be curious

it’s okay, though, truly — brandon doesn’t mind the somewhat slower pace that comes with the new role, doesn’t even mind the glacial pace that comes with the new perspective. right now, he’s an assistant coach for a team that’s decently good, a team that doesn’t really need his feedback but takes it with only a bit of eye rolling, a team that knows not to say vile shit in front of him even if they’re saying it everywhere else.

it’s… enough.

still, he’s got his sights on something better, something stronger, something worth working for, and he’s keen and sharp and strategic, so he watches the cup finals with an eye toward who these two teams are going to throw away when the season is over. which guys are good but not good enough? which guys have everything to give but no space to give it right now?

brandon thinks he’s pretty good at seeing the seams at which teams coming together and fall apart; if he could, he’d take out a needle and sew it all up.

a few months ago, he’d have said that scott hunter was a loose thread in the admirals’ line-up, but he’s glad to be proven wrong. there’s something about the way he plays that brandon has always admired — fierce, angry, focused. as if he’s running from something almost as hard as he’s rushing.

brandon doesn’t understand, but he supposes he doesn’t need to. he adjusts the baby in his arms and lays his head against his wife’s shoulder.

steph’s already got a sleepy toddler curled up on her lap, but she shifts to accommodate his touch anyway, her smile soft and warm. anyone for the dream team? she asks, tilting her head toward the screen.

it’s a game they play sometimes, when they watch hockey and talk about hockey and think about hockey which — well, it tends to be all the time. stephanie is a physical therapist, and though she mostly works with elderly patients, she’s been on and off with brandon since they were practically kids, fumbling around behind the bleachers in her cheerleading uniform, so she knows hockey, knows it like he does, deep in her soul, and she knows that in the back of his mind, he’s always thinking about which two dozen men might be able to build hockey into something that hurts the people who love it just a little less.

brandon stares at the screen, watches the goalie deflect a shot like it’s nothing.

no, he says after a moment. or — well. hunter, of course. but they’ll never let him go.

steph scoffs. that’s why it’s a dream team, babe. you think boston and montreal are getting rid of rozanov and hollander any time soon? though, she adds, your dream team is pretty heavy on centers. maybe you should steal a goalie

he disagrees. rozanov and hollander won’t make it past training camp without killing each other. hunter is our only true hope.

steph laughs at this and it’s his favorite sound, so brandon can’t help but laugh along, which wakes the children who thankfully only grumble and snort themselves back to sleep with a few gentle pats on the back.

really, though. no goalies? steph asks once they’re settled again, her tone kind but just inquisitive enough. it’s not really fair of her, brandon thinks. she knows, obviously, about eric bennett. she’s never cared and at this point, he doesn’t think she ever will. he fucking loves her and she loves him, so they’re good there, good enough that apparently she can chirp him about the one who got away. you do need a goalie. and he’s damn good.

he doesn’t reply anything for a moment. it’s dumb, he thinks, to have that twisting gut feeling over something that happened nearly two decades ago, to feel that pang of hurt again when he’s happier than he’s ever been, to wonder about what might have been if hockey had been kinder when he was young.

it’s just a stupid dream team.

he’s too old, he says eventually with a nonchalant shrug. it’s true — eric is only a few months older than him, and while he may be young for a coach, he’s not exactly in his prime for playing hockey. by the time i get the chance, he’ll retire.

the game ends.

scott hunter kisses a man on the tv.

nothing really changes, but everything shifts.

(he’s good at hockey, he thinks — not first-round draft pick good, of course, but good enough to be noticed by some scouts, good enough to maybe play for some franchise’s farm team — but it’s nice to feel this boy sigh into the kiss and think oh, maybe i can be good at this too)

this isn’t his first time, brandon makes sure to say when he finally manages to tear himself away from the quarterback, one hand braced against a sculpted bicep and the other against a smooth chest. kissing, i mean, he says, cheeks turning hot. or — or other stuff.

it’s true and it’s not, in a way, because brandon has done this before and more — he had a girlfriend freshman year, and his prom date had blushed taking the condoms out of her purse — but never with a guy.

the quarterback shrugs. same, he says, casual, like this is nothing of substance, nothing that matters, even though the ground is going out from beneath brandon’s feet and he can’t help but wonder if the butterflies in his stomach mean he’s gay.

he’s not, he doesn’t think. after the summer is over, he goes back to his billet family and his hockey team and his high school, and the girls there like to flirt and he definitely likes to flirt back, and when a cheerleader takes him behind the bleachers after homecoming, he’s not thinking about if the quarterback from back home is doing the same thing with a girl of his own

(at least, he admits, he’s not thinking about it until later, once he’s spent and sleepy and content)

(he keeps in touch with the cheerleader when she goes to college and he goes to the ahl, exchanging emails and letters and phone calls when they had they had the time, and she tells him about the word bisexual, because that’s what she thinks she is, and he thinks oh because maybe he is, too. it’s not quite earth-shattering, but it makes him feel light and free in a way that he doesn’t feel again until he marries her so many years later)

the second time brandon kisses a boy, he’s twenty-two and drunk again, twenty-two and nervous, twenty-two and love-struck, twenty-two and wondering what it might be like to kiss a boy without alcohol burning through his inhibitions.

eric is sweet to him, shy and quiet and better at hockey than brandon thinks he’ll ever be. it’s silly to think like that, maybe — they’re both playing for detroit, both perceptive and keen, but eric has this ability to basically repel pucks from the net and brandon… well, he’s okay at getting them in. his talents, he thinks secretly, lie in strategy, not execution.

Wiebe and Bennet first (or early) kiss, cannot be in a hotel room. Go Bea Go!

apologies, I’ve developed a very specific Style for this pairing and I’ll be sticking with it and also, I’m sorry, I cheated

the first time they kiss — really, actually kiss, the way it happens in a movie with soft lips and gentle sighs and hips pressed together with no sense of urgency — brandon’s got his back pressed against the ice machine and his shoulder digging into the vending machine and he can barely think over the buzz of the fluorescent lights above them but it doesn’t matter, because eric’s got a hand in his hair and the ice bucket is empty at their feet and god, something finally feels right.

they’d lost the game that afternoon, lost it bad, and the rest of the team had fucked off to a bar to drink away their sorrows, but brandon had brought whiskey and eric had brought that damned, charming smile, so they’re alone in the hotel and drunk at 8pm, and part of him thinks they should worry about getting caught, part of him wonders if getting ice was really a two-person job, but now he’s being kissed by a boy he likes almost in the open, hidden only by half-walls and appliances and luck.

we should head back, he manages to mumble when eric pulls away, the action almost hesitant, almost mournful. our room, he adds, the door still propped open only thirty feet away, the empty room waiting for them with room service and lukewarm jack daniel’s except that’s not where brandon wants to go

brandon wants to take eric to the bar with their teammates, he wants to take eric to dinner over candlelight, he wants to take eric into his bedroom in the apartment he shares with three other players, wants to take eric apart with his hands and his mouth and his tongue so he can extract every last bit of love from the alcohol they pretend they need to do this.

he can only have one of those things.

and then they’re drunk and the shadows cast by the dim hotel lamp seem to make the boy’s dimples deeper and his eyes brighter, and then they’re kissing and kissing and kissing and eric is breathless and the boy is moaning and they’ve both lost their socks, their shirts, their pants, and they’re just in their boxers, grinding against each other on eric’s bed until they both come with a gasp and then the boy with the dimples goes back to his own bed so coach doesn’t kill them for oversleeping and eric listens to him snore while he thinks and thinks and tries not to think

because — well — he likes girls. eric knows he likes girls, he dated girls all through college and never had any issues finding them attractive. and this boy is his friend, and sometimes friends fool around, and that doesn’t mean anything, right? it’s the early 2000s and bisexuality is still something that’s barely more than a joke on tv, nearly fucking unheard of in hockey, so as long as eric likes girls, whatever he does with his buddy doesn’t mean anything. can’t mean anything.

so they do it again and again, nothing super far, nothing too far, nothing that would be gay, just some drunk kissing, grinding, and hand stuff in the darkness of a hotel room, never somewhere that they live, never somewhere that is too real, and they make it through most of the season like this, laughing and whispering in the shadows as eric’s heart swells and swells, and it’s okay because it doesn’t mean anything, it isn’t really real

but then that boy — god, that beautiful, kind, funny, compassionate boy with eyes that peer into eric’s goddamn soul — he says the words that make it real, he makes those feelings tangible, makes eric taste them in the space between their lips as they gasp into each other’s mouths, and something deep inside eric twists up, and he tries to let him down gently, means to break it off as friends, but what he does is shove him aside and call him a word the next day that tastes as bitter as the word “love” tastes sweet

(both words burn his throat in a way that reminds him of taking a shot)

and he tells the team at least part of it, not on purpose but in the way that word spills out of his mouth, in a way that has other boys approaching him in the locker room with lowered voices asking do you think he really is? and hey bennett, i thought harvard was full of those fuckers, aren’t you used to it by now? and i heard he made a pass and eric doesn’t confirm anything, he doesn’t say just last week, he shouted my name when he came and I jerked off at the sound, but that doesn’t matter because they know now and the brightness in the boy’s eyes fades away before the end of the season

and then rumors say the boy is headed to ahl because nobody wants to deal with the gossip and eric is traded to new york because nobody wants to deal with him, so he packs his bags and leaves detroit behind, leaves behind the memories of the boy’s laughter and his smile and his dimples, and he decides that he doesn’t like drinking all that much anymore because every taste of alcohol reminds him of the word “love”

and he meets his wife and he loves her and he’s attracted to her because he likes girls, and so it’s no problem if he used to get off with a friend, and then he wins a cup and his teammate comes out and it’s wonderful and freeing and happy, and he keeps up with the boy’s career, sees him bounce around from team to team, wonders if he ever finds a place where ugly words don’t have a home like eric has

and then he gets divorced and then he’s getting old and then he hears that boy is grown and married and coaching in ottawa, where dreams go to die, and he feels a pang of what could have been, a pang of what if we had worked out, a pang of what if i had not been afraid, and he does not drink because he thinks it will remind him of the taste of the past

and then, then, eric meets a younger man who makes drinks that taste like love without booze, drinks that feel warm and sweet going down without any of the burn, and when eric touches him, it truly feels like the first time he’s been with a man because the eric of so goddamn long ago hadn’t thought it was real, hadn’t been able to process that, hadn’t wanted to process that

and then two nhl players are outed and eric watches with pride as one team supports their player, and he watches with shame as the other team abandons theirs, and he just knows what type of team he used to be part of

so, he volunteers his summer at the irina foundation in spite of retirement, sure that they need more goalies on their team, happy to bring kyle on a trip to some local museums and hikes, happy to show off how goddamn happy he is

and when that boy — that man, fully grown, married with children now — walks into the rink on the first day of camp, all eric can do is smile and remember

because it was real

and brandon wiebe’s eyes still sparkle

and the guy is so nice, so kind to his face, but it goes downhill fast, maybe he has a big mouth, maybe he blabbed, maybe he called him that word in passing that held just a little more weight than it does when he says it to straight guys (and it hurts but brandon doesn’t want to judge, can’t judge, cuz he’s said the same to others, it’s just how locker rooms are, except what if they weren’t? what if he could make one that didn’t? But he can’t get that far ahead of himself, he can’t delude himself any more) but it doesn’t matter what happens, really, because the fact of the matter is that the guy doesn’t love him back and the guy told people and those people are refusing to pass to him and refusing to change near him and refusing to be civil to him

so brandon is sent to the ahl that summer and that beautiful, dark eyed, perceptive, intelligent goalie goes to new york and sometimes when brandon is feeling down, he kicks himself even harder by looking him up and seeing his perfect marriage and perfect life and perfect everything

and eventually it fades. brandon meets the woman of his dreams who doesn’t care that he’s still attracted to men and they have beautiful children and he plays hockey and he watches scott hunter come out because of course he watches new york win a cup and he coaches in ottawa and he gets to finally make a locker room where cruelty isn’t the norm, where the men inside rally together to protect each other when the outside world is trying to rip them down, where they survive their super star center being humiliated and outed and they come out even stronger

https://x.com/i/status/2066455046141710507

On the one hand, it's one of the days he can most keenly feel the loss of his mom. He misses the way she would wake him up by pulling his ears – one tug for every year of his age – and then hand him his gift. He misses the way that she would always sneak him a second gift right before bed so that he wouldn't be sad about this birthday ending.

On the other hand, they're also a good reminder that life is better than it has been for a long time. Instead of the cold, perfunctory, "Happy Birthday, Ilya," he'd get from his father (if he was lucky), his team have always celebrated him. He's always had a pile of gifts left outside his locker to surprise him, he's always been taken out clubbing, never once having to buy a drink for himself.

His favourite thing has always been the happy birthday text he gets from Shane every year, going back to long before he was his boyfriend. He's never missed a single one, and they're a good encapsulation of how much their relationship had changed over the years:

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday Rozanov.

Happy birthday Rozanov.

Happy birthday Rozanov. 🎂

God knows if you'll actually get this, it's been literal fucking months, but for what it's worth, happy birthday. Hope you're okay.

Happy birthday Rozanov. 🎂🎉

Happy birthday Rozanov. Remind me to give you your 'gift' next time we're together. 😉

Happy birthday Ilya. I'll see you soon. Counting down the days. ❤️

On his first birthday as Shane Hollander's boyfriend, he finds that he's looking forward to waking up to this year's birthday text almost more than anything, and is disappointed when there isn't one. He figures Shane must just be busy and he'll text when he's finished with whatever he's got going on. Ilya carries on with his day, finishes his workout, showers, but still there's no text from Shane.

Now he's starting to panic. He's always gotten Shane's birthday messages first thing in the morning. Has something happened to him? He doesn't want to message in case it's nothing and he makes it sound like he's desperate for Shane's birthday message (as much as he kind of is), so he ends up scouring the news sites for any sign that something might have happened to him. There's nothing.

Feeling a little pit in his stomach at the idea that Shane might have forgotten his birthday in the first year of being his boyfriend, he makes his way to the living room, deciding that he'll watch the rest of the cup final that he and Shane were too busy sexting during to finish watching the night before. He's just sat down on the couch when he hears the knock on his door.

No way. Surely not?

But it is. There, right there, close enough to reach out for, is Shane, carrying an overnight bag, holding an enormous gift box, and wearing a slightly nervous smile.

Like he is attracted to Ilya not JUST bc he IS a man but bc he's MANLY