#bear with me as i gloss over the obligatory hockey installment

[workingforitallthetime]

drawn arrows unseen

part 4 / previous installments/tags

Their first practice is kind of a shitshow. Connor misses an easy rim around the boards. Skips right past his stick. He watches it shoot down the ice with white-hot fury on his face.

On the other side of the rink, the guys in line with Mason mutter about it. This fucking guy? That’s exceptional status, eh. 

Stop trying so hard, Mason thinks at him. A few reps later, they line up together. Mason bumps shoulders with him. “Gimme a country.”

Connor gives him a look like are you fucking kidding me? “Texas,” he drawls sarcastically.

“Not a country.” Mason whacks him across the shin guards. The coach fires a puck out for them and Mason takes off. “But Austin,” he tosses over his shoulder to Connor.

Connor’s closer than he expected. He’s on Mason all the way to the boards, and when they get there he digs in and flicks the puck out from under him. “Atta kid,” Mason barks at him.

As Connor finds his footing, Mason ends up looking out for him a little, not so he’d notice. Small stuff like clearing out the cup of water the boys prop in his shin pads, keeping Connor’s skates in his own stall so nobody knots the laces while Connor’s doing media. He’s not going to spare him everything, though. Outmuscles him every battle drill. Cleans him out at poker, no apologies.

[more practice scenes, maybe. idk, i’m not in this to write about hockey.]

It’s a whole different deal once they start playing games. Mason’s always had to fight for it. Shoulder his way in, prove he belongs with the big boys, from Pembroke all the way up to Claude Giroux in his training group last summer. Connor doesn’t do that. He just shoots the puck, and does it so well they’ve got no option but to give it to him.

The coaches put Connor on his wing. They rotate all sorts of other options on Mason’s other side, but Connor stays put. It’s fucking magic how he’s always in the right place. Makes it look like Mason’s finding great passing lanes, but all he’s doing is finding Connor. Which is easy, when Mason barely has to look. Somehow he always knows where Connor’s going to be.

They torch the whole goddamned tournament, undefeated. After the final horn, the team flings their gear to the ice and coheres into a mass of sweaty, screaming triumph. As the single cell starts to separate into individual moments of celebration, Connor finds Mason. “Canada!” Connor howls at him, fists clenched and eyes wild, mushroom hair falling into his face.

Mason lifts him off his skates and howls right back. “Ottawa!” He resists gravity, holding Connor suspended longer than he meant to. Everything is exactly right, team and country and victory. Everything Mason wants.

[would you like a gold medal visual? here. would you like an entire article that is literally titled 'No one can stop them': Bedard, McTavish chemistry sparks Canada? actually you could probably just read that instead of everything about hockey in this story.]

(next)

#drawn arrows unseen #ugh i guess they have to play hockey *sometime* #bear with me as i gloss over the obligatory hockey installment