#marissacre

Which was why, after practise one acceptably sunny day, Sergei turned out of the parking lot, not towards home, but towards Schenley Park. In the corner of his eye, he saw Zhenya turn and frown at him.

“Where are we going?” He asked, his voice wary, already too used to the hazing culture of pro hockey.

Sergei just rolled his eyes. He leaned over, half an eye still on the road and grabbed the pair of sunglasses and nondescript baseball cap from where he had dumped them earlier that morning. He tossed them into Zhenya’s lap.

“You are going to put those on, and then we’re going to feed the ducks. Maybe get ice cream, depends if you’re good.”

Zhenya was still side eyeing Sergei when they got to Schenley, right up until he was actually pulling apart bits of sliced whole grain to give to the birds. The Gonchar household had a strict ‘no white bread’ policy, and Sergei figured that should probably extend to ducks as well. He watched as Zhenya tried to distribute the bread evenly, laughed as he scolded one of the mallards who was bullying the others out of their shares.

“What would your mother say?” Zhenya tutted, tossing a chunk of bread right at the head of the mallard in question. He missed by a mile and the bird just honked and snatched the piece out of the water.

“Its mother doesn’t care,” Sergei said and Zhenya flipped him off with a scowl.

“I’m trying to teach good manners here,” he huffed, but Sergei was pleased to see that all the tension that Zhenya had been carrying these last few weeks had leaked out of his shoulders. The kid looked less like he was about to snap in two.

They did end up getting ice cream, and parked themselves on one of the many benches around the park. Zhenya picked at the flaking green paint as he happily licked his way through two scoops of vanilla with chocolate sauce. Sergei had a single scoop of strawberry.

“You want to talk about any of the stuff that’s been bothering you?” He asked as Zhenya tried to coax over a squirrel with the end of his ice cream cone. The squirrel seemed interested but didn’t want to move from the safety of under the neighbouring bench, his little nose twitching as he sniffed out the food he was unwilling to take.

Zhenya shrugged, eyes fixed on the squirrel. “It’s just hard adjusting to everything,” he said. “Not much you can really do about it.”

Sergei nodded. He knew that feeling of helplessness well, like there was a glass wall between yourself and everyone else, keeping you apart from the team. It sucked, and he knew guys on some teams who had never really been able to break through, just found some places where the glass was a little thinner. He knew Zhenya would be okay, that the force of his personality would refuse to be contained, but still. He worried about him.

“You’ll work it out,” he said, in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. It worked with Natalie but he wasn’t sure how well it translated over such an age difference. “Eventually.”

Zhenya just shrugged again, and the squirrel shied even further away at the sharp movement. “I’m gonna have to work it out,” he said. “I’m going to be a penguin forever, play with Sid forever. I need to work it out so that forever works.”

Tired of waiting for the squirrel to make up his mind, he tossed the end of the cone towards it. The squirrel shot out from under the bench like, well like a small mammal terrified of being carried away by a much larger predator. Zhenya huffed with amusement as they watched it scrabble in the dirt before shooting up a tree with its prize clamped firmly in its mouth. Sergei had to admit that it was pretty funny.

“Besides,” Zhenya continued, smiling lopsidedly at Sergei. “I have you to mother hen me when I’m feeling down, old man.”