Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Growing up, Noah was always told he latched onto things with the same intensity as a dog with a bone. It wasn’t supposed to be a compliment, but he took it as one anyways – he thought it made him sound cool.

It’s less cool and more fucking pathetic when he’s standing in a hotel room in his boxers, air conditioner full blast, phone drained down to its last dregs of battery. Dial tone. Dial tone. Dial tone. Voicemail. (hi, you’ve reached veronica lee. i’m unavailable to answer the phone right now, but leave your name and number after the beep and i’ll give you a call back. thanks!) All-too familiar breath. Electronic ding.

“Hi mom,” he starts. “The draft is tomorrow. I know you’re busy, but I sent you a link you can stream on. It’d mean a lot to me if you watched,” he says, like the number of messages he’s left her with the exact same content hadn’t already ticked its way into the double-digits the day before. “사랑해,” he tacks on at the very end, and at this point it’s more a reflex than anything else, a trite little goodbye rather than the i-love-you the word is actually supposed to mean.

Noah hangs up. Above him the ventilation rattles, puncturing the sedate hum filling the room.

He had met his dad’s new girlfriend the week earlier at a brand-new brunch place he had never heard about. By the time he had tracked it down on Google Maps and showed up in one of his nicer polos, he had been waved over to the patio table they had grabbed, five minutes late. He had immediately noticed the girlfriend was blonder, younger, and cheerier than the previous one – which, when compared to his dad who was pushing fifty, made his stomach twist.

For the life of him, Noah couldn’t remember what her name was. It was something like Raquelle or Isabelle, one that ended in an -elle and matched her quilted purse and beige nails. He felt guilty for blanking on it, guiltier about the fact she gave him a Colgate-white smile and told him she had seen some of his game tape. Complimented him on his offensive zone play. Told him she was rooting for his success.

The upside was that the menu options were blisteringly healthy, so he ordered something overpriced and promptly shoveled his quinoa salad into his mouth. Instead of addressing the whole Elle problem, he made appropriate noises of interest at the ongoing conversation. His Quebecois had deserted him. In response to stories about people he had never met, he produced a steady stream of oui-oui-no-s and surreptitiously drained his glass of water several times.

“Ça faisait peur en osti,” she told him, saccharine-sweet, and he let out a crisse, half at her reenactment of a yachting accident she had been privy to, and half at his dad not batting an eye at her language.

Eventually, the subject of conversation had landed on him.

“How’d you get started in hockey?” She asked, switching to English. He had a feeling she had done so out of pity. He was grateful nevertheless – he still hadn’t quite mastered controlling the knee-jerk looks of confusion he made at rapid-fire French. “I’ve heard a lot from André, but,” she waved a hand up and down. “I’d love to hear your side, get to know you better.”

“Oh,” Noah had said. “It’s nothing special.”

He told her the version he long since sanded the edges off of. The one where he turned his love of hockey into a nice, neat package he can present all at once.

There are several different editions he can pull out on cue. To his manager, Rob: he picked it up from playing with the neighborhood kids. To family members: Papa coached it, he was practically born with a stick in hand, wasn’t he? To the reporters, when they started getting interested: growing up in a supportive family gave him the opportunity to grow. To her: he’s oh-so-thankful to everyone (that’s you, dad!) who helped him foster his talent, because where would he be otherwise? But the connecting thread between all of them is that it's satisfying to hear. Not a sentence out of place.

As if on cue, she had smiled, shared a warm look with his dad, and complimented him. Noah had sat there and pretended like the words hadn’t burned on its way out.

The whole thing paints a pretty picture. Noah knows it paints a pretty picture, because he made sure of it himself. Sat down at the computer and tore apart interviews on pixelated Youtube clips, cobbled together answers from teammates, biographies and Wikipedia pages. He cherry-picked details, meshed them together and wrote a story he could recite in his sleep.

To the world, Noah Grayson is an open book. A dad who coached mite, and a distant member of the family who had made it to the big leagues, selected by Calgary as a second-round pick. A quintessentially Canadian hockey family. Late afternoons practicing shots or rollerblading, a bedroom with signed pucks and framed cards on shelves. Christmas gifts of gear, pictures of him at six in an oversized jersey and front teeth missing.

People don’t like to hear about reality – they like to hear about how boys like him idolized the Gretzkys and Jágrs and Howes of the league, how they stepped out onto the ice knowing that they had people to look up to, others who’d help them chase their dreams. Noah gets it though. It's why his version will always be safe. Nobody likes holding something up to the light, seeing the cracks in the paint or the smears on the glass.

The truth isn’t half as nice. The truth is it all that it all started when he was four, shuttled off to Quebec to fulfill the clause in his parent’s divorce that demanded him to spend his summers in Saint-Georges. Uncomprehending of the situation and more than a little desperate for his Papa to give him more attention than a perfunctory set of questions over dinner, Noah had been fresh out of a year in preschool and itching for something, anything to do.

The heat was practically unbearable, and the moment the evening shadows started growing long, his older cousins crammed into the driveway with their friends to practice snipes. Hockey was interspersed with trips to the pool and the ice cream shop, just another tool in an arsenal of choices available when the temperature kept ratcheting up.

Noah had sat and waited on the porch steps for them to be finished, too young and too small to join in. Sweat caused the fabric of his shirt to become damp and stick to his skin, and he plucked at it uselessly, silently tracking their attempts as they lined up shots. They missed frequently, pucks sailing wide and marking up the paint of the garage door with black streaks.

Frustration mounting, they had turned on him in a heartbeat. He had been dragged, shoved into the net before he realized what was happening. Laughter. More laughter when the first puck clipped him in the arm. He rubbed at it, skin turning bright red, and tears threatening to well over. But the humiliation stung more than the bruising, and he was tired of both them and Papa acting like he was a stupid kid.

He dove for the next one, slapped it away with a kind of vicious triumph. It bounced several feet away. There had been silence. He hadn’t said anything, just stared at them, dead-eyed, until Elliott declared something and the rest of them launched another rally at him.

Noah had spent god-knows how long after that scrambling after each one, childish spite driving him to tap into depths he didn’t know he had. It had felt amazing. When they had stormed off in search of something better to do than terrorize him, he had picked up a discarded stick. It had been too large, dwarfing him. He didn’t let that stop him. Clumsily scraped it against the concrete, took an experimental swing. From there, he kept going. Swung and swung and swung at puck after puck, palms rubbed raw. He kept going, even when he was called in for dinner, even when the calls turned into threats.

That night, with aching arms and bruises blooming on his skin, he had interrupted a furious account of something someone had done at work that day. “I want to learn hockey,” he said, and made eye-contact with his dad. “Teach me.” And then, “Désolé,” because he was getting glares for butting in where he wasn’t welcome.

Still, it had worked. He returned that fall to Philadelphia with gear in his bag, a newfound determination to love the Flyers, and the knowledge that he’d be back in Canada come spring, blades back against the ice.

Chapter Text

Draft day finds Noah waking up ten minutes before his alarm does, stomach roiling like he’s seconds away from hurling all over the scrubby hotel carpet.

He was fine yesterday. Nothing more than a little shudder that ran through him at the thought of tonight. The nerves were more manageable whenever he visualized walking down the stairs and up onto stage, tamping down on whatever was threatening to surface.

He had gone to bed knowing today was going to be a total crapshoot, but the sheer nausea that hits him has him spending those ten minutes unmoving, slowly going numb.

Just as he thinks he’s almost convinced himself that his legs are in fact, not actually losing all feeling, his alarm goes off with all the force of an air siren raid. The blaring horns promptly ruin any sense of comfort he’s deluded himself into – he’d rather eat his gear piece by piece than face reality.

Noah sits up, flicks on the light. Stares blankly at the wall.

The aged wallpaper is striped green and white, peeling off in strips at the corners, and though he doesn’t know shit about interior design, he thinks it's probably a safe bet to say the room hasn’t been renovated since before he was born. He counts the cracks spiderwebbing in the ceiling until he feels like he can breathe again.

Well, small mercies. The canvas on the wall is something he can at least somewhat understand.

Abstract art has always made him feel awkward. The last time he went on a date, he had been invited to some kind of contemporary multi-media pop-up. He still remembers his palms growing sweaty at the expectant look the girl had turned and given him, as if he was supposed to come up with an insightful comment about all the lines and blobs and loops. The plaque had informed him the display was supposed to represent the cycle of life and death under capitalism. Noah’s pretty sure he wouldn’t blink twice if it had told him it was about like, lagging internet connection instead.

She hadn’t texted him back after he dropped her off that night, and Noah had been surprised to find himself feeling relieved. (If slightly not disappointed that he had blown it with a golden ten.) Missed chances aside, the painting above the boxy television is straightforward. Just a still-life of three flowers in a vase.

Nothing to pick apart or theorize about that one.

By the time he’s getting dressed, his fingers have just about gone dead. His phone has been periodically buzzing since eight, a stream of well-wishes from teammates and family members he hasn’t talked to in years.

No calls, so he doesn’t care enough to pick it up to check, to sort through names. Noah figures he can look later, when he’s not liable to fuck up the spelling to Thanks.

His suit is the same navy polyester blend he had bought a month earlier. In hindsight, it wasn’t the best choice he could’ve made, but he wasn’t willing to spend more than half-an-hour browsing racks. It’s a navy two-piece, practically a carbon copy of one he already owns.

Noah would’ve gladly worn his original one if it hadn’t been purchased almost a year before, ridiculously tight around the shoulders and growing linty from repeated washes. Struggling out of a jacket in front of his future GM probably wouldn’t be the right move.

His fingers shake as he gets dressed, fumbling against the starchy collar of his shirt and fucking up the knot of his tie not once, but twice.

For a moment, Noah kind of wishes he was one of the guys who had superstitions, the kind that did fistbumps and needed to be the last one off the ice. Ben, his partner, drank this hideously green smoothie and spent at least five minutes doing this weird knuckle-popping-blowing routine before every game. Claimed it helped him focus.

It’s not exactly that he’s envious – he’s seen a guy lose it in an Atlantic because they didn’t stock his gameday energy bars – but not for the first time Noah thinks it’d probably be soothing to have something like that, something to ground him so he doesn’t feel like he’s about to vibrate clean out of his skin.

“Noah! You look amazing,” Elle says in lieu of a greeting as they find their seats. She smells floral when she leans in to press kisses to the air above his cheeks, and he fights to keep his nose from wrinkling. “Je ne veux pas me maquiller sur toi,” she apologizes, patting him on the shoulder. “I read that you’re going to go first round? Top ten, even?”

Noah tries to give her his best version of a convincing smile, but the way her fingers squeeze reassuringly against his suit jacket tells him that he failed.

“If things go well,” he says. Reports expect him to go around 5th, 6th – the Rangers or the Avs – but he’s not holding his breath. If a team doesn’t need a d-man, they don’t need a d-man. He’s seen himself placed at 11th, comments that his shot leaves something to be desired.

See this morning: total fucking crapshoot.

“Je suis si fier de toi,” his dad tells him, repeats it in English. “I’m so proud of you, kid. Always knew you’d go far. Shoot for the stars, and even if you don’t make it, you’ll end up on the moon.” Noah’s certain that’s not how the phrase goes, but he gives his dad a smile anyways. “I’m proud of you,” his dad says again. “You were always the best kid I ever coached.”

Noah thinks he might be trying to convince himself. Maybe if he says it five more times before Rob comes over to find them, it’ll become true.

“Veronica’s not here?” His dad asks, peering behind him as if his mom is about to materialize from thin air. Noah feels the weight of his phone in his pocket, pressed against his thigh, a physical reminder of the Good luck today that had arrived from an international number almost an hour earlier.

“Mom’s on a business trip,” he says, keeps his tone light. “She’s in the UK right now.”

“Ah. Shame,” his dad says in a way that makes it clear he’s happy he doesn’t have to see her face-to-face. “Sad she couldn’t be here today,” he says.

Elle coughs politely. “Yes, I’ve heard great things about her,” she says, which tells Noah that she’s privy to the details of how his parents’ marriage had fallen apart in a great, fiery blaze.

His dad claps him on the back. “Tell her I’d love to catch up sometime.”

Tell her yourself, Noah thinks. “Are mémé and pépé here yet?” He says instead. “I want to say hi.” If he nearly stumbles in his haste to escape towards the direction his dad points him in, nobody comments on it.

Mémère doesn’t have her hearing aids in today, and Noah burns a solid handful of minutes attempting charades. Pépère looks the same as he did a decade ago, a little moose pin in his tie. Noah is told multiple times that as long as he’s not going to the “goddamned Leafs” he’ll do just fine. Reassuring.

He takes his seat, shuffling into a spot wedged between his dad and mémère, and feels his nausea roaring back full force. Noah has to press a fist onto his knee to keep it from jiggling up and down, a nervous tic he never fully eradicated.

Obviously he’s going to go somewhere. That’s a given. Seven rounds, and even in the very unlikely case that all thirty-two teams suddenly decide that they hate his fucking guts, he’ll end up in a jersey and a cap. He has to. The progression of the night and his future wait down there, for someone to go “hey, this one’s worth it.”

There’s nothing he can change at this point. It’s out of his hands, and there’s not much to do beyond sitting stock-still in a chair and waiting for the draft to start. He starts running through the list in his head anyways.

His achievements. His stats. A solid season. A great one even. Fuck. Inhale, exhale. He set a franchise record for most single-game points for a d-man. Inhale. Named a top prospect. Exhale. He’s going somewhere. A flurry of interviews he was more than prepared for, an Office Depot notebook full of potential questions and annotations, bullet points compounded on by meetings getting coached on what to say.

Inhale. Right now, Noah feels like the time his team lost in the final playoff round, stomach left somewhere on center ice, meters away from his body when he queued up in the handshake line. Noah did well because he had to do well but it’s all there in his head, what he should’ve-could’ve-would’ve done. What he could’ve fixed. Exhale.

Everyone boos as the commissioner takes the stage, and Noah thinks he’s about to hurl. Thirty-two teams, he reminds himself. Breathe.

First pick is no surprise, a USNTDP golden boy lauded by scouts and teammates alike. Second is an upheaval, the guy who everyone thought was going to fourth, and suddenly his heart is kicking into overdrive. Third. Fourth.

Fifth, and the Avalanche take the stage. Colorado probably won’t be bad, Noah figures. Denver apparently has good golf, and though he kind of hates golf, better late than never when it comes to learning, right?

Not him.

Rangers.

Not him.

And then it’s this little thread of hope when the Flyers take the stage, and he looks horrible in orange but still, that’s the fucking team he’s grown up watching, the one he’s idolized. Guys he’s cheered for, screaming until he’s lost his voice. Orange shirseys in his dresser, a snapback he got at a discounted price. Noah might not be breathing anymore.

USNTDP again.

His dad says something in a low, quiet tone that’s probably meant to be comforting, but Noah can’t hear anything above the sound of his heartbeat. Eighth. Fuck. Fuck, fuck. His knuckles are turning white.

“– from the Halifax Mooseheads,” and then it’s his fucking name, being called by the same fucking guy he’s said he hopes runs the entire franchise into the ground, and everything’s kind of blurring together, his dad leaping up to hug him, Elle laughing in delight and clapping, his mémère wiping away tears, pépère slapping him on the shoulder. And then he’s making his way down stage, pulling on a jersey and putting on a hat, smiling at people he’s badmouthed before and acting for all the world, that this isn’t an actual nightmare he’s had.

Noah does not look good in bright colors. Noah does not look good in yellow.

“We’re so excited to have you,” says the GM. His – his GM now. The same guy Noah had called a “fucking ballsack” and “piece of shit” not even a month ago. “You’re going to do great things.” Noah’s picture is being beamed from the giant monitor above their heads and he just–

He’s a fucking, goddamn Penguin.

Chapter Text

Noah thinks he must’ve offended the hockey gods at some point.

Or maybe not offend because he’s happy, he really is, but it’d also really be great if everyone stopped dragging up the Cup win, the playoff runs, the whole fucking rebuild over dinner. He’s happy. The Pittsburgh Penguins are a groundbreaking team, groundbreaking players, groundbreaking history, groundbreaking fucking whatever, and he’s happy. He’s happy! Good hockey. It’s what he wanted, everything that he’s worked for.

He stabs his fork into his salad leaves.

When everyone has just about cleaned off their plates, it’s shifted around to commentary about Jack Carlisle and his absolute weapon of a backhand and how he probably like, saves puppies and babies in his free time. Noah finds himself ordering a massive slice of chocolate cake for dessert.

His teeth hurt from the first bite, the sheer amount of sugar making his molars ache. He ignores the weird look he gets from his dad and spoons another mouthful. It’s too rich, too large, and too much of everything he hates in food. He’s going to regret it the next morning.

Noah finishes the whole thing.

Summer flies by at a terrifying rate.

Prospect camp comes and goes, a blink-and-you-miss-it situation that has him gnawing his thumbnail down to the quick, the invisible sensation of something nipping at his heels. There’s some pep talks, some team bonding, and then some veteran players come down to give them tips on the ice — it’s nothing he didn’t not expect if he’s being honest. The scrimmages are nothing to sneeze at either. It's just that he feels nervous.

Somewhere between checking a guy into the boards and then scoring a snipe (it gets ruled onside after some dissent), he comes to the realization that it’s not like he’s performing badly. It’s the opposite really. Even so, he finds his dread knotted up in his wads of sock tape. The better he does, the more he feels like he’s about to fuck something up. And it's probably not a unique feeling, some of the other guys look slightly queasy when they step out onto ice too. He just hates feeling like things are slipping out of control.

Noah organizes himself a training regimen, puts himself through the wringer so he doesn’t have time to let his brain run off the rails. Last time that happened he ended up – well, it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that it doesn’t happen again.

It’s easier to not feel like an ungainly mess when he’s wheezing and sweaty, or when he’s ruthlessly doing sprint training. He goes on runs, does reps, does sit ups, pushups, ignores his looming future, and notably does not bitch out on his box jumps.

All-in-all, it’s a solid way to spend his energy.

Right as he’s just about exorcized the little, wailing voice in his head, Elle officially moves in around the tailend of July. With her arrives a dog and the highest number of refined carbs Noah’s seen outside of a grocery store.

“She’s a sweetheart,” Elle says after Jolie mangles his socks for the fifth time. “Isn’t that right, ma chérie?” He’s absolutely not scared of something that weighs like, ten pounds soaking wet, but it’s not his fault that the dog spends most of its waking hours lunging for his ankles. Nobody else comments on her bloodthirsty frenzy, and Noah quietly finds a new appreciation in cats.

Training camp is just around the corner, and it’s not that he’s actually anticipating starting the season out with the team – he can hope, but unless he’s suddenly transforms into the next Bobby Orr, fat fucking chance – but the idea of getting lodged a step down from the NHL makes him want to bare his teeth.

At first it’s just a handful of meaningless, mass emails landing in his inbox.

They’re the kind that are sent out to all the prospects, a ‘congratulations’ and ‘welcome to the family’ in the subject line, a penguin graphic in the body. Noah doesn’t pay them any mind until they start sliding into the realm of important: what to bring, dates to remember, like, a whole PDF on passports and customs, and at that point it actually hits him that the state of Pennsylvania is his foreseeable future.

Noah packs his stuff days before his flight, regretfully leaving all his Flyers branded items in his dresser. He regrets it more when he spends the remainder of his time picking his way around the bags, a physical reminder of what awaits him.

The day he leaves is completely uneventful. His dad mumbles a goodbye to him over a mug of coffee before he heads out for work, Elle pats him on the head and wishes him luck, and Noah is kind of surprised to find he doesn’t feel sad at all. Elliott honks his horn when he heads outside, taller and ganglier than when Noah saw him last, and he fights back the scowl threatening to surface.

“Hey,” Elliott says, awkward. “Long time no see?”

“Yeah,” Noah says. “Can you open the trunk?” He hoists all his bags into the car, and when he slams it shut, it doesn’t feel like a goodbye or the prelude to a new beginning, doesn’t feel like anything at all.

Elliott drives him down to the airport, chattering on about trivia. Noah thinks he probably should be more appreciative of the gamely effort being made from a diehard Habs fan, but he can’t find anything other than a tinge of annoyance at the unceasing recitation of the Pittsburgh Penguins Wikipedia page. Elliott offers him a painfully awkward sideways hug when they arrive at the terminal, and Noah sets off to mangle his way through security.

He doesn’t manage to sleep more than an hour on the flight, having been situated behind a baby who cries all the way through takeoff, and by the time he drags himself to the hotel, he’s sweaty and vaguely homicidal.

“Oh,” his roommate says when he fumbles with the knob and props the door open. “Uh, hi?” His voice pitches up at the end of the sentence like it’s a question rather than a greeting. He looks kind of surprised, like he wasn’t expecting Noah to be on the other side of the doorway.

“Hi,” Noah says, and tries to make sure it doesn’t come out as unamused as he feels. “I’m Noah.”

“Oh,” he says again. “Um. Yeah! Nice to meet you. I uh, took the bed on the left. Hope that’s okay with you.”

Noah can see that. He’s literally sitting on it.

“That’s fine–”

“–because I can like, change sides if you want,” he continues. “I’m cool if you want to switch.” He stares, expectant.

Noah stares back. “You’re good,” he says finally, and starts hauling his stuff into the room. Presumably this is Brendan, but Noah doesn’t care enough to ask him to find out if he has his name right. Someone will say it at some point.

“Um,” the guy says, and Noah looks at him. “Want any help?”

“This is my last bag,” he says, and closes the door with his foot. “It’s fine.”

Noah starts unpacking some of his stuff, and the guy keeps sitting there and watching him from his bed. The back of his neck prickles at the attention. “You packed light, huh?” he says finally.

Noah counts to three before he responds. “Yeah.”

“Where are you from?”

“Canada.”

“Oh, yeah, I meant like, where in Canada?”

“Saint-Georges. Quebec.”

“Cool! I thought I kinda heard an accent. I’m from Rochester,” he says. “Minnesota.”

“Nice.”

“It was a longer flight than I thought, honestly? There was a bunch of like, turbulence and shit.”

“Huh,” Noah says. “I see.”

“Have you eaten yet?”

“Yeah, on my way here,” he lies. Noah desperately wants this conversation to be over so he can curl up and sleep. Eating is not high on his list of priorities at the moment.

“Oh, he says. “I was going to grab something to eat for lunch, so I was waiting for you.”

He blinks. “You, uh. What?”

“Like I was thinking we could get something together?” He visibly droops. Noah didn’t really think that was like, a thing people did, but this dude’s giant stupid cow eyes are somehow making him feel bad. “I could introduce you to some of the other guys after. They’re really nice.”

Noah is really fucking tired. He also doesn’t want to deal with any more people.

“I can come,” he says without thinking.

“Really?”

He needs to say no. He's going to say no.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, awesome! There’s this place down the street I went to yesterday, and their stuff is pretty good.”

“Okay,” Noah says. “Sounds good.”

He bids a mental farewell to his nap, and goes to find his wallet.

Chapter Text

Down the street ends up being a restaurant not even remotely close to being on the same street. Brandon fills the silence the whole time, and even hooks in two other guys that end up arguing about plus-minus and eventually, the Tottenham Hotspurs. He ignores all three of them in favor of looking at the menu, laminated plastic promising whole-grain options as if that balances out the sheer amount of melted cheese smothered over each dish.

They're going to get absolutely reamed by the athletic trainers. Forget diverging from the diet plan. This place promises to drive the truck off the highway and straight into a canyon.

“–right, dude?” Noah looks up to an expectant silence.

“Sorry?”

“Devin’s an Arsenal fan.” Brandon gives him a look while leaning backwards, as if that’s supposed to mean something to Noah.

”Huh.”

“Betrayal, dude! It’s a total betrayal!”

“How is it a betrayal?” Devin protests. “Who the fuck likes the Hotspurs? Sorry I like my teams to win, I guess?”

“You’re not helping your case, bud,” the other guy says, flagging down a waitress. “Hi, can I get water and a, uh, Reuben without the dressing?”

“Sure,” she says, and gives him a quick flash of smile, white teeth stark against her lipstick. “You want fries with that?”

He smiles back, slow and intentional. “I’m good, thanks.”

The rest of them place their orders, and the waitress blinks a little harder when Noah requests that they remove all dairy products from his meal. She turns to leave with a slight incline of her head, and Noah watches the curl of the guy’s mouth as he returns her nod. The moment she’s out of earshot, Devin and Brandon turn on him.

“Not the waitress this time,” Devin says in mock-agony. “You’re a fucking whore, dude.” He angles himself towards Noah, as if he expects him to jump in on the conversation with a witty aside.

Instead, he lets the silence stretch. Finally Carter shrugs, a look of faux innocence and what-can-you-do mushed together with a nonchalant motion of his shoulders. “Hey, if it happens it happens, I guess.”

Devin snorts. “Yeah, bud. You keep telling yourself that.”

Brandon blinks, tilts his head. “Are you actually going to sleep with the waitress?”

Carter raises his eyebrow. “Not likely.”

“Huh,” Brandon says, and clams up right as she comes back with a tray carrying their drinks.

The rest of lunch carries on in a similar manner: soccer, some superficial needling here and there, some mention of hometowns and teams and family connections. Noah fiddles with the wrapper of his straw, and coincidentally has food in his mouth every time someone asks him a question.

It’s familiar in the way it’s unfamiliar, nuances and preferences and histories and so on, so forth. It’s not like he’s a good listener – most of it goes in one ear and out the other – but switch out names and places, and it’s the exact same conversation he’s caught strains of over his earbuds on the bus in the Q.

Nearly half-an-hour in, Devin leaves to go take a piss, and Carter briefly excuses himself to take a phone call with his girlfriend. Just as Noah starts to wonder if he should go ahead and pretend like he has a scheduled call and make his escape, Brandon turns to Noah, narrowing his eyes consideringly.

“Are you like, a vegan?”

Out of all the things Noah thought he was going to say, that was not one of them.

“Sorry?”

“You seem kind of pissed off. Was it the meat?”

He blinks. Once, twice. “No, I’m not vegetarian.”

“Oh. Are you tired then?”

“Kinda.” Noah rolls his shoulders. “Long flight.”

“Oh, yeah, right! I totally forgot,” Brandon says, smacking his fist into the palm of his head like he’s had an epiphany. “Do you want to go back then? We can go up to the register and split the bill right now.”

He blinks at Noah, totally guileless, and Noah’s struck by how weird this guy is. It’s not that every guy that plays hockey has the same personality, he’s met some dicks, he’s met some nice guys. There’s a whole spectrum. But Brandon acts more like Elle than someone Noah would see on the ice, the same sort of unfettered concern that makes him want to shy away.

“Up to you,” he says, and resists the urge to straighten the wrinkles in his paper napkin. “I don’t mind waiting.”

“Okay,” Brandon says. “I’ll text them,” he says, and for the first time since he let the front door to his dad’s house slam behind him, Noah feels something inside go lax.

“Hey,” Brandon says, holding a mug of creamer with a splash of coffee. Noah gives him a perfunctory grunt as he shoves another bite of scrambled eggs down his throat. It’s not that the hotel buffet has like, the world’s best spread, but Noah seriously hates eggs.

“You ready for today?”

Noah shrugs. “As I’ll ever be.”

“Huh,” Brandon says. “Wish I could be as confident as you.”

Brandon busies himself with his yogurt before Noah can figure out the level of his sincerity, and the sorry excuse of a cup of coffee he drains seems like it only makes Brandon’s nerves worse; he’s practically vibrating out of his skin as they file onto the bus to the arena.

“What do you think we’re going to do?”

Noah raises an eyebrow. “Practice, probably.”

“No, like, do you think we’re going to get one-on-one time or anything?”

“Dude, I have no idea.”

“I mean, probably not, right? They’re just going to be trying to weed us out.”

“I guess.”

Brandon chews on his lip. “Dude, what about the media?”

Noah resists the urge to let his facial expression grow flat, unamused. “I don’t know. Questions, probably.”

Carter leans over, angling the screen of his phone to show them a string of triple-texts. “Friend on the Sharks told me media apparently spends the whole time interviewing the returning players. No good reporter is going to give a shit about us.” He gives Noah a critical stare, and cracks a smile. “Besides you, probably.” It’s phrased like a joke, but Noah kind of wishes he hadn't left his earbuds in a tangled mess at the bottom of his bag.

“Here we go,” someone mutters behind him when the bus pulls into the lot, and for the first time that day, Noah gives a hum of assent.

Here they fucking go.

Chapter Text

Noah figures that if he grabs someone random on the streets and asks them who Tim Horton is, they'll ask him if he’s attempting to anthropomorphize a fast food chain. Ask them if they know like, Gretsky, Kharlamov, or like Orr, maybe, and sometimes there’ll be a flicker of recognition.

Ask them if they know Jack Carlisle? Suddenly it’s like you’ve flipped a fucking switch.

Sure, it’s not exactly like you can expect all and sundry to be into hockey, but Carlisle is one of those identities intrinsically tied with the sport. Trout, LeBron, Messi – and then Carlisle.

He’s one of the rare handful that managed to hop the fence and park themselves in the public domain. You might not know who Carlisle is, but if you’ve even heard about hockey, you’ve seen Carlisle. He’s in commercials, grinning on billboards, mentioned in bookstores, someone’s brother’s son name-drops him on a daily basis, his shirsey on someone’s back, etc. Noah’s point is even if it’s just through the periphery, you’ve met him somewhere.

It’s a cocktail of circumstances, a right-place, right-time: midget hockey phenom turned teenage trailblazer, a rise to prominence amplified during the phase into digital over physical. Carlisle was just better. And the final product is a larger-than-life hockey legend, a millionaire that managed to appear like a humble everyman. America’s golden boy.

Noah can and has viciously argued that Ivan Orlov and like, once in a while, Kipling Beckett (just because he thinks it's funny to see Oilers fans splutter) are the better players in the league.

And they are.

But the face of the game? He’ll concede that title to Carlisle.

So when Noah spots him while doing media, it feels a little strange. It’s not excitement, not really, but something more akin to frustration. The game’s the game: a guy can be your worst enemy one day, but if he’s on your team, he’s on your team. It’s rule number one. Don’t bring your shit into the locker room. But Carlisle has just become so synonymous with pain-in-the-ass in Noah’s head, he feels the instinctive urge to curl his lip.

Thank god he stopped muttering “Avs legend” under his breath whenever he saw Carlisle. He might just throw himself out of a window if he did that unthinkingly.

But honestly, it’s not really like you can really blame him after the shitshow that was the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2011. Avs legend who also happens to be their captain. His captain. The person he answers to. The figurehead of their – his team. His captain. His captain. His captain.

His captain when he actually makes the roster.

Media is as nightmarish as Noah expects it to be, and also manages to pan out exactly like Carter predicted – they don’t care much about the other prospects, who get one or two cursory questions. Rather, they mob the returning players, and when they can’t get a non-scripted response out of Carlisle, they turn on Noah. He gets questions lobbed his way, some softballs, some questions he expects, and some out of the blue that sound downright accusatory.

As if the Pens shitty season last year is somehow his fault.

Like, absolutely, Mark. Noah’s definitely the one at fault for a string of player injuries and shitty power plays, not the guys on the team. He’ll keep that in mind the next time he’s playing in the Q. The penalty minutes? He’s actually the mastermind behind every guy getting thrown in the box.

Just as he’s wrapping up a question with the Pens beat reporter, he catches a snatch of Carlisle’s response to something. In slow motion, Noah sees Carlisle look over, and he ends up making eye contact with the guy. He offers Noah a quick smile, and Noah’s too taken aback to return the expression – Carlisle gets a wince.

“Hey, is that you, Grayson?” Noah hears on his way to the bathroom, and looks up to see Eric Selwyn, phone in one hand, and water bottle in the other. “It’s been forever!”

“Yeah,” he says, taken aback at the abrupt familiarity. “Long time no see.” It’s been almost a month since Selwyn called to congratulate him. Noah was immediately barraged with flashbacks of cheering when he got a molar knocked out during a scrum against the Rangers.

“You too,” he says. “Been up to anything since?”

“Training,” Noah says, and gives him a toned-down version of his media smile to soften the short reply. “Nothing really special, just stayed in Quebec. Oh, uh, and congratulations on the A.”

“Thanks, man. We’re all really excited to have you.”

“Yeah,” Noah says. “Excited to be here.”

“Great, that’s great to hear. Text me if you need anything or just want uh, some Pittsburgh recommendations. There’s a lot of stuff to do here. Industrial city and all that, eh?”

Noah can’t figure out where the hell Selwyn is from. He has quite the prairie accent going on, but Noah’s always been terrible at pinpointing locations. Manitoba, probably. Possibly. Ben was from Winterpeg, and he sounded the exact same, but see point A: he’s terrible at accents. Selwyn could be from fucking Edmonton for all he knows.

“Sure,” he says. “Thanks.”

“See you around, bud,” Selwyn says, and moves to clap Noah on the shoulder or like, give him a handshake, but seems to remember he has his hands full halfway through the motion. He’s left awkwardly retracting his arms, and settles for giving him a nod.

“Uh, you too,” Noah says, and walks away fast enough that he can give plausible deniability to any accusations of turning tail and escaping.

Noah will admit that he may have been a little too lax about camp. He knew that it was going to be hard, but like. Holy fucking shit. He can’t feel his legs after the first day.

And it’s frustrating because he’s good, but good isn’t good enough when it comes to camp.

It’s ridiculous – look to the left, and someone’s outpacing him in cardio. Look to the right, and someone’s benching twice the amount he is – it’s like any time he makes headway, it’s a reminder that he is, in fact, getting abso-fucking-lutley nowhere near the starting roster. The Pens are an elite team, but seeing the side-by-side comparison between him and the rest of the players is a harsh reminder that he’s not quite there yet.

It’s a familiar song and dance. Late first round drafts are the products not quite finished baking yet – toss them back into the oven to let them develop for a year or three. There’s an expectation to start playing nearly immediately if you’re first or second since your team is probably doing garbage. But ninth? Look who’s back again.

Fucking Wilkes-Barre. Fucking Mooseheads.

Noah doesn’t have a lot of regrets, but once in a while, he finds himself wishing he devoted more time to school.

He did graduate high school, but a diploma doesn’t equal entry into universities with a D1 hockey program like BU or Michigan or like, Notre Dame. If it was based on pure talent, he knows he’d get in. But the thing is, he’s never been good at school, which is kinda a huge caveat for, well. Getting more school. Memorization comes easy, always has, and tests were never bad, but the bulk of assignments and having to listen and keep up with lecture content was what tanked his grades in the end. College would be a shitshow for him.

“Forget it,” Noah mumbles to himself over dinner.

“Huh?” Brandon says through a mouthful of chicken breast. “Djid youwe shay shomething?”

“No,” Noah says louder, and busies himself with his food.

Noah nearly ends up giving himself a concussion on the bathroom sink midway through brushing his teeth, brain and body having decided it was prime time to get some rest. Maybe he’d like, feel worse about it if he hadn’t gotten out of the shower one time and nearly brained himself after tripping on Brandon’s prone, drooling form.

So clearly he isn’t the only one feeling the bone-deep exhaustion.

The guys are okay, Noah guesses. He doesn’t really try to talk to anyone else, and finds usually himself sitting with Brandon, Devin, and Carter when he’s not scrolling through Puck Daddy with his earbuds jammed in. Brandon is tolerable. Devin is also tolerable because he doesn’t try to talk with Noah one-on-one.

Carter, however, is a massive pain in his ass. He’s part of a deal from three years back, one of two second round prospects that the Pens traded Adam Holtz and some third round picks to the Hawks for. He’s rounding out his junior year at UMich, and lest anyone forgets it, is dating Parker Casey, a child television star turned prospective indie singer – Noah deletes all her songs from his playlists when he learns of her name.

Noah didn’t like, have any expectations when he heard that Carter plays right.

He really didn’t.

Really.

Three scrimmages later, and a sinking suspicion that he’s somehow jinxed himself, Noah is suddenly being paired with Carter for everything. And he’s quickly realizing that despite Carter’s sweet fucking visual acuity, he’d take rather deal with fucking Ben again than deal with Carter any day. And Ben was the kind of guy who had three-hundred and fifty rituals that had to go just right, and then proceeded to get onto the ice to play D like he was a center, consistently skating out too far and forcing Noah to stick closer to the goalie to compensate.

It’s a miracle he made it as far as he did, honestly. But Noah digresses: Carter talks too much, gets too much into his space, and is stupidly condescending, to a point where Noah feels the childish urge to start hiding Carter’s gear.

It’s really a goddamn shame how well they click on the ice.

Chapter Text

Noah hates bars. He hates bars. The noise level at games are fine, he can dial people out like it’s nobody’s business once he gets a stick in his hand. Buses? Earbuds. Amusement parks? He just doesn’t go. But bars? It’s unavoidable. The temperature sucks, the music sucks, the people suck, and the noise is constant. He hates bars. He fucking hates bars. Has he mentioned how much he hates bars?

Well, he hates bars.

“Shots!“ Someone yells, and then he faintly hears a “Пиздец!” from somewhere to his right, so he figures that someone managed to get a drink in Novikov, or rather, judging from the swell of volume, a drink on him.

Noah gets carded the moment he sits down at the bar, and isn’t too pressed to end up ordering a soft drink with ice. There was an order going around for fakes in a group chat he got added to, but he muted it and let the notifications pile up without blinking. One too many shitty Molsons and seltzers in one too many shitty teammate’s basements worked wonders. He walked out of it with a pure, unadulterated, distaste of alcohol.

“Good work tonight,” someone says, and Noah drags his eyes away from the condensation rolling down the side of his glass only to be greeted with a sight that makes him wish he stared at the carbonation bubbles in his soda for longer: Carter’s face.

“You too,” he says, and makes no move to continue the conversation.

“You sound sad,” Carter says, and to Noah’s displeasure, takes the stool next to his. “Didn’t think you’d stick around to exhibition or something?”

“He probably hoped he didn’t have to deal with you again,” Noah hears, and someone else leans between the both of them, flagging down the bartender. “Who the fuck wants to see your ugly mug daily anyways?”

“Ask your mom where she was last night then,” Carter shoots back.

“See if I invite you anywhere next year,” the guy says. Noah can’t remember his name. It was something incredibly stupid for a hockey player. Stan? Stanley? Something like that. “Pitcher, please.”

“Oh, will the horrors ever cease?”

“Fucker.”

Noah resists the urge to shift away from the friendly, familiar banter, but in the next moment Carter leans closer into him, and slings a heavy arm around his shoulder. “Got myself a new partner now, bud. You're not getting any of this next year.”

“Congrats on the marriage.”

“Fuck off,” Carter says, good-naturedly, and elbows Stanley as he makes his way back to a table of clamoring guys with his pitcher. “You gonna finish that?” He asks Noah after a beat of silence.

“Probably,” Noah says, and watches as Carter proceeds to drain the last quarter of his soft drink. “I’m sorry?”

“My bad,” Carter says, and this close, Noah can smell the sticky-sweet scent of Coke on his breath. “I got thirsty.”

“Then order a water.”

“Someone’s mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

“You look mad.”

“I’m not.”

“That sounded pretty mad.”

Something tinkles in the background, and there’s a round of raucous laughter. Noah shrugs Carter’s arm off. “Why would I be mad? Because you drank my five dollar soft drink when I said that I was probably going to finish it? I’m not fucking mad.”

Carter, for the first time that night, leans out of his space – Noah’s just thankful that for the first time that night, he doesn’t look so smug. Not repentant, but not punchable. “Five dollars? That’s highway robbery.”

“Yeah, and you drank it.” Noah doesn’t see his point. “This is your third year, right? Shouldn’t you know more about, like, the prices in the area or something?”

“Wilkes-Barre isn’t as overpriced.” It sounds like a lie, but Noah doesn’t have enough knowledge to refute it. Who knows how much a Scranton Penguin is willing to shill out on shitty alcohol.

“Think this is pretty standard.”

“For Canada, maybe. What’s Quebec like?”

“Colder than here.”

“Say something in French.”

“Why the hell would I say something in French? You say something in English.”

“Something.”

“Qu'est-ce que tu crisses?”

“Hey,” Carter says. “Wait, I know that one. You just said fuck.”

“Someone needs to get you an award.”

Carter looks at Noah for a long moment.

“Yes?”

“I think this is the most you’ve ever talked to me.”

“So?” Noah says, annoyance seeping into him.

“So,” Carter says. “You have a personality after all, don’t you?”

“Fuck off.”

“And here I thought you were just a dick.”

“How am I a dick? You just said you thought I didn’t have a personality.”

“No, I said you do have a personality. I also said you were a dick.”

“I’m sorry?” Noah says. “You’re the one that drank my soft drink.”

“See, you are mad.”

“I’m not mad, I’m just saying it was mine.”

“Is this how the rest of the night is going to go?”

“Not if you stop talking to me.”

“I’ll buy you a new soda.”

“Don’t need one. And your approach to making conversation sucks balls, by the way.”

Carter shrugs. “Could say the same of you, bud. You looked lonely.”

“If I was lonely, I’d go find someone to talk to. And if I thought someone was lonely, I’d leave them the fuck alone. Instead of drinking their soft drink.”

“Some guys that are really good at hockey are really shit at socializing. It’s like, a thing.”

“Wow,” Noah says, dry. “How observant of you. So you decided to open by pissing me off?”

“So you admit you’re mad.”

“Crisse de câlice,” Noah mutters under his breath. Then, louder: “Fine. If I wasn’t mad then, I’m mad now.”

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. Just making an observation. Like, take our esteemed captain. He’s a fucking monster on the ice, right? And then you get out of the locker room and he just stops talking.”

He jerks his chin over to where Carlisle is sitting next to Selywn and one other veteran Noah can’t quite make out from the shitty lighting. Novikov, probably. Carlisle isn’t talking with the other two, instead having apparently elected to sit and listen rather than participate in some dramatic retelling of an event.

Noah can respect that.

Carlisle’s shoulders shake when he laughs, Noah notes dimly. He has nice teeth, the kind of straight white veneers that are bright enough to cut through the shitty lighting in the bar. Definitely fake, but still nice to look at.

“So?”

“So, you never talk to anyone. Thought you might be lonely.”

“I talk to Brandon.”

Carter squints at him. “Suttsy talks to everyone. That’s a terrible metric.”

“He still counts as someone.”

“He’s your roommate.”

“I’m talking to you.”

“Other than me.”

Noah feels his face scrunch up. Genuinely, what’s the point of this stupid fucking conversation? To establish that he doesn’t have any friends? Carter’s stubble has grown out heavier, five-o-clock shadow shading his cheeks and jaw, and Noah is struck by the realization that if he wound up to punched Carter in his stupid fucking face, it’d most likely scrape his knuckles raw.

“I need to go to the bathroom,” he says instead, and leaves before he hears Carter’s response. Noah spends the next few minutes holding his hands under running water.

He really hates going to bars.

“Sainte viagr– motherfuc–” Noah looks at Brandon. “Why,” he says, very calmly, holding his foot. “Is all your stuff in the middle of the room?”

“Oh,” Brandon says, and looks as if he’s seeing the mess for the first time. “I couldn’t find my extra razor in my kit.”

“Did you find it?”

“No,” Brandon says, with all the sadness and misery of the ages. “I don’t know where I put it.”

“Here,” Noah says, and fishes one out of his bag.

“Really? It’s fine,” Brandon says, already closing his hand over the razor.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks, man.”

“We don’t have that much time,” Noah says, checking his phone. “Fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll be fine,” Brandon says. “See you in the lobby.”

Their first preseason game is against Detroit, and Noah… doesn’t know how he feels. Nausea, definitely, but mostly the kind of nerves that make his hands fuck up the knots on his shoes. It’s like he can’t think – there’s a layer of blankness that has him going through the motions without really. processing anything he’s doing.

He knew the Pens were going up against the Red Wings the moment the schedule dropped, but like a lot of things, it didn’t feel fucking real. This still doesn’t feel fucking real, the idea that by association, he’s going to be booed as a Pen. Be seen as a Pen. Play as a Pen.

Maybe he’s just being dramatic.

The bus ride is anticlimactic, though Noah feels a buzz at the base of his skull the closer he gets to Joe Louis. He’s never been inside the arena before, but the guest locker room reminds him of the ones he’s seen ad-nauseam in the Q. They all have carpets the same ugly shade of grey – maybe there was just a country-wide sale going on at one point.

His breathing sounds louder in the cramped stall, and for a moment Noah entertains the idea of sticking his fingers into his ears like a little kid. Once, when he was seven or eight, he had read somewhere when one of your senses were dulled, the others would get stronger in response. It probably had some veracity in cases like, getting blinded or something, but at that age, Noah had tried stuffing cotton balls into his ears to see if he could track the puck better.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Obviously, nothing had improved – rather, he had ended up perched on the toilet seat in his dad’s bathroom while precariously using a pair of tweezers to remove the cotton from his ears.

Inhale.

He’s not sure why the memory springs up now, unbidden. Maybe it’s the nerves.

Exhale.

There’s a clatter, equipment banging against something solid. Noah feels his stomach turn. (It’s definitely the nerves.)

“Hey, you doing okay?”

“I’m fine,” Noah says, and doesn’t look up at the speaker. Doesn’t need to. It doesn’t matter who’s talking to him, because it’s not the kind of question you ask someone in the locker room expecting to get a response saying “no, I’m not fine.” The fact is that in the here and now, you don’t ask it because you want to comfort the other person, you ask it just to be nice. Keep someone from hurling all over the shitty fucking carpet, and you're golden.

“You got this,” he hears, and he forces a smile in response.

“Thanks.” The person moves away, and Noah still very much does not "got this".

Inhale.

They lose in OT, 3-2.

His stall feels even more cramped when he's taking his gear off.