m having an allergic reaction,” he says.

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’.

Sidney Crosby isn't the only omega playing in the NHL, but he is the only one suffering from heat-delay.

Sidney grows up hearing about the types of soulbonds, and every time someone gets gushy about them Sid just rolls his eyes and goes back to whatever it was that he was doing. Does he want a bond? Yeah, of course, but - after hockey; only after hockey. Some of the guys are already bonded, and that’s awesome for them. Sid likes all of their bondmates, they’re all awesome. But for Sid, it’d just be something else to distract him from the game.

“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.

When Taylor is old enough, her dad starts making noises about getting her a bond. He's apparently found someone who is willing to "discreetly" get her an asymmetrical bond and forge reciprocal paperwork for it. When Taylor mentions it to Sid, too excited to pull off sounding anything but, he lets slip a plaintive "No."

Beyond that door is a boy Sid has skated with six times, and spoken to twice. He’s a year older than Sid is, and drugged out of his mind on Bonding agent.

“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.

Conor's not exactly sure what the protocol is when the namemark on your wrist belongs to best player in the world (and your new captain), and you're an undrafted kid out of UMass. Do you wait for him to say something first? Yeah, better wait for him to say something first.

“Sid, I’m so—I’m sorry,” Geno said. “My stupid—I’m ruin everything, I—” “Shut up, Geno,” Sidney said, already intensely weary of listening to Geno’s self-recrimination. “You’ve barely even done anything.” Geno’s voice dropped what sounded like an entire octave. “But I want to.”

The first time Sid meets Geno, he isn’t Geno, he’s Evgeni Malkin, and he’s the enemy. Sid is so pumped up for the game he barely notices him. He doesn’t notice anything except hockey, and Malkin’s good, but that’s all he is. He feels a tinge of sadness when Canada wins, but he guesses he just feels bad. Ovechkin’s not the only one crying, and Sid isn’t so unfeeling he doesn’t have some sympathy for how it must suck to lose. He also gets a headache when he flies back home, but he’s just really overtired is all. He doesn’t think anything of it.

"I think I have to get bonded," Sid said in a hollow voice, cutting off Geno's building outrage. "Wait, what?" Geno asked, mind jumping like a car on a blown tire. "To who?" "Anybody." Sid's eyes were unfocused, staring through the wall in front of him. "I don't know. I just need to bond." "That's a story," Geno scoffed. He had always thought they had good sex education in Canada, but apparently, the rumors persisted there, too. "You don't stop heat if you bond." "Heat?" Sid asked, eyes squinched up curiously. "G—I'm not. You know I'm an alpha, right?" *** Or five times Sid couldn't bond with an omega and one time he did.

At the 2014 Olympics, Russia injected Zhenya with a bond blocker, same as the last two times he'd been to the games. Only this time, it brought him to his knees and left him gasping, feeling like his soul was ripped from his body. As an unbonded omega, the shot should have no effect. It should have only targeted an active bond. Unbeknownst to Zhenya, Sid collapsed on the ice at the same time.

Sid growls. He can’t help it. It’s wrong. Malkin is whimpering and crying and struggling against his restraints. His scent is all fear and chemicals and something deeper, something dark and oppressing. Sid thinks it’s anger but it’s too bitter to try and get a proper read on.

Evgeni Malkin is thirteen when he soul bonds.

Eight years, four months and change, and that's the moment the bond snaps into place.

Sidney is late making his Soulgift. Anonymous asked: Soulbond AU for Sid and G please?

“You’re an investment,” Pat had told Sid over and over. “You’re a talent, and we’re not letting the league freeze you out for this.” The NHL demands omegas be bonded to play. Sid, unwilling to lose hockey, agrees to enter into a bond with the Penguins' draft prospect Evgeni Malkin. It does not go as they planned.

Geno keeps the mental door closed to his teammates in the summer, at least when he can help it; he doesn’t always check in like Sid does. They have other ways of doing that, text and email and social media, and now is the time when they’re supposed to have a break from each other. Geno likes having his head to himself. It’s good for him to get it in order for the next season.

The problem is not that Zhenya's wolf knows what she wants. The problem is who she wants. (If he can't look Sidney Crosby in the eye without blushing it's going to be a very long season.)

The magic hits him as soon as he opens his car door. Hearth magic and earth magic and hedge magic, and probably more, all swirling in a cacophony that should have been overwhelming. But instead it feels like wading into…home.

“What is it that you do, Omega Malkin?” Sid says eventually, tired of the guessing game. Apparently, he’s asked a controversial question. There’s a tension in the air. Mrs. Malkin starts giving a very particular look to her son and Omega Malkin shifts in his seat and straightens his spine like he’s gearing up for a fight. “Hockey,” Omega Malkin says evenly. Sid’s fork slips from his grip and clatters against his plate. He looks up and across the table at Omega Malkin. -- or; Sidney Crosby is an unbonded werewolf. So is Evgeni Malkin.

It must happen during the Stanley Cup locker room celebration. Sid walks in, and sweeps the Cup up over his head amongst an eruption of champagne spray. Sid is so brilliantly, incandescently happy that he doesn’t even notice that not all the joy he feels is his own.