Winter's Grasp
In which Hawke takes unnecessary risks in Lowtown and Fenris tries to discern why; cross-posted to AO3 here
(Maria Hawke/Fenris | 4,834 Words | Hurt/Comfort | CW: Blood, canon-typical violence)
Winter hung heavy over Kirkwall.
It did every single year, but today the cold fought Hawke’s steps and cut right through her robes. There wasn’t much to do about it now but bear it, so she tugged her scarf higher around her cheeks and bent her head against the wind that raced down the alleyways.
She did not, strictly speaking, have to patrol the city. She knew that. Aveline had been very clear: that’s what guardsmen were for, and Hawke was for being a rallying point, a light in the darkness—or something. Maria hadn’t really been listening; she’d been planning her route for the night instead.
Really—the intensity of the wind was the only thing she hadn’t planned for.
“C’mon, Miser,” she said, her voice muffled by the scarves, “One more alley and then we’ll go home. Promise.”
The mabari was coated with snow, such that he looked nearly shapeless against the backdrop of the snow. If the streets hadn’t been so dirty, the hound might be near-invisible. Instead, he looked like a pillow torn to shreds and given life.
A… chilling thought.
Hawke chuckled to herself at the thought and stuffed a loose curl back under her cap. If the others were here, she might share the joke—but they weren’t. They were probably all wisely snug inside their various homes and bolt-holes.
Just like she ought to be.
The two of them passed through the Lowtown market, which was full of people hunched against the cold. Most of the vendors had tucked haphazard braziers of some sort in the stalls behind them—sure to be at least one disastrous fire later—but Hawke couldn’t blame them. She passed more than one resident of Lowtown hesitantly pawning some bit of jewelry or moth-eaten scarf for firewood. When she thought she could do it unnoticed, Hawke surreptitiously dropped coins in their path. She knew exactly what she would have done if someone had offered her money for firewood when her family had been living here; better that they think they were taking advantage of some careless passerby.
In some ways, the weather was less brutal in the alleys. The close walls cut the sharpness of the wind, though the stillness of the cold that replaced it was no kindness and the rooftops wept brutally sharp icicles. Hawke was regarding the persistence of the cold with no small measure of irritation when a trio of thieves leapt from the rooftop and attacked.
After everything—the Deep Roads, the Arishok, and everything since—three thieves were nothing. She would have disposed of them handily if it hadn’t been for the reinforcements who showed up—and the reinforcements for the reinforcements—and by the time the fifteenth fighter raced down the alleyway toward her, Hawke was getting a bit winded.
Well—alright, winded, but also one of her hands was having trouble hanging onto her staff and poor Miser was limping badly. Perhaps Aveline had been right after all—it would be humiliating, wouldn’t it, to die in some frigid alleyway because she hadn’t wanted to trouble anyone for company? Because she’d been bored and feeling sorry for herself? Because the variety of naughty novels Isabela was always sneaking into the manor’s library had not been enough to satisfy Maria’s itchy feet?
The fifteenth fighter raised their sword high, the metal gleaming in the dim light that filtered through the clouds. This was it; Maria knew it with a dim sense of dread. There was nowhere to dodge and nowhere to run; when she reached for the Fade, her fingers grasped at magic as insubstantial as snowflakes in a hot bath. She would be carved in two from shoulder to hip and that would be that.
Only—at the very apex of the swing, a hand, glowing blue and humming with a familiar energy, thrust itself through his chest and stayed there until the man’s gasps turned to silence.
The wind howled down the alleyway.
Fenris, still just as poorly attired for the weather as ever, considered the limp body slumped against the wall. When he flicked blood and viscera from his gauntlet, the red slash of it looked almost festive against the paler snow piled against the alley walls.
“Come here often?” Hawke coughed, feeling for the wall until she could lean against it more firmly.
“Drink a potion,” Fenris snapped, nudging the body to the side and striding closer. He stopped beside Miser first, feeling carefully along the bloodied rear leg.
Hawke did as he said, fumbling for the vials at her belt, then pulling the cork with her teeth when her gloved hands couldn’t manage. The potion burned while it knit her back together, but the sensation was pleasant. Or— it was better than nothing, anyway, and her skin had long since started to go numb.
“I had—” she began, but he interrupted almost at once.
“You did not,” Fenris said crisply, “Have him. He would have cleaved you in half. Why didn’t you send for me? Or any of the others?”
Hawke grimaced behind the safety of her scarf and straightened stiffly from the wall. Fenris was slightly further along the alley, crouched beside Miser, who seemed more than happy to be tended to.
“Oh,” she said, “I find it quite attractive when you scold me. You should go on doing it.”
Even Maria, no matter how oblivious she pretended to be, could not have missed the furious green of his eye peering over his shoulder at her before he turned back to the hound.
“Hawke,” he snapped, a warning in his voice. She stumbled closer—because the health potion hadn’t quite managed to fix everything, but she couldn’t stomach another just yet—and slid down the wall so they were at eye level.
“It’s miserable out here. I didn’t want to drag you out into it; I know how you feel about the cold.”
Fenris muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath in Tevene and let go of Miser’s leg at last. He’d smoothed some poultice over it, green-smelling and thick, and poor Miser had stopped panting quite so hard.
“Good boy,” Hawke murmured, reaching for the mabari’s head and scratching his favorite spot behind one ear. The hound leaned into it, his tongue lolling out of his mouth.
At long last, she sighed and looked at Fenris.
“I was feeling sorry for myself,” she said, “wandering the estate alone. Wanted to find some trouble. It’s been a quiet month; this seemed better than nothing.”
Fenris did not respond to this. He just went on looking at her.
“Yes, alright. It was stupid,” she sighed, rolling her eyes, “But really—this is the fourth or fifth of these alleyways and I was doing just fine before that last bastard.”
“Hawke,” Fenris said, shaking his head, but when he rose he offered her a hand.
Hawke held on tightly and levered herself to her feet. Fenris didn’t step back when she straightened; instead, he lifted his other hand and traced the healing line of a wound along her cheek. His brows furrowed.
“You should have sent for me,” he said, in that deep voice that always made her stomach flip, “I would have come.”
“I know,” she said, leaning into his touch, “That’s why I didn’t call. I didn’t want you to have to follow me around in the cold because I was bored and spoiling for a fight.”
His eyes traced her face carefully, looking, she knew, for more injuries. He’d likely search her for more as soon as they were home, too; she was well aware that his penchant for drawing her baths was really an excuse to strip her naked and look for hidden hurts.
“Better in the cold with you than standing at your graveside without,” he said, though the words were somewhat softened by the undercurrent of worry in his tone.
“Ouch,” Maria said, frowning. Fenris lifted one shoulder, then turned toward the mouth of the alley, still holding her hand.
“Come,” he said, “We should get you home.”
“Alright,” she said, and followed where he led.
|
Hawke entered the estate with her usual attention to neatness and decorum—which was to say, she shed scarf, gloves, hat, and cloak in a messy line from the door to the stairs.
Miser snatched more than one garment from the air with delight despite his injuries, and deposited them in the box on the bench beside the door. The cloak, at least, Hawke tossed over the newel post before trudging up the stairs.
Fenris watched all of this with a rueful sort of affection, but he didn’t bother objecting. She’d long since pointed out that he had little room to speak about her neatness given the state of his manor. He couldn’t argue with that; but he also didn’t see the need to tell her or anyone else that the “body” in his foyer was, in fact, a practice dummy wearing robes he’d found in a trunk. The appearance of a rotting corpse by the doorway was, he’d found, an effective means of dissuading visitors. Why none of their friends had ever noticed that it neither stank nor decayed was beyond him.
“Something to say?” she asked from the top of the stairs, resting a hand at the generous swell of her hip. Fenris shook his head and began to follow her to the second floor, his fingertips brushing over the sodden wool of her cloak before tracing up the wooden railing.
“Must I repeat it?” he asked, “You already know what I would say, in any case.”
“Hawke,” she intoned, scowling fiercely, “I will never understand why you do not see fit to keep your home in order. It is simple enough to disrobe in one room.”
“I do not sound like that,” Fenris said, successfully preventing the smile from creeping up his face.
“Hawke,” Maria went on in the same voice, unsuccessfully preventing herself from smiling, “You slovenly creature. I have stubbed my toe on your staff for the last time! Fasta vass!”
“I certainly don’t sound like that,” Fenris told her, nearing the top of the stairs.
“Ah, my mistake,” she said in her normal voice, backing away and undoing her belt, “How about this?”
Hawke hung her belt on the doorknob behind her and turned it, stepping backward into her bedroom without once looking to see what might be inside.
“Hawke,” she said again, in her impression of his voice, “You ravishing creature. Your every move is like poetry, and the taste of you on my tongue is like the finest of wi—oomph!”
Fenris darted forward in a burst of speed and snatched her up in his arms, kicking the door shut behind him. Her belt jangled against the wood and gradually fell silent. Neither of them paid it any attention; Fenris was too busy pressing her carefully back against the wall and catching her mouth with his, and Hawke was too busy laughing in between his kisses.
“I should—tease you more—often,” she gasped when she finally stopped laughing.
Fenris grunted and nipped the skin at her jaw, his hands finding the ties along either side of her robes and undoing them easily. He had no interest in explaining that he wasn’t reacting to her teasing. The fervor in his touch was entirely due to the sight of her in that alleyway, pressed back against the wall while a greatsword descended toward her head. In that split second, Fenris had been able to see the aftermath all too clearly: the blood spilling from the joint of her neck, the white of bone pressing through her shoulder, the lifelessness in her eyes when her spirit finally left the body behind.
It mattered little that he’d prevented Hawke’s near-certain death; it only mattered that he almost hadn’t.
Hawke often laughed at him for the way he checked her over after battle. Fenris had never much minded her laughter, and he’d never felt the need to explain himself. Maria could laugh all she liked, so long as he could be assured that she wasn’t hiding some grievous injury from him. He knew her too well to think she wouldn't do just that to keep him from worrying; he’d seen her do it to any number of her friends on numerous occasions.
Now, Fenris ran a hand along the bare skin of her side, marking the sharp hiss of breath between her teeth when he touched her ribs; ah, a bruise there. Her sigh when the backs of his knuckles brushed against the curve of her breast was altogether different, soft and warm against his neck. Enjoyable as it was to hear, he ignored it for the moment in favor of undoing the clasp at her shoulder.
“Tell me there’s a bath,” she said as he pushed the sleeves down her arms and left the robe in a puddle on the floor.
“There is,” he told her, stepping back from the wall and walking her with him to the bathing room’s door, “It may yet be hot.”
“Remind me to give Orana a raise,” she told him, eyeing the clasps of his armor as they went.
“If you give her any more money a month, she will buy her own manor and leave you here to pick up after yourself,” Fenris told her absently, scanning the room before they stepped through the door.
Hawke shrugged and stopped beside the bathtub, which was, in fact, half-filled with steaming water. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Fenris busied himself with the ties to her smallclothes and Maria unwound the cloth of her breastband.
When at last she was entirely bare and she’d kicked the cloth away from the bath, Fenris raised a brow and took a step back. In response, Hawke rolled her eyes upward, sighed, and flicked her fingers. A little ball of golden light formed over her head, simultaneously illuminating and casting shadows over her naked skin, like an echo of the sun itself.
Ah; yes, that was a bruise forming over her right ribs. Already, it was purple in an angled line—some sort of staff strike, he thought, or the flat of a sword. She’d bent easily enough to remove her boots at the door, so it must not be a break. There—the blood drying down her left arm. From the amount of blood in her robes and down her arm, it must have been deep. When Fenris dipped his hand in the hot water and smoothed it over her skin, most of the blood washed away in trails of reddened water. The potion she’d taken must have sealed that wound first—which likely meant it had been among the worst of her injuries.
Best to check the rest in any case; one could never be too sure.
“Turn,” he told her, and Maria did so, sighing and shaking out her hair as she turned. Fenris shifted the mass of her hair over one shoulder, his fingers lingering in the curls and smoothing them away from her back. He would not be distracted by the constellations of freckles over her shoulders; he would remain focused until he was certain she was well enough for anything but a bath and sleep.
Fenris ran his hands down soft ridges down her back, then crouched to examine a series of bruises along her thigh. The marks dotted her leg from hip to knee, obscuring the ripples of silver that usually decorated this stretch of skin. Hawke made a soft noise when he touched the edge of one and Fenris drew his fingers away.
“How bad?” he asked. She looked at him over her shoulder, frowning.
“It’s fine, Fenris.”
“The marks beg to differ,” he said, “The hip—how bad?”
“Bruised,” she said stiffly, then sighed, “Alright. It’s a bone bruise—but it will be fine soon enough. I swear, you fuss like—”
“I fuss,” Fenris interrupted, standing, “Because you refuse to take care of yourself.”
Maria frowned and turned away.
Her woolen cap had mussed her curls; if left like this, they would be impossible to wash. Fenris pursed his lips at the back of her head and set about untangling them one by one, easing the knotted strands loose before running his fingers through them again carefully and thoroughly, from root to tip.
“I can take care of myself,” she said more quietly, and the ball of light over her head winked out, “You know that well enough by now—or you ought to.”
“In a fight? Yes,” he agreed, pressing his fingers firmly against the skin of her scalp until she sighed and leaned back against him, “But after? Hawke, you would fight on broken legs if you could find the means to balance. That you would win the fight does not alleviate the worries of those who care for you.”
Fenris cleared his throat and lay one last curl amongst the others, letting his hands settle on her shoulders instead of her hair.
“Perhaps you have not considered that it…may pain me to see you hurt. To know that you would not seek help if your wounds were grave.”
Hawke turned to look up at him, then looped her arms about his waist.
“What would help right now?” she asked, meeting his eyes, “My hip hurts and my ribs ache. You can smooth ointment over them when we’re done here. What else?”
“Take me with you,” he said at once, tracing the angle of her jaw, “Do not leave me behind next time.”
Maria made a face—the one that pressed her lower lip out and ought to have looked childish. It didn’t, though; it made her look sorrowful instead, as if the whole of the world had abandoned her. It was an act; he’d caught onto that particular performance almost at once, and now the expression only made him want to bite her bottom lip.
In fact—yes, that was a good idea.
Fenris dipped his head and indulged himself, taking the plump warmth of it between his teeth until she sighed and melted into him.
“Will you?” he asked after a moment, and kissed the skin just to the right of her mouth. Hawke shivered slightly; Fenris didn’t flatter himself by thinking her reaction was due to his touch alone. He could feel the bumps along her skin and knew all too well how cold it had been outside.
“Will I?” she asked, her eyes softly closed.
Fenris kissed each one of them with exquisite care.
“Bring me with you next time?” he said.
“Mmmhm,” she said, tilting her face toward his.
She couldn’t see him; Fenris smiled at her, shaking his head once, and set a kiss upon her lips. The contact was soft and brief and not nearly enough to satisfy—just as he’d intended.
“Promise me,” he told her, “If not me, then someone else. You know better than to fight alone.”
Hawke sighed and opened her eyes again.
“I promise,” she said, and paused, “But only if you climb into the bath with me tonight.”
He’d already intended to; but perhaps it would not do to tell her as much. Fenris frowned as if the idea galled him.
“Very well,” he said, “After you.”
Hawke grinned and rolled forward onto her toes to peck his cheek. She climbed into the bath without further complaint, but she didn’t relax against the angled back of the tub. Instead, she folded her arms on the edge and rested her chin there, watching him with open curiosity.
As if she’d never seen him undress before. As if it was still the first time.
Fenris huffed and removed his belt, then loosened the clasps of his breastplate along either rib and shoulder. She watched each step with interest, and her lips parted when he set his tunic aside at last.
“I do not understand,” he told her, untying the laces at the waistband of his leggings, “Why you always look at me like that.”
“Oh?” she said, tilting her head until her cheek rested against her arm and she was watching him sideways, “Perhaps I am your lover and I like the look of you. Maybe I am plotting something. Or—perhaps I find the world around me miraculous and full of wonder. I don’t know, Fenris, why do you think I still watch when you take your clothes off?”
Fenris rolled his eyes and climbed into the tub opposite her.
“You know what I meant. The…surprise.”
Hawke said nothing for a moment; only dipped her head backward into the water before leaning back against the angled side of the tub. For a moment, her eyes searched his.
“I suppose,” she said at last, “I may stop feeling like your presence here is a…a happy accident someday. I haven’t been able to shake the feeling yet.”
Fenris didn’t know what to say to that immediately; they did not often speak of the three years they’d spent apart, and he found he did not wish to do so tonight, either. He dipped his head back into the hot water instead, weighing his responses.
After he sat up, slicking his wet hair away from his forehead, Maria wetted her bottom lip and added:
“Is it so wrong? To think that you are beautiful?” a pause, “Do you…want me to stop watching you?”
“No,” he told her firmly, slicking his hair back from his forehead, “I do not. I…”
He took a deep breath, shifting the water around them, and sighed.
“Nevermind. You have done nothing wrong; let us leave it.”
There was no way to tell her it wasn’t the act itself he was questioning, but the manner with which she watched him. Amazed, yes, even surprised; but there was something in the back of her eyes, behind the happiness. That hidden thing—he supposed he might call it grief, if he had to name it at all.
What would make her grieve him even as they came together again?
“Alright,” Hawke said, and reached for the first of several ointments and balms she used on her hair, “Why were you in Lowtown, anyway?”
“Why do you think?” he asked, reaching for his own bottle of soap. He’d never asked her for it, but after he’d begun to spend more time at the manor Hawke had wordlessly produced his preferred scent and left it on the side of the bath he preferred.
Yet somehow it still baffled her that he disliked seeing her hurt.
“What tipped you off?” she asked, leaning back until her hair spread beneath the water, swirling and free without the weight of the air to hold it in place.
“I came to see you,” he told her, “Orana told me where you’d gone.”
“Did you come here for a particular reason, or did you just miss me?”
“Yes,” he said, and she raised a dark brow.
“Yes? Both?”
“Yes.”
“Do I get to know why, then, or do you mean to stick to single-syllable answers?”
“No,” Fenris said, and smiled faintly at the outraged expression on her face, “I came to make sure you ate something, and perhaps to read together for a time.”
“Oh!” she said, surprise crossing her face and chagrin hard on its heels, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…I wouldn’t have wanted to miss that. I would have stayed, if I’d known.”
“Hmm,” Fenris said, “Well. It is fortunate that I found you when I did.”
“I feel fortunate whenever you find me,” she said, yawning.
Fenris chose to let the comment pass, and watched as she finished her extensive hair routine. When she was finally done, her eyes heavy, he rose dripping from the tub and reached for a towel. He didn’t think to glance at her again until he stepped onto the tile and wrapped the towel around his waist—and when he did, he saw it again.
Grief in her eyes, tucked behind the affection and the exhaustion. Fenris crouched next to her to look more closely and she tilted her head to follow him.
“That,” he said, “That is what I mean. What is wrong?”
“Nothing,” Hawke said, but her lips pressed hard together after she spoke.
Fenris narrowed his eyes at her.
“Truly, I…” she sighed, “It is nothing worth speaking aloud, in any case.”
She stood then, reaching for her own towel and wrapping it tightly around herself. Fenris rose and held out a hand for her, which she took as she stepped from water to floor.
“Hawke—” he began, but she shook her head.
“Leave it,” she said, “Please.”
Fenris pursed his lips, but nodded and let go as soon as she was solidly on her feet.
When she’d reached the bed, he found the ointment in her desk and climbed onto the mattress at her side.
“Ribs and hip,” he said, unscrewing the cap and setting it aside with care, “Anywhere else?”
“No,” she said after a moment.
“Hawke,” Fenris said, and nothing more.
“My shoulder still aches,” she said, “But it’s nothing to—really, Fenris, I’ll be fine.”
“Hmm,” he said, already rubbing the ointment into her shoulder. Hawke sighed and settled onto her folded arm. The ointment tingled over the tattoos on his fingers, imbued with magic as it was, but it was little more than a faint irritation.
After a moment, she rolled onto her other side so he could treat the bruise on her hip. That was when she spoke, facing away from him as his fingers smoothed the green salve over the worst of the bruise.
“Fenris?”
“Yes?”
The bruise was worst just above the bone. Fenris rubbed the salve in there, fingers careful and gentle, before gathering more and smoothing it over the line of bruising that extended halfway to her knee.
“I…Kirkwall is my home,” she said, and when he glanced at her face he saw that her eyes were closed, “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. But it…it has taken almost everything from me.”
Fenris waited in silence, gathering more salve on his fingertips and finding the next set of bruises, red-purple and swinging over the swell of her backside.
“I…thought if all I had was things, it wouldn’t be so bad to lose them. I’ve lost everything before, you know, in Lothering. I could manage it well enough if it happened again. But with everything happening lately, and you…”
Maria took a deep breath, as if to say more, but let it all out in a rush instead.
“Nevermind,” she said, “Nevermind. You’re right. It’s all foolishness.”
Fenris finished with the salve, watching the firelight glisten along the line of it. She looked gilded when she lay like this, the line of her bare skin lit by the sconces and the hearth behind them. In the beginning, she’d seemed impossible to him; like a painting of a woman given life but not sense.
He knew better now—despite her insistence on taking ridiculous risks.
So instead of letting it lie, Fenris screwed the lid on her salve again and spoke.
“I am not going anywhere,” he said, watching his hands on the lid, “No one can make me leave but you.”
She shifted on the bed before him, set a hand on his knee.
“Fenris,” she said, and nothing more.
“Do you believe me?”
Hawke’s eyes were dark and deep; easy to get lost in, he’d often thought. In that moment, he saw nothing but warmth and worry there.
“Yes,” she said at last, “Yes. I do.”
“Good,” he said firmly, and her hand fell away when he rose to return the salve to its drawer.
He pulled on the linen trousers folded neatly at the bottom of her armoire and tossed one of her tunics in her direction. As she unwound the drying cloth from her hair, Hawke spoke.
“About reading,” she said, “Would you still consider it if I fed you?”
Fenris, who’d turned away to pull on a tunic that’d been folded with the trousers, smiled faintly while she could not see him.
“Perhaps,” he told her when he turned, “If you will allow me to stay for the night. Your room his warmer than mine.”
Hawke’s eyes gleamed, and her wide mouth spread in a smile.
“I think,” she said, “That can be arranged.”
|
When he woke in the night to her murmured “don’t go, don’t go,” it was Fenris’s hands that shook Hawke awake. It was his neck she hid her face in until she fell asleep again, and it was in his arms that she woke when dawn crept through the window.
Neither of them discussed this over breakfast. What would be the point?
But Hawke never again wandered through Kirkwall without at least one of her friends nearby—and it was a rare day that Fenris was not at her side.
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connor bedard a devil: devs!player
tagging: @ivy-34, @francesfarhadi, @hzstry8, @cixrosie, @itsnotgray, @estapa94, @trevs-swiftie, @heartz4hischif you want to join the taglist let me know!!
you were in california and jamie had asked you over for dinner with trevor and jack and one of their new teammates. a rookie.
during the dinner, jamie introduced you to mason, a fellow canadian who had just been drafted by the ducks in the 2021 nhl draft.
the three of you spent the dinner tormenting the poor american.
“it was really nice meeting you mason. remember to text me whenever you want and i’ll be there,” you told the young boy, giving him a hug.
and true to the word, mason texted you whenever he needed help, especially as he moved up and down the roster.
by the time world juniors came around, you and mason were best friends on snapchat and had a sixty day streak.
you congratulated him when he was named captain and constructed a regular facetime schedule for mason to gain advice and to rant.
during on of your facetime sessions, you happened to notice a little head walking past ever so often.
“who’s behind you mase?” you asked.
mason turned around and spotted connor giving him a sheepish smile. “that’s just bedsy,” he replied, nonchalantly.
“bedsy?”
“connor bedard,”
you nodded your head in realisation. “hi connor, it’s nice to meet you,” you called to the boy.
connor popped around and said hello. the boy then started animatedly talking about how he looked up to you as an idol. the way you went against all odds and became the first women to get drafted to the nhl.
from that day onwards, whenever you spoke to mason, connor would also be in the room and chime in whenever he felt like it.
but as the competition got cancelled due to covid, you wished the boys luck and gave connor your number with the order to reach out whenever he felt like it.
and he did just that.
as soon as he got back to regina, connor spent any moment he could asking you for advice on how to cope with all the watching eyes.
he’d spoken to mason and kent as well about the advice you’d given them and decided that suffering in silence wasn’t the best option.
summer worlds
when it came to summer worlds, connor had asked if you were willing to come watch. and so you dragged nico with you to meet the bedard boy.
kent saw you first and gave you a hug before calling connor over. the young boy ran to you, lifting you up in your hug.
“hi connor,” you mused.
“hi. thank you for coming,” he whispered.
you squeezed him before stepping back. “of course! neeks and i didn’t have anything planned for this time so we thought why not,” you replied.
throughout the tournament, you spent time with the canadian team, especially connor, the boy followed you and nico to dinner sometimes and had a long standing dinner invitation for when he gets drafted.
nhl draft
connor was nervous.
everyone had hyped him up to go first overall but he saw what happened with shane.
after the draft lottery, you had called him immediately. you asked how he felt about potentially going to chicago and he answered that he was fairly uncertain.
nico had been the one to push against the hawks getting a draft pick that high. but gary bettman didn’t listen.
during the awards, connor came up to you and nico with a shaky breathe.
“i’m kind of scared to go to chicago,” he answered truthfully.
nico put a hand on his shoulder and brought him in for a small hug before handing him off to you. connor wrapped his arms around you first.
“if you want, i can come with you to rookie camp and help you get settled in, but im sure your mum will be there too,” you assured him.
upon thinking of hehe you knew in the organisation, you realised frank and kevin would be at rookie camp. so you informed connor of them and gave him a little advice “everyone’s going to be a little scared so take it and make friends. one of the toughest things for me was i never spoke to anyone during my rookie camp. jack spoke to me a bit but that was all,”
when he heard his name called, he was relieved that he was going to the nhl. he stood up and hugged his family before walking down to find you.
connor pulled you in for a hug and whispered in your ear “thank you for everything,” before walking to wear his jersey.
first game
you made a call to sid.
“y/n, i can’t tell my teammates to stop their defence and let him score,” the older man whined.
“sidney it’s hi first game and he’s nervous!” you emphasised.
sid shook his head. beside him tanger and geno were wearing enormous grins upon hearing your request.
you huffed before thinking of another plan. “well then can you at least be nice to him and let him win a face off?” you asked.
sid chuckled and turned to his two teammates “we will make sure sid let’s him win a face off,” they promised.
majority of the devils team piled in to yours and nico’s living room in order to watch the first game of the season with you.
and they all vowed not to hurt the poor boy. which brendan smith broke
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