Kaner kicks off his twenty-eighth birthday party with an exponential crisis. Jonny frowns at him. “You’re having a crisis of ever-more-rapidly-increasing numbers?”

Emotionally constipated dudes expressing love through making out and deciding to have a kid. In front of the Stanley Cup. #thatsit #thatsthefic

Emotionally constipated dudes expressing love through making out and deciding to have a kid. In front of the Stanley Cup. #thatsit #thatsthefic

“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.

“So I say, before I’m thinking through, I say am getting married,” Geno says and glances up at Sid and then back down again. “They say to American?” Geno seems reluctant to continue. Sid’s stuck on trying to figure out who Geno is marrying and why he didn’t tell Sid about it. “I say, ‘no, to Canadian.'” Sid makes a face. Because seriously, Sid feels like he would’ve heard if Geno was dating someone that seriously. But then again, he had no idea Geno had a kid until he was sitting in a hotel room in fucking Finland. “Who?” Sid finally asks when Geno seems like he’s not going to continue. Geno takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “You.” “Me what?” Sid asks stupidly. or The summer Russia invaded Ukraine and Geno had to marry Sid: a love story.

Jonny’s prostate is a gift from the gods. Patrick’s patience, also.

“Oh my God, shut up Danny, you went to play for the Habs, you don’t know my pain.” Or, Claude Giroux gets traded to the Penguins.

For Anna’s sixth birthday, they take her to the ballet. [Sidney Crosby becomes a dance dad. Geno is bemused.]

Sid approaches the door and opens his mouth to call out when he's arrested by the sight in front of him. Geno sitting in the bright early summer grass with a little child in front of him, sun shining in her fluffy hair and on the crinkles by Geno's eyes as he talks to her, reaches for her, poking gently at her belly with one long finger, her eyes fixed on his face, mouth open in utter joy. Sid's heart seizes in his chest at the look on Geno's face as he watches.

Connor knew that some people started dating before they got their soul marks at twenty-four. He just never expected those people to be anyone he knew.

“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.”

When the PR team makes them do a couples quiz for the team's YouTube channel and Connor gets every question about him right, that's when Jack has to acknowledge to himself that, yeah, maybe they've become friends. or, Jack and Connor get drafted by the Seattle Kraken.

Some things in life are certain. Roses are red, violets are blue, Connor McDavid excels at hockey and he really—really—doesn't like sex.