Seth and Freddie have fallen into a rhythm. Seth pushes, Freddie pulls, both tumbling forward together with no destination in mind. Then comes a lazy afternoon in the dip between the regular season and the postseason, and the suddenly the future has never seemed quite so near.

On the night that he scores his first NHL goal, Joel discovers that all it takes for his D-partner with benefits to get into his first NHL fight is a little jealousy.

Oh, and:

[ the lore ]

mikko (rane) and sebastian (sepe) have known each other since their u18 junior hockey days when they played together for the finnish national team at the 2015 world junior championships

timeline-wise, training for this would have started when sepe was fifteen and mikko was sixteen, and by the time the actual wjcs rolled around, they would have been sixteen and seventeen, respectively

when they played in the 2016 u20 wjc, their team ended up being one of the most dominant teams in wjc history. rane was captain of the team and sepe centered the team's top line (which is considered to be one of the best wjc lines ever... and rane wasn't even on it). they were roommates at the tourney, and they'd both already been drafted at this point—rane to the avs, sepe to the canes

they've been friends ever since despite playing for different teams, and we'd only ever really see them together at best-on-best games like the worlds (2018) or all-star games (2019)

then one of the craziest trades in nhl history went down after rane and the avs couldn't agree to terms on his extension (there's a lot of speculation about what was going on there, but rane says he was shocked by it) and there was a three-team switcheroo that landed rane in raleigh on the canes with sepe. rane's contract would be up at the end of the season so the canes only had 42 days to convince him to re-sign in raleigh before the trade deadline

they could have held out until the end of the season but then rane might not have re-signed with them and they'd have lost the ability to trade him for anything in return, and they'd given up waaaaaaaaay too much to end the season with nothing to show for the trade

a lot of responsibility was put on sepe to convince rane to stay a hurricane because of their history, but for any one of a shitpile of reasons, rane didn't want to stay, so the canes traded him at the last minute to dallas

rane's time in raleigh was... weird. he played very few games because of the four nations break (which happened while he was a hurricane!) and wasn't really showing up on the scoresheet as much as you'd expect a player like him to. out of all of the rumors floating around about why he left, the one that appears to have the most credibility is that he just didn't like playing in a system that limited his offense like carolina's does. it's kind of a pattern for the canes—defensemen traded to carolina tend to do better there stats-wise, forwards tend to do worse

now in 2026: rane is a dallas star, and for some reason he has decided to play a much more physical and penalty-prone style of hockey there. he's made some ugly hits this year and some were really dangerous. he's already been suspended once (for embellishment. highkey embarrassing for him. be so for real.) and at one point led the league in penalty minutes this season. he's establishing himself as a league-wide villain out of nowhere. meanwhile in raleigh, sepe is still a cane, and is still a generally well-behaved young man who got his first-ever ten-minute misconduct last week

It had been eight months since Mikko forced a trade from Carolina. Despite all of it, Sebastian still couldn't say no to him. Couldn't turn him away when Mikko sought him out in Dallas, couldn't resist taking bets that would end badly—win or lose.

Mikko fucked him when it was convenient, ignored him when it wasn't. And Sebastian let him, over and over again. He couldn't do it anymore. This time, with Mikko in Victory Green, it would have to be the last.

“Come home with me after the game,” Mikko said. Sebastian went still. “What?” “You heard me.” Mikko’s eyes were on his but he couldn’t bring himself to meet his gaze, knowing he’d give in when he did. “My place. After.” “Why?” Sebastian hated how pathetic it sounded. “So you can fuck me and then ignore me for another six months?”

“We’ve lost two major engagements to Barkov’s men in three years,” the lord said. “We are bleeding ground. The Black Banner has been humbled. And do you know why?”

Freddie said nothing. Roderic looked crazed, gesturing larger with every word.

Joel Nyström is a seventh-round draft pick who never expected to make it past the AHL. When he gets called up to the Hurricanes, he tells himself to keep his head down, focus on hockey, and not fuck up his one shot in the National.

Then they pair him with Alexander Nikishin, the KHL golden boy who—unlike Joel—has his spot on the roster on lock, and who seems intent on making Joel question a lot more than just his place in the league.

The problem: The second Jaccob Slavin comes off IR, Joel is back to the minors, watching the Canes on TV with the rest of the Wolves.

The bigger problem: Joel might be in love with his D partner, and he can't tell what he'll regret more—doing something about it, or doing nothing at all.