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lowkeyhockey · 4 years

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accidents (how we went from friends to this) - part ii

Pairing: Sidney Crosby/Female Reader

Warnings: No sexual content, but Sid is 19 and reader is 16 (which is the age of consent in Canada)

Author’s Notes: Part II of Accidents, which is in turn part of the Can I Go (Where You Go) verse, but can be read as a standalone. I bumped this up in my queue because my gift exchange fic is killing me, and because someone asked me to :D i am # weak.

Summary: Y/N gets Sid to attend prom with her, even if she insists on calling it a grad formal. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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"Missing your grad formal's one thing, Squid," you tell him, and your cheeks are hurting from grinning so wide and you're probably looking like an idiot, but that just means that it's alright that your words match. He's grinning back at you, teeth still too big for his face and his hair getting a little too long, but he's grinning and this is great.

"You're not allowed to miss mine."

Which doesn't make sense, you know it doesn't, but it's allowed. You've been good all year - you've been good your whole life, really - and what most of your classmates see as a boring pre-after party event you see as a chance to have fun. And Sid's actually – down for your dumb high school shenanigans.

He doesn't even mind your fiddling with his bow tie, a deep midnight blue that matches your dress, even though there had been nothing wrong with it and you both knew it.

It's like, tradition. Or at the very least a cliche. If this was a movie, your mom would be tearing up and shouting at your dad to get the camera, and your dad would be ignoring her and trying to fix a steely eyed stare on Sid until he like. Promises to bring you back before curfew or whatever.

It would have been nice, is the thing. But you have this instead, and honestly – it's perfect.

"You could have taken me if Sid didn't wanna go," Taylor calls down from the stairs, as though hearing your thoughts, somehow managing to push out the words through the biggest pout you've ever seen on her. You step away from Sid to reach up for one dangling sneaker - curling your fingers around Tay's ankle and giving it a light squeeze. You take it as a good sign that she doesn't kick your hand away.

"I wouldn't have asked Sid if you could have been my date instead," you promise her, trying to look appropriately serious, but it's hard to push that through your grin.

Which – okay, you're lying. If the dance wasn't 16+ only you would have asked both of them to be there. You would probably have made a girls' night of it with Taylor, with Sid playing the part of the exhausted chaperon he was clearly destined for.

Sidney Crosby: the second coming of Hockey Jesus, and world-weary chaperon to his sister and her best friend. It’s good for a man to have two destinies. You're pretty sure that at least 0.5 of your destiny was to keep the great Sidney Crosby grounded.

Judging by the look on her face, Taylor's not, like, intensely convinced, and you look to Sid for some emotional support only to find him mirroring her expression. Only he looks even less impressed somehow, which is impressive enough for you to pat his cheek with your free hand.

(Your parents aren't there to take a picture of you but Trina is, and that's the first picture of the night: she was coming down the stair behind Taylor, and catches a shot of you holding on to both Tay and Sid. God, but you'd been a Grade A Clinger.)

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"Really thought you've moved me up from second-string, for a moment there," Sid tells you as he opens the car door for you, and you'd been standing closer to him for pictures just five minutes ago but he still gets to you, this way.

His smile is kind, the last time you saw him so dressed up in person was at the draft last year, and there's something about his hair that makes you want to run your fingers through it. It's because of one or two of that, or because of a combination of all three, but you lean in to kiss his cheek before you slide into the car.

(He's cleaned up nice - you kind of miss the scruff - but his aftershave more than makes up for it. )

It's his mom's car, he's not so big a hotshot that he keeps a car just for summers in Nova Scotia. You love the familiarity of it. You wish Sid would buy one of his own here anyway, even if it's just a secondhand clunker, just so you know he'd keep coming back.

You tell him as much, grinning as you promise him that you'd be more than happy to babysit it for him while he's off setting new records in Pittsburgh, and he snorts at you but keeps his eyes on the road like the responsible driver that he is. You only wish you could be as focused, and not on his profile.

The curve of his smile, even from just his profile, is such a familiar thing to you. It warms your chest, makes your heart work double-time (presumably to work the heat off), makes you reach over to rest your hand against his thigh.

It's all muscle, under your light touch. Sid's been spending his summer pretty much alternating between working out and eating enough to feed about three lesser athletes, and the knowledge of it warms your cheeks. And then Sid reaches down to cover your hand with his - which is not at all responsible driver-y of him - and you're suddenly warm all over.

"Can you grab the cooler in the back? There's water in there," he says, interrupting your thoughts on - what? how solid he felt under your hand? But you're impressed all over again.

When you reach around to dig through the cooler, though, you find that he wasn't kidding about the water - there's nothing but bottles of water and chunks of ice in there, just when you thought Sid's decided to pregame with beer or - wine, or vodka, or whatever.

He's the pro-athlete, not you. You don't know what people drink to get turnt at parties.

"You're such a dork," you tell him, too-fond about it as you fish a bottle out and open it to take a sip - careful to brush away lipstick marks after - before offering it to him. He shakes his head and you close the bottle again, putting it in the cup holder between you.

"Don't want you hungover tomorrow," he says, and it's your turn to shake your head.

"Can't get hungover if you don't get me something to drink," you point out, teasing, and he laughs. "Useless," you add, the word too fond to be mean, even though you'd tried your hardest.

When you lean back into your seat, hands clasped neatly in your lap like you're afraid of wrinkling up your dress somehow, it's his turn to reach over between you, his hand resting warm against your thigh.

"That's not my job, Y/N. Besides, the water came in pretty handy already." There's a steadiness in his gaze - unexpected, unfamiliar - when he glances over at you, holds your gaze for just a moment. "You looked a little overheated there."

You're blushing properly then - you can feel it, you're hoping it's not too visible in the early evening light - and he looks - like he's thinking about it, or you, or the way you're acting like an idiot even though he's just there as a friend.

"Eyes on the road, Sidney," you manage after a moment - too long a moment, maybe - and he's shaking his head at you again, still with that non-expression expression on his face that you don't quite know how to read.

When did he even get that look? God knows Sidney's never been complicated.

He loves hockey, loves his family, loves you - at least a little, but he has to, with how many hours he's spent listening to you bitch about college applications and problems with your basketball team or friend groups or lab partners. He works hard, and takes care of the things and the people he loves. He - when the fuck did he get hot?

You're still confused when you look away, look out the windshield for the first time since you got into the car, realize then - with a sharp jolt of embarrassment - that he'd only been looking at you because of a red light. It was only fair, considering how you'd been staring at him the whole way there.

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Despite the hand he has around yours, you're separated as soon as you enter the hotel ballroom your school's rented out for the dance. You give his hand a quick double-squeeze - your standard signal asking if he wants you to set up an escape plan - but he responds by letting yours go, turning with an easy grin to greet some of the guys who've run up to crowd around you.

There's guys from the school baseball team, some guys you know used to play street hockey with him, childhood friends dressed up like James Bonds and Bond Girls. Sid transferred to Shattuck's in like, grade 9, but everyone still knows and loves him. Everyone's still proud to know him, and you know Sid's still a little confused and a lot thankful for all the support, and you're more than happy to share him.

It's an excuse, anyway, to run and catch up with your girls, barely giving enough time for everyone to gush compliments over everyone else's dresses and hair and makeup (never mind that you had all gone shopping together, and that most of the girls had gotten dressed up at Annika's place) before catching everyone's attention by blurting out, lingering embarrassment still too strong to be subtle about it, "is it me or did Sid get hot?"

You're met with a couple of blank looks, a couple of raised eyebrows, look slowly around the circle your bodies make for a face that has an answer when strong hands spin you around - it's Sara, in a black feathery dress and thick eyeliner that makes her eyes look huge despite the narrow-eyed look she's giving you, hands like clamps on your shoulders.

Or maybe you're - being oversensitive. You feel about ready to vibrate out of your skin, antsy and uncomfortable, and unhappy about it. It doesn't overwrite or replace the giddy happiness you'd felt getting dolled up at the Crosbys' house, exactly - it just rests on top like a blanket, or like a layer of powder, changing the look of it.

What is it with things changing?

God help you - are you finally panicking about graduating, about moving away from your friends and your halfway-empty childhood home, about starting anew like you've been wanting to for years?

Sara's hands tighten on you in a steady double-squeeze, and just like that, you feel your anxiety fade away. She's been your captain for both basketball and softball for like, three straight seasons. She knows better than almost anyone how to get you to cut your shit out.

When the slow grin spreads across her face, though, it's your turn to narrow your eyes at her – you know how to get Sara to cut her shit out, but she's a lot more trouble than you are, and you had plans on actually enjoying your grad formal.

All she says, though is a sly "aren't you glad you didn't figure that out until after you asked him out?"

and you're set to - scold, or protest, or agree when you feel a hand press against your back, large and warm and solid.

You know who it is without turning around - you recognize his aftershave, you realize with something like slow-growing horror - but you're saved from having to ask him how much he'd overheard by the girls jumping in - and God, everything in the world could be changing but you'd still have your girls, and thank fuck for that.

Annaya's dating someone in his draft year, though the guy spent the season in the AHL, and she starts off the shit-talking by teasing him about his penalty minutes. It's not mean, is the thing - the girls know to stay away from asking him about the shitty end to his season - but you still worry, just a little.

You lean, just a little, against his side, just to feel if he was tensing up or feeling uncomfortable, and he slides his arm around your waist in easy acceptance.

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You tell him about it after, because of course you do, because he's one of your best friends in the entire world and there's no one you'd rather have gone to the formal with, because his hands on your waist as you sway together on the dance floor could be made a deadly weapon, because his warm breath against the side of your head makes you feel antsy all over - but in a nice way.

And you don't want anything to spoil this night for either of you.

When you give in to it - you've never been a coward, of course you were going to give in - it's with an exhale that's almost a sigh, and Sid makes a questioning sound in the half-second before you shift to rest your head against his shoulder, relaxing even more completely in his arms.

It feels like completion, like belonging.

(And you don't really feel brave enough to look him in the eye ask you're asking him this, but ––)

"You know you got hot, right?" you ask into the side of his neck, voice soft. He starts a little, but when he starts to pull away you give him a light pinch through his tux jacket. You smile against his neck as you do it, both hear his surprised laughter and feel it all around you, and melt deeper into him.

"You totally do, you asshole," you say, and you're laughing along with him. It feels better this way, with that out in the open. "Give a girl a head's up next time, eh? You almost gave me a heart attack, when you opened the car door for me."

"When we left my place or when we got here?" he wants to know, and you let out a small huff of amused disapproval.

"You know I was like, drooling, by the time we got in the car." Lucky thing he'd brought all that water, come to think of it, because you'd been thirsty. You can feel him blushing, heat coming off him in waves, practically, but that's alright - he'd gone and packed a ridiculous amount of water. He can re-hydrate later, it's fine.

It's not vey eco-friendly, but still very much appreciated.

"You look gorgeous too, you know," he says, and he sounds - careful, for a reason you can't quite wrap your head around. Not that you want to look into it too deeply. You prefer making another disapproving sound, briefly lifting your hand from his shoulder to physically brush his words away.

"I'm not fishing for compliments, Sid."

You pull back to look him in the eye, to flash him a quick grin, ignoring the disapproving sound he lets out himself. "Besides, I spent two hours getting ready. Ten, if you count dress-shopping and the spa day and everything. I know I look hot."

"So it's just that I'm not allowed to look nice," he teases, voice low - and when did his voice get low?

"Hot," you correct, because of course you have to. It's - honesty, or just the principle of the thing. His smile grows at that, and you have to feel that with your free hand, have to let your palm curve against his cheek and your thumb brush against the corner of his lips.

"I asked you for a friend-date, you know. Not a date-date." You can feel his expression shift at that, under your fingertips, and you wrinkle your nose back at him. "That's how I asked, I mean. But I don't really feel like being just friends, not right now."

He studies you for a second, his hazel eyes warm and serious at once, looking like he's trying to understand you. Looking like he's wanting but uncertain, like he's the innocent high school student being propositioned by an older man. And - you're not speaking Greek, Squid, Jesus.

"I like you, you know I love you, but -" and you wave those words away, too, before something else breaks.

"But you're not looking for anything serious? Dummy," you tease, because come on - you wrote the script for him yourself, years ago, for each time Sid tried to do normal teen things like go out for dinners or to the movies or to the rare school formal with a pretty girl and would end up with having too-high expectations from said girls placed on his shoulders.

"I'm not either. You're a hotshot NHL player, you're going to kill it in Pittsburgh, and I'm already so, so proud of you." His brows are furrowed, just a little, and you pat his cheek - twice, light, just enough to get him to focus.

"Don't go fishing for compliments, Sid." You pause, considering it, then add, "your hockey's always been hot – I guess it was just a surprise to think you're hot like this."

"I've always thought you're beautiful," he says, because he wouldn't be Sid - your Sid - if he wasn't constantly trying to one-up you, but you preen - exaggerating it just a tiny bit - under his words.

"I know, it's a terrible burden." But let's get to complimenting your brains. "Anyway, I'm going to uni soon, and I'm not going to be doing it in the States." For one, you're pretty sure Taylor would kill you for even considering it. For another – you don't want to.

You've been aiming for most of your life to earn one of U of Toronto's iron rings, and everyone - Taylor and Sid especially - knew it. Dating a NHL player - even if he's, like, the future of the league - has no part in your five year plan.

The thought of your future makes you tense up, just a little, the familiar anxiety gnawing away at your edges, but that just makes this feel even more right by comparison.

"I love you as a friend, but this doesn't really feel like just a friend-date anymore." Because Sid might be the one halfway to hotshot-dom but you're still the one who's going to have to keep this on track, probably. You fix your gaze on his - gaze steady, gaze wanting, something like shyness to it but the shyness is overwhelmed by everything else.

"So when we get out of here, do you want to do some date-date stuff?"

He grins then, a little shy and a little amused, and wanting, and you grin back, feeling brave about it.

#sidney crosby imagine #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #sidney crosby #pittsburgh penguins #pens imagine #v:can i go (where you go)#s:accidents (how we went from friends to this)#lyss writes hockey

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lowkeyhockey · 5 years

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accIdents (how we went from friends to this) - sidney crosby

Title: accidents (how we went from friends to this), part i

Pairing: Sidney Crosby/Female Reader

Mentions: Taylor Crosby

Warnings: Pairing is not endgame, mentions of underaged kissing

Word Count: 2.2k

Summary: How many friendships start with a book? (In which someone is always way too hyper, someone kisses two boys because it's easier than talking, and someone leaves because he's genuinely too good to stay.)

Writer’s Notes: This is Part I of a story that’s a part of a bigger verse titled Can I Go (Where You Go) featuring [Y/N], a not-very single mother, Lila, your very opinionated daughter, and Freddie Andersen - a man very happy to be dragged along for the ride. But in the beginning, there had been Sidney Crosby.

Each story in the verse can be read as a standalone. Thanks so much for reading, and please hmu if you have a prompt/request/critique!

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A shriek pierced through the air with the volume and intensity of at least two or three feral wildcats, and you turn around with half a grin already formed on your lips, waiting to catch sight of her to complete it. And when you do, you drop to your knees on instinct, heedless of any grass stains that might show on your pretty floral dress - besides, grass and flowers go together, don't they?

And you go with Taylor, would never say no to a hug from her, ignore the way your friends stand in a small huddle waiting for you to rejoin them because they're so used to this. Never mind that the elementary and middle school buildings were on the same campus, and that you run into Taylor maybe five times a day on a good day.

Whenever you see Taylor, you hug her. That's it. One time, you'd pretended not to see her just to tease her, and she'd climbed onto a water fountain to leap onto your back. And that was only one of the ways she'd lost her baby teeth around you.

All things considered, it's really safer when you greet Taylor like a semi-normal human being, letting her leap into your outstretched arms and almost tumbling over backwards anyway just from the force of her enthusiasm, wrapping your arms tight around her and pressing a kiss against her silky blonde hair. She smells just a little like lavender, and you smile even wider at that, because you knew you hadn't just misplaced your favourite bottle of perfume.

You suppose you should scold her for the thievery but by now, it's labeled in your head under ‘something that reading buddies just do’. Especially considering neither of you have actual sisters to steal or get things stolen from.

The two of you had met six months ago, when Tay's first grade teacher had marched her class over to your waiting class of sixth graders, and before either your or her teacher could divvy your two classes up for the reading buddy programme Taylor had simply collapsed into your lap, foot nudging the copy of Roald Dahl you had by you on the floor with an expression that said that she's going to practice her reading with you only if she has to.

She tells you later, eyes wide with earnestness, that she only liked you because you'd been sitting on a blue beanbag, and you're still grateful for the fact that blue's your favourite colour, too.

The programme lasted just three months, with the two of you meeting every other day to sit in the small, glasshouse reading nook attached to the library, but neither of you particularly cared about letting a teacher tell you that you didn't have to hang out.

You didn't even let your parents do it - Taylor was sleeping over at your house every other weekend just three weeks into the programme, and you had dinner at the Crosby's whenever you had basketball practice, because it always ended around the same time as Sid's hockey training did and it was always easier to feed two hungry student athletes at the same time than just one, when said student athletes have dinner so much later than most people.

Of course, Sid eats enough for at least three people, and you kinda hate how easily he seems to convert food into muscle mass. He wouldn't have let Tay bowl him over so easily - and you look up over Taylor's shoulder to see him grinning down at you like he's thinking the exact same thing, reaching out to tussle first Tay's hair, then yours.

Dumb Sid. Dumb, cute, athletic, nice Sid, who laughs like a honking goose and has never minded having to share his little sister with you because you didn't have any siblings of your own. You think you'd maybe hate him if he weren't so cute and athletic and nice.

Or maybe not - Taylor would probably never let you, was already unhooking one arm from around your neck to reach for the hand her big brother still has resting in your hair, as though the three of you could really walk home attached together like this.

"Don't you have training today?" you ask him, managing to stand up with your arms around a squirming seven year, freeing a hand to wave goodbye to your friends before they walk away. You know that two of your friends - Sara and Anaaya - would probably have liked to stay and talk to him too, but you girls had a pact that Sidney Crosby was too big a potential sore point for your U-12 girls' basketball team, and that meant that no one was allowed to date him.

Not that you'd want to, even though he's dumb and cute and athletic and nice.

He's been pretty grumpy lately and you're pretty sure you know why, but if he's not going to bring it up you won't either. Especially not with Taylor now on the ground between the two of you, swinging both of your arms as she looks around for a new way to make mischief on your way home.

You'd have thought that Tay would have ran out of new ways by now. But you also think that Taylor would never run out of new ways to make mischief, wherever she might be.

Sid lets out a small grunt and you grin as you used your linked hands to nudge Taylor, which had a (totally expected) domino effect of her nudging (punching, really) Sid's side, as high as she could reach and as hard as she could do it.

You burst out laughing instead of scolding her for trying to push her brother off the sidewalk and onto the street - what a way for the great Sidney Crosby to go - and he gives you the admonishing look he really should be giving Taylor instead. Your puppy dog eyes are almost as good as hers, though, and he's shaking his head a moment later and starting down your normal route home again without taking any sort of vengeance.

"Nah, I think they're making me play with Dartmouth again," he says, sounding just a little sulky about it, and you wince in commiseration as though you understand even though you don't, not really.

You've only ever played for your school, basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring. You used to do a little figure skating, a little hockey in mites, because didn't everyone? But you'd never been like him. No one expected you to be amazing, not at sports, and Sid's only fourteen and already dealing with the whole country calling him the next something.

The next great hero, or the next great villain - he's way more than good enough to play with the Bearcats for real and everyone knows it, and that's why they hate him. They won't let him play even though he's just a little bit too young, and even though he's a lot too good for his actual age group, and even though the players and parents in the national midget 'AAA' league shout and boo and hit him so hard he barely wears any of his sweaters or team shirts outside of a game anymore.

The assholes have made Taylor cry, at some games, watching what they do to her big brother. They've made you cry, too, but you don't like talking about that.

You let go of Taylor's hand to cover her ears instead, keeping up your pace so she doesn't protest too much, telling him with an expression more serious than you knew you could manage, "those dumb jerks don't know what they're missing out on."

(But I do, I will, if you go, you want to add, but you don't like talking about that either.)

He gives you a grin, though, probably to make up for your seriousness, probably because Taylor's trying to squirm extra hard now and neither of you wanted to upset her. "It's whatever, you know? Winning the Air Canada Cup's going to be pretty okay too."

And you laugh, dropping your hands from Taylor's ears to push him again, this time doing it directly. His t-shirt's soft against the palm of your hand, and you kinda want to curl your fingers into it instead.

"Watching you win it's going to be pretty okay, if my mom lets me go," you agree, as though you and Taylor didn't already have outfits and facepaintings planned. Taylor's "87" painting on her cheeks are going to have hearts in the holes of the '8', and your "Croz" painting's going to be done in Tay's best handwriting.

You wouldn't let Taylor cry listening to and watching those assholes alone. And besides, god, it really was beautiful to watch Sid play.

Sometimes he lets you practice shooting with him in his basement. He doesn't make you stand in front of the goal, because padding or no it still hurts when the pucks hit you, but he lets you choose the music as you guys race to get pucks in the net - because he's older, because he's Sidney Crosby, he has to make ten shots before you make five, and usually he wins anyway.

But this time he and Taylor drop you off at the mailbox in front of your house. When it's just you and Taylor you usually walk to her house first, then go back to yours, and you can walk alone when Tay has her big brother to walk with because it's a little out of the Crosbys' way but they never make you do that.

So you kneel down again, let Tay wrap her arms around your neck again, but you stand before Sid could ruffle your hair in goodbye - leaning in, not even having to stand on tiptoe, to kiss his cheek instead. "They're so dumb, but we're not, so keep playing for us, eh?"

He looks a little like a prince then, thoughtful and distant even with a faint blush traced across his cheeks, eyes that gorgeous shade of hazel and hair dark and lightly tussled by the wind, and you think that this is how Sara and Anaaya might see him. He's here but unavailable. Here but so different from you, even though he's just three years older than you, so much more mature than the other fourteen year old boys in his class.

You should know. Mike Wallace tried to shove his tongue down your throat that one time, when you admitted to him that you wouldn't mind kissing him, and all Sid's doing to you right now is just stare.

You're blushing yourself before you even know it, reach a little blindly to ruffle Tay's hair the way Sid always does, calling out a goodbye to them before Sid could say anything else.

***

You ask Sid to go to the Winter Formal with you, because Mike Wallace asked you and you refuse to make yourself do that again, but he has extra practice and you spend the evening with Sara and Annika instead.

Sara's in a kinda hippie phase where she pretends she can cast magic, pretends that there's magic in the night and that she's feeding off it, and Annika pretends she's not desperately in love with Sara.

You kiss Mike Wallace again and it's not bad, this time, even though it feels like pretending, even though he told his friends after the last time you guys kissed that twelve year old girls kiss way better than eleven year old girls, like it's bad that you’d skipped a grade. Idiot. Not too bad a kisser, though.

When you get home, Sid's there in a game day suit even though he didn't have a game that day, you know he didn't, you'd have gone to the game instead if he did.

He's a really bad dancer, but he's an okay kisser, and he lets you choose the music again even though you're in your basement now and not his.

When he finds out you'd kissed Mike Wallace already that night, he makes a sound like he's going to throw up, and you punch him as hard as Taylor would have punched him, and burst out laughing right as he starts letting out those stupid honk-laughs of his.

***

"I trust you, y'know. I would leave Taylor if I didn't know I'd be leaving her with you."

And you do know, and you trust him too, but he's still going all the way over to America and he's stronger than you still - you can't lift up Taylor and threaten to throw her into the bushes on your way home from school the way he can.

But you suppose that if he's going to Shattuck-Saint Mary's, the way you knew he would, his way home from school's going to be looking really different anyway.

"Don't tell her that," you say instead, with an eyeroll that somehow makes the tears gathering in the corners of your eyes more likely to fall instead of less. "I don't want her to hate me too," you say, and it's a little mean, but he winces and you know it's a direct hit.

And Sid always appreciates accuracy, doesn't he?

"I'll miss you too," he tells you, instead of rising to the bait, and you let him pull you into burying your face against his shoulder before the tears could fall. If he questions whatever wet spots you leave behind on his t-shirt you'd tell him that his permanent hockey player-stink made your nose run

but he doesn't ask

so you don't say it.

An "I miss you too"s not the worst thing to end a goodbye on, you think later, even if you never told him that you'd miss him. He's dumb, but you're not surprised that he figured it out.

#sidney crosby imagine #nhl imagine #hockey imagine #penguins imagine #penguins #v:can i go (where you go)#s:accidents (how we went from friends to this)#lyss writes hockey

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