24 DAYS OF AWESOME

24doa @ 2006-12-24T18:34:00

2006-12-25T01:35:07Z

If you love me, you will fill out this poll

24doa @ 2006-12-24T10:10:00

2006-12-24T17:12:05Z

There are a few things I always feel like I should say to the world when I open up space monkeys. One is, “I’m so, so, sosorry,” but I’m really not. The next is, “It isn’t really my fault!” but it basically is. Finally, “at least all the porn’s implied in this one.” That’s completely true.

There’s an excuse for space monkeys. You see, when I was very young (and even more innocent), Sasha linked me to this hockey site. There was a fic with Mike Comrie, and maybe Eric Brewer. There were drinks and it was slow and sexy and all of a sudden, hockey porn wasn’t just in my head! We all know I’m talking about Robyn, who else loves Comrie that stupidly much. Time went on and I learned to loooove her for her insanity, and there probably isn’t a person alive who understands this crack as much as I do or encourages me so much in my madness. So Robyn gave me ideas for this and said supportive stuff like “ha ha ha wtf yes!” Dion Phaneuf is her fault.

Robyn got me through the first 5000 words of this puppy.

Then there was Cassidy. Cassidy and I met over Ales and Ilya. Being the versatile kid I am, I learned to love the Thrashers and baseball and somehow, we ended up roleplaying future!fic and then there was werewolves and finally Harry Potter knockoff. Cassidy says, “what’s wrong with you?” a lot, but she never actually—like. Eventually, I always get my way. Also? She asked for this.

I guess there are things you need to know if you’re a casual reader. I’ve very, very helpfully picture linked a character the first time they appear, because. Like, I like hockey-and-soccer-and-baseball-and-curling, but I GET that not everyone does! If you’re reading this for Jeff Francoeur on page 14, I don’t expect you to get the sneaky reference to Moreau and Staios’ long-and-short-sleeved-shirt combos.

If you think that takes away from the fic? ~~FUCK YOU~~ ignore the links, loserface. They're pretty subtle.

What else can I say. Major, major thanks to Camille for the read-through and basically anyone who said, “yeah you’re insane, do it anyways.” Cassidy asked for Roethlisberger/Prior in space, but she also gave me an opening for smuggler Crosby/Malkin/Staal. The end result?

There are a few important rules to follow when you’re traveling through space at intensely rapid speeds, dodging interstellar police, and drinking underage. One is ‘always listen to your captain’, two is ‘always have good excuses for where you left your id’, and three is ‘never pick up foreign objects from dead space no matter how interesting or potentially sexually attractive they appear to be.’

When rule one and rule three are at odds, then there’s a problem. That is how we ended up with a guy we didn’t need sleeping in the room that we didn’t have on our awesome, if a little battered, smuggling ship. I might be getting ahead of myself.

I’m Sidney Crosby. You can call me Sid the Kid.

When I was very young and even more innocent, I was smart in that wannabe pilot, traveling too fast with too much skill sort of way. Some people even called me a jackass, but I know everyone wanted to be like me. That was when I met Mario, who liked my skill and my attitude and, in a nutshell? My ass. It wasn’t too long before I was hanging out at his place, falling asleep on his couches and flirting with his harem girls and meeting Evgeni Malkin.

Genya, as he likes to be called because he’s from some obscurely cold planet inhabited by people with a strange language and knobby knees, is a playmaker and a refugee. He’s wanted in like two galaxies, but you give him a machine and he likes to fix it. Improve it. Plus, when he sees a navigation system, he’ll be damned if he can’t get you where ever you were going faster than you ever dreamed. This is cool and ultimately useful, if you get past his heavy accent and total lack of hero worship of Mario, which threw me off for the first while. Every good pilot has an even better navigator.

Finally, there’s Jordan Staal. He’s got a lot of brothers, from one of those planets that never got over agriculture and yeah, he likes Mario, but mostly he likes the access that Mario gives him to heavy artillery. Jordan likes to shoot things, likes to make things explode, likes to one-up his brothers with the size of his explosions. If we want to get technical, it’s Jordan the Kid and Sid the Amazing Kid, but we’re not getting into the particulars because my nickname has a better ring to it.

Now, there’s me and Genya and Jordan, and we’re stuck on Mario’s planet doing his bidding and wearing his suits and mostly getting into a lot of trouble and hitting on Marc-Andre Fleury, who is the most flexible man alive in more ways than one. It was a pretty decent life and I’m not going to complain about life with Mario, even if he was overly fond of father-son play and slurringly called us all “honey” or “sweetcheeks” after he’d had one too many. It was just, life with Ben seemed so much cooler.

Ben Roethlisberger. Tall, light, and relatively handsome, and the thing that got us going was his ship. That’s right; we left a relatively perfect (despite some odd sex) life for an odd, broken-down ship. It had a navigation system, and Ben sucked at flying no matter how much he protested the fact, and it had guns and bombs and all that stuff. When he nearly ran the thing into the side of my house, I was in. I didn’t give my friends a choice, like I’m going to have adventures without them. Good friends always do stupid things in packs.

Now we’re caught up. There’s Captain Ben, me, Genya, and Jordan in a ship. We’ve got a cargo of very explosive, moody salamanders in various secret compartments, and we’ve got some salamandarian food to keep them from spitting fire or exploding or something. Genya’s coated in oil and trying to coax the hyperblasters to follow Jordan’s precise specifications on length and intensity of fire. Jordan’s sleeping, which is all he does unless there’s destruction or winning involved. Ben and me, we’re hanging out in the cockpit and there’s this strange capsule floating around outside.

I’m a curious guy, but I’m not that curious. My curiosity, you see, doesn’t extend to the possibility of foreign diseases or death that I wasn’t ready to embrace. Ben, however, was all, “there’s someone in there!”

Now, he gets enthusiastic about stupid stuff all the time, but I had hoped that his tendency for picking up strays would end with us. I’m a very picky stray, and maybe I’m a little possessive. But still, all of a sudden we’ve got this capsule in our bay and it’s opening and there’s this tall, gawky guy climbing out looking dazed and nervous. I’m unimpressed and not afraid to show it, and Jordan’s got his gun, and Genya doesn’t even get out of his little hole in the ship wall.

“Mark Prior,” he says with his ocean-boy drawl, and Ben is looking way too interested and it all goes downhill from there.

Our ship, the Steeler which is funny because it’s not made of steel at all, was designed for two men and a completely illegal cargo. So there’s that, the fact that we’re already sort of pushing things and I’m constantly waking up with Genya’s bony knee jabbing my back and Jordan drooling in my hair. Then there’s the food, because there’s never enough of because we’re all growing gentlemen. Then there’s the fact that you can only fit so many people in a cockpit during an emergency before it just gets stupid.

Mark tipped the balance and the hormone levels and just about everything else he could while still looking completely oblivious and just as interested in Ben as the Captain was in him. Ben was thick and stubborn, so we couldn’t exact push it. You try fighting someone who gives noogies like his fist was designed to destroy someone’s hairstyle. Before we knew what was happening, they were having sex.

Sex.

In our ship.

Sex with each other. Totally inappropriate, groaning, power-play sex in equally inappropriate places. Like, for example? My seat.

My seat. The pilot’s seat where I spend basically all of my day, and now I have to spend just as much time sitting there thinking about my Captain banging some random space-lost genius on my seat.

I was irritated, and somehow everyone was persistent enough to figure it out. They liked him fine, I guess, even though he was nothing like us. He didn’t know our planet, because he was from some warm place with stretches of clear green water and palm trees and bullshit, which I sort of doubt. Pittsburgh, that’s where we all settled with Mario, it has dark stretches and it’s pretty cold a lot and the sky constantly hangs heavy and low, comforting.

So Mark was this strange, warm freak with strange animals and stranger stories about his friends. He acted like he was this noble jedi character without the lightsaber (we know, Jordan asked and is still disappointed) or mind games. He played word games and did some crossword puzzles and Ben looked fond enough to let him stay in his own bed. Good thing, I sure wasn’t going to put up with four in ours.

This is the point where I stop talking like I know what happens, because I have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. Pilot ace does not equal psychic, contrary to popular belief. I’ll start using proper tenses and everything.

Right now, right this very minute? We’re in the middle of space and someone is firing on us and I’m swearing like a lunatic and Jordan is swearing even louder. There’s a problem with the firing system, which is normal because Ben’s ship is a hunk of junk, and Jordan is yelling about how he wants to go manual and I’m yelling that he’s a jackass and then Mark? Cool and calm as anything and irritating because of it, says, “Why don’t you check that the wires are connected.”

Maybe that sounds like a pretty basic thing to realize, but Jordan says, “Fuck, fucking hell!” and Evgeni slides under his seat, does something out of view and a laser blast just barely misses the wall of our ship.

“There you go,” Mark says and Ben looks ready to kiss him, which he probably is.

It’s pretty disgusting. I focus on space, on twisting and making Jordan’s life as tough as possible. His cursing is a lot softer now that he can sear holes through the “O” in “police” on the other ship. I get the feeling that Ben did a lot more running away and jail time without us, because there’s no way he could loop-de-loop and send out a hail of weaponry at the same time.

There’s an explosion that makes even Genya crow in delight, and then we’re tearing off and boosting up into hyperspace. I set the timer and climb up and dart around Mark and Ben to get my own celebration in. There’s something infinitely creepy about hugging Ben, no matter how close I’d been to Mario. Ben is just the kind of guy it’s good to high five enthusiastically when he’s not distracted.

Distracted. You know what I mean.

I get to tackle Jordan, who’s flushed and grinning, and step on Genya who’s still trying to untangle himself from the wiring beneath without destroying his work.

“I would have thought of it,” he says after a minute. I snort and Jordan is laughing openly, helpfully standing so Genya doesn’t sit up between his legs. We’re good guys, no sex whatsoever in the business area. It’s very important not to mix semen and technology; you never know what the Steeler will do when she’s been desecrated.

We have a few hours before we come out of hyperspace in a brand new, exciting galaxy, and we’re going to take advantage of every minute of that time. First, we grab sandwiches from the cramped, messy kitchen. Then, glasses of milk. Finally we all climb into our room, crowd into bed. Jordan tries to stretch out and I have to kick him hard, which is dangerous because I don’t want him to drop his tomato on the sheets. It’s nasty to wake up with seeds in your hair.

Then? We sleep for the entire trip. Being awesome is exhausting.

There’s an awkward lurch and I wake up with a mouthful of Genya’s shirt. Normally, the transition to normal space is pretty good. I pride myself on the transition, and it’s not until there’s another jerk of the ship and a screech of metal that I really realize something’s wrong. Cut me some slack, I was sleeping just a minute ago.

Genya gets out of bed first, because he’s much more used to wiggling out of tight spaces. He’s halfway down the hall by the time Jordan’s located a conveniently small pistol and jammed it down his pants and I’ve got my hair under control enough that no one will be blinded by the curls. It gets bad, ok? Really bad.

I’m expecting the worst, with my positive nature and all, when I realize that it’s not particularly aggressive come-on’s on Ben’s part that have ruined my sleep. It’s a burly, crag-faced guy with his arms folded over his chest and an unattractively red pair of pants. Tight red pants. Genya looks green and Ben looks possessive, but I’m not sure if it’s of the ship, Mark, or Genya. The guy looks busy and smirky and it takes me longer than I could mention without embarrassment before I recognize him for the bounty hunter he is.

Now, Genya wasn’t supposed to leave his cold, knobby kneed country and we all knew it. Hell, even Mark figures it out because a face like that is really recognizable on the wanted posters. Mario could protect him, because he’d just look like—Well, like Mario the richest and most powerful man on the planet, and they’d back off. There’s a trail of law suits long enough to wrap up an entire planet behind Genya, and. It wasn’t a big deal until they caught us.

I want to blame Ben, but it doesn’t seem like the right time.

Jordan’s pulled out his gun, which looks ridiculous when it’s compared to Phaneuf’s massive … bazooka, or something. Genya looks resigned and shifty eyed, and then he’s being put in cuffs and Ben is protesting loudly and then, fuck, we’re in the middle of black space and I don’t know what all the goddamn buttons on Genya’s navigation system do.

“I’m sure I can renegotiate his jail time,” Mark says helpfully, which doesn’t make me feel any better. I poke a green button on the keyboard, green and go, right? It doesn’t do anything.

Figures Genya would have some stupid coding system all to himself.

“We’re lost,” I announce.

“Really lost?” Jordan looks afraid and annoyed and like he should have packed a larger gun in his shorts. He brings a whole new meaning to ‘is that a gun in your pants or are you just happy to see me?’ because with him, it’s usually both. I drop to the floor, cover my head with my hands and realize that my hair is still awful. And if I had left it even worse? I wouldn’t be lost in space.

I don’t like being lost. I like knowing where I’m going and how to get there and that even if I go twice the recommended speed, I’ve got a guy who can tell me that I just missed the turnoff to the tavern strip. Now how will I get my coffee after a hard night?

“We’re screwed,” Jordan mutters, dropping next to me. I can dwell on the fact that we’re lost with salamanders in space and they require feeding seven times a day and it’s the stupidest illegal run or object or anything ever and that we’re lost, so it takes me a second to realize that we’re sitting on Ben’s grimy floor. He looks even taller from this angle, and then I realize I don’t care about the fact that Ben’s a giant or the salamanders are moody little fuckers and I clench my fingers in my hair as tight as I can.

“It’ll be fine,” he says as nicely as he can. I growl articulately. Mark is bent over Genya’s keyboard, prodding at buttons and moving his lips silently as he traces Genya’s crazy handwriting. “Figure something out?”

“Yes,” Mark says, and he sounds distracted. He rubs at his arms, always complaining silently at the temperature of the cabin. I think it’s fine, but tolerate Ben nudging the air shaft until the warmer air starts trickling in. Mark relaxes and mutters something to himself, then nods and presses several buttons. Jordan glares at him, then smiles abruptly.

Mark presses another button. “I think I can get us to a planet, at least. From there, we can regroup; maybe get reinforcements before we try to barter for Evgeni’s sentence—“

”We’re breaking Genya out.” Jordan’s tone doesn’t leave room for protest, so Mark nods and shrugs. “No, we’re going to blow up the station and take Genya out of the smoking ruins. And we’re going to enjoy every minute of it.”

Mark rolls his eyes and Ben grins and I get to power up my engines, stroke the control panel a little bit and squeeze the joystick. It still works, I like it. Mark does something with the programming that I won’t even try to understand, and the engine grumbles and then sputters into a sad little purr.

Such a good ship.

I don’t sleep this trip, scowling at the blur of stars until the planet of Ontario swims into view. Jordan grins and then shrugs and kicks the back of my chair. I ignore him, so he kicks me again and then I realize we’re entering the orbit of one of the planet’s stupid moons. Half of Ontario is solid grey with cities, and half is rocky and so I guess it’s still grey, too. The moon we’re getting too close for comfort to, thanks to Jordan’s jerking of my chair throwing off my steering, has a lot of lightning.

Thunder, and lightning and water and green. They call it Thunder Bay, which is creative and pathetic all at once. They like to farm because of the water and greenery, and then I key in to the fact that it’s Jordan’s planet.

“What, no, I’m not letting you toast this planet.” Jordan kicks even harder and all of a sudden he’s reaching over me to control the joystick. I scowl because it’s mine, but he’s guiding us in quickly towards some particular field on the north end and I’m lucky we don’t crash and die. We would have if I didn’t have all this awesome skill. Lucky for us all.

Then I’m meeting his parents and his brothers, all looking like total studs or aliens or a bit of both. Jordan’s the second youngest of four, which isn’t quite as many as I thought initially, but the eldest one is a fighter pilot and the second is some kind of agent and the youngest can’t shave, so I forget about him pretty fast.

Ben finally notices the looks Jordan’s throwing looks between Eric, the oldest one, and him. He can’t shake his head fast enough, and I think about sharing a bed with four Staals when one takes up more than enough room and air and food, and I’m inclined to agree. We step outside for a second, and I get sniffed by wildlife and punctuate Ben’s argument with vigourous head nodding as Jordan pouts.

It goes something like this: Jordan says, “Can they come?”

Ben, naturally, says, “No.” I would have too. I nod twice.

“They don’t eat too much.” That’s a lie, so when Ben says no again, I nod quickly and squawk. I like my food, so what. Jordan gets this shifty eyed look that I associate with danger and sex all at once, and then he says something really fast about profits and protection under the law and, “Oh, they’re all great shots and they’ve got their own guns.”

Ben looks a little indecisive. I resolve never to leave my life or my sleeping space in his hands. Apparently, he’s the kind of guy who stops saving you a place in line for dinner when someone makes a valid argument about how unfair it is to do that. How lame.

“Plus,” Jordan chirps as some huge animal licks the back of my head and his brothers peer out and smirk, “we’re going to need all the help we can get to blow up Phaneuf’s planet and do a proper victory dance.”

The thought of a well fleshed out victory dance is actually the only reason I don’t strangle him right there. The other Staals high five and talk about what they can and can’t fly, what they can and will shoot, and their favourite types of jam. I don’t care, I’m sulking. Besides, they all seem to like berries and I’m an orange jelly sort of guy.

We take off from Thunder Bay, Marc the second oldest sweeping his long frizzy bangs out of his eyes and trying to direct me in the best way to steer through the massive, black clouds. I ignore him, because I didn’t want him here. We get out fine, although at one point Eric feels the need to grab and steer us away from a cliff, and then Mark is spouting off reels of information about Phaneuf and Phaneuf’s guns and where Phaneuf could have taken Genya.

By the time he’s done, I never want to hear that asshole’s name again. Mark, Marc, and is that ever confusing, and Eric work together to program the navigation system. I’m still the one who gets to shift us into hyperdrive. You have to keep focusing on the good parts of your day when your best friend is possibly being tortured or frozen in carbonite or just plain dead.

You know something? It’s the longest hyperspace trip of my life, and I can’t even appreciate the thought of how fast we’re going. It sucks, and when the lights start flickering and no one can figure out why, I miss Genya more than I knew was possible. I even miss not understanding a word of his stupid accent, which is a sign that I’m getting desperate.

Phaneuf’s lair is on this fiery, scary moon. There are volcanoes and bursts of lava and far, far too many bridges for anyone’s liking. With all that bright light, it’s impossible to sneak in. We just give each of the Staals something sharp, something that fires rapidly, and five hand grenades and brace ourselves.

Mark is the only one who can read the map when we land and it takes a minute before we’re swamped, so we’re all pretty confident we’re headed in the right direction when we’re brandishing our weapons and charging down the hallway. No one said it was a good plan.

Genya is sitting in the middle of the living room, looking mildly amused and laughing at a strange cartoon on the tv. I’m not sure if it’s a product of the planet or just something that only people with knobby knees could appreciate, but we don’t stop to find out. “I’m trading sexual favours for my continued safety,” he announces when we drag him up to his feet and down the hallway.

“That’s disgusting,” Jordan says at the same time as all three of his brothers say, “awesome” and study us with new appreciation.

Along with being the worst rescue ever, we have a lame getaway plan that mostly involves yelling like banshees and pointing the other way when the angry mobs sweep past us. If we were anywhere else in the universe, in any universe and any time, we would be dead right now and my narration would probably stop mid sentence. Instead there’s a sweep of heat and Ben pounding at a keypad and then we run a little bit more and Jordan gets to explode a wall. Finally, there’s our ship, looking dinged up and as unhappy as a ship possibly can, and I have two seconds to think about how tight the bed is going to be before we’re inside and the lights won’t turn on and it’s very, very broken.

Phaneuf and his minions are smarter than they look. No fair. Mark kicks the wall and Genya pokes at several buttons and everyone swears for a minute or two before the people start running at us. I’m jerking at the joystick like it’ll somehow fix the whole situation and then, to the amusement of all the Staals, Genya crawls over me and slides between my legs and he’s messing with the cords while I try to look ahead.

Then there’s a dim flicker and the ship croaks, I’m not even kidding, and we have the world’s most wobbly takeoff before the Staals charge towards the gun seat. Eric wins for a second, then Jordan climbs on top of him and bends him over double, and I realize that keeping my eyes straight ahead was the best option for everyone. The Steeler wobbles and shudders and I wonder if we’ve exceeded the maximum weight and when it’s my turn to pick up random people we don’t really need and then we’ve lurched out of that orbit and headed straight for the next moon over.

Only my infinite knowledge of the Steeler’s unusual steering devices saves our asses. Crash landing isn’t a good idea, and landing against a muddy red moon inhabited by people who’ll gladly talk you out of your skull is a worse idea. It’s painfully obvious that we’re not going to make it into hyperdrive and I’m ready to start swearing, which is the only solution in a very bad situation, when Genya screams something about the salamanders and I swerve.

We lurch awkwardly and I stop us, and Phaneuf has finally figured out which dot in the sky we are and is gaining. I’m all for going until he gets bored or is hit by a meteor, but Genya is forcing my course towards the next moon over. I’m getting pretty sick of all this steering for me bullshit, but he mutters something about dumping the salamanders.

Any chance to get rid of those things? Totally welcome by me. They’ve done everything possible to ruin my life except for, you know, eaten very sensitive areas of my personage. I think it’s possible that I might have a party for myself when the salamanders are gone forever.

The cargo of salamanders, which is our cargo and really the stupidest thing ever to be illegal, is for this guy named Chancellor Smyth of the Edmontonian Republic. He was a great warrior, Mark informs us as we enter Edmonton orbit and Phaneuf veers away, of this long-standing battle between good and evil, or red versus blue, or something that I honestly don’t care about. Anyways, he’s paying and paying well, and since he’s famous I’m aiming to get a picture of me and him.

Or at least one of the first time one of those beasts sears his chancellorian mullet.

We plow right into the icy blue-and-grey-and-yellow moon of Edmonton in the most classy and wonderful landing I have ever done. I flashback to when Ben destroyed my modern art interpretation of Mario’s stomach by running through my bedroom wall, and the Steeler kind of crunches through a field of frozen trees and grinds to a halt in front of a very seedy bar.

There’s nothing left to do but bail out and go for a drink before passing over the salamanders.

Inside the bar, Mark drapes an arm over Ben’s shoulder and the Staals make for the jukebox and somehow, I end up seated between a guy in a skirt and knees are just as knobby as Genya’s and a guy who looks like a hitman with a scrappy five o’clock shadow and bags under his eyes. They both ignore me, the knee guy jabbering away about repairs to his own ship and the hitman glaring sullenly at the bartender.

“What do you want?”

That’s classy, the bartender missing basically all of his hop teeth and swatting at the busboy’s ass every time he passes by. They’ve got this dress code, collared short shirts over longer ones, and I wonder if that makes them feel any warmer. Busboy grins warmly at me and even warmer at a kid who looks younger than me, and the toothless bartender tilts his head questioningly. I order a beer, try to look cool and dig out my best lost-ID excuse.

“And I just need one cord. One!” the knee guy yells and the bartender drops down a glass of juice in front of me with a smirk. I drink it without protest. I’ve silently replaced the “no junk in space” rule with “don’t make a mess on a new moon or planet” since Mark seems like he’s here to stay, and yelling about juice seems to be the best way to get us stuck in another awkward situation. Besides, I want payment or photographs or at least a cargo hold free so we can shove the eldest Staals in there and they’ll stop stealing my pillow.

The hitman leans over the counter, muttering something to the bartender and glancing at me, so I start to get antsy. Ben’s vanished into a bathroom and Mark is also, surprisingly enough, AWOL when a blond kid saunters through the bar and soundly beats the Staal’s mutual high score on the pinball machine. I stand to go, time to find Smyth and get back into deep space, but it’s a little too late. Genya’s talking to skirt guy, knobby kneed guy enthusiastically, and the busboy and hitman are both giving me weird looks, kind of like they recognizes me. I back away slowly, snag the back of Jordan’s shirt before he can join his brothers in lunging toward skinny blond guy, who now has a pack of protective men behind him and his hands curled into fists. “We just need someone to recommend a ship-parts dealer,” I say quickly when hitman stands.

and Part II

24doa @ 2006-12-24T10:09:00

2006-12-24T17:09:52Z

“You the kid from the Steeler? The one who used to work with Mario?”

The entire bar is staring, and I consider melting through the floor. The cat’s out of the bag, and I can already see how pissed Ben’s going to be for having to jam two rescue missions in the space of a week. I pause, glance over to where the Staals are having some sort of shouting match, and nod.

“Good,” he says, and that’s the stupidest thing a hitman’s ever said to me. I talk to a lot of them, you know. “Come with us.”

I really, really don’t want to, so busboy grabs one of my arms and blond pinball kid takes the other and the toothless bartender pours me a glass of juice in a traveling mug. They guide me towards the back, which is a little too gangster-scene for my liking. I take a swig of the juice, which is pretty good, and Jordan follows closely behind. Even if we’ve lost Genya again and need to get him a leash to keep track of him, at least I’m not going to be shot in back alone.

The guy at the table in back has the most awful hair I’ve ever seen.

Living with Ben, Genya and Jordan, I’ve seen some pretty bad things. Hell, sometimes I’ve considered shaving myself bald and wearing a hat for the rest of my life. But this guy, he’s got a battered face and his hair is dirty blond and swept back in this flowing, soggy mess. Like he just came back from a run and used too much gel and I’m a little afraid that it’s going to eat me when he smiles, wide open and inviting.

“I’m so glad you boys decided to make it. My salamanders?”

When they said Smyth had bad hair, I couldn’t quite believe it. I wave, spilling a bit of the juice on hitman Dan, which isn’t his real name at all, and smile back. “I don’t usually do the whole trading thing. Do you want me to get Ben?”

“I’ll do it!” Jordan says and darts out, and now I’m alone with the Chancellor’s captivating hair, blond guy who’s sauntered over to a game station in the corner and plugged himself in without a backwards glance. Smyth offers me a chair, and hitman the other one, and then launches into a set of greetings.

Maybe I’m too busy glancing between his hair and the door to catch much of it, but I gather that he’s not really the leader of life-and-everything-about-it on this moon, hitman is, and Smyth is some kind of public relations figurehead. They’ve got the same last name, so I guess it’s easy to get them confused. It seems like this bar is, unfairly enough, some kind of political headquarters.

I learned at a very early age that mixing alcohol and politics is a bad idea, but before I can share this piece of wisdom, Ben enters the room. Alone, which is weird, but I assume Mark just decided that pinball was more fun than business and let it go. Smyth shakes Ben’s hand enthusiastically, grinning and talking very quickly now. I get the feeling that it doesn’t all relate to the business, from Ben’s bemused smile, all ‘team spirit’ and ‘puck to the net’ and a ten minute speech about determination.

“We have your cargo,” Ben cuts in finally.

“Excellent!” Hitman and blond kid both look up and grin, and Smytty plunges ahead, “it’s for my life partner, you see. We just had a long separation, and I want something to let him know that I really care about him. He’s going to love their…”

He pauses, looking bemused, and the gamer kid cuts in with a strong accent, “explosions.” Smyth seems content to let it stand at that, digging out some credit chips and nearly bouncing with excitement.

“Of course you’ll stay for the ceremonial presentation.” Ben glances to me and I glance down at my dirty, well worn Pittsburgh shirt. We both shrug and nod, free food is practically guaranteed at these things, and that is how we end up in the midst of a bunch of kids and excited adults, staring at a guy with mismatched eyes and a large nose as he grins stupidly over the salamander and it coughs up a little ball of flames onto his nose.

And I didn’t catch it on film. Damn.

We stay until we can’t eat any more and the party is getting out of hand, then Ben approaches the hitman and asks for directions to a good repairman. Hitman looks at us like we’re jackasses, which we probably are considering we haven’t even got our medals of honour or cakes with “Thank you, smugglers, for the flaming salamanders” in pink icing and we’re trying to bail out. He points down the road, and then snags blond kid, who had been dancing very close with a wide-smiled, wilder-haired guy and some kind of pet rodent, to get us there safely.

We look around for Mark and he’s still missing, which is starting to result in lines of worry around Ben’s eyes that I’m going to tease him about later. The Staals are still present, cracking jokes that make no sense and trying to push each other into the ice crusted snow banks on the side of the road. It takes me a minute to find Genya, because he’s washed his face and the cleanliness is an unusual look for him. He’s got skirted, knee guy in tow, and now I’m really the only one who hasn’t picked someone up on our little adventure and it’s twenty different kinds of unfair.

“Dvorak,” blond kid says when we come up to a neat repair shop, done up in pleasing colours and with an “open” sign flashing halfheartedly in the window. He leaves with rodent-dancing guy who adjusts his crotch seven times in the minute long conversation we have. Dvorak, who seems to be the mechanic and looks knowledgeable and a little worried when he examines all weapons that are deposited in the middle of the kitchen floor, allows us to take him out to the ship and only takes three or four drinks from the beer that everyone on this planet seems to keep handy as he walks around the ship.

“No good,” he says at last. We all rush to hug the ship, because the Steeler is, you know, our baby and the best and all sorts of emotionally-significant things.

“Why not?” Ben asks, trying to look rational.

“You do not have a hull any more.” Dvorak takes another slow sip of his beer and we turn to look where the hull should be. True enough, it’s visible in the slide we took across the field and through the trees, a lovely metal trail. Our ship has no hull, and we’re trapped on a planet of freezing alcoholics.

It’s then that Mark shows up, and for the first time I’m genuinely happy to see him. He’s got this saunter and half smirk and Ben rushes over as Dvorak kicks the Steeler’s side, tilts his head thoughtfully, and hops inside to investigate further.

“Where have you been?!” is the mutual shout. We can speak in unison, sometimes. Even skirt guy looks like he wonders what Mark’d been up to.

“I was in this trivia contest,” he says. That is so lame that I miss his next sentence. I make him repeat it, but by that time Ben is laughing and hugging the Steeler and Mark and, apparently, picking people up in space is good for something after all. Mark entered this trivia contest while we were drinking and dancing, which says something about his strength of character, and he won us a ship.

He’s calling her something and Jordan is protesting and Marc is protesting Jordan’s right to protest when skirt-guy cuts in and suggests we take a look at it. Who died and left him king of the frozen wasteland and logic, I don’t know, but we all march over to Mark’s new prize. It’s nice. I mean, for a ship that isn’t the Steeler. And it has a hull, and several bedrooms, and even a large cockpit. I could get used to this thing. “I was thinking,” Mark said, “of just calling it Steeler II.”

”No way,” skirt guy says. “Look at what happened to the first one.”

It’s a good point. The Steeler didn’t have a very graceful end. We fight, and somehow everyone ends up agreeing on the Thrasher, which is a fun word to say and also acknowledges the fact that our new and improved and totally pointless crew hasn’t stopped arguing or brawling since we met. We get Dvorak to check it out just in case, since he was so helpful in diagnosing the Steeler’s status, and he pokes around and has a lovely conversation with Genya while I stroke my hand up and down the joystick. It’s new and shiny and totally, totally cool, what can I say?

“Why don’t you just travel with us,” Genya is saying to skirt guy when I come out of my trance, and the guy is introducing himself as Ilya and I’m seriously, seriously considering kidnapping someone just to not be the only uncool one. Also, I wonder how having a larger ship is suddenly an automatic ok to increasing our crew size exponentially. I’m the pilot, shouldn’t I get a say? Dvorak wipes off his tools and smiles helpfully.

I could kidnap him.

Then he jumps out of the hatch and joins blond boy and crotch boy and next planet? I’m making a point of introducing myself to everyone in the next bar we go to. Ilya tries to sit in my seat and Dvorak and his unnamed friends wave cheerfully from a safe distance away, and then the Thrasher doesn’t even shake beneath my feet as it rises and steers away.

A trip with no disaster. How totally and absurdly cool is that.

We’re moving away from the entire galaxy and Genya is pretending like he didn’t sell himself for sexual favours or pick up a random guy from a home near his own and I? Am probably being hit on by four Staals, all with guns in their pants. I almost long for the tension of our awful, abysmal escape. And then? Then, despite all of Genya’s navigational expertise and even if Mark can read his handwriting, we get lost.

Again.

You’re going to think I’m lying if I said there was another capsule drifting around, because the odds against it are like one in a trillion or two. So I won’t, I’ll say that this time we landed smoothly on a green, pleasant looking planet and I didn’t have anyone’s help, because I don’t need it, and Mark decided to go all researcher and explore the terrain. I don’t know what it is with him and walking off and getting lost, but he won the ship so I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.

He finds two guys, both looking more than a little puzzled, and now I’m really, truly, and officially the only guy who hasn’t picked up another guy. Mark introduces one as Jeff, acts as if they’d know each other, and then the other one is Brian.

I don’t care at this point, I’m too busy trying to figure out where anyone will sleep or walk to wonder how a Jedi and his boyfriend ended up on an abandoned planet. Or how we ended up on an abandoned planet, or why Mark can talk in a perfectly ordinary octave when he’s deciphering science or code and still whimper like a girl when Ben does this thing—I don’t know exactly what he does, and I don’t want to.

There are a lot of things I don’t want to know right now.

Normally, we try to keep our smuggler status to relatively inanimate objects. Or at least things that can’t speak. The salamanders were a pretty far stretch for us, and when Jeff the Jedi says he’s wanted on a few planets and bonds with Genya over that, I can see exactly where this whole thing is going. It’s perfectly clear that Jeff wants to have sex with his buddy in our illegal hold, and I am not going for it.

Nope.

Not unless he lets me say that I was the one who found him.

Mark uses this sad face and throws out some phrases about helping people in need and short trips and then he pats the wall of the Thrasher in just such a way. It’s not like Ben could say no to him in the first place, since he’s already totally whipped, but I get the chance to squawk in protest at least one more time before Jeff looks at me, all calm eyes and sunny grin, and says, “You want to take us with you.”

“I want to take you with us.” Jordan is delighted that there’s a real Jedi with a real Jedi mind trick, and I’m a little worried that this makes me weak minded. Because I’m not. Jeff settles in the back with Brian resting against his legs, and he throws out a few directions towards Georgia, which is further than I’d normally travel, solar-system wise, because it’s just too warm for my sensitive, well frozen figure.

Georgia it is. The Thrasher is a little unusual, because it refuses to do anything but purr pleasingly when I shift it into higher speeds, and there’s nothing loose that rattles awkwardly when we make the leap into hyperdrive. Jeff is telling exciting stories with sweeping hand motions, talking a mile a minute and jerking out his lightsaber to make a point. Dangerous, but definitely cool. It’s bright red, and Jordan wants to hold it or see a Jedi battle or something when Jeff takes a few broad sweeps and then neatly slices the top off of Brian’s fluffy blond hair. Maybe he’s not such bad cargo after all, if he’s willing to cause trouble and still cleans up the mess.

I’m a little unnerved by the ease of the trip, since there should be rival smugglers or Force-powered star-fighters or something. Something really cool, really dangerous, and really loud for me to deke out. I don’t know how to deal with all this calm conversation and rock-paper-scissors match-ups. Especially because I keep losing, and who knew that Jedi cheated and used their powers to always know when you’d play scissors? Anyhow. The game sucks.

Honestly, though, the relaxation is cool. I have time to sleep and possibly cuddle a little just for the heck of it. Jeff sits us down and explains his dilemma, and—Well, I’d be lying if I said I approved. Jeff, Jeff Francoeur, is one of those guys who looks like he should be the poster-boy of life or something. His smile stays bright and his eyes are calm and puppy-ish and oh-by-the-way he killed twenty people and exploded two moons and he wasn’t abandoned, he was exiled.

“So what, exactly, are we doing with you?” Ben has this dangerous, roguish gleam in his eyes. Did I mention that he can’t steer and he’s adventure-seeking to the point of, like, ridiculousness? If there was a “daredevil who will one day die in a way people just have to make fun of” definition in the dictionary, it would have a picture of him next to him. A 3D picture. Maybe it would crash into poor, innocent pilots’ windows while the reader tried to glean the actual definition from the text, because I certainly wouldn’t be surprised.

Bottom line? I deal in illegalities, not mass murders. Blood makes me queasy. It’s time for a Thrasher Crew Huddle. Ilya, skirt guy who looks a little sad because he just wanted one cord to fix his ship and ended up with Genya; Brian, who remains Jeff’s boyfriend despite the blood red lightsaber; and Jeff, who doesn’t look particularly phased by my horror, stay in the kitchen area while we huddle in the cockpit.

“No way,” I say immediately. Sometimes, it’s a matter of just getting your opinion out there first.

“We certainly can’t abandon them in dead space,” Ben says. The glint to his eyes says, “and I want to see a Jedi duel.”

“And I want to see a Jedi duel,” Jordan adds. Sometimes, he’s too much like Ben for his own good.

“We don’t even know if we’d get a Jedi duel! We might get a Jedi crushing the ship while we enter orbit and laughing over our smoking corpses!”

“I’m pretty sure Jedis can’t do that.” Of course Marc Staal, secret agent of darkness from Thunder Bay, would have an opinion on what Jedis can and cannot do. Whatever.

“The bottom line,” the other Mark says, “is that we’re in hyperspace, you are smugglers, and we agreed to transport them to Georgia. We can drop them off and go back to—doing whatever it is you four do when you’re not picking up random people or smuggling.”

“What if our smuggling license gets revoked!” I squeak before Ben holds up his hand, glares around the group. The Staals huddle together, still muttering about the possibility for a duel and ripping off lightsaber technology, and Genya remains in my camp (thank god, someone with common sense), and Ben speaks.

“I think we’re going to Georgia.”

Fucking hell, as if it weren’t enough that he won’t save me a spot in the lunch line. I go back out to glare sullenly at our guests. It’s a good thing Jeff is Mark’s problem and not mine, I’m only nineteen and I don’t want to be arrested for conspiracy or something. Jeff doesn’t look any different now that I know the blood of innocents is on his hands, and I figure it’s about time to ask him why.

“So why’d you do it?”

Jeff gives me this slow, searching look. “I think that what they were doing is wrong. It doesn’t honour the culture of Florida’s natives, it goes against everything my parents taught me. I didn’t kill people, I killed clones.”

Apparently there’s a fine line when your heart is programmed with exactly the same DNA as another person’s. Brian squeezes Jeff’s knee, like he supports him and he’s there for him and hey, what an asshole he has to be to really think he can pick who lives or dies. I say it, like, “And who are you to choose?”

Ilya shrugs, stretched out on the floor. “Who are you to condone him?”

Fuck. The guy in a skirt has a point. “You’re still illegal.”

Jeff gives me this slow, irritated look. “And you’re rooming in a cupboard designed to elude the intrastellar police. I don’t see your point.” He flashes me this brilliant, sun-bright smile and changes the topic to some childhood sport. He and Ilya get in a fight about which one is best and I leave. Seriously, clones are people too!

Genya pulls us out of hyperdrive a little sooner than I would want, something logical about approaching casually and not seeming like a smuggler crew with too many weapons and a murderous Jedi on board. We mosey on down to orbit in Georgia, all smiles and quick responses to the landing guard’s messages. I’m all ready to land, drop the cargo, and run like an underfed defenseman, when the line crackles to life.

“This is Sergeant Exelby of the Georgia immigration branch. Intrastellar maintenance. I’m sorry to inform you that we’re going to request a routine background check on all passengers aboard…”

So I’ve never spent a lot of time in jail cells. I don’t like getting caught, obviously, I’m a take-charge-stay-legal sort of guy unless it comes to alcohol consumption. That’s why I’m mad that we’re busted, for all things, for identification expiration. “Seriously, mine was good like two days ago,” I yell, lean my head back against the smooth metal wall.

“Can it,” says Eric Staal. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who spends a lot of time in confined spaces, either. I think in ordinary circumstances, we could bond over that. I drum a pattern along the edge of my bed, glare as hard as I can when the Sergeant marches past. He’s got wavy dark hair and this awful facial hair going on and, like, no one dresses like that any more! Periwinkle, seriously!

Maybe I’m just mad because I’m stuck in the cell like a criminal while Ilya is chatting him up from a cushion, with a beer in hand. I tried to say that the expired ID was a good reason to let me drink, but Exelby didn’t buy it. As a matter of fact, he called the Jedi Council instead. Apparently, the Council doesn’t support underaged drinking, because they announce they’ve sent out a messenger and Jeff, across the room with an ID that’s expired because, hello, he’s illegal, goes ghost white.

“Excuse me, sir?”

Exelby approaches his cell, looking suspicious. I would too if someone smiled that cheerfully at me while bruising their ass on an ugly grey floor. I’m definitely not expecting him to lean in, but I guess that might have something to do with Jeff’s Jediness. I’m also not ready for him slumping to the floor, or the lightsaber that Jeff jerks out of his pants, where else, to slice through the bars.

“We’ll see you around, kids,” he says as he helps Brian climb through. I squawk.

“What about the Jedi battle?” Jordan whines from two cells down. I’m not seeing much of a way out of this that doesn’t involve torture or calling Mario up and begging for bail money again, so I just nod along. Jeff ignores both of us, heading for the exit. Before he reaches it, there’s a low hiss.

Seriously, if the other guy is the good one, how can he be accompanied by a trail of smoke? Jeff freezes, then pulls his lightsaber out and starts slicing through our bars. I see a guy with dark hair, soft lips, and awful mid-shin-length khakis step through into the holding area, and Jeff’s all bright sunny smiles now as he chirps, “I was just helping these unfairly imprisoned guys out.”

Khaki guy pulls out a lightsabre. It hisses and sends out a dark blue beam, which naturally reminds me of icy Edmonton and my introduction-making promise to myself. “Hey! Smoke guy! What’s your name?”

He gives me an odd look and a quick nod. When he speaks, he keeps the corners of his mouth tight together. It’s almost endearing. “Joffrey Lupul.”

Then their beams clash together. It’s an ugly sound, I’d choose gunfire over lightsaber whining any day. I comfort myself with a few low, “pew, pew, p-pew’s,” as Eric jerks the last of my bars free, pulls me out by the scruff of my neck.

“I reckon it’s about time to head for the hills,” he drawls. I snicker and receive a firm shaking from his still present grip on my collar. He shoves me towards Genya and Jordan, turns towards Brian. “You don’t gotta stick with him.”

Brian looks pale but resigned. “Hey, I don’t wanna intrude on you guys.”

They share this deep, manly look and then he ushers me away from the locked Jedis. “But, wait, which one was the good one?”

He looks at me like I’m an idiot. Which I’m really, really not. “Which one was outlawed?”

“Well, Lupul had smoke.”

“And khakis. For fuck’s sake, youngin’, you gotta learn to read people.” I don’t think super villains wear such terribly undramatic clothing, so I have to agree with him. He sits me in the copilot seat of the Thrasher, glares at all of us until we’re genuinely silent, and takes off.

“What are you doing?” Ben asks, voice low like he’s speaking to a frightened animal.

”Why don’t I recap what ya’ll have done since we were introduced,” Eric begins carefully. “Y’all brought us to help Genya escape from a bounty hunter, we nearly crashed into a planet, got chased by a bounty hunter. Then we dropped off our cargo of salamanders. Right?”

”That sounds accurate to me,” the youngest Staal chips in, ducks when we all look at him.

“Right. And then, we had a feast, Mark won us a new ship, Sid here tried to kidnap himself a buddy, Genya randomly met himself a friend from his hometown, we got lost, found an exiled Jedi, got unlost. We were busted for expired identification, nearly got ditched by the exiled Jedi after he knocked out an unsuspecting guard with a thing for Ilya. Jedi got interrupted by another Jedi named Joffrey, who we met ‘cause Sid felt the need to beg an introduction.”

“You’re summarizing very well,” Mark says in a tone that’s obviously intended to cut Eric off.

“Joffrey and Jeff the exiled Jedi who we shouldn’ta helped but did start dueling, we bust outta the jail and take off. You all following me?” At the nods, he punches a few words into the navigation system and shoots us into hyperdrive.

“Hey!” I yelp. Hyperdrive is my job, and I don’t even know where we’re going.

“I’m taking these kids home to Mister Lemieux.”

It takes me a second to realize that he means Mario, and a full minute to process the fact that Eric respects him enough to use his last name. No one calls Mario ‘Mister Lemieux!’ After that, it’s all flailing over him touching my hyperdrive stick. Honestly, I don’t think I get the implications of what he’s saying until Mark says, “You want them off the ship?”

Now, they may call me Sid the Kid? But I’m not actually a kid. I can drink in some places, I can swear. I can fly a ship! Multiple ships! Not at once, but I’m well versed in stuff, and stuff, and I’m definitely not a kid. I think about what going home to Mario implies. All the maid costumes and giggling and Marc-Andre Fleury’s tight tight pants and yellow shirts.

I hardly think of it as home now, and I definitely don’t want to go back there.

“I don’t wanna,” Jordan whines. I’m glad he said it, because I don’t want to sound like the youngest one involved in this discussion.

“It ain’t up for discussion, kiddo. This life is way too unsafe.”

The stars are sweeping fast us too quickly to comprehend and Eric is ignoring our noises of protest. I wait for Ben to step in and be captainly. You know, since that’s his job and all. He frowns and Eric scowls and they share this abrupt nod before Ben just leaves. I’ve been in a lot of trouble before, but I’ve never seen him just walk out. Mark follows slowly, shoulders slumped, and then Genya grabs my arm and steers me back into our room.

Normally, it’s the sort of time where we’d plot Eric’s demise. Jordan slouches next to me, hand curled in my hair, and Genya drops down crosslegged in front of us. “It’s stupid,” he says.

“Retarded.”

I’ve never felt like I’m a captive on my own damn ship before. I curl into Jordan’s side, fuck if captivity is going to make my hands cold, and groan. Jordan stays silent, hand moving and lips working as he runs his way through a plan. He’s not the planner, clearly, he’s just supposed to shoot things. Just like I’m just supposed to steer and Genya is just supposed to fix and Ben is supposed to go along with us and be supportive. Or captainly. Or not just be ready to ditch us and go on his merry way.

“We could take Mark hostage,” Jordan says after a long pause.

“We could jerk this baby outta hyperspace, drop your brother in the middle of nowhere, and pretend like the conversation never happened,” I grumble. It’s much more solid.

“My brother!” Jordan really looks up to them, which is almost as retarded as them treating us like kids. “Maybe he’s—“

Genya slams a pillow into his face before he can finish, and I’m pretty glad. I wouldn’t want to hate Jordan for the rest of my life, you know. He’s an ok guy and a good shot and I’m a big fan of the ‘best friends forever’ concept. What we need right now is a solid, through, totally awesome plan. Almost as awesome as us, as awesome as my hair, as awesome as not waking up with Genya’s knees against my spleen.

“Why don’t we just say no?”

They both stare at me, but I figure it sounds like it’s worth a try. It’s not as messy as firing in space, or as difficult as trying to restrain Mark’s fucking giant frame. It’s simple and—yeah, I admit it. It’s pretty fucking awesome. I stand up right then and there, slam my head against the hull, and use Genya’s shoulder for support to climb out. The adults, fuck them for being retarded, are all seated in the cockpit. It looks like they’re having a serious discussion, but it’s not like what I have to say can wait.

“No.”

There are a lot of raised eyebrows. Maybe, I should have been a little more detailed in my argument. Genya walks up behind me, sets a hand on my shoulder, and nods supportively. Hey, he’s giving me a leadership role! Awesome.

“No, we’re not kids and no, we’re not going to go home to Mario. Not even if you’d pay us, because that would make us prostitutes.” They’re blinking, now, which is a good sign. Now Jordan’s next to me. He gives this sad, needy puppy look to his brothers but stays behind me. Double winning.

“What are you talking about, Kid?” Ben’s officially lost the right to call me that, so I just glare at him.

“You know something? None of this bullshit was our fault! You let the bounty hunter take Genya, Mark found the homicidal jedi. Our only crime is being too sexy and underaged for life, and that’s your fault too!”

This whole venting thing feels really good.

Mark is nodding slowly and I figure I’ve vented enough. I stalk over to Eric, shove him until his seat spins away, and jerk on the controls. My mom once told me, when I was really little and still playing in plastic space ships, that unplanned exits from hyperspace aren’t a good idea. At this point, though, I just want to get my point across. I’m young and in control and it’s my motherfucking joystick!

I pound on the keyboard, ready to show them who’s boss, and the stars start to slow down, resume a more normal shape. Take that, adults.

I start regretting my attitude when we pull out of hyperspace completely and the ship refuses to respond to my commands. There’s an absence of light to our port side, and we’re being drawn towards it gradually. Ok, gradually is an understatement. We’re being whipped sideways and swearing and Mark is yelling at us to calm down, which is completely ineffective in the situation.

I’d be lying if I said I caught on right away, but there’s a scientific explanation as to why our wonderful new ship isn’t obeying my every wish and gentle nudge in the right direction. See, it’s a black hole. I think that, and then I really start freaking out. I’m too young to die without having a planet named after me or having a crowd of girls worshipping the ground I walk on. I’m not a war hero or a space legend or anything. Fuck!

What’s more, this time? It’s my fault. My entire argument is blown to shit by a stupid inanimate, light absorbing space object I can’t die wrong! Fuck, I can’t die at all!

The black hole doesn’t listen to my protests. If anything, we’re moving faster and I’m pissed and upset all at once. Genya grabs my shoulder and everyone is talking really fast, the Staals about how they should have stayed on Thunder Bay and Ben’s shoulda-decided-where-to-go and Mark coaching peace and unity or some universal bullshit. I want someone to apologize, I really do, I want the controls to work and the ship to stop and possibly, everyone’s getting more frantic by the second.

And we’re all going to die.

We’re too young and awesome to be obliterated, really. Really, really.

All of a sudden, it’s

the end

24doa @ 2006-12-23T09:21:00

2006-12-23T16:22:55Z

This whole concept is actually a little oldish. Over the summer, I read a werewolf series and I was like neato! And all of a sudden, I was alone in California and Ales Hemsky was a necromancer. Clearly, that concept requires a bigass fic.

So this is a prologuey thing. We've got some Eric Staal and some Hemsky and no interaction, just letting you see, like. How they got to where they are and such. It's a party of one.

The thing Walker really couldn’t understand was how everyone acted like playing for the ‘Canes was normal. He had known Staal was an annoying guy to play against. He wriggled out of unusual situations more often than anyone else Walker’d seen, he seemed to avoid getting injured better than anyone else on the team, and rumour had it he talked to himself in crazy heathen tongues. Walker wasn’t an expert on any language but profanity, but he knew that crazy heathen tongues were rarely a good sign in star players.

Then there were drills. When they became teammates, Scott realized that Staal didn’t make a habit of losing anything. Passing drills, shooting drills. One on ones. He was the sort of guy where it wasn’t difficult to imagine that he had the puck on a string, and he had the same vacant, innocent look when he did it as a handful of guys in the league. None of them impacted the play like he did.

He figured they could talk about it. It was safe to assume that Staal wasn’t, like, a satan worshiper or something. The flat-eyed face and sharp wrist movement were both just products of unusual genes, right?

Staal agreed with him when he asked. “Yeah, genes,” he drawled, but there was a smirk there. Walker resolved to keep an eye on him and then—

It was fucking magic.

***

Ales Hemsky's popularity had ceased the minute he was out of the cradle. No one would admit it of course, charming little boy with soft curls and a quiet voice and sharp blue eyes, but the only one who ever had the nerve to go near him regularly was his brother. There was nothing particularly unusual about him at first, just the chillingly cold looks when he looked up into anyone's eyes, but he aged and he walked and there was something wrong-- decidedly unnerving, even, about a child with a pet rat.

A dead pet rat, that is. Decomposed almost past recognition and trailing the youngest Hemsky like a faithful puppy dog. Hemsky had a habit of attracting things like that, dogs with their ribs crushed through one side or birds that chirped and twitched their heads to shake maggots out of their eyes. The animals were bad enough, but it was Ales' calm acceptance of them, the tiny, drab dolls that spilled out of his pockets when he was searching for his allowance, that really troubled his family.

They swallowed hard and let him grow up, silently washing the floors when he went out to play football and patting his head carefully rather than kissing him goodnight-- Who would kiss a boy who'd been seen nuzzling his face into god-knows-what-dog-that-was hours previous? They'd send him off to school and pleaded with him to blend in, be like Petr. Petr could stomach Ales' oddities, but never displayed the signs of his own. Sometimes he would cock his head towards the animals, and sometimes the animals would seem to respond in kind, but that was insignificant. Petr was normal and Ales wasn't and it wasn't until Ales was fifteen that he went anywhere near a funeral parlor.

He did keep his poppets-- he called them that now, kept them close because they made him feel infinitely safer, in his pockets, and he'd been rubbing his thumb idly over the head of one when he heard crying. And that was Petr, huddled in a pew with his skinny shoulders trembling and his face hidden behind a curtain of dirty blond hair. Petr Prucha, who Ales liked immediately, and whose nose wasn't quite keen enough to pick up the musky scent that lingered on Ales' clothes and in his hair, and whose eyes were never quick enough to observe the sardonic twist that hovered at the edges of Ales' soft mouth. Ales brought him home, pleased with the sharp lines of his nose and his chin and the knock of his ribs against Ales' when they drew close, and his parents were delighted that Ales' friend was real, breathing and smiling and being polite in all the proper places.

They still sent him away, the minute a man named Kevin Lowe came calling. Lowe's eyes were understanding and his Czech was abysmal, but he offered to take their son across the ocean, new culture, give him a job and let him be himself without the embarrassment that Pardubice would cause the family. They agreed, they hoped that the shock of submersion would jolt Ales free of his games, that the next time they saw him there wouldn't be ice in his eyes and death in every breath he took.

Ales was sent to Hull, which he hated, and then Edmonton, where he thrived, and he stopped bringing home dead rats or dogs or birds.

Ales Hemsky blended into Lowe's life, his hockey, his family-- his Cabal, and he started bringing home dead men. There was nothing dangerous about it, he was sent to do minor things and he did them, though his flair for the dramatic edged dangerously close to the threat of Cabal exposure. He played sports and spoke to ghosts and promised to save souls, or something of the sort. He was good at what he did, good with his poppets and good at controlling his emotions and very, very good at avoiding questions.

Then he got a phone call from home.

Ales arrived just in time to see the shocked, still faces of his family. Petr was dead, they said, and he knew it wasn't his father or his brother and then his stomach clenched, twisted, and for the first time in too many years, Ales felt gut-wrenchingly ill. Petr was alive and his, despite the distance, and nothing in their mild calls back and forth had hinted at anything otherwise, and Ales wanted-- needed the warmth and that smile and then, maybe, he went on a rampage.

Petr Prucha was in his coffin, peaceful and delicate and his suit pressed with all the right lines. His mother was crying, and his sisters, when Ales barged into the church. It chilled him, made him feel wrong for an instant because he stood amid the misery in his sweatshirt, his jeans, his poppet clenched so tightly in one hand that his knuckles cracked, and he was furious. A piece of Petr's shirt, he'd always had that, was fastened around the poppet's neck tightly, drawing a deep line through the fabric, and then there was a shift inside the casket, a bump of the lid.

Mrs. Prucha screamed when her son climbed out of the casket, but that was a natural reaction and Ales was so accustomed to their fear that he hardly processed the noise. Petr followed him out, through the town and into the woods as if they needed to be hid. Ales ran, knew that his friend--that the zombie would and could keep up. It wasn't until he was weezing and exhausted and on the ground at Petr's feet that he started to cry. He dragged the corpse-- stupidly skinny and light, that was Petr, and his bones seemed that much sharper when the suit jacket was ripped away-- down to his level, sobbing as he scrubbed at Petr's face until he could see the faint line of wounds, the bruises under Petr's eyes.

He hadn't bothered to ask how his friend had died, rage bubbling up before any sort of conversation had taken place, and he knew that instant that he had to get them out of the country. He tugged Petr near again, buried his face against the sharp edges of his shoulder and yelled until he was hoarse. Petr let himself be shaped, let Ales cry and knock his nose against the line of Petr's neck. Ales inhaled deeply, shuddered at the absence of Petr's neat, clean scent and forced himself to stand.

It wasn't too late, some part of him knew. He could take the body back, babble himself in fear until they believe that it wasn't his doing. He could go back and admit it, but leave Petr behind. He should leave Petr behind, but then there was the same fit of Petr's wrist in his palm, and death hadn't managed to completely rob the gentleness from the skin around his mouth. Ales didn't need to speak to give his directions, just lifted his poppet-- Petr's poppet from the ground and brushed it lovingly clean. He started walking, listened to the crackling of footsteps behind him, and felt the ache rise in his chest.

Petr should have been talking, because Prucha had always carried their conversations. Stupid, fat Ales, he would tease, and his quick fingers would smooth over Ales' hair and Ales would--

He knew instinctively when they weren't in the Czech Republic any more, knew that he was probably lost and that his friend, his best friend or his only friend or his boyfriend, any of which made him want to puke again, was dead. He was going to take Petr home, to a real home with real compassion and he would keep Petr, what was left of him, safe forever. Petr couldn't speak and there was that chillingly dead look in his eyes, like whatever had taken him had been thorough to punish Ales, couldn't even leave him with the rasp of decaying vocal cords and the light of rarely-blinking eyes to ease the loss.

Ales didn't think he'd done anything wrong ever, knew he would be punished eventually, but couldn't see why. It was natural, it was good. He walked further, glanced back at Petr and swallowed. The man was his, at least, and trapped in eternal glory, and he didn't look that dead if Ales willed him to smile. Not the same smile as he'd have in life, but it would do. Ales slid a hand into his, warmed the clammy palm with his own dry heat, and stepped easily into the first town he came across.

"We need a place to stay," he said, managed to look calm about it. They didn't question the other man's quiet, or his odd gait. One room for the night, and then he could find a way to get himself across the ocean. No one questioned Petr following him home, staying in his room. Ales kept playing, kept doing odd jobs for Kevin and his Cabal, and started searching for a way to really, honestly raise the dead.

***

Eric Staal had always been immersed in the Cabal lifestyle. Unlike his brothers, who only knew surgeries and farm work and hockey, he had a vague memory of the field office. He’d always felt the strength of it, been in tune with anything as abnormal as himself. He didn’t mind the hard work and he didn’t miss being nearer to the Cabal, but it was as much a part of him as his hands or his skates.

He didn’t enjoy the work of the farm. Unlike Jordan, his baby brother, he’d never really become interested in the patients there. Nor did he have an unnatural fondness for the sod he shifted so much of. Eric knew he was good enough to get away from Thunder Bay, and when the Hurricanes drafted him, he was more than happy to move south. He soaked up that culture and the drawl and managed to keep his heritage intact too.

So what if it was too easy to manipulate the game. Eric knew the extent of his power and the limitations of the mortals and if that was what it took to win, well, fuck. It was hardly even a decision worth mentioning. He kept the Cabal placated by sending most of his money to them, knew that they valued business over strict obedience anyways.

He liked to think he’d be strong enough to ignore them, even if they were displeased with his ‘attitude.’

Eric didn’t feel that it was necessary to inform friends that he was, oh by the way a warlock. It was enough to bring his childhood friends down for a visit, or to go see Marc in New York or Jordan and Jared on the road. It wasn’t that he actively tried to make it a secret, just that he wouldn’t have an advantage if everyone knew. There were other people using their powers on the ice, anyways, he knew that.

There was more than a little giant blood in Chara, despite his casual shrugging off of the attention. Kovalchuk was prominent in a Russian Cabal, and kept his friend and half-demon co-worker close in a minor-league system for support. Lowe ran a hockey team and a Cabal at once without batting an eye, and there was Hemsky the necromancer who had equal amounts of screaming fangirls and dead eyed men in his wake. They all ignored each other, pointedly refused to acknowledge each other.

Eric liked it that way. He didn’t want to be a member of the freaks club, he wanted to win. If Kovalchuk would only use his skill for scoring and Hemsky seemed like his puck control was entirely separate from that whole zombie thing, Eric would be the first to use magic to improve his all-around game.

He definitely, definitely didn’t feel bad about what he did. At least, until Walker found out.

24doa @ 2006-12-22T11:47:00

2006-12-22T18:49:25Z

A big big big thank you to the people who made this happen. RUTH AND BETH. It's the last CWNT I'll be writing this month, and so it needed a special theme.

This is, in other words, Beth's superpower!Katie Thorlakson fic! Woo!

Katie Thorlakson could walk through walls.

Mostly, she used it to be a pervert. Not walk all the way through, just peek her head the first bit into the shower and then duck away laughing when Taryn, Sasha, anyone threatened to throw a large bar of soap at her head. The best part was Kara. When they first met, Kara was young and mostly innocent and Katie was… well, a pervert.

Their relationship changed. Grew, even. Eventually, Katie stopped poking her head in to give Kara very helpful tips on Halo. She still was nosy, of course. Just, instead of violent war games, she ended up seeing a lot of nakedness. Kara was a little bit of a slut. There wasn’t a nicer way to say it, and Katie couldn’t possibly be fonder of her because of it.

The first five or ten times, Kara just rolled her eyes and squared her shoulders and went right back to what she was doing. Finally, she cracked. She had been right in the middle of something with a dark eyed, scruffy jawed boy when Katie peeked her head in. It was probably the unmanly- - girly scream that the guy let out seeing Katie’s smirking face slide into position over Scary Spice’s face on Kara’s poster that did Kara in.

“Katie?”

”Darling?”

”Get your face the fuck out of my wall!”

Katie sulked on the other side, listening to the boy’s sobbing fade away and the moans start up again. Kara could be pretty cool, but she could also manage to be a prude at the oddest times. Katie spent a few nights being a pervert the normal way after being officially banned from Kara’s wall. She used a glass to eavesdrop, she peeked in at the keyhole and giggled when she had to run away. It was all just looking out for Kara, after all. She had horrible taste, and if Katie’s superpowers meant she also had to be Kara’s guardian and superhero, so be it.

So it took a few days, but she remembered what Kara had said one day. Specifically, the bit about the face. Katie could work with faces. The next time Kara had a boy over, he was thin and blond and pretty unattractive, when push came to shove. She waited until it was getting all heated up, and then she patiently slid her hand through the wall and gave a very slow, dramatic thumbs down. This one screamed louder than dark-haired-boy.

“Katie!” She laughed and ran away. Walking through walls was almost as cool as pissing Kara off.

24doa @ 2006-12-21T12:52:00

2006-12-21T19:54:02Z

I don't consider this thing finished-finished. I never hit Ty-sent-to-military-school or Chad Moreau, gym teacher. There is no sex. Nonetheless, I like it. It's Sykora/Hemskyish. It has mathletes and stuff. It's a party for two, and it's definitely for Robyn.

“Welcome to Skyreach High. Inspirational name, inspirational place.”

Petr freezes and looks up, foot raised onto the next step and eyes wide. It is a little inspirational, and aptly named. Soaring concrete walls, barely tinged blue and decidedly unshakeable. The only windows are on the entrances, and the grass nearest the doors is worn down to dust. He adjusts his tie and his belt, flicks his hands over his hair and shrugs his shoulders to settle his backpack.

New school, new start. He’s jostled by a crowd of greasy looking boys, but un-phased. The bell rings and he hops up the steps, glances left and right and tucks his school map in his pocket. He’s going to be cool here. Heard a lot about this school, has to take advantage of its opportunities. He turns left, following a boy in a polo shirt and well worn jeans with very bright blue, very awesome sneakers who looks like he knows where he’s going.

The boy leads him straight to a lab, and Petr hesitates at the door, trying to look inconspicuous and wait. The boy leans over another guy, this one with a faded black t-shirt and half of his teeth missing. They’re both in deep conversation and then the toothless guy glances up, looks straight at him and raises an eyebrow deliberately. Petr sets off in a new direction, backpack bouncing with every step and hands jammed in his pocket.

“Hey! New kid.” He freezes, realizes that the action’s a giveaway and turns to face the speaker. Cool shoes kid, grinning and walking forward with his hand extended. Petr offers a hand, endures the firm handshake and the maniacally cheerful smile. “I’m Steve Staios. President of the school counsel. You look like you need some help.”

“Uh. I’m lost.” Petr smiles, shrugs.

“How about we take you to the office? Let’s see your schedule.” Steve slings an arm around his shoulders as he digs into his pocket, withdrawing the rumpled sheet of paper. He’s almost intimidating in the force of his friendliness, but his enthusiasm seems genuine when he whoops, “Third period English with Huddy! Great! We’ll be together there, and he’s great.”

“Great.”

Steve guides him to the office, departs with a firm hand clap on his shoulder and an almost insane grin. “Fresh meat,” he chirps to the secretary as the door swings closed behind him. Petr glances away from his departing back, smiles awkwardly at the secretary.

Who looks bored. He’s chewing his gum with determined, large motions and toying with a large coffee mug. “You must be Sykora.”

“Hi!”

He gets a raised eyebrow and something of a smirk. “The principal’ll see you in a few minutes, ok kid?” He gets nodded to an overstuffed blue chair and spends several minutes scanning the inspiring posters on the wall before the principal’s door swings open. Lowe is a balding man with drooping eyes and a crooked smile. Petr springs to his feet, hand extended, and gets a firm handshake and a snicker from the secretary.

“I’d just like to make sure all your paperwork checks out, then we can get you to class.” The chairs in Lowe’s office are simpler, and there are framed hockey photos on the wall instead of posters. Petr perches at the end of his seat as Lowe flips through several pages and gives him a few searching looks. “All good.”

“I was hoping you would let me pick up an extra math course—“

Lowe looks surprised and a little impressed. “We considered the implications of you as a mathlete. That’s good, we’ve been looking for someone to complement Hemmer’s equation formulation in competition. He isn’t fond of reaching the solution when the difficult work’s done, and-”

“I know about him,” Petr chirped. “It is one of the reasons my parents and I considered Skyreach. I had been a member of several math clubs before, and Ales and I have competed together at home during summer camp, before.”

Lowe nods thoughtfully, then flicks his mouse, turning off his computer’s screensaver. “I’ll get you registered now, and send an email out to Ryan Smyth. He organizes the clubs.”

Petr hopes they get t-shirts in mathletes.

Lowe walks him to first-period history personally, leaves him at the door. Petr hesitates for a second, then squares his shoulders and marches in. He sits in the middle of the class, smiling hesitantly at the toothless boy Steve had been talking to. He gets a wide, slightly un-nerving grin in response, and an offered hand.

”Ethan Moreau. I already know who you are; I help Steve run the school counsel thing.”

“Oh, neat.” Pet beams and folds his hands on top of his textbook. Everyone here is just so nice. He misses half of the teacher’s discussion on the assignment, stays seated as the class files forward to hand in the papers. Ethan hands him a sticky note with the paper’s information on the way back to his own desk, shrugs at Petr’s thanks. They’re in the midst of a discussion on the Cold War when Ales breezes into class late, sipping a cup of coffee with "Number One Dad" on one side and the handprint of one of the teachers' kids on the other.

"Mr. Hemsky. So nice of you to join us."

He glances up and smiles, radiant and tossing his paper on top of the neatly stacked pile. The teacher rolls his eyes skyward and sighs, but doesn’t protest further as Ales snags his book, leafing through it and sitting down in the front row.

Petr leans forward in his seat, hisses, “Ales, hi!”

Ales glances back over his shoulder and grins, standing and darting around the teacher to relocate next to Petr. “How’s it going?”

“Good! All the registering was good.”

“If you two are finished?” the teacher asks and Petr blushes furiously, stares down at his open book. Ales drops his head to his desk, shuts his eyes and falls asleep within minutes as the rest of the class continues speaking. It’s good to see him, Petr thinks as Ales snuffles and wraps an arm over his head.

The hallways are a little more confusing without the principal or Steve to help him, and when the bell rings he gives a little groan of frustration and triple checks the number on his schedule. Must be a misprint, he thinks, or maybe it’s just that 171 looks a lot like 111. He peeks in, sees smiling faces and colourful posters and figures it must be his beginner French class.

He’s just sat down, safe in the middle between a boy with bleach-blond hair and a dark haired, bright eyed kid, when the teacher strides in. And, sure, there are probably Hispanic French people out there! And then Mr. Dominguez writes his name on the board and launches into a greeting in Spanish. Petr goes beet red, glances at the door and then the clock and slumps down in his seat.

Fortunately, the blond boy doesn’t rat him out, too busy drawing dirty pictures on his course outline. The dark haired kid catches him glancing frantically at the clock again and grins, leans over. “I’m Dwayne. You’re not enrolled in Spanish, huh?”

Despite the death-metal promoting t-shirt and longish hair, he seems nice. Petr blushes darker and shrugs and Dwayne grins, launches into a just-quiet-enough discussion about his band and Dominguez’s toupe, or something. He gives Petr neat, concise directions to his English class, gets knocked by a stream of guys exiting the class next door and spins around, slamming his fist into one of their stomachs. There’s yelling and a teacher bursting through the door and Petr glances at the directions and hastily starts walking away. No need to visit Principal Lowe twice on the same day.

He drops down safely in English and smiles and Steve launches quickly into the, “How was your first morning, do you like your classmates, were you able to find the washrooms, the lunch special is—“

He’s elbowed sharply in the ribs by a guy with a five-o’clock shadow and surprisingly bright green eyes as Ethan drops down in the seat in front of Petr. “Hey again,” he mutters to Petr, rolls his eyes at Steve and the guy behind him. “Jason, we’re so glad you made it.”

”My attendance record’s a hundred percent for this semester.”

“And you’ll be down to eighty by the end of the day?” Ethan smirks and Steve shushes them all as Huddy begins to speak. Petr glances between Jason, who looks decidedly bored and a little irritated at the discussion of Where the Red Fern Grows, Steve’s enthusiastic nods to the teacher’s lecture, and Ethan’s absentminded doodling. It’s some kind of complex graph, Petr realizes. This school had the best people ever.

He’s startled out of his reverie by Steve’s enthusiastic face just a little too close to his own. “You wanna eat lunch with us today?”

“I was—um. I thought maybe I’d pick up something quickly and then meet with Ales about the mathletes.”

“We’ll show you the cafeteria.” Steve slings an arm over his shoulder again. He’s really not good at taking no for an answer. Jason leads the way, parting the crowd with several well-placed elbows and always keeping a hand on Ethan’s backpack. Petr scans the crowd for Ales, hoping to be free of the group’s awkward cheer, but can’t find any particular blond in the sea of students.

“Guys, hey guys! Wait up!” Jason’s shoulders slump and he walks faster, forcing the other three to keep pace with him. Petr glances back, sees a dark-haired figure weaving through the crowd after them and waving frantically. “Guys! Hey, hey Steve! Wait!”

Steve sighs and stops in the middle of the cafeteria doorway. There’s a grumble from the crowd, but the boy manages to catch up and wave several sheets of paper in Steve’s face. “What’s up, Horc?”

Flattering nickname.

Horc grins, making his entire face more goofy than seems—well, possible. “I was thinking about your ad campaign and—“

“I got it,” Ethan growls. He looks offended at the thought of outside assistance, and Petr makes a note to never demonstrate his excellent poster painting technique to Steve.

“Two heads are better than one, right guys?”

“Actually,” Dwayne-from-the-Spanish-class-Petr-isn’t-in says as he walks past, “it’s ‘too many cooks spoil the soup.’”

”Who says that?”
“My mom.” Dwayne grins at Petr and cuts in line ahead of a giggling group of girls, winking at them and smoothly stealing a jello from a passing tray. Petr looks between him and Horc, who looks wounded, and feels bad for an instant. Then Horc’s running off in another direction.

“Hey! Wait, Marty! Remember how you said you wanted a sports writer? Remember? Marty, wait!”

“Horc,” Jason grunts as he grabs trays for the group. “Good kid.”

Petr nods slowly and finally catches sight of Ales. He looks occupied, mulleted boy on one side and a jock on the other, but Petr figures he’d never be too busy to serve as an excuse. “I see my friend,” he says quickly, smiles apologetically at Steve and bolts.

Ales doesn’t introduce either of his friends, so the mullet kid shakes Petr’s arm so enthusiastically his whole body moves along with his arm and says, “Hey, hey, how’s it going, I’m Ryan. Ryan Smyth, I’m the clubs coordinator and this is Jarret, our athletics liaison—“

“Actually,” Jarret says, “I’m the captain of the football team.” He looks a little embarrassed to be seen in the company of Petr’s suspenders and Ryan’s high waisted pants, slugs Ales’ shoulder. “And I’ve got cheerleading tryouts to monitor, so we’ll have to finish our thrilling discussion on the pattern for the new school jackets some other time.”

Petr wonders why Ales would have any say in the jacket pattern anyways, but before he can ask Ryan is gracefully excusing himself and chasing after Shawn, who’s still yelling about the school newspaper. Ales scans the lunch line, which now stretches out through the doors and around a corner, and smirks. He sets off in the other direction and Petr doesn’t even feel like an idiot when he tags along like a puppy. Ales leads him up a stairway that hasn’t been swept, across an unused stage, and then down another hallway. He steps up to the teacher’s lounge, glances back and smirks.

“Where are you going?” Petr hisses, clinging to the corner as Ales casually ambles up to the staffroom door. “Ales.”

Ales’ look is tolerant as he crooks a finger, twists the handle of the door and disappears within. Ales, in the teacher’s lounge, and Petr can barely restrain his horror. He knows that terrible things happen to students in the teacher’s lounge. It’s an established fact, it’s practically a scientific law. He waits one second, two, an entire minute before it becomes apparent that Ales isn’t coming out any time soon.

He feels like a bit of a loser standing in the middle of the hall, and he’s planning on being cool at Skyreach. He inhales deeply and steps inside too. There are several battered couches, a microwave that doesn’t have pasta stuck to the top, and a bubbling coffee machine. Ales has pulled out a new mug and a calculator, seated on the counter and looking casual. Petr can’t see any alien killing devices or, God forbid, teachers, so he moves closer. Ales tilts the calculator so he can read the equation, grins up at him.

There’s a warm feeling in Petr’s chest that’s rapidly settling down into his stomach. He combats it with a sip of Ales’ coffee, takes the calculator himself and punches in a few more numbers. They reach for the graph button at the same time, and Ales makes a graceful, slow gesture to give him the honour. He presses it, sees the graph scroll across the screen, and figures that this school was the best idea of his life. He glances up, Ales’ face suddenly surprisingly close to his, and blushes beet red.

They stay frozen for a second too long, then Ales is leaning back, speaking with a soft, even voice. “I packed lunch, in the mini-fridge. There is enough for both of us.”

Ales cleans the coffee table off and Petr sets the food out and they share the mug of coffee, randomly cutting off conversations to sketch math formulas on the tabletop in pencil. By the end of lunch, it feels like the best relationship Petr’s ever had. He jumps when the bell rings, almost considers skipping his next class just this once, but Ales has risen and stretched lazily.

“You have phys ed next,” he says calmly, cuffs Petr and lets his hand linger against the collar of his shirt. “That is outside. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you so much.” Petr rolls his eyes, hesitates, and wraps an arm around Ales’ waist. “Thank you for math.”

”I did not create it.” Ales studies him like he’s grown a second head and he grins, ducks his head against the warmth of Ales’ neck. There’s a dry brush of lips against his forehead, he thinks, and then Ales shoves him off. “Do not be late.”

“Want to experiment with negative infinity after school?”

Ales’ smile is even better than advanced calculus. Petr heads to phys ed, smoothing his hair and fighting the tide of the noisy crowd and feeling like the coolest kid in the school.

24doa @ 2006-12-20T11:42:00

2006-12-20T18:42:59Z

Michael Barrett! Jose Theodore! Porn Stars! FOR THE ONLY PERSON IN THE WORLD BESIDES ME WHO LIKES THIS PAIRING. :D

It was fortunate for everyone involved that Michael Barrett, head of Bats and Balls, was such a kind and loving person. He made his company successful through hard work, good advertising, and the moral rigidity of his Catholic upbringing. It didn’t hurt that he had an eye for good porn and better porn stars and a lot of patience.

It would be hard to recognize that if someone were to walk in on him on the set. He directed, occasionally, but only the best. The best was French Canadian, wavy dark hair and haunting eyes and a flexible body. The best was Jose Theodore, and Jose was something of a princess. He was yelling as loud as he could, and Michael was glaring back, eyebrows knotted.

“You don’t get to lecture me!” Mike’s hands were braced on his hips as he spoke, which was never a good time. Jose tried his coyest smile as he leaned in to nuzzle his forehead. “I worked my ass off to get where I am!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“And when I say, Jose I want you to be a fucking Spartan soldier, you say, where can I get my fucking pleated skirt? Got it!”

Jose giggled, planted a kiss on Michael’s nose. “You’re overreacting.”

“Spartan soldier!” Mike gave a little whimper of protest as Jose shifted to his ear, nipped carefully.

“I want to be a Roman—thingy.”

“No.” Mike shifted when Jose kissed him fully, heard the cameras roll into life. “No Roman thingies.”

Whatever he was about to say next was cut off by the open mouthed kiss, Jose backing him into his director’s chair and making the motion used to straddle his lap look almost graceful. Only Jose could manage it, really. Michael rucked his shirt up his back, one hand groping at his waistband and the other tearing at the designer fashions near his hem. Jose twitched, rubbing their hips together, and the chair tipped backwards. Mike wheezed against Jose’s jaw but didn’t stop the motion of his hands. There was a cameraman snickering at his side and Jose jerking at his pants, smirking and murmuring in French.

Bats and Balls never really got off the ground in the fantasy porn. Mike was a good manager, willing to get involved and work hard. Behind the Scenes porn was a big hit, if his chequebooks were to be believed.

24doa @ 2006-12-19T09:26:00

2006-12-19T16:28:12Z

This one is half dedicated to two people. First and foremost is Cat, who actually requested it. Heh. Um. Second is my good friend Sandeep, who will never ever read it but is a wampire who wants to keel me. Or soemthing.

Look. AROD. Jeter. Vamnpires.

In the bowels of Yankee Stadium, there was a curious room. It was decked out in memorabilia, faded news articles and rookie playing cards and one or two crumpled Gatorade cups. The lighting flickered occasionally and it was only during the loudest games that the roar of the crowd could be heard from within the very solid, very concrete walls.

Alex Rodriguez hadn’t meant to find it. He’d been hiding, nobly, from the press. There was always something new to discover in the New York catacombs, and he counted himself lucky that he hadn’t run into any oversized rats or, ew, homeless people. Alex was a sensitive soul, and all he wanted right now was a tender hug and a bathroom with functional soap dispensers.

He walked into the room, the echo convincing him quickly that it wasn’t what he was looking for. He really needed to take a piss at that point, and glanced around for a new route. No sense in doubling back, he couldn’t run the risk of meeting a reporter when his bladder was full to bursting and his hair wasn’t properly coiffed. The room had several exits, none of which looked promising.

Something made him pause at the shrine at the centre of one of the walls. It was Derek Jeter, looking good with a hand raised and a bat resting casually on his shoulder. “What?” A-Rod muttered intelligently, pawed through the scraps of paper at the base of the shrine.

“What’re you looking at?”

He spun and raised his hands in his best ninja-fighting pose. There stood the Captain himself, all calm and collected despite the odd humming from one of the above pipes. Alex relaxed, ran a hand over his hair. “Some creepy shrine.”

”Oh, that’s mine.” Jeter walked past him, rearranged a piece of paper and nodded. “Isn’t it nice?”

“Why have you got a shrine to—yourself?” It seemed out of character! Jeter had enough people admiring him that he should just ask for a complete compilation of his successful media ventures. There was no need for him to labour alone in this dark, almost smelly cavern.

“My greatest accomplishments of this century!” Jeter clapped a hand on his shoulder firmly and leered. “Don’t you wish you had something like this?”

A little creepy. Alex shrugged and grinned. “Pretty cool.”

“We all have our little collections.”

Alex shrugged again. He didn’t collect very much except for bats and—well, bats. He shifted away from Jeter’s grip, still present and a little too tight for his liking. He bruised easily! It was very difficult to be so delicate and wonderful, but if he could avoid unseemly contusions, he would. “I was just looking for a bathroom when I found—“

He spun when Jeter’s arm whipped out, snagged high on the sleeve of his jersey. There was an unusual, chilly look in Jeter’s eyes and his lush, pink lips were narrowed into a thin line. All of a sudden, he was falling down, head smashed against that stupid shrine and Derek straddling his hips.

“Dude, not now! I need to pee!”

Derek was loosening his belt, bullying his hands down and retightening it so that his arms were pinned to his side. “I’m so sorry I have to do this to you.”

It would have meant a little, a lot more if he weren’t grinning widely. Alex wriggled again and when he refocused his gaze, there was something odd in his face, in his teeth. Derek was leering down at him and somehow, he’d developed fangs. Alex struggled against the knees pinning his hips, let out a girlish whimper and tried to buck away as Jeter leaned down.

Lips against his jaw, and then the scrape of teeth way, way too close to his jugular. “Sorry,” Derek murmured again and then nipped. What if it scarred Alex thought, and then screamed as loudly as he could. Derek looked so surprised at that that Alex managed to flip them over, lashing with a knee and twisting a hand free of his belt. He slapped Derek as hard as he could, and then flailed around for something more effective.

Derek was, like, totally a vampire, and if anyone could fix it-—if anyone could save New York, it was Alex Rodriguez. There were several fragments of baseball bat beneath the shrine, autographed. A vampire who autographed his own memorabilia? Alex was disgusted, even he didn’t sink that low! He snagged a handful of wood chips, tossed half of them up in the air and ended up with the sharpest one he could find.

“Alex? What are you doing?” Derek looked afraid, like Alex held his life in his hands. Oh, wait, he thought. Maybe he was hysterical, but he did. In the spirit of Americana, he held the fragment--- the stake high and held it in place.

“Are you a vampire, dude?”

“No.” That was a lie, but at least he’d tried for a fair trial. He plunged the stake down, right through one of the e’s in the team’s logo. Derek arched his back and screamed, fangs and contorted face, and then Alex was treated with a totally, totally disgusting faceful of dust.

Derek Jeter dust.

Alex leaped to his feet, pawing at his face and hopping from foot to foot. He was covered in vampire dust and the stress was making his bladder protest heartily. He kicked the shrine hard, sending pictures fluttering down into the gray dust and tight pinstriped pants. He would think about what they’d do without Derek Jeter on gameday soon.

For now, he seriously needed to find a bathroom.

24doa @ 2006-12-18T11:57:00

2006-12-18T18:57:33Z

And it's a heave ho high ho coming down the plains, stealing wheat and barley and all them other grains
and it's a ho hey high hey, farmers bar your doors when you see the Jolly Roger on Regina's mighty shores.

Yeah. That's about all you need to know. Pirately CWNT. Staring the goalies.

Their boat wasn’t all that big, but there was more than enough room for the goalie crew. They left their bras out to drive on the mast, just below their fluttering red pirate flag. Taryn was the captain with a three cornered hat and striped pants that made her butt look big and her knees look sharp, and Erin had a cutlass but mostly just played the roll of parrot.

She had the better hair for it.

Their ship was lurking around the bend of the river, waiting for the Striker merchant ship to dawdle into view so they could attack. Erin had done her hair up in sticky white lines and Taryn had sharpened her knife and smile absentmindedly. When the Striker lumbered around the bend, girls lounging at the bow in bikinis and sipping their brightly-coloured drinks, they were more than ready.

“Y’aaaaaaarg!” Erin yelled as Taryn enthusiastically jerked the maple leaf flag to full mast. They waved their cutlasses and ignored the gapes of the girls as they took running leaps at the railing of their own boat. A pause, and they were brilliantly airborne, landing hard and blade-first on the Striker deck. The lovely Kara Lang, all doe-eyes and unthreatening pink polka dotted bikini, used her orange martini as a peace offering. Taryn, outraged, waved her cutlass enthusiastically and Erin added, “Y’arrrrg! Your booty or your life!”

“Not her booty!” Katie gasped. Kara had a lovely booty, full and not overly large but clearly obvious. Katie went so far as to place a carefully possessive hand over said booty, resulting in more cutlass waving and Taryn’s first attempt at a piratey howl.

It wasn’t quite as spirited as Erin’s, but it was pretty good altogether.

24doa @ 2006-12-17T20:58:00

2006-12-18T03:59:35Z

I was pretty, really scared to attempt cowboys after Kennedy went nuts on hers. It's better than mine, and if you haven't read it you probably should.

Anyhow, this is my attempt. Kate, I promise sexy sexy Ales clubbing fic as an apology.

Steve Staios/Ethan Moreau. As cowboys.

First few days into the drive, they get along fine. Ethan leans forward against his saddle horn, generally silent and eyes constantly scanning the cattle, and Steve just talks constantly. He doesn’t so much care if Ethan’s listening or not, the cows are happy to flick their ears in his direction and that’s more response than he can get in a bad week at home with Jason and Ethan. By the time they’re a few weeks in, though, he’s starting to run out of conversation topics and Ethan pulls out the bottle.

He’s not so picky. He likes whiskey or anything, just as long as it burns going down and blurs the edges of his vision. It drives Steve nuts, even if it’s just a sip or two during the day. He’s all about the responsibility, constant dedication. Sure, the alcohol doesn’t fuck with his judgment. He’s just as capable when it comes to steering or fording or making smartass comments when Steve says something to one of the cattle. Maybe it bugs Steve because it makes him jealous, as stupid as it sounds. Having to compete with a damn canteen for his partner’s attention, and losing.

They stretch out together, Ethan sipping casually and Steve glaring into the flames. Steve reaches out, scuffs his palm over the flat lines of Ethan’s jeans and then flicks a clump of dirt away from the tattered hem of his shirt. He gets a questioning look, reflection from the whiskey on Ethan’s cheekbone. It’s a good opportunity to stroke his thumb over the stubble on Ethan’s cheek, smirks at the raised eyebrow.

Ethan stretches, one armed, and slowly screws the lid back on. There’s nothing but interest in his eyes as they study him. He sets the bottle to the side, and there’s obviously no interest in going back to it right away. Steve leaves his hand on Ethan’s jaw, grins when Ethan leans closer.

Their lips are almost brushing when he mutters, “What’s up, Stevie?”

It’s good and silent on the trail, and Steve’s beat the canteen for Ethan’s attention, tonight. He decides to take a minute to savour his reward.

24doa @ 2006-12-16T22:49:00

2006-12-17T05:49:49Z

I got nothing. Almost forgot to post, but I will survive. Etc. Hooker Huston Street ahoy.

The t-shirt was tight enough to play up the muscles on his forearms, down his stomach, each arch of rib through skin. He was lounging against a wall, dark puppy eyes darting from his face to his car to the farmer’s tan on his arm where it rested against the car door. Rich twitched a finger, the boy sprang closer.

He smiled and he had bright white teeth, the corner of his lip quivering. There was a drawl, all Texas, when he asked, “You interested?”

Rich caught sight of a thin gold chain, cross outlined against the guy’s smooth neck. Took balls to have a thing for Jesus and work the streets. Rich liked his men with balls.

“Get in.”

24doa @ 2006-12-15T09:08:00

2006-12-15T16:11:46Z

So possibly I had too much fun with this one. Just maybe. But. Jarret Stoll! With a healthy dose of Petr Sykora, or something. And no creative title.

Jarret Stoll was hot shit. He had a gorgeous model girlfriend and a well paying job and millions of people screaming his name. He was straight and happy and well-adjusted, generally. That is, until he woke up gay.

It wasn’t like it could be expected. He didn’t look any different and he didn’t talk any different, voice still cracking in his protests. He didn’t even play more or less physically than he had before. It was just that he knew, knew that his totally hot model girlfriend no longer did a thing for him, and the thought of Jacques dropping the soap in the shower? Did.

This was a problem. Stolls, as a rule, were not gay men. They were manly men, despite the curls and the twinkling eyes and the roguish grins. They were men who did not appreciate anal sex as much as Jarret Stoll very, very suddenly did. It was the sort of situation that required a solution, and Jarret Stoll was still manly enough to go out seeking the truth.

He searched for his most manly plaid shirt and his loosest jeans and his dirtiest pair of shoes. All his instincts told him to go for the charming floral print and the leather pants, but he Resisted because if anyone knew he was gay-- Well, they might make unpleasant implications about him! Or rub up against him in practice in ways he would enjoy but be unable to express!

Jarret Stoll got into his manly truck and drove down to Rexall place, always exactly 12km/h over the speed limit. It was a risky thing to do, but not too risky, the perfect rebellion against the manlust swelling inside his stomach. He parked near the lot exit so his cheeks wouldn’t become flushed with the chilly winter breeze, and strode forcefully inside.

The slam of the door as he crashed in caused several staff to look up. They knew but he gave them his most charming, straight wink to throw them off the trail before glaring ahead and marching onwards. A man with a mission, he would find someone to Talk About It with, and then he would be cured. Then he would go home and fuck Rachel Hunter until she remembered to call his name when she orgasmed.

The locker room was already crowed with his teammates in various stages of undress. He tore his eyes away from the enticing, virginal ass of Ryan Smyth and scanned the room for a welcoming—but not too welcoming, ear. The guys all looked busy, and he stalked to his locker and pulled his shirt off in a graceful movement.

“Hey, Stollie.” It was Lupul, with a sexy accent and dark, brooding eyes. Jarrett Stoll licked his lips appreciatively before shrugging and nodding.

“What’s up, lovemuffin.”

“Uh.”

“Lupes.” Lupul gave him a slanted look and turned to strike up a conversation with his locker. Anything to avoid him! Lupul was such a homophobe!

Some of the guys looked over at him and said hello, and all he could do was glare sullenly. Why did Lupul have to be like that, anyways, they were all teammates and it wasn’t like he’d grabbed his ass! He reached out as Markkanen waddled past in full gear, smacking the well padded ass nearly at his eye level. That was how Jarret Stoll grabbed asses! Lupul was so misguided!

Practice was strenuous. He never realized how much they skated and passed and shot until he was gay! There were also troublesome checking drills. Smid slammed him into the glass and he gave a little mewl of pleasure. Fortunately, the Czech rookie was poorly versed in Canadian culture and probably thought it meant, ‘dammit why are you hitting me so hard.’

Smid looked at him curiously and skated away to talk to Staios. The kid wanted his ass, he knew it. Jarret Stoll leaned on his stick, sliding a gloved hand up and down it slowly. He emitted a high pitched squeak when there was a shower of ice against his socks. They had been so clean too! He glared up, hoping it wasn’t Lupul or his nasty gang of cohorts, Torres and Hemsky. Stoll wasn’t sure what he’d seen in those guys, but he was so over them.

It wasn’t the womanizing posse after all. It was Petr Sykora, looking like a mentor and kind and very pretty. “Are you ok, Stollie?”

His voice was so sexy, even if it was a little difficult to understand. Stoll watched his gorgeous lips shape the sounds, sucking back the drool that threatened to puddle on the ice in front of him. “I’m fine. Better than fine, now that you’re here!”

“Oh.” Petr paused, then displayed his perfect, white teeth in a sunny grin. “I am glad. Some of the guys—“

“If it was Joffrey the giraffe who set you loose on me--?”

“No, actually. Just. You keep twirling.” Petr blinks innocently, leans on his stick. “Usually only Hemmer or Horc twirl during practice.”

“I, well!” Stoll spun on his heel, a motion made incredibly difficult by the curve of his skates. He fell flat on his butt, grunted in rage, and then rose stiffly and skated towards the tunnel. There was the crisp noise of blades on his and Petr hopped onto the bench behind him.

“Stollie?” Petr’s glove caught on his sleeve. Stoll glared ahead and marched towards the dressing room. Petr was still following him, making him a persistent motherfucker. The thought made Stoll feel slightly more straight. He tossed his stick to the side, thumping over to his locker.

“You can talk to me.”

Stoll whirled again, this time staying upright, to find a bemused Petr barely a step away. He lunged forward and pulled the Czech close, locked their lips together. Maybe all the Czechs wanted to bang him, because Petr flails and then grabs at him. It takes a second of his tongue against Petr’s very smooth teeth before he realizes he’s not really being awarded for his effort.

“Want to talk about it?” Petr says, eyes gentle and sympathetic.

“Nope.” Stoll pauses, wipes his mouth furiously.

“I’m sorry, Stollie.” Petr glanced at him, kicked puppy, and then left. He sunk to the floor and growled, leaning his head back. He considered having sex. With a woman, or a man. He analyzed the gayness in his system, and then pictured Rachel Hunter naked.

He could feel his pants getting tighter, and he grinned. Kissing Petr cured him! He sprang up, nearly skipping onto the ice, and scanned the bench until he saw Sykora leaning casually against the boards. He was talking to Hejda and Smid, but it was the sort of thing that couldn’t wait for a half-decent English translation.

He skated smoothly up, stopping and showering the rookies with ice. He grinned, jerked Sykora close to himself and gave him a very sound, straight hug. There was an instant where he considered kissing again, but Lupul was moving over, grinning at him and totally checking out his ass.

Jarret Stoll decided that he could be a little bit gay and still have awesome sex with his sexy girlfriend. He winked at Lupul and the homophobic but generally cool asshole winked back. They skated away into the sunny, pink hued sunset together, and had a great deal of sex with everyone involved.

Jarret Stoll was hot shit.

24doa @ 2006-12-14T09:40:00

2006-12-14T16:51:29Z

Is there anything more absurd than Michael Barrett/Johan Hedberg Blind Fic?

I didn't really think so.

Anyhow, my brain could only handle the thought for so long so it ain't editted or anything. Deal.

Mike thinks it might’ve been better if he had time to adjust. He would have done more, taken the time to admire the blond of Grace’s hair or the way Stephanie smiled when he bounded into the house after a long road trip. He would have spent hours examining the field before the crowds poured in, he would have read every book he owned and he would have done more. Instead, he wakes one day to darkness, Stephanie’s panicked voice and only his sensation-numbed fingertips to guide him through the room.

“Nothing we can do,” the doctors say apologetically, and he listens, just listens as the Cubs trade frantically for an offensive catcher and Blanco murmurs accented, soothing words at him and his congregation swells protectively around him. It’s unnerving to do interviews without meeting their gazes; he doesn’t like to be on television when he’s not conscious of how he appears. They forget about him fast enough anyways.

Estrada rolls into town and Mike can’t handle Stephanie’s trembling hand as she helps him into suit jackets and guides his shoes to his feet. He learns how to work the cane quickly, sure, but he can’t instantly lose the years of calluses on his hands. He stays inside as much as he can, rough fingers stroking over Grace’s face when he tucks her in. He doesn’t swing her around now, doesn’t turn on the television, doesn’t go to Mass.

His pitchers, former pitchers, get together and kidnap him and then he’s sitting in Dallas, Texas at a foreign bar. His hands pat carefully against the edge of the glass and he refuses shots, anything that requires coordination that might reveal his weakness. He still turns his head to face people when they speak to him, keeps his shades in place so that no one can see that the darting of his eyes doesn’t match the rhythm of his words.

Kerry Wood, the bastard, leaves him alone and then he meets Johan.

He nurses his drink, keeping a hand on his cane. It’s probably the most embarrassing part, because he can find his own clothes and sunglasses hide anything unusual in his eyes, but the cane—they tell him (and doesn’t he hate that, too) is white and obvious and he suppresses the urge to flail around with it constantly. There’s a sudden jerk of pressure against it, a clearly articulated, “fuck.”

“Sorry,” he says without putting any genuine apology into it.

“No, my fault.” There’s a rustle of fabric, barely audible, and he figures the guy’s sat down next to him. “You should watch that thing, though.”

“I can’t.”

The guy laughs, unapologetic as Mike. It relaxes him, someone finally not on pins and needles and trying to button his shirt for him. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good.” The guy gets him a beer, sliding it across the bar-top until he can feel cold glass against his fingertips. “I’m Johan.”

“Michael.”

Now, he tries to avoid using words like ‘blurred’ since he’s faced with that constant wall of darkness, but the night does go by quickly and then Johan is tugging him up, hand at his elbow, leaning in until he can feel breath on his neck and murmuring an invitation. He thinks of Stephanie’s face, already harder to picture, and her small hands and careful body.

“Yeah.”

Johan keeps a hand on him, but it feels so casual that Mike can picture it happening anyways. Johan also hails the taxi, murmurs suggestions for handling the stairs, and unbuttons his shirt in the front hall. Mike fumbles forward, groping past a smooth jacket to a neat pressed collar and then up along a smooth jaw. He leans himself forward, very careful, and Johan moves the last inch to press their lips together.

He keeps his hand moving, tracking out the soft fuzz of stubble and along Johan’s hairline, over his temples. Johan responds with touching of his own, pressing firmly against his vertebrae and stripping him gradually. He doesn’t care that they stumble to the bed, Johan padding away without a word when he stretches his arms against the soft sheets.

“Johan?”

“Patience.” He shifts towards the dip in the mattress, groping for warmth. Johan closes a hand over his, rubs a fingertip over the calluses still on his palm. He sighs, feels Johan kiss him again and press smoothly against his leg. “How would you like it?”

”It might be a bit easier for you.” He hopes he isn’t blushing, but can feel the heat against his cheekbones. He sighs and Johan curls one hand in his hair, kissing him until he can’t breathe any more. Johan presses a fingertip against his ass.

“Sure.”

”Where are you from?” he blurts out, hears Johan laugh.

“Sweden.”

”I’m from Atlanta,” he says and Johan neatly slides two fingers into him. It’s been a while, probably too long, but he twitches his legs apart and growls in low frustration at the darkness everywhere. It’ll drive him crazy, maybe. Johan’s fingers brush his prostrate, and that might help him lose his mind faster. He groans his pleasure, shifts his head to the side.

There’s a tongue swiping over his dick, which is a pleasant surprise. Johan keeps moving, definitely surprises him with touches here and there and his head is spinning. Johan presses his legs apart, twists his knees upwards and slides into him. It’s good, it’s a great fuck. He can’t think, mumbles and moans and feels like Johan’s hands are burning him up.

It’s over a little too fast and he feels Johan’s warm hand on his cheek. He rolls over, feels Johan transfer his grip to his own face. “Thanks, bud,” he murmurs.

”I aim to please,” Johan murmurs, sucks his thumb into his mouth. Mike can feel the grin around his fingertip, smiles back. “You know, you looked like you dressed in the dark.”

”You sayin’ I’m a pityfuck?”

Johan snorts, fingertips brushing over his eyelashes. “Yeah.”

“Blind and disorganized, yet m’still sexy.”

“Impressive.” Mike curls into him, yawns heavily and thinks about sleeping. Johan’s hand slides down his back and he definitely didn’t adjust to this, but it’s comfortable. Easy. He falls asleep.

24doa @ 2006-12-13T10:45:00

2006-12-13T17:45:18Z

Bernie, being lovely and absurd, requested some Dion Phaneuf/Jordan Staal. I'm only doing this because I love her. Actually.

The truck breaks down halfway to nowhere. Dion is driving, claiming that it’s an eggnog run and taking more detours than necessary for the sake of some Christmas time alone. Jordan dozes lazily, grocery bags hooked between his legs and smile playing on his lips. When the truck sputters awkwardly to a halt, Jordan jolts awake, wiping a trail of drool off his chin and glaring blearily at Dion. He tries pumping the gas, twists the keys on and off and groans.

“Wait, what?”

They pile out, Jordan propping up the hood and glaring down at the engine and Dion covering his ears against the biting wind. Jordan pokes here and there, growls his frustration and slams the hood back down.

“It’s definitely broken.”

“Thank you, captain obvious.”

”What did you do?” Jordan looks amused, at least, curling his fingers stiffly and jamming them in his pockets. Dion figures he must be used to that sort of thing, cow tipping with his brothers or-- something. He starts to shrug and Jordan cuts him off with, “No, I don’t wanna know.”

They climb back into the car, avoiding the metal of the seatbelts and the fogged windows. Dion fumbles through his bag for a phone, passes it over. “Call your brothers?”

”Yeah, sure.” Jordan doesn’t look pleased at the prospect. Dion reaches over and smoothes the awkward cowlick on top of his head, lets his hand linger over a chilled ear. Jordan rolls his eyes and grins, then flips his phone open. He talks in a rapid mumble, hangs up as quickly as he could and then shrugs. “They’ll be here in an hour.”

“That’s not so bad.”

Jordan nods silently and they glance at each other awkwardly. Then the temperature starts to drop, and two points of colour form high on Jordan’s cheekbones and Dion wants to trace his thumbs over them, squeeze until the shade stretches to Jordan’s ears and past and they can curl together. He pauses, then watches the fog of Jordan’s breath hover and pulls the smaller guy over.

Jordan’s nose is bright red and he settles his fingers beneath Dion’s jacket, blinks hazily slow and wiggles along Dion until they’re tangled together sideways on the seat. “Not so bad?”

”I’m not condonin’ this—“

Dion kisses him then, cold chapped lips and Jordan’s nails biting his skin. It’s possible that they’re both so cold that they’ll just fracture into pieces, and he tries to push the remaining warmth in his body into Jordan’s body and leech heat back into himself at the same time. The windows are completely whited over now, so he doesn’t hesitate to nuzzle along ice-white stretches of neck, flip up Jordan’s collar and settle his face against the crook of Jordan’s neck.

He doesn’t move until the catcalls start, Eric peering through a handprint cleared in the glass and smirking broadly. Dion glares, flips him off and shakes Jordan out of his huddled, smiley drowse. Eric goes to crank the heat in his own truck, helping them load their bags and still grinning like an asshole. Dion turns the heat down, pauses and pulls Jordan close. Jordan settles in like it’s second nature and smirks himself.

It’s not the worst thing that could’ve happened this Christmas.

24doa @ 2006-12-12T10:17:00

2006-12-12T17:17:20Z

Chrissy asked for Comrie and someone pretty, Three Beer Queer.

I cheated and used margaritas instead. They suited him more. But, here it is. Hurray.

The room swirled pleasantly and Mike Comrie slumps against Cujo and giggles. He’s had three margaritas and it’s a reunion! A reunion party of Oilers, but where is Wayne? “Captain?” he yells, “Captain Wayne! Great One!”

“I’m cutting you off, buddy,” Doan says. He’s the real honest to god captain and Mike salutes, wraps his arm around Cujo.

“Yessir, sir, sir. I’m quite happy as is.”

“Speak for yourself.” Joseph wriggles himself free, leaving Mike sad and alone and latching very quickly onto Georges. Georges likes him, Georges loves him because Georges loves everybody and everything and Edmonton and Mike?! Is from Edmonton!

It’s a small world after all!

He sways and grips Georges tighter and that’s nice, that’s all muscle and laughter and warmth. “Georges?”

”Yes, Mike?” Laughter and warmth and totally sexy accent.

“I think I love you.” That seems like a good enough reason to break out the love songs, so Mike does. He barrels happily through several rock ballads before settling on Backstreet Boys and he’s just really getting into “shaaaaaape of my heart” when a warm palm covers his mouth. He licks, tastes salt and soap and Georges. Or, he hopes that he’s tasting Georges because it would be awful to taste someone else on George’s hand.

George doesn’t respond to the lick, so he has to bite and then move fast, George’s normally very attractive braids melding into a mess of darkness as Mike straddles his lap and places two palms flat on his chest. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you that you? Have a gorgeous, manly chest. The manliest. If there was a competition of Georgesly chests, you would be the winner by a mile and two over-time goals.”

Then he leans in and he kisses Georges, all tongue and attempted smirk and obscenity. Georges lets him, doesn’t really move and certainly doesn’t push him because he’d probably go flying across the room like a rag doll or Ales Hemsky, but Mike has to breathe at some point.

“Mike?” Georges’ very kind, very French voice interrupts his desperate attempt to get air into his lungs. He chooses to shut him up, attacks his lips with equal enthusiasm. This time, he’s pulled away by very large hands, held at arm’s length so his spine is pressed awkwardly against the table. Georges huffs and gives in to the kisses, leads him to the bedroom and asks all sorts of sweet, kind things like, “Are you sure you want this?” and “I will be gentle.”

Mike totally, totally wants it right now. He toys with the dimmer on the light switch, pops in a suitably romantic CD (This one is Britney Speers and she’s married, that’s pretty romantic!) , and settles down on the bed. From there, it’s a blur of soft lips and a warm mouth and Mike whining, “Oh,” when he feels Georges’ large cock.

He totally likes it. He’s drunk and he’s gay and it’s awesome, so he can’t be blamed for coming as quickly as he does. George arches up, settles beside him with a contented sigh and curls his arms behind his head. Mike starts giggling again, probably totally smashed and plotting the best course to the bathroom, when Georges speaks again.

“Mike?”

“Mmhm?” Probably he should stick with the wall, although the path next to the closet doesn’t look particularly stable and he might trip over his pants if he goes for the main exit. They’re still splayed in the middle of the floor. What a bother.

“You know that those were virgin margaritas, don’t you?”

Mike Comrie blinks, freezes, and then stares up at the ceiling. This is going to be a hard one to explain in the morning.

24doa @ 2006-12-11T12:54:00

2006-12-11T19:54:56Z

There's that point where you're writing and you just want to be done and hit something and take a nap? Well, I hit that with amnesia fic. So basically, lots of blank staring, lots of "taking breaks," lots more swearing. I got something finished. I win.

Pudge Rodriguez/Vance Wilson. Amnesia.

It’s a foul tip that catches Vance oddly, deflecting and colliding and Pudge tosses his mask up and off as he rises. Vance crumbles, caught up against the railing with an arm still hooked in place. The trainers gather close and Zumaya looks green and then, absurdly, the game is continuing.

Pudge feels that it’s his duty to check up on Vance after he’s finished answering questions, each reporter helping his stomach clench tighter. He swerves into a parking spot, lies smoothly to the receptionist and takes the stairs four at a time. Vance is stretched neatly across the sheets, crisp white bandages on his head and eyes unfocussed.

“Hey,” Pudge mutters, glances around and deposits a hastily bought potted plant on the windowsill. Vance twitches his fingers in welcome, unsmiling and washed out. “How’s it going?”

“Uh.” Vance looks at him, then slowly twists his head until he can see the TV. A good sports channel, highlights flashing across the tv. “You’re Rodriguez? You play—baseball.”

”Pudge.” He didn’t know it was possible for his stomach to sink any further, but Vance smiles politely and his eyes stay distant.

“His memory should come back soon,” the nurse says. Like that helps.

24doa @ 2006-12-10T20:24:00

2006-12-11T03:24:03Z

As if there was anyone ever to be more absolutely absurd and dirty than Americanleaguer

I say that so affectionately. Honestly. She asked for John Smoltz/Brian McCann (and cackled evilly, I'm sure) since it's basically her OTP of life. I know. I can see it in her eyes.

But. I aim to please. This was done last minute, just because ~~I was emotional and unable to write porn for far too long~~ I was mortified with the subject and avoiding it for all I was worth!

Heh. Fuck or die, John Smoltz. Fuck. Or. Die.

It wouldn’t be completely fair to say John Smoltz couldn’t function under pressure. Tell him to stare down Bonds, Pujols, Derek Lee. Just about anyone in the league, he could handle that. Any obscure but impressively talented rookie was fine too. Put him in the game on short rest, have him close, have him start, let him go eight innings in a must-win situation. He could do all of that, and he could still joke with the press in the clubhouse. He was a gosh darn Braves ace, after all.

That said, John was currently having a lot of difficulty functioning. Not that his curve-ball wasn’t bending or his fastball was too high in the zone. He was having difficulty functioning. There was a gun to his head and his intelligent, red-cheeked catcher’s hand around his dick and really? He couldn’t get it up.

Erectionless. Flaccid. He figured he should be given some slack, he was nearly forty and definitely straight and the situation wasn’t conducive to arousal anyways. There was no way he could scrounge up attraction for anything but Brian’s calm signals and solid, simple swing.

The kid twisted his wrist just so, placed a moist kiss on the arch of John’s shoulder and followed it up with a scrape of beard. His dick twitched in response and he rolled his head back. Cold metal, not arousing, but Brian repeated the action and nipped ever-so-gently. That was more doable.

Brian was willing to do most of the work, straddling his hips and settling an already solid dick against his own. John vaguely remembered being in his early twenties and the way the first swift breeze gave him wood, but he had been a good Christian and Brian—

Brian was kissing him obscenely, one hand splayed over his ear and eyes away, looking over at their captors and what kind of fantasy was that anyways? John spent just a second planning his Confession, then hiccupped awkwardly when Brian brought their hips tight together.

“No cheating here,” the captor growled. Brian glanced up again, lips parted and reddened, and shifts.

“How do you want to—“

John shook his head rapidly, furiously. Brian swallowed at that, jerk of his adam’s apple, shifts his own knees further apart. John missed the warmth of the catcher’s hand against his jaw for an instant before he realized what was going on, what was being done. Brian’s hips jerked once and then he settled, bit down hard on his lower lip.

“Absolutely not. Brian. Stop.”

Brian’s lashes fluttered before he pulled himself together, glared furiously. “Like I’m going to let you die for—“

“Please.” Brian ignored him, ghost of a smile and then his hand was back, curled loosely against John’s hip. John was used to the adoration, but—that was different, that was dedication and loyalty and gay sex all wrapped up in once. Brian curled a hand around John’s dick, pressed his chest here and pulled his hips into place and then settled down until John could feel skin against skin.

He squeezed his eyes shut as Brian held his dick steady, settled down against him and awkwardly squeezed his knees in to hold them both in place. John’s eyes were burning, heat everywhere in his body but shamefully centred in his groin. Brian shifted, panted and then rocked himself up and back. He muttered something, “Quick” and “sorry.”

John gave in, took his hips and shifted him. He didn’t have any idea about how to make it good but Brian leaned forward and his dick was still hard where it brushed John’s stomach. He paused, hesitated and then curled his hand around Brian. There was a panted thanks and Brian began moving faster, harder. He groaned, gritted his teeth together and arched his back.

That was—attractive. John tightened his grip, rolled his hips upwards and stared at the responses he earned. Brian moved quicker still and John glared at the captor, rolled his hips. So there, I can.

He didn’t really sense his orgasm until it hit him. His knees buckled and twitched and then he groaned, heard Brian’s very soft encouragement in his ear. He fumbled for Brian’s dick, jerked it roughly and grinned at the catcher’s moan. Brian slid off him sideways, panting with his hands curled loosely over his own chest.

John heard the click of the safety, glanced up to the dark barrel of the gun.

”We did what you wanted.”

Their captor looks amused, smirk with a decidedly cruel edge. “Once more with feeling.”

24doa @ 2006-12-09T00:32:00

2006-12-10T05:32:30Z

I definitely, definitely planned on finishing this. I even talked to Ruth enough that I decided where to go, just. Right now, I can't really think and the thought of writing makes me feel queasy. So, hopefully it'll be done soon but you'll just have to hate me for now.

Katie Thorlakson is an undercover cop in a gay bar.

Katie Thorlakson knew that no one would recognize her. She nudged up her dark glasses, felt in her coat pocket for her badge, and swaggered towards the bar. Several patrons looked over at her and she nodded officially and then slid her glasses down her nose, gave the group an obvious one-over and winked.

She was good at this gay thing.

Katie was, in a nutshell, the best cop ever. Ignoring the times she’d flailed with a gun in hand or swore loudly in front of children, she was picture perfect. Plus, her tattoos were hot. She had been chosen to root out the evils in the deep, dark world of the gay bar. Not because she was particularly gay, just willing to try anything once, but because she was awesome.

She glanced around when she’d found a good stool at the bar, winked over at a very sturdy man before she remembered her role and waved at the bartender just past Hottie Number One for a drink. He asked what she’d like and she paused, thought very hard about what a good gay person would order and settled on a beer. A good, Canadian beer. She knew it was impossible to go wrong with that sort of thing.

She tried to pretend like it wasn’t a phallic object when she took a drink out of the bottle. Sturdy man was sizing her up, and that could only mean one thing.

He was the bad guy. The Bad Guy.

Really, he was as obviously out of place as she was. He had no glow-in-the-dark paint, no leather. Not even any sexy piercings. And he was on to her. She glanced at him in a way that definitely wasn't checking him out and smirked, then turned away.

She scoped the female crowd, too-butch, too-not-butch, too-taken, too-requiring-phone-numbery, before settling on a girl seated casually several stools down. Long, brown hair, smart eyes, tasteful makeup and impressively dirty leer.

Katie got up, put on her best not-a-cop-just-a-lesbian swagger, and relocated next to the pretty girl.

"Katie Thorlakson, FBI."

"Tell me that sounds for 'first babe in-this-seat-tonight," the girl said. Maybe she was drunk! Maybe they would both forget this in the morning! It was a good way to think. "I'm Kara Lang. TSFW."

"Huh?"

"Too sexy for words."

Katie laughed, glanced over at totally-not-gay man and pulled Kara in for a kiss. Which is, hey, not so bad at all. Actually, really good and soft and thin t-shirt riding up Kara's hips beneath her hands.

Katie was so good at this gay thing.

24doa @ 2006-12-08T18:17:00

2006-12-08T23:17:57Z

So, uh. Today was supposed to be smeeve infantilism. But I think it sucks and since it was just for me! I'm posting filler fic!

COPOUT! :D:D:D:D:D

Brian McCann/Jeff Francoeur/Brad McCann. Betting. Maybe some incest if you think about it real hard. ER.

Brian and Brad have a betting habit that Jeff would really like to them to shake. It's not that he cares if they lose money, as long as Brian doesn't bet the house away. It's not that he's bothered by strip poker with two reasonably attractive brothers who look very similar in most lighting conditions.

It's their affection for bets centering around him.

Not just betting on him, which they do regularly. (It's distracting to hear 'he's going to call her 'baby' seven times in this conversation' or 'he's gonna come before ten o'clock!) They bet on stupid things, things that neither of them care about, and somehow he ends up being the prize.

Somehow, he submits to that.

He'll be mowing the lawn, cleaning his room, and Brad'll shout his name from the kitchen. In he goes and there they are, matching awful polo shirts and loose jeans and Brad trying to smirk as much as Brian. "I bet Brian that ER wouldn't be a rerun. You owe him a blowjob, now."

24doa @ 2006-12-07T12:55:00

2006-12-07T17:55:55Z

Sometimes I like to multitask fic. Like, Bernie had this hockey challenge for "roadtrips" and I started a roadtrip fic. And didn't finish, so when "losing" came around I was like, ok, i'll make it a roadtrip of losers.
,
Which losers lost the biggest last season? Why, that would have to be Dwayne Roloson/Ty Conklin, who are both winners in my heart. This subject ain't happy, but it also features a hotel-shampoo cameo.

I guess it's for BERNIE basically. :) And Kate, because I know she lurves this pairing madly.

"I can never open these things," Conklin mutters, item in point hidden in the depths of his cupped palms. Roloson glances over, leaving a wrist pressed to the steady wheel so he can turn Conklin's thumbs away, stretch his hands flat. Ty's smile is wry when Dwayne glances at the shampoo packages cradled there, snorts.

"That's not the sort of skill I'd think you would be worrying about."

"Wasn't saying I was worried." Ty's eyes dart from his back out the window, over the smooth landscape of the prairies. "I was just saying, I can't."

"That's too bad."

“I try, usually, and the little jagged bit-- well, that doesn't work, and then I end up ripping it with my teeth--"

"And you get soap in your mouth," Dwayne finishes, smiles and returns his gaze to the road ahead.

"Yeah." Conklin swallows, hands curling back up and squirming in the silence. "It's a pain in the ass."

"I bet."

Then there's awkward silence, Conklin absentmindedly flicking the window control up and down, sharp blasts of warm wind with second-long intervals of silence. It was a bad idea from the start, of course, Conklin halfway drunk and banging on the door, rapping, brushing his fingertips against the wood, resting his head near the doorknob and pressing his eyes closed. Roloson was going to ignore him, had his excuses all lined up if anyone asked, tired and sore and ready to go home, but there was something in the purr of the truck's engine, the tired pleading in Conklin's eyes.

Roloson had said, "Sure" at last, and "I'll drive," and Conklin's face had loosened, shadows chased from beneath his eyes. He'd slept until they were on the highway, heading east and north and far away from disaster or heartbreak or anything in particular. Dwayne had kept his phone on, ignoring calls and watching Ty halfheartedly bop his head in time to the ringtones.

"Have that guy call you again," Ty had said once, personalized tone echoing off into silence. It was his agent, seriousness masked by some throbbing beat that makes Dwayne feel younger than he really is. He grins and shrugs, fingers smoothing over the wheel of Ty's car. It's peaceful, in a dense way, and he can savour it and contrast it to the throbbing tempo of Rexall and when he closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, there's still the chilled calm of ice hovering in the air.

They eat at truck stops, grinning at each other like children on a field trip and Ty kicks him until new bruises blossom on his shins, steals ketchup from his plate and pours him a new helping without being asked. It’s absurdly peaceful and nice and maybe if they were going somewhere useful, maybe if they weren’t aware that they could be hoisting the Cup somewhere, it would have been a good adventure.

Headed for the Northwest Territories, Ty swearing that the compass in his car is broken and begging for a southern turn, they run into small towns and bumpy roads. Dwayne gets headaches from the shaking view and they crack the windshield and nearly run into a tree before they agree it’s time to stop for the night. Ty had promised he’d packed a tent, but there are a lot of promises he’s made over the season that never came true. It wasn’t a problem when there was a hotel just down the street.

Now, they’re laying awkwardly under the stars with rain threatening and Dwayne is too tired to be angry. He drifts in and out of consciousness, finally jerking Ty closer and using his stomach as a pillow. That’s more comfortable, despite the occasionally hitched breath beneath his cheek, and he sleeps deeply. The morning finds a pattern woven over his chest and Ty’s fingers brushing his hair, down the arch of his nose before flicking his chin.

The radio crackles disagreeably when they try to find a channel that isn’t country. Dwayne gives in and shuts it off after an hour of half-heard phrases, and Ty slots in instantly with songs. Most of the words remind them both of the season, and that trails into silence too. Ty’s forehead is pressed against the dashboard in front of him, lips moving silently, and it’s then that Dwayne realizes just how tired they both still are. Constantly, Ty worn away at the edges with his beard growing back as a painful reminder. It hits Dwayne sharply in the chest, and he has to react.

He swerves the car, nearly into a ditch. There’s no one on the road, no Oilers flags snapping in the breeze, and he pulls Ty back and over and brings their lips together sharply. Ty gasps and then groans and pushes against him with one hand while the other pulls him closer. They thrash and flip and feel excruciatingly awkward before there’s a mutual decision, a fraction of a second where their eyes meet and they’re scrambling out of the car and into the back.

Ty keeps his eyes lower, teeth nipping down Dwayne’s neck and then a tongue sweeping over the collar of his shirt. He pulls that up and away, rips Ty’s off and growls. The car probably wasn’t meant for it, shakes when he shoves Ty back until his shoulders are flat against the door and then trembles when they wrestle for a better position. Roloson ends up on top, as close to victorious as he can be and favouring his leg as he thumbs Ty’s button, wriggles Ty’s jeans away from his hips and then shucking his own sweatpants.

No lube and no time and Ty’s eyes dark and pained beneath him. Dwayne shuts his eyes and gropes blindly, one hand spread wide across Conklin’s cheek and the other mapping a path down the points where their bodies press together. Ty mutters against his forehead when he starts to bite lower, “Lube in the pocket,” and he fumbles through a handful of tissues and old magazines before he can slick his fingers, his cock and stretching Ty too fast and too hard and much too desperate.

The car keeps shaking as Ty’s foot kicks out past him, collides awkwardly with the window and then pressing up against the roof. He keeps his eyes closed, keeps moving his hips and missing Ty’s mouth when they go to kiss. Finally, there are hands on his cheeks guiding him and Ty’s pained mewls against his lips. It feels good, feels fucking cathartic and he comes after he’s hardly begun.

It’s easy to make short work of Ty, fumbling hand and tissues and Ty’s back arching until Dwayne can feel their stomachs brushing. He collapses, Ty wheezes and they stay tangled until he can feel Ty’s heartbeat settle against his own. His pants are against the floor and Ty’s are in the front seat, he sees when he opens his eyes, looks away from the body beneath him.

Ty grunts in protest when he sits, opens the door and stumbles out to put his sweatpants back on in the middle of the street and then gesturing quickly until Ty is back in the front, hazy smile and nearly drifting off. “You have to keep me awake.”

Ty grunts again, this time an affirmative, twiddles with the radio dial and then slumps back as Dwayne spins the car around, directions flickering on the rear-view mirror and a burst of static. They glance at each other, careful and almost shy, then Dwayne feels himself laughing, hears Ty’s chuckle next to him.

It’s hard to drive when he laughs so hard, and he pulls in to the nearest hotel, books their own room. They haven’t discussed the season or what happened in the car, but he doesn’t particularly care at that point. Ty enters the washroom, tossing his shirt out behind him. There’s a rush as the water starts, and then his pants follow and land in a heap outside the door.

Dwayne pauses, walks up to lean on the doorframe and watch Ty’s skinny frame slide into the shower. The curtain doesn’t hide much, Ty blinking against the hot flow and the steam rising as he grabs for the shampoo package.

“Hey, I’ll open that for you.” Ty smiles sheepishly, hands it over. Dwayne tugs at the slit on the corner, frowns, tries the other side. He gives in and tears it with his teeth, spits out against the taste of shampoo invading his mouth. Ty is grinning now, rosy cheeked and childish.

“See.”

They’ll both be ok to go home now.

24doa @ 2006-12-06T17:35:00

2006-12-06T22:35:54Z

What do you need to know if you're not ~~obsessive over them~~ Kate or maybe Mae or me? Well.

Petr Prucha used to play with Ales Hemsky when they were babies, and again during the lockout.

Petr Sykora played with Petr Prucha last season on the New York Rangers.

Ales Hemsky played with Petr Sykora LIEK RIGHT NOW. Or, I wish, they're teammates now.

They are all madly, passionately in love, ok? Shut up.

Ales thrashes uncomfortably, phone tight to his ear and a hand toying with the elastic on his boxers. Petr's voice fades in and out as he loses track of the phone, and this is the most frustrating thing he's ever imagined. There's a throaty groan, Sykora, and Ales whimpers his frustration.

“I hope you are jerking yourself off,” Petr murmurs and Ales is ready to sob. He wants to touch, to see.

“Hope you are going to work on describing,” he snaps, slides a hand into his boxers and rubs his thumb over the head of his dick.

“Sorry, sorry.” Petr doesn’t sound sorry at all, Ales squeezes his eyes shut and imagines his smile, the wide stretch of Sykora’s mouth against Petr’s shoulder blade. He gives himself a quick, comforting stroke.

“Would make you suck me off, right now.”

That’s a good visual, Petr crouching low and Sykora stretched out beside them, lazily fingering the lines of his own ribs and just watching. Ales doesn’t particularly need to be the centre of their attention constantly, but he uses the thought to comfort himself when they’re both so far away, lingering against each other.

“I would watch,” Sykora says, voice hazier thanks to the distance from the mouthpiece. Ales groans his agreement, can see the light in Sykora’s eyes and the way Petr’s cheeks hollow. He’s sped up his hand without realizing it, still listening hard for the exhalations that signal a harder thrust and the wet sounds of skin hitting skin. He hates this time of year, hates being alone in Edmonton and so hard.

When he comes hard, legs stretched across the wide bed, he growls his frustration to the ceiling. Petr is moaning constantly, Sykora grunting and Ales clutches the phone like it’s a lifeline, otherwise boneless. They take longer to come, like they were waiting for him or just like they’re savouring the moment between them. He hates it either way.

Sometimes Ales wishes he lives in New York too.

Sykora calls from the front porch of his house, laughing so hard his sides hurt and waiting through the extended ringing of Petr’s phone before finally Ales answers in Czech. He grins at his voice, wanders inside and stretches out on the couch with Ales and Petr trying to outtalk each other in his ear about their disastrous cooking adventure, without him, and will he be coming home, and is he bored yet.

Petr assures them that he isn’t. They’re home in the Czech Republic, acting like children and playing football until dark and joyriding in Ales’ ridiculously pimped out car. He is in Anaheim with PJ and his dogs, enjoying his sunglasses tan and the warm waves beneath his surfboard.

“Miss you when we have sex,” and he can’t tell who that was but doesn’t really care, opens the window facing the beach.

“Miss you both too.” There’s laugher and then Ales groans, recognizable because it’s lower and throatier than Petr. Sykora sighs and curls an arm behind his head. “Tell me more.”

“Ales leaves his football shoes everywhere. Think he—“ Petr cuts off with a groan of his own, pauses a second to catch his breath. “Think he moves them so I trip on them more.”

“Awful, mmhm.” He arches his back and then yawns. There’s fumbling and then the phone is dropped and scuffled. The two of them are terrible at keeping the phones in hand, and he waits until they’ve scrambled for it and apologized before unzipping his pants.

“Petr,” Ales sighs and he’s not quite sure which the comment is directed at. He shucks his pants and stretches out, listens to the smack of flesh and laughter and sex with just the two of them can’t ever be entirely serious. He can hear the rustling, Ales’ muttered insults that meld seamlessly into praise, “so good” and “more” and, occasionally, “love you, stupid. Here.”

Petr is more breathless, always getting caught up in Ales. Sykora can see the light in his eyes, the whiteness of his knuckles where he clutches Ales’ hips. He jerks himself off awkwardly, pausing to keep in time with their unsteady rhythm and turning his mouth away from the phone when he groans. “Petr” is Prucha’s voice, close to the phone and Ales sighing further away.

California is pretty nice, but Sykora can hardly wait to be back in the Czech Republic.

Petr has a girl propped on his shoulder, dozing with her soft hair tickling his jaw, when he flips open his cell phone and calls. Ales' phone rings four times and then goes to voicemail, the computer automated one.

"Answer your phooone," Petr whines and the girl stirs and there's a pause and then a click. Ales sounds breathless, which usually means he's having sex, which makes Petr's chest tighten.

"Hello? Petr?" He hangs up.

Ales calls him back, and then so does Sykora, and he pushes the girl off him and glares sullenly at the wall until a suitable length of time's elapsed. "What."

"Peeeetr," is Ales' whining. He can hear Sykora in the background, talking quickly and his accent jumbled so it's impossible to know if he's speaking English or Czech. It's one of their favourite things about him, they agreed, crazy Sykora language and unusual emphasis.

"What?"

"Sorry." There's a pause, and Ales purrs something lower. He can't understand it over the crackling of the phone, but he knows it was probably sexy and that's enough to make his stomach clench.

"Yeah."

"We won't do it again--?"

"It's ok." Ales laughs, warm and now the tightness has spread up to his chest. "See you soon anyways, right?"

"We will take you out for awesome dinner. You will be excited. Dinner and then we will take you home and, mm.”

Sykora says something in the background, chuckles low and takes the phone away to say, “Fuck you senseless.”

Petr shuts his eyes and lets his hand travel down his chest. The girl moves in then, initiates a warm blowjob. He ignores her as much as he can, pictures shorter hair and callused hands. “Tell me how.”

Ales sighs, barely audible, and Petr pulls the phone tighter. Sykora begins, “Ales wants you to fuck him right now. Eyes wide and I would wait for you to begin before I started stretching you, so you both would feel—“

Petr wishes for a second that he plays in Edmonton.

They pile together in bed, Sykora’s cold hands against Ales’ back and the sharp line of Petr’s jaw against his shoulder. He grumbles some sort of complaint, hears both Petrs laugh and can’t help but sigh low and contented. They have breakfast in bed. Sykora makes it for them, because Prucha is sleeping off the jet-lag and Hemsky is too busy staying curled close and idly tracing his fingertips along Petr's nose, over his collarbone, across tightly stretched skin on his stomach. They get pancake crumbs on the pillows and Hemsky grumbles, possessive of his clean sheets, and Sykora distracts him with a drizzle of syrup down his chest and a tongue to clean up that particular mess.

The sex is wonderfully slow and almost sweet, all of them smiling and writhing to get comfortable. They freeze halfway through the act, Petr barely conscious of the tightening in his stomach as he watches Petr hoist Ales’ leg up and fuck him soundly and thumbing his own dick. There’s something missing, strange and hollow.

He pauses, glances around the room. Ales is moaning faintly and Sykora is trembling. Ales grabs for Petr’s hand, and then Petr reaches for the phone. He flips it open, muted buzzing tone audible, and drops it next to Ales’ head. Sykora laughs unsteadily, bucks forward and smirks over at Petr. He twists, kisses Petr and Ales sighs happily. They wriggle tighter, a happy pile and Petr is aware of heavy breathing, Ales’ calluses against his stomach and Petr’s laugh as they draw tighter together.

There’s nothing he wants when they’re spent and Ales is lazily kissing his jaw, up and down and smiling against his earlobe. Sykora bites where his stomach dips downwards and he smiles, shuts his eyes.

Basically perfect, he thinks, and the dial tone of the phone lulls him to sleep.

24doa @ 2006-12-05T22:55:00

2006-12-06T03:55:51Z

First it was gonna be this fic for Robyn, Marchant/Hemsky/Prucha/Christmas lights.

Then she was like "Write lupul fic!"

And I was like "Lupul/Marchant?"

And she was like ok!

Then I wrote Lupul/Torres/Stoll. I'm a good wife, don't let anyone tell you different. I can't take credit for pickles or My Little Pony or even the Flashing Disco Dong. I'm a little happy about the last one, to tell you the truth. This is sort of threesome and really poorly written and, heh. Yeah.

Lupes brought some crazy, kinky bullshit with him from the sunshine state.

We were just fucking around at his place, waiting until a decent hour to go out to the bar, and I figured it was fair that the host should offer us something to drink. You know, a beer or at least a glass of Pepsi or something. He’s the kind of guy that just lets hospitality go by the wayside when he’s not playing really well.

Anyhow, his fucking place and he just kind of shrugs at us when we ask him for a drink, so me and Tico decided to look around ourselves. I take the kitchen, which is the obvious place in civilized households but a little sketchier when there are bachelors involved, and Raffi takes off up the stairs cackling like a moron. Lupes is still on his couch with his eyes shut, getting his beauty rest or something.

His fridge is just as bad as I’d feared. He’s got all the necessary hockey stuff, protein shakes and Chinese takeout and a big jar of pickles, but I nudged his 2% milk out of the way and there are a few original things.

“Lupes, why the fuck is there a My Little Pony in your fridge?”

He didn’t answer right away, so I figured he headed for the hills. The guy doesn’t really understand that he plays for the Oilers now, where it’s just as likely for Smytty to pull Malibu Barbie out of his pocket as a new roll of sock tape. I pulled the thing out, smoothed its pretty pink hair and then Lupes was all over me, flailing like a retard.

“Dude, that’s—my sister’s! Leave it alone!”

“Does your sister always refrigerate her toys?” I snicker at the question, mostly because he was beet red and still flailing, and he pulls it away and drop-kicks it into the other room. Sometimes that guy, really.

“Beer’s in the minifridge, asshole.” He ushered me again and suddenly there was this sound from Raffi that was something between a squeal and a hysterical diaphragm spasm. Lupes got this horrified look on his face, sprinted for the stairs just as fast as he’d gone for the toy.

“What is it?”

Raffi’s diaphragm problem had settled into this awed, low tone that’s even more terrifying. He’s holding up this thing, and it’s pink. Maybe it’s like the My Little Pony Dream Tower or something, I thought, and I was cool with it. It really wasn’t.

Lupes brought some crazy shit, like I said, and along with his fondness for children’s toys, which I really don’t want to consider right now? There was this thing called the Flashing Disco Dong. No joke. Not only was the fucker used for prostrate massaging, not only did it have a convenient suction cup to help it stay in place on the chair? Or the floor? Or whereever Lupes fucking wanted it to? The head flashed. The pink dildo head flashed.

It was pretty cool.

Anyhow, Lupul turned beet, beet, beet red. We’re talking fire engine, Flames jersey, your mom’s pussy. Just kidding on the last one. He kind of squirmed and then offered, meek with his eyes fixed on a now-suspicious point on the floor, “It’s like a rave inside your ass?”

Raffi gaped and then crowed, “Fuck the herpes-ridden chicks! We’re staying in tonight, boys!”

I couldn’t blame him, and I wasn’t really protesting the change of plans. I wanted to see what that chilled pony could do. Lupes was nice about it, gave us a demonstration and—-you know, stuff.

That Anaheim trade was the best thing that ever happened to me.

24doa @ 2006-12-04T23:58:00

2006-12-05T04:58:39Z

Today we're all about the sex in enclosed spaces. Say hi to Marcus Naslund/Zdeno Chara.

Yes, you heard that right. You're welcome, guys. Ara, enjoy.

Marcus is used to relative extremes. He likes the smooth stretch of ice in the winter and warm beaches for the summer. He knows it’s necessary to tolerate life in the public eye, but sees himself as a personal man. As a captain, he is vocal and firm or gentle and subtle. When it comes to sex, he would rather have a curvy woman or a muscular man, nothing that can be confused between the two.

Also, apparently, he likes either expansive beds with airy hangings, or dingy bathroom stalls. There was hardly enough room to begin with, his elbows knocking against the walls when he unbuckled his belt and the door creaking tiredly when he takes a step back and bumps into it. Add Zdeno into the picture, and, well. When Chara is involved, there’s rarely enough room no matter what the location.

Zdeno is considerably taller than him, but makes an effort to contort his back enough for a few wet, hasty kisses. His nose bumps Marcus’ forehead, the dip of his cheekbone, and then there’s the Slovak’s tongue probing his lower hip and wide hands on his hip. His pants are still lower, fortunately, because there’s not really enough room to untangle himself from the fabric once he reaches around Zdeno to push the lock into place.

They pull tight, not much in common and even less time. He scrambles along Zdeno’s belt, nearly trips over the toilet when he shifts to push his pants down and they start with groping, pressing tight with his own shirt rucked up and Zdeno’s hands in his hair. Then he’s hoisted and twisted just so and there are fingers probing his ass. He grunts, pushes his ass back and bends Chara’s wrist between their bodies.

Chara responds with a smack from his other hand to Marcus’ ass, and then he’s sliding in hasty and messy and the condom nearly slipping off his dick. Naslund groans and then sighs, forehead against the stall and hands scrambling back, bracing himself and pulling Chara tighter and trying valiantly to push the walls apart. He wants Zdeno to have room to really fuck him, wants to give up on knees knocking against his thighs and frustrated grunts and attempts to heave his hips upward.

Zdeno’s thin fingers bite against his hips, nails sinking in, but one hand snakes between Marcus’ dick and the wall and the room a fist would require isn’t available. Marcus grinds himself against Zdeno’s palm, murmurs in Swedish and growls, “fuck,” when the situation and the friction and the pressure against his ass is too much. He comes, plastered against the wall awkwardly, and Zdeno’s fingers leave a messy trail when they pull away from his dick.

Both hands are against his hips again, and Zdeno tugs and arches his back and comes with a low growl into Marcus’ hair, panting and drawing away to dump the condom in the garbage. They wriggle against each other until both of their pants are up and Zdeno leaves first because Marcus is trapped in the corner of the stall, the Slovak’s chest blocking his view of the door.

Marcus pauses in the restroom after Chara’s left. He likes it fast or slow, he knows, and hard or gentle. There are bruises on his hips and an obvious smear of come against the wall. He fixes his hair in the mirror, pulls his jeans up past the fingerprint-bruises on his hips, and strides out confidently.

Marcus likes all sorts of extremes, but he doesn’t see why the world has to know that.

24doa @ 2006-12-03T20:46:00

2006-12-04T01:46:50Z

Brian McCann/Jeff Francoeur. Public sex.

“Brian, it’s just—You’re doing it all wrong.”

The catcher glances back, annoyed, and sends the ball spinning into the gutter despite Jeff’s words. It’s nearly closing time, the woman at the shoes counter glaring blearily at them from her post and the energy from another frustrating blown-save game giving the former Braves unusual levels of energy. Jeff watches Brian roll his shoulders and glare, still favouring his ankle and still unwilling to admit it. He stands, creeping along behind Brian when he grabs another ball and goes to play again.

“Now, like this.” He pulls himself tight, just a friend helping a crappy bowler. His hips slide against Brian’s ass and his arm slides up along Brian’s until they’re both steadying the ball.

“I’m really not a girl, Frank.”

He ignores that, tucks his chin over Brian’s shoulder and nudges him forward. “Now, you want a slow, smooth slide. Kinda like this, you see.”

Brian grunts his irritation and then nods, lets Jeff swing him through the movements before releasing the ball. This time, he actually knocks down a pin. “Some training.”

“Practice makes perfect. Wanna try again?” He ignores the protest from Langerhans and McBride, both taking score and impatient for their turns, and retrieves another ball for Brian.

“Don’t gotta stand this close,” Brian mutters when he stands behind him again, settles his left hand comfortably on Brian’s hip and steadies the ball next to him.

“How else will I know what you’re doing wrong?” He nudges his hips forward, grins as Brian stiffens and stays with him until the ball’s released again. One more time, and now Brian’s throwing gutter balls for an entirely different reason. Brian slumps against him for just a second, pulls away and limps around him to sit down again.

“Thank god,” Ryan whines and stands. “Now that the both’ve you have fucked up the scorecard—”

Brian grunts and shrugs, arms folded over his chest. Jeff drops next to him, wiggling to find a comfortable position on the plastic chair and yawning to stretch his arm over Brian’s shoulder. “Wanna—”

“Mm, no thanks.” Brian leans into him anyways, eyes hooded and tension gone from his body.

“There are all these lanes open.” Macay gets up to take his turn in the lane, and Jeff hops to his feet and heaves Brian upwards. “Just try. For me?”

Brian softens at that, rolling his eyes and grumbling as he moves two lanes over and bends to examine his ball. Jeff waits, moves to help him. Brian shakes his head, pulls away and steps over the line. “Let me try myself.”

Jeff watches intently, grinning when Brian gets flustered and irritated. “Help?”

“No. Fucking bowling.” He ignores Brian’s words, curling an arm around his waist.

“Maybe you should bowl with your left hand. That one’s pretty talented, I hear.” He rolls his hips lazily in time with his words and Brian coughs out a laugh, shakes his head.

“Not here.” Macay and Ryan are ignoring them, intent and howling their frustrations at the pins. The lady glances at the clock again, stands and goes to check that the doors are locked. Jeff smirks wider, glances after her and then pinches Brian’s hip as he releases another ball. Brian jumps and releases it early, watching it spin and waver and freeze halfway down the gutter. “Now see what you’ve done.”

Jeff has a very solid innocent expression, and he puts it on when Brian turns and glares and looks pretty sexy. “I guess we should go get it.”

“We could just—throw something after it.” Jeff laughs, nudges Brian across the line separating the main alley from the lanes and ignores the single shrill beep. The girl doesn’t come rushing back and neither Ryan nor Macay really study them, so he follows quickly.

Halfway to the ball, he tackles Brian from behind. It’s very awkward and as they fall forward, he realizes that it probably wasn’t his best idea. Cox is going to kill him when Brian shows up with fresh bruises on his knees, and then they’re stretched out with Brian prone beneath him and wheezing.

“Shit, are you guys ok?” Ryan calls, Jeff glances back to wave him off.

“I just tripped. We’re fine.”

“Speak for yourself,” Brian grumbles and squirms. Jeff pulls up enough for him to flip over, then settles down again. “No,” Brian is using the word like it’ll actually dissuade him.

He glances back again, and now Macay and Ryan are huddled over the scorecard, arguing about one of the notations. He giggles and drops his head until he can plant a sloppy kiss on Brian’s jaw, right at the point where his stupid beard ends and the soft skin begins, then jerks his hips down again. Brian squirms and then sighs and gives in. He’s getting hard anyways, there’s really no point in his arguing.

Jeff slides a hand between them, shoots another glance over his shoulder. Still no desk girl and Mac and Langer seem to be in their fight for the long run, so he unzips his pants and Brian’s and brings their dicks together solidly, biting his lip to muffle the noises. Brian’s mouth is a perfect o and Jeff can feel his thighs tighten and then he focuses on minute friction, mostly his hand with his hips added in to spice the whole thing up.

“You guys getting up any time soon?” is Langer, sounding a little knowledgeable but also worried. Jeff would be worried too, if he could keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds at a time.

“We’re, uh. Stuck together, hang on.” He figures it’s a bad sign that their friends believe him, makes his hand motion a little more obvious in an oh-look-my-belt-loop is stuck on his button” sort of way. It’s thrilling and he’s sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop when Brian tenses completely, biting down hard on his own lip and then going slack. Jeff releases his dick, pumps his own once-twice-three times more and then sighs slowly. He has to wriggle to get Brian tucked in and zipped up again, then he leans back on his haunches to fix his own jeans.

”You’re disgusting,” Brian mutters and grins, sits. He runs a hand through his hair and looks so flushed and awesome that Jeff can only grin back. “Get your goddamn ball outta the gutter.”

“You liked it.” He springs to his feet, darting around Brian to grab for the ball and head back. He can’t help his swagger, but at least it’s a step above Brian’s shuffling stumble back to the plastic seats. Macay glares at him halfheartedly, points out several marks on the score sheet. Jeff mediates in a haze, grinning and letting his hand slide down his knee until it’s trapped between his leg and Brian’s. Brian manages to take one more turn, throws two gutter balls before he glances back and sees Jeff’s smirk.

“I want to go home now, I think.”

“Well, if you insist.” Jeff kicks his shoes off, helps Brian get his sneakers back on as the catcher dozes backwards and places both on the counter. He pulls Brian off before Ryan can dibs out of the tab, guides him past the employee smoking furiously in the shadowed doorway and home before he can start laughing openly. His boxers cling to his thighs, growing colder and soggier by the minute.

Bed, naked and warm against Brian’s soft side, is looking like a sweeter prospect by the moment. “I like bowling,” he announces when Brian reclines the chair, readjusts his seatbelt until the strap stops cutting against his neck.

“I like when you shut up.” Brian’s smile is lazy and warm and he doesn’t look nearly as mad as he could have. He got off, and that’s a pretty good bargain Jeff figures. They’re young enough, too, that he’s considering fucking properly before bed. Ryan calls when they’re pulling in the driveway to let them know that he’s never bowling with them again, the snicker lingering beneath his voice testament that if he doesn’t know, at least he can imagine.

Jeff strips Brian down, lips against his shoulder as Brian’s chin rolls down. Brian mutters, “Bowling is exhausting.” Jeff laughs and then bites down firmly. They crawl into bed and he rubs himself slowly against Brian’s side, earns a grunt of annoyance and Brian rolling until his broad back was towards Jeff’s face.

“Maybe we can do that again tomorrow.”

There’s a long pause, and Brian’s breathing is so slow that Jeff thinks he must’ve fallen asleep. Then, light and so soft he’s not sure he heard it, “Maybe.”

24doa @ 2006-12-02T20:47:00

2006-12-03T01:47:59Z

You know, it's kinda stupid that i think the hardest bit of this thing is gonna be remembering to post every day, not writing it. M'all. Yeah.

Today is Alexander ("Sasha") Semin/Ty Conklin. A la fakeworld, only better because it also involves Ty's ties. Bondage. Woo.

“You want to ruin a tie?” Conklin blinks and then grins broadly, pounces on Semin and nuzzles his neck. He doesn’t really wait for Sasha’s answer, pulls him up and towards the bedroom. “Pick an ugly one.”

“So we’re using your ties?” Sasha’s accent is pointedly thick as his eyes dance.

“Hey, now, be nice.”

Sasha laughs and turns for an apologetic kiss. They head for the stairs together, Ty grabbing for Sasha’s wrist and their knees knocking when they try to stay close. “It would only be fair,” Sasha says in the doorway, “for you to use one of your own ties.”

“You just want to ruin my awesome Looney Toons tie.” Ty pauses, smirks. “I can always buy myself a new one.”

“Think that you have more than me anyways.” Sasha is all lazy grace as he stretches out over the bed.

“I’ll buy you one for Christmas.” Ty glances back and then surveys the mess of ties on his closet floor, hands on his hips. “Arms tied together, or to the bed too?”

Sasha stretches his arms up towards the headboard in response. Ty grabs several times, including the Christmas Bugs Bunny pattern and a vivid orange polka dotted one he’d been waiting to pawn off innocently for months. He them around his neck to keep his hands free, then crawls onto the bed and settles his knees on either side of Sasha, pushing him to the bed with a kiss. Ty plays with his hair affectionately, mock-pout broad as Ty pushes his wrists to the bed while grinding against his hips.

Sasha is tense at first, meeting Conklin’s gaze and wriggling upwards. Ty’s teeth skim over his jaw and nip at his chin before he speaks. “You want this? Think… I’ll ride you, get off right on top of you. You’re not going to have a say in anything.”

Sasha ducked his head to kiss Ty hard, made sure their gazes were locked before he replied. “Yes.”

Ty’s muscles stretch and strain as he hauls the Russian closer to the bedposts. He sits on Sasha’s hips, traces a hand over his bare chest and grins. Sasha tugs affectionately at one of his curls, and he catches the hand resting against his forehead. He’s surprisingly graceful when he snags one of the ties, capturing Sasha’s other wrist and using a practical Boy Scout knot. “Too tight?”

“Good.” Sasha twists his wrists experimentally, then harder. He finds he can’t free himself and glances up in time to see Ty’s grin. Ty leans close, settling Sasha’s hands against the headboard and using a tighter knot to secure them in place. Sasha tests the bonds again, murmurs, “Nothing to do now.”

The upwards nudge of his hips belies his words, but Ty chooses not to respond to that as he wiggles Sasha’s sweatpants down leisurely.

“Wanna tell me how it feels?” Sasha curses him in Russian, and Ty shrugs and strokes a hand up his thigh. He circles Sasha’s dick with a rough hand and mutters,” That’s cool, I can tell anyways. You’re all mine now, s’good.”

Sasha tilts his head, watching as Ty rocks back on his heels and rubs a palm over his stomach. “You can’t even get me ready,” Ty begins, completely comfortable with domination the conversation. “Should I do it myself, make you watch? Could let you do it with your tongue.”

Sasha’s hooded gaze betray his interest as he studies Ty’s body. “I will do that. Happily.”

Ty shifts, spreads his legs further and reaching towards the table for the lube. He slides a finger into his ass immediately, grunts and wriggles into a more comfortable position before adding a second. Sasha whimpers a protest at his slow pace, but Ty silences him with a crooked grin and scissors his fingers. He sighs, head rolling back, and Sasha murmurs, “Beautiful,” just loud enough to be heard.

“Need you,” Ty grunts, leaning forward to scrape his teeth over one of Sasha’s nipples before applying more lube to his own fingers. He strokes just enough to coat Sasha’s dick, hardly enough for any satisfaction, then swings a leg casually over Sasha’s hips. He reaches beneath him, curls a hand over Sasha’s dick to keep it steady and sinking downwards.

Sasha looks dazed and pleased when he settles, rocking his hips and tight to Sasha’s body. He tugs at the ties, glances up with annoyance and then shifts his hips. “Ty.”

It takes Ty a minute to find a more comfortable angle. The awkward twitch of his hips settles into a rhythm and he sighs throatily. Sasha picks up his rhythm quickly, twitching his hips upward in time and groaning when Ty’s blunt nails scrape his chest in the goalie’s quest for support. His eyes burn and he realizes he’s hardly blinking, squeezes them closed once and then resumes watching.

“You’re awesome,” Ty groans, shifts and rises up to tease before sinking back down with a moan. Sasha starts to speak again, encouragement at first and then babbled pleasure and Ty’s voice is firm when he says, “C’mon.”

Sasha’s hips jerk hard and Ty groans, fingers scratching at Sasha’s chest before he gives in and curls a fist around himself. Sasha breathes unsteadily for a second as Ty thumbs the head of his dick, already desperate. “I want to—“

“Just watch.” Ty licks his lips, hips still rocking minutely and stroking quickly. “So good.”

His lashes flutter and then fan against his cheeks. His back arches when he comes, enough that he nearly tumbles backwards. Sasha groans in frustration, murmurs, “Want to touch.”

Ty slumps sideways, panting. “Want undone,” he asks, earns a glare and a twitch of Sasha’s legs. He unknots the ties slowly, knees still pinning Sasha downwards. “Like that.”

Sasha trails his hands up Ty’s arms, across his chest and down his stomach. They settle against Ty’s hips, fingers stroking and then clenching tightly to hold him in place. Ty wriggles down next to him, and he turns so that they remain face to face. Sasha kisses him and then bites his lip. “Good?”

“Very good.”

”I think you owe me a new Looney Tunes tie.”