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Евгений.
The jumble of weird letters on Sidney’s wrist are different than everyone else’s—different than his mom’s, or his dad’s, and when Taylor gets big enough for the whole name to show up on her wrist, it’ll be different too. At first it’s only annoying because he can’t read it, and then because he can’t pronounce it, when his mom drives them to a name specialist once the letters have filled in all the way, and the doctor says it’s Russian.
Sidney tries to repeat it after her, but he can’t make his lips form the sounds right, and he goes home annoyed and petulant, with the name Evgeni written out on his palm with an actual pen, so that he can keep practicing. It’s not that he cares, exactly, because he has hockey practice later, and that takes precedence, but he doesn’t want to meet his soulmate one day and then not know how to pronounce his name. His, he thinks, because the specialist also told him, grinning, that it was a boys’ name.
"That’s good,” he says in the car on the way home, when his mom says something about it.
“Why’s that?” his mom asks back, keeping her eyes on the road. Taylor is in the car seat next to Sidney in the back, waving her fists kind of wildly. Sidney pokes her and she giggles before she tries to hit him and he pulls his hands away.
He shrugs and says, “Boys are better at hockey,” though secretly, he hopes Taylor wants to play hockey when she gets old enough to start skating.
His mom makes a noise from the front seat, like a laugh. Taylor’s wrist only has an ‘H’ so far, and it looks kind of weird because it’s in cursive. Still not as weird as Евгений—Evgeni—though. He kind of wants to know if, since his soulmate is Russian, he’s going to have to go to Russia to find him someday. Maybe when he’s eighteen, during the summer after he gets drafted?
He thinks that might be fun, if he has enough time during the off-season. He’s not really sure how far away Russia is. Maybe Evgeni isn’t even Russian, maybe he just has a Russian name, and going to Russia would be pointless. Sidney screws up his face thinking about it, because he doesn’t want to do all that work if his soulmate isn’t even Russian, not when he could be concentrating on other things.
They pull into the driveway and his mom says, “Go on and get your stuff, we’ll wait for you,” and he has to run into the house, grabbing his bag and skates and stick, not even thinking about Russia or the name on his wrist in the face of getting on the ice.
Evgeni’s mother likes to grab his wrist at random and cluck her tongue, glaring like she can make the letters change, be less English and more Russian. He kicks his legs under the table and lets her, because he sort of gets it, maybe—everyone he knows has a Russian name on their wrist, all of his family, and all of his friends. But he’s grown up with it, the name Sidney printed there, right where he can see it when he wakes up, and before he goes to bed.
It’s not a nice Russian girl’s name, that’s for sure, but Evgeni can’t help but grin when he thinks about that. He doesn’t want to be normal; it sounds boring. Sidney is different—a European name, maybe, or American. He loves Magnitogorsk, of course, and his parents, but he’s excited too, because a name like that on his wrist? It means he goes somewhere else, maybe lots of places.
He’s going to travel, one day; he’s not going to be stuck working in a steel factory and trying to fit hockey in on the side, whenever he has time and energy enough to bother lacing up his skates. Evgeni loves his parents, and his dad, he does, but he doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to live like that. He wants—he wants to play hockey, all day, every day, wants to be the best, not just in Magnitogorsk, or Russia, but everywhere.
He doesn’t know who Sidney is, either, doesn’t even know if they’re a boy or a girl, because the name could belong to either gender, apparently, but he doesn’t care. Sidney is his soulmate, so for him, they’ll be perfect. It doesn’t matter if they’re Russian or not, if he meets them in England or America or Moscow, Evgeni will just be happy to meet them, to go places and do things with them, to travel and learn and play hockey.
His mom shakes her head, but she pats the top of his and says, “It’s different, is all.” But Evgeni doesn’t know why different has to be something to worry about, instead of just be excited for. His draft is coming soon, in just a few years, and maybe—maybe he’ll go to an international tournament, meet Sidney there? Maybe he’ll even get drafted by the NHL, he could play hockey in America after playing for Russia.
He still wants to play for Metallurg, like his father did, with his brother. Denis’ wrist has his soulmates’ name written out, Юлия✿, bright pink with a flower at the end. He says, “It just means I know more about Yulia than you do your Sidney,” when Evgeni tries to make fun of him for it. Evgeni will always get angry and challenge Denis to a one-on-one match that he always says yes to, even though they usually both have chores that they’re supposed to be doing for their mother.
But that is the truth of it—Evgeni doesn’t know anything about Sidney, nothing, except that whoever Sidney is, they aren’t in Magnitogorsk.
Sidney uses his allowance to buy Taylor her first hockey stick when she’s two. She wants pink, but he thinks he should get to pick since it’s his money, and the black and white stick is a lot better made than the weird plastic pink one. His mom makes them compromise on a red one, still plastic but not quite as flimsy as the pink one. Sidney huffs when his mom says Taylor’s only two—the quality doesn’t matter.
His dad, at least, agrees that it’s never too early to get a good head for which sticks are best. If your stick breaks during a key moment in the game, it’s over. He makes Taylor practice every day when he comes home from his own practice; it takes her a little while to get the hang of it, but she does, is the main thing, and Sidney likes hanging out with her a lot more when they’re practicing their shooting skills than when she’s trying to climb on top of him like she thinks she’s a wild animal or something.
By the time she’s five, they have a system: she’ll be his goalie, if he’ll sit down in her bedroom afterward and pretend to drink tea with her and her stuffed animals while he does his homework. It’s not a terrible trade-off, he thinks, because Taylor’s not that bad of a goalie when she puts her mind to it. It doesn’t really help him either way, because she’s not good enough for him to get any real practice out of it, but he pretty much never says no to being on the ice anyway. Also, it’s pretty much been settled: he’s leaving next year, to go play hockey at Shattuck-Saint Mary’s, in the U.S., so he has to spend as much time as he can with Taylor before then. She’s five, so she doesn’t really get that he’ll be gone.
Sidney thinks she’ll be okay—almost all of her stuffed animals are named Henry, after the name that’s mostly filled in on her wrist, so it’s not like he’s leaving her alone, really. But Taylor’s pretty dependent on him? It’s weird, sort of, because Sidney loves her, but his mom is always yelling at him for being mean to her, so he doesn’t think he’s probably the greatest big brother in the world. It’s not his fault; Taylor can be annoying when she’s having a fit, but still.
He’s going to miss her though, and wants to play as much hockey with her as he can before he leaves, even if it means having an exorbitant amount of tea parties at the same time.
The ice always feels good; Sidney doesn’t think there’s ever a time when it couldn’t, in an arena or on a frozen pond. It’s a cold contrast to the heat and sweat of the players, and the cold air feels good against his skin. The sounds of skates scraping against the ice, and pucks being whacked in every direction, that’s familiar and good and puts him at ease, even as he skates onto the ice in his new city, new school; as he meets his new teammates.
He wants to do this because it’s the next step to playing hockey professionally—he’s learned all he can at home, he needs more, better teammates and better opponents and better coaches, but he hates that his dad isn’t here, that he isn’t going to be picked up by his mom in her mini-van after practice, that he’s not going to see Taylor until Christmas.
In the end, he doesn’t even end up staying at the school for very long—one year, where he learns a lot and the level he’s been playing at goes up, definitely, but he ends up going to play for the Rimouski Océanic team, transferring. Rimouski is closer to home though, by about a thousand miles. It’s close enough that if he gets home sick, all he has to do is call and his mom can pack the van and drive out to see him for the weekend.
He gets invited to Worlds though—more than once, even, and that—that’s even more amazing than almost breaking Gretzky’s points record for his age group. Worlds is this huge deal, the best hockey players eighteen from around the world coming together to see who’s the best. When he wins gold, Sidney feels like he’s on fire. It’s pretty much the best feeling ever, even if he does have to miss Christmas for it, and Taylor yells at him over the phone for a good five minutes before his mom takes the phone away from her.
A couple times, Sidney runs into guys who speak Russian better than they do English, and he always looks at his wrist kind of self-consciously when he does. He gets this weird urge to ask them about it, like maybe they’d know an Evgeni who has Sidney written on his wrist too. But that’s pretty crazy, he thinks, and there’s no logical point to bringing it up otherwise—he knows all he can already, what the name means, and how to pronounce it like there’s a y at the beginning.
Sidney actually did end up taking half a quarter of a Russian language class when he was sixteen out of some sense of preparation, but Russian is hard, and he had to focus on hockey, so he ended up dropping it after he got a few key phrases down, like, “Приве́т! Меня́ зову́т Сидней.”
The translation is, “Hello, my name is Sidney,” and it’s pretty much the only thing Sidney remembers how to say besides Evgeni. His teacher had looked all sad and demoralized every time he tried to pronounce the words though, so he doesn’t think he even knows how to say them right. Something like, “Preevet, menya zovoot Sydney,” maybe?
He knows a few other phrases, sort of, but he doesn’t want to test them out with any actual Russian speakers, let alone guys he’s going to have play against soon, so he ignores it altogether and just focuses on playing the best hockey that he can. Evgeni can wait.
At least—that’s what Sidney tells himself, but he still finds himself paying more attention to the 2004 NHL draft than he ever really has before. It’s not that he’s not interested in the draft, or in the other up-and-coming players—he is, of course he is, he’s going to be competing against these guys, or maybe playing with them, but there’s a difference in watching hockey games, and watching a bunch of guys in suits argue over what teams a bunch of other guys in suits are going to end up on.
But Sidney was paying attention to the popular prospects at Worlds this year, and he’d nearly fallen over when he’d heard somebody say that the captain of the U18 Russian team was named Evgeni. He’s searched the name before, obviously, but it’s not that rare of a name outside of North America, so it hadn’t really done anything, and then Sidney just... hadn’t really looked that hard.
It’s not like he needs to be searching yet; he’s only seventeen, and nobody really knows how soulmates are picked or designed or—nobody knows how it works, except that there’s usually a common location, and at some point in your lives, you’re pretty much guaranteed to meet. So there’s no reason to go out and search for them—it’ll happen in its own time, and Sidney’s pretty much always left it at that.
Except he’s not going to not pay attention when there’s a hockey player with his soulmates’ name going around impressing the hockey world, so when the draft is televised, he makes sure to sit down and watch as Evgeni Malkin is drafted to the Pittsburgh Penguins as the number two pick. Sidney has this... weird sort of wave of pride, and fondness, maybe, when it happens, even though he technically doesn’t know anything. This Evgeni might not be his Evgeni; might be soulmates with some pretty Russian girl back in—Magnetogorsh? Wherever they said he was from—instead.
So Sidney watches the draft, and kind of keeps an ear open for Evgeni’s name, but doesn’t make a big deal out of it. He needs to focus on hockey anyway—Worlds is coming up, and then his own draft, and it’s kind of a media circus all the time, and scouts are everywhere, even though Sidney is mostly trying to ignore them until closer to the draft. He doesn’t want it to mess with his head.
But then the NHL lockout happens, and Sidney is honestly angry. It’s not his draft year, he’s not even playing for the NHL, but he’s just—he’s angry, and frustrated that they would do this, that they’d mess with the league like this. He practices harder than ever, slamming puck after puck into the net.
From what he hears, Malkin is going to keep playing in Russia for the year. Sidney can’t blame him, and it’s not like they would have met otherwise or anything, but it still pisses him off even more. But then rosters for Worlds come out, and Malkin is on the Russian team. Sidney doesn’t usually look too closely at the other team rosters—he’ll skim them, maybe, but he likes to concentrate on his own team, and so he doesn’t really know if he’s ever played against Malkin before. He doesn’t think so though.
Sidney has a momentary thought that even if he never noticed a player named Evgeni running around, Malkin probably wouldn’t have been able to miss Sidney because, uh, he’s kind of a big deal, even though his mom will give him a look if he ever says that out loud. So if Malkin knows his name and hasn’t bothered to make a move, maybe he’s not Sidney’s soulmate after all.
He spends approximately one night worrying about it before deciding it’s definitely messing with his head, and refuses to think about it anymore. He’ll just ask Malkin after Worlds is over; people do it all the time. It can’t be that hard.
Sanja is infuriatingly annoying when he goes first in the draft. Evgeni can’t bring himself to begrudge Sanja’s happiness right away though, far too exuberantly pleased and proud with himself—number two in the draft, picked to play in Pittsburgh, with Mario Lemieux and the Penguins. He’s excited and nervous, a jumble of emotions he’s not sure what to do with, for all that he’s been playing hockey all his life.
“Ah, Zhenya,” Sanja says, draping himself all over the chair next to Evgeni, even though the cabin of the plane is large enough, and he could sit anywhere he wanted. Evgeni sighs: of course Sanja wants to sit where it’s easiest to bug him. They’re going to Worlds now, but Evgeni still isn’t entirely sure why they had to be on the same flight.
Three weeks of Sanja is going to drive him crazy.
“Zhenya,” Sanja says again, drawing the name out. “What are you thinking of so seriously over here?”
Evgeni wants to hit Sanja even more often than he wants to drink with him; it’s something akin to whiplash. Worse, Evgeni’s mother adores him and always says, “Be a good boy, be nice to Sanja,” like Evgeni is the annoying one. Sometimes, he almost regrets playing on the same team as Sanja, even for Russia.
If only Sanja were as good at keeping his mouth shut as he is at hockey.
“Is it Sidney Crosby?” Sanja says, wiggling his eyebrows.
Evgeni scowls and says, “No. Go away, Sanja.”
Last year, Evgeni had desperately hoped he’d run into and meet Sidney Crosby at Worlds, but they’d ended up playing in different tournaments, different countries even. Evgeni had been made captain in Belarus while Crosby had been putting points on the board in Finland. Finland and Belarus—not close at all, not like he’d hoped.
But that was last year; this year, they’ll both be in the U.S. Russia is competing in Minnesota first, and Canada is in North Dakota, but if both teams make it to the finals—and they will—they’ll play each other. Evgeni knows, because he’s looked at everything, just to make sure he wouldn’t somehow miss something, and end up missing Crosby somehow. He can’t help the way he glances at his wrist again, thinking about it.
Sidney is written there, smoothly inked in, a little bit clumsy, maybe, but easy and familiar in a way that calms Evgeni down just by looking at it. Well—adversely, he gets frustrated looking at it too, when he’s tired of waiting, angry and disappointed and turned on, encased in relief and surety in turns.
He’s been watching Sidney Crosby since his name first reached Russia, since his teammates and coaches started talking about him, about the Canadian prodigy taking the hockey world by storm, wondering what record he’d break next, what he’d do at Worlds, how many teams were going to start buying him cars as they waited for his draft year with baited breath. Sidney Crosby is special, somehow, in a way that everyone can see.
Evgeni wonders if he’d have looked for every video and magazine article he could find if his name hadn’t been Sidney, and sometimes surprises himself by thinking yes, he would have—there’s just something in Crosby’s face when he’s talking so earnestly (even if Evgeni couldn’t understand the words), and the way he plays hockey is just... it’s just beautiful, maybe, something extraordinary, not anything anyone else could ever duplicate, and Evgeni has too hard of a time taking his eyes off of the computer screen whenever he watches.
Evgeni supposes it’s possible that Sidney Crosby is not the same Sidney whose name is on Evgeni’s wrist, but only entertains the possibility as an appeasement for his parents or Oksana, when they start to worry, or for Sanja, to make him shut up. But, when it’s just him, with nothing to prove to anyone else, if there’s anything Evgeni is sure of, as sure as skating, or breathing—it’s that Sidney Crosby is his soulmate.
He’d gone home after practice, after hearing the name Sidney Crosby for the first time, more curious than anything else, but when he’d looked him up, when he’d seen him skating—he just knew.
Sanja sighs and relaxes into the chair, and Evgeni thinks he must be making some sort of ridiculous face, just thinking about his Sidney, because Sanja says, “Zhenya, what will you do if it isn’t him?”
Evgeni shrugs, and says, “Go to sleep, Sanja. It’s too long of a flight to listen to you the whole time.”
Sanja grumbles, but moves back to his own chair, across the aisle, where he can spread out. Evgeni stretches and does the same thing; thinks about Worlds, and how he wants to win gold again, thinks about Crosby, and how he wants to see Evgeni written on his wrist, in his own handwriting. Mostly, he thinks about what it will feel like, to be on the ice with him—to play hockey with him, with Sidney, for the first time.
He wakes up when the plane starts to descend, strains to listen to the English translation coming through the speakers, to see if he can understand much of anything. He’s taken a year of English, but school has always come in second for Evgeni, so they were choppy, tired lessons at best, and English is stranger and more difficult than he’d thought it would be.
They meet up with a few more of their teammates for dinner, but in the morning, they have to wake up early in order for their first team meeting in one of the hotel’s conference rooms. The coaches and medical staff and some others who are there give them the run-down on how the tournament is going to go, from locations to which teams they’ll be playing against first, even though Evgeni knows it all by heart.
At the end, they’re given the plain black wrist guards that all players are required to wear at tournaments, and Evgeni reluctantly slides it on. He doesn’t like covering Sidney’s name up, irrationally nervous when he does. But he gets over it quickly, just like he did last year, and they begin to practice and form lines and positions for the games.
They lose their first game against the U.S. though, by one, and Evgeni is angry enough that he refuses to talk to anyone after the game, not even Sanja—not that anyone else is in a good mood either. But they come back from it hard, winning the next three games like they’re playing against amateurs, Evgeni himself getting a goal against the Czech Republic in the second period even though Russia is already two points ahead.
He pays attention to what Canada’s team is doing too, even though he can’t go watch the games in-person. He isn’t surprised at all that they win all their games; they have Sidney on their team, but at the same point, he wants Russia to win, and Canada is going to be very difficult to beat. Their coach is already making them watch tape after practice, to watch how players like Crosby and Carters make the puck hit the back of the net, so they can figure out how to make sure it doesn’t happen in the Russia-Canada game.
They have to play the U.S. again first though, and the players to watch out for are Kessel and Fritsche. But they get to Grand Forks, switching arenas for the quarterfinals, and somehow, defeating the U.S. is easy. They win by five, Lisin’s two-minute goal setting the pace for the entire game. Evgeni gets two goals himself, in the last ten minutes of the third period, like frosting on a cake.
Before the game, Evgeni had come into the arena to watch the first half of the Canada-Czech Republic game, got to see Crosby skating not thirty feet away from him. It felt like a hammer to the chest, and he’d wanted to watch the entire game, just to—but Sanja dragged him out, so they could prepare for their own.
They lose the game. It’s not something you want to think about happening, even if you know that it could, technically, and it hurts—but it’s the way that they lose that stings, like sand being rubbed into a cut. The whole game feels like being kicked after you fall. It’s even at first, two to one in the second period, when Sanja gets hit.
He’d already been hit a few times in the game, and Evgeni had had to shove a few players back; Crosby hit him too, at the end of the first period, bouncing back off of him and landing on the ice. Sanja was mostly okay, if not his best, before Bergeron slammed into him, crushing his shoulder against the boards. Sanja had to leave the game, shaking his head shortly at anyone when they tried to say something, and Evgeni was so angry, he just—he wanted to score every goal, push Canada back and make sure Russia won, because they deserved to win.
But without Sanja, and with the way the rest of the team felt, watching Sanja leave, ice pack on his shoulder, knowing he wasn’t going to come back—Canada just scored, and then kept scoring, until the game ended, six to one.
He’s angry, fists tight, and can’t say anything, can’t even think straight at the end of the game, when they have the post-game handshake. Crosby’s helmet and face protector are off for the first time when he comes through the line, but Evgeni can’t—do it, not now, can’t make himself say a word; he’s too hot with resentment, feels wronged and worried about Sanja and just angry.
When Crosby comes through the line though, Evgeni grabs his arm, fingers gripping tight over his wrist guard. He furiously wishes he were steadier, but his hand is trembling, from too much of everything—from the loss, and his team’s shame, his country’s disappointment; from Sanja, and from Sidney, looking at him now, with wide, startled eyes.
He lets go, and Sidney is pushed forward in the line by one of his teammates, and Evgeni thinks, that’s his Sidney, and he’s waited years, but now isn’t the time either.
Sidney celebrates with his team, gold hanging from all their necks. The game was almost too easy to win though, with Ovechkin leaving the game before so much as getting a goal in the net, and the rest of the Russian team had seemed to fall to pieces without him—there were more fights and rough hits than there were shots on goal, by the end. Three of their goals were on the power play.
He’d been absorbed in the game though, refused to let himself be distracted by Malkin sharing the ice. He’d had a vague, unexplored idea of meeting him after the game, asking him about the name on his wrist, but somewhere in the third period, realized that Canada wasn’t just going to win, they were going to dominate. He wasn’t sure if he wanted his first meeting with his soulmate to be charged with that, with the anger and frustration that just came off of the Russian team in waves as the seconds ran off the clock.
And if it wasn’t him, if Malkin wasn’t—well, he’d probably get punched in the face.
So, they won, and Sidney had to balance the overwhelming excitement and pride with the sick feeling in his gut, a mix of apology and nerves as he lined up with his team, shaking the hands of the team they’d just given silver. Sidney swallowed when he held his hand out for Malkin to take, because of—of multiple reasons, really, and suddenly, he wanted to ask, even though he knew he shouldn’t, that it couldn’t be the right time, but he didn’t know how, had never asked anyone before, and God, what if he said no—
Except Malkin doesn’t take his hand, doesn’t nod his head or say, “Good game,” in rough, accented English like the rest of his teammates, he—he wraps his hand around Sidney’s wrist, gripping Sidney so tightly that he could feel his fingers through the plain wrist guard that the tournament requires everyone to wear.
Oh, Sidney thought, and couldn’t say anything—barely had the presence of mind to move when Ryan pushed him, when Malkin let his wrist fall.
“We won, Sidney!” Jeff yells at him, pushing a plastic red cup into his hands. “Cheer up, man!” There’s loud music, people happy everywhere, dancing and drinking and laughing loudly, and Sidney is happy, they won gold, there’s nothing better than that, even if he did get dragged to a party with excessive underage drinking, except—
Except he feels dazed, at the same time, like everything’s turned down low, and all he can think is how long does he have to wait? What’s the grieving period, for something like this? How likely is it that Pittsburgh will draft him, instead of one of the other teams, assuming they ever call off the lockout? He’s never particularly cared before, just hoping for a good team, with a good coach and teammates who could work well together, but now; now all he can think of is Pittsburgh, and Evgeni Malkin, and how Malkin grabbed his wrist, like he was saying—like he was saying he was—
He wants to be celebrating with Evgeni, is what he concludes, eventually, and has to tap that feeling of want down, because he knows what it’s like to lose a game like this, knows it wouldn’t be fair to go and expect anything from him, not right now, not like this. It’s—Sidney is patient. He can wait. He just doesn’t want to.
Sidney is, in turns, embarrassed and proud and nervous, in the year upcoming his draft. His parents and coaches are getting more phone calls than they can keep track of, and there are people who come out to his school to film his games all the time now, and would at practices too, if his coach didn’t absolutely forbid it, knowing Sidney doesn’t like all the attention. It’s not as though he’s the only good hockey player in the draft this year, and he really doesn’t know why they’ve grabbed onto him like he’s the next Gretzky—if only he was that good.
He loves hockey, but he doesn’t like all of the other stuff that comes with it.
It wouldn’t be so terrible if it was all about hockey, but they keep asking him questions about his favorite movies, or girlfriends at school, or celebrity crushes—he doesn’t have any of that, really, and it’s hard to answer without the interviewers giving him weird looks, like he isn’t quite doing it right. He feels self-conscious and uncomfortable with cameras and microphones in his face, and it’s even worse when they surprise him with questions unrelated to hockey.
He even gets a few questions about his soulmates’ name, even though that’s incredibly rude—you don’t ask things like that, not unless you’re family or really good friends or, you know, looking for your soulmate. It makes him flinch and try to bury his hands so deep in his pockets that you can’t see his wrists at all, even though he always wears his wrist guard, always, and has since he was eleven. He just says something like, “I don’t really want to talk about it,” and usually the interviewers will back off, if just because they’re tired of how terrible Sidney is at all of it.
Not that he’s terrible at it on purpose, and he thinks he’s getting better, honestly, he just wishes they’d keep to hockey questions.
He’s made no secret, at least to the Pittsburgh office that he wants to play for the Penguins. He was even tempted to start wearing Penguins gear in public, just to put it out there, but his parents and Pat Brisson convince him that that would be a bad idea. As much as Pittsburgh is all for having Sidney on their team, it all depends on the lottery a few days before the draft itself, and, well, Sidney is—he’s more than likely going to go first, no matter which team gets first pick.
He winces at that, wishes he’d at least managed to get Malkin’s cellphone number—international calling can’t be that expensive, can it? Sidney is really awkward over the phone though; Taylor always says so. Maybe they could just text. Or e-mail. Sidney just doesn’t know the protocol for this kind of thing, and Malkin hasn’t reached out to him either, so maybe he doesn’t want to do anything like that with Sidney. Maybe it would be pointless—Sidney never did learn much Russian, and he doesn’t know how much English Malkin knows, except that he’d needed a translator at the draft interviews last year.
Maybe they really will just have to wait until they get to play together.
If they get to play together.
His parents know why he wants to go to Pittsburgh—it’d be hard to miss it, he thinks, embarrassed, what with Evgeni Malkin having been drafted just before Sidney decided he wanted to play for them. They, thankfully, haven’t asked him about it though. He isn’t sure what he’d even say. It’s not like he’s even talked to Malkin, and Sidney’s never been good at talking about his feelings, really. It’s just... private.
Brisson doesn’t know, mostly because Sidney doesn’t see why it would be any of his business, but also because he doesn’t want it to get out there that Sidney’s preference for the Penguins has more to do with Malkin than the fact that they’re a good team. He thinks he’d do well in Pittsburgh, maybe, has looked into it. Well, okay, so they haven’t been playing that well in the last few years, and they had a bunch of legal issues a while ago, like the bankruptcy, but that’s okay, Sidney has a plan: get to Pittsburgh, play the best hockey he can, put the Penguins back on the map. Thinking of it like that, he doesn’t know why anyone would want to be drafted to one of the top teams—there’s nothing to do there. He wants to help build it up.
But until the lottery in July, all he can do is wait.
Sidney is sick of waiting.
Taylor pushes a bowl of fruit loops at Sidney the morning of the lottery, giving him her best very-invested-in-looking-casual face. He normally doesn’t eat cereal like fruit loops—too much sugar, and he knows he’ll have to train himself to eat even less sugar once he’s playing professionally—but he grabs a spoon and takes a bite anyway, and says, “Thanks,” afterward.
The lottery isn’t going to be televised, but it’s a ridiculously crazy day anyway. There are reporters showing up later, and Brisson is coming over, as well as Sidney’s whole family—or what feels like it, anyway, even the extended relatives he doesn’t see that often. He supposes it’s because even though it’s not the draft, it sort of feels like it is. Everyone knows today’s the day he finds out what team he’s going to be playing for, there’s no point in even pretending otherwise.
It’s—he can play hockey anywhere, and it’ll be great anywhere, he thinks, and just reminds himself of that.
The scouting combine last month had been brutal, but he’d done alright. He’d even done the interviews okay, he thinks, although they asked a lot of stuff about his family and preferences on just, weird things that didn’t seem to have much to do with hockey. It’s not like it would make a difference though, not for him. Even if he had completely bombed the scouting combine, he’d still probably be first pick.
It really sucks that his future depends on pure luck.
He and Taylor sit around watching cartoons until their Grandma pulls up in her car. Brisson arrives a little bit later, followed by so many cameras and microphones that Sidney’s neighbors start pouring out, wanting to know what’s going on. It’s going to be a long day, he thinks, and then sighs. He puts on a smile though, hoping he doesn’t look as nervous as he feels. Brisson claps him on the back at one point and Sidney has to squirm away from him, trying not to be rude, but he doesn’t think he manages. Brisson just shrugs it off though, like he’s used to Sidney’s idiosyncrasies by now.
He has to explain how the lottery works at least three times to his grandma, even though he’s pretty sure Taylor and his mother have explained it to her just as much, and he’s talked to a couple of the reporters too, after his mom insisted he go take a shower and put on actual clothes, instead of just lazing around on the couch in the sweats he’d slept in the night before.
He’s jumpy all day, until the clock rolls around, and everyone is watching Brisson for the phone call that’ll tell them the order of the draft picks. He knows Pittsburgh has three chances to get first pick, but so do a couple other teams. He’s desperately thinking about what teams are closest to Pittsburgh, or what he’d have to do for them to consider trading for him, when Brisson’s phone rings.
“Pittsburgh,” Brisson says, after a minute, nodding into the phone, and then says, “Pittsburgh has the first pick.”
Taylor is jumping on him before Sidney can say anything, and she yells, “You’re going to be a Penguin!”
He doesn’t know what his face looks like, but he thinks ‘stunned’, probably.
He’s—he’s going to be a Penguin.
He’s going to be in the NHL, going to be a Penguin, playing in Pittsburgh, with—God, with Mario Lemieux and. And Evgeni Malkin. He gives in and hugs Taylor back, accepts the pats and hugs from the rest of his family, from Brisson, and he can’t even keep the grin off of his face when he has to go outside and say, “Pittsburgh is a great team. I’d love to play for them,” like it isn’t a guarantee at this point, like that isn’t an understatement the size of Halifax. He can’t believe—he’s just now realizing that he’d been preparing himself for the disappointment, for being signed to—to the Flyers or Chicago or the Washington Capitals, or the Ducks, anybody but the Penguins, anywhere but Pittsburgh.
He feels ridiculous thinking it, but it feels like a weight really has been lifted off of his shoulders.
Sidney just wants to go already, feels like he needs to move. He wants to pull on his pads and skates and tape his stick and have a Penguins jersey on his back. He wants to be on the ice, wants to be skating and scoring goals for the team, for his team. Another part of him wants to find Malkin and tell him, but now that he knows for sure that they’ll be playing together, waiting isn’t nearly so hard.
Still, instead of staying outside and talking to the press in the yard, or going back in to celebrate with his family, he grabs Taylor by the elbow and says, “Do you want—“ and she’s grabbing her hockey gear before he can even finish the sentence, grinning wickedly.
He grins back helplessly. He’s going to play hockey.
Evgeni wants to go to America, wants to move there and play Penguins hockey, mostly, he wants to play hockey with Sidney Crosby, wants to be with Sidney, period. He tiredly falls back onto his bed, big and comfortable, but just stares at the ceiling unhappily. Sidney’s been drafted to his team, they should be on the ice together right now, playing together right now.
Sanja managed it, somehow, to end his contract with Dynamo and Avangard, to go to America, and begin playing in the NHL. Evgeni’s contract has him staying with Metallurg for another year though, no matter how much he wants to go. His mother tells him he’s being impatient, that he has time, still, that he should enjoy playing for his city, for Russia. And he does, it’s just... not what he wants.
He still plays his hardest, but he always ends up at home, streaming Penguins games on his computer if they aren’t available on the television. He watches the team he should be playing with, jealous and yearning and excited all at the same time. He wants to be a part of it. He watches Sidney’s rookie year with wide eyes, wishing he was there to see it in person. Waiting is torture; the worst kind, even.
He thinks, a couple times, that he could just jump on a plane and go visit, go watch a game, maybe, but the one time he steels himself into it, buys the ticket online with sweaty palms, the team has a last-minute charity at an orphanage, teaching kids how to skate, and he ends up canceling the tickets and sliding his Metallurg jersey on instead.
Sanja calls him after his first game against Sidney in the NHL, says, “Zhenya! I played against your Sidney Crosby tonight. I have many bruises. I have decided: he is much too violent for you.”
Evgeni snorts, and says, “He doesn’t need to know Russian to know how annoying you are, Sanja. I don’t blame him for hitting you. I want to hit you.”
“Zhenya, why are you being so cruel? I was going to ask for Crosby’s phone number for you, but now I am not so sure I will give it to you.”
Evgeni sighs and says, “Please don’t talk to Sidney. I don’t need his phone number.”
Sanja pauses, and then a little more seriously, says, “Why? You still don’t speak English well, is that it?”
Evgeni frowns through the phone. He’s taken a class, but it’s hard to find time. Also, he just doesn’t seem to be very good at it, not like Sanja or even Oksana, who both managed to catch onto the language much more quickly. It almost makes Evgeni regret spending so much time on hockey when he was young; he should have spent more time studying, learned English when he was young enough for it to stick better.
Sanja says something in English then, through the phone, and Evgeni’s frown turns deeper as he tries to translate. He understands ‘you’ and ‘English’ and ‘Crosby’, but that’s about it. Then Sanja sighs and goes back to chirping Evgeni in Russian, before eventually hanging up.
The year Evgeni watches Sidney playing with the Penguins without him seems to go on forever. He buys books to help him learn English, tries to read them in his spare time, and spends hours in the gym, working off the extra tension he gets when he sees Sidney get hit too hard in games that Evgeni can’t help protect him in. As the year winds down, and the Penguins play their last game, and Metallurg plays theirs, Evgeni gets more and more nervous and excited, anticipating the way things will change in the new season, when he’s in America.
Except—it doesn’t work that way.
It starts with his mother, sitting him down to dinner and saying, “You should stay here, Zhenya.” She talks about his father’s health, about Russian pride, about having all the time in the world to find his soulmate. It hurts, because he’d stay if he could: he doesn’t want to leave his parents, his family, and his friends. He loves Russia—it’s not like he’s going to play for the U.S. in the Olympics or anything, he’s just playing in the NHL.
His brother tells him that he’s a pussy for wanting to leave, that he’s abandoning them. His friends ask why he would even want to, and make faces like they don’t understand when he tries to explain. His father doesn’t say anything, just looks sad and shakes his head a lot, tells Evgeni it’s his decision, that he’s sure he’ll make the right one.
Evgeni is angry, and disappointed, and ashamed too, but he can’t—he can’t stay in Russia forever, he’s known it since he was three and the name on his wrist wasn’t being spelled out in Cyrillic. But then his team, they show him the contract, and it goes from asking him to stay to vaguely threatening if he doesn’t.
His head is messed up by the time he signs the contract to stay in Russia for another year—another year watching the Penguins from half a world away, another year of not being with Sidney, of not playing with Sidney. It’s like he’s on a perpetual pause, and the rest of his life is one plane ride away, if he could just get on the plane.
The team confiscates his passport.
They take it away for months, flimsy excuse after flimsy excuse, and though he agreed to stay, his parents and Denis don’t seem happy about it, maybe because Evgeni knows he’s sulking, unhappy and frustrated with everything. In August, Metallurg gives him his passport back, like they think the danger of him hopping on a plane is over, even though they manipulated him into signing another year-long contract promising he wouldn’t leave, that he would stay and play for them.
They give the passport back only because training camp is in Finland, Helsinki, and Evgeni goes, packs just enough for the camp, and a few days before it’s set to start, he grabs his passport, his phone, and enough cash to survive a few days, and checks into a dinky hotel that promises to be the last place anyone will look for him. It takes three days to get the visa that’ll let him go to the United States, and even then, it’s not exactly... reassuring, what with how he had to get it. He can’t risk using his phone to call his family, or even the agency he’ll use in the U.S., because it could tip his team off to where he is.
But he’s tired. He’s tired of waiting, tired of letting everyone else tell him what to do—if he stays, plays for yet another year, what’s to say the next contract won’t be three? Five years? When will he ever get to go play for the Penguins? Will it be after they’re already a great team, after Sidney’s already become a Stanley Cup holder? No, Evgeni wants to be there for that, for all of it, wants to be part of the team as it grows.
He wants to be a part of it, not watch from Russia.
And he can’t wait anymore, not for Sidney.
He half expects to be pulled off the plane, right up until it finally takes off, until it’s off the ground and he’s headed back to America for the third time, this time, to stay. He wears his hat low, and sunglasses, and doesn’t take any hockey gear with him, just a backpack filled with an extra set of clothes. He doesn’t have anything, hasn’t called anyone.
It makes him feel guilty too, thinking about how worried everyone must be, although surely they know what he’s doing? He hopes they’ll forgive him, eventually, won’t think terrible things of him. He hopes he can prove he isn’t abandoning them by going.
He hopes he isn’t.
He feels lost when he lands. He only has a backpack, his money is all in rubles, and he’s exhausted, and still worried and kind of scared, and doesn’t understand most anything anyone is saying. He sits down after getting through customs, clutching his passport and visa. He breathes, for a minute, and then manages to dig out his cellphone and find J.P. Barry’s contact. He thinks he’ll have to find another hotel somehow, until someone can come get him, or—something.
But ten seconds into the call has Barry saying, “You’re here?” and even through the rough Russian, Evgeni can make out the surprise, and then the harried tone as Barry says, “Stay put, I’ll be there in half-an-hour,” and then something else in English that he doesn’t understand. Evgeni almost wants to laugh though, because where would he even go? He does manage to get his money changed though, and haltingly orders something from the airport Burger King, because he’s starving. It’s forty-five minutes later that Barry finds him, and Evgeni is so relieved he just follows him out to his car and gets in, ready to fall asleep right there in the passenger seat.
Instead, he finds himself talking to Barry, haltingly in English, or slowly in Russian so that Barry can understand, more or less. He explains that he hadn’t wanted to sign the contract, and how they’d gotten him to anyway, and that they’d taken his passport, or he would have come sooner. Barry’s eyebrows keep going up with every part of the story, and in hindsight, Evgeni supposes it does sound a bit... ridiculous. Like the bad plot to a movie about spies and kidnappings.
He sighs, and then sees Pittsburgh through the window. It’s dark out—almost night, and so the city is lit up, bright lights everywhere. His chest feels tight, and he thinks this is going to be my city.
Then Barry says in passable Russian, “We’re going to have dinner at Mario Lemieux’s house. It’s a bit of a drive though; you can try to get some sleep before we get there.”
Evgeni is torn between being too exhausted for some kind of dinner with someone as important as Mario Lemieux, but on the other hand, he’s excited too, because he just got here, and Mario already wants to meet him? He does end up falling asleep for the rest of the drive though, thinking about tomorrow—tomorrow, when he’ll join the rest of the team on the ice for pre-season practices, when he’ll see Sidney again, for the second time.
When Sidney tried to casually ask Mario at breakfast why Evgeni Malkin wasn’t playing the Penguins yet, Mario had shrugged and said, “He has a contract with the KHL for another year is what I heard. He’ll probably come over next season though,” and that was it.
Sidney was idly disappointed. He’d wanted to come play with Mario and the Penguins in Pittsburgh for the simple fact of building up a hockey team like this, of making it great again, and he’s met some great guys already—Flower and Duper and Colby—but he’d really wanted to play with Malkin, that’s... that’s what he was looking forward to the most, when he came to Pittsburgh. It’s the reason he wanted to play in Pittsburgh, even, and now, Malkin is stuck in Russia, or maybe even just chose to stay there, even though he must know Sidney got drafted to his team.
It’s ridiculous that Sidney starts feeling self-conscious about it, but maybe he’d been making it up, when he’d thought Malkin had grabbed his wrist at Worlds to just, to say it was him. Or maybe Sidney is just remembering it differently than it actually happened, making it into a bigger thing than it was. Maybe Malkin isn’t actually his Evgeni at all.
Except Sidney knows that he is; he has to be. What are the chances that all of this has happened already, if Malkin isn’t Sidney’s soulmate? But... they’re not winning games, not really, and the Penguins’ arena is falling to pieces under their skates, and Mario isn’t playing his greatest, is upfront when he tells everyone he feels retired, is ready for it, that it’s his last season.
They don’t even get close to making playoffs by the end, and then they get word that Malkin’s signed an extension on his contract for the KHL, so he won’t be coming over for the new season. Sidney can’t help but think if he comes at all.
Mario offers to let Sidney stay in his guesthouse for as long as he wants, and Sidney takes him up on it. If Malkin’s not coming over, there’s no point in getting his own place. He’d rather stay with the Lemieux family; doesn’t want to live alone in some big house, thinking about what he could do better to make Malkin want to come play in the U.S. with him. Win games, he thinks spitefully sometimes, and then sits down in a dark room and watches tape until he has three different plays running through his head at the same time and Colby or Mario or someone else has to bribe him out.
It’s still summer, not even pre-season yet, when Mario says, “Malkin’s gone AWOL.”
Sidney’s just gotten back from Canada, maybe two days ago, and he blinks up at Mario from where he’s helping Alexa with her math homework at the kitchen table. Mario’s on the phone, puts a finger up to Sidney like wait, and then turns and keeps talking into the phone.
Sidney looks down at his wrist, covered by the plain black guard he always wears, and then shakes it off and helps Alexa with the next set of equations. She’s not great with worded questions; Sidney can relate. But then Mario hangs up the phone and says, “That’s weird.”
“What happened?” Sidney asks.
“Apparently, Malkin was at training camp with the team, but he’s not there anymore. We just had a very angry phone call from the KHL accusing us of harboring him. We haven’t had any word from him though, so I’m not sure what the actual situation is. Either way, nobody is sure where he is.” Mario seems a bit amused by it, but his eyebrows are creased, like maybe he’s worried too.
Sidney swallows, and comes up with the obvious conclusion. “He’s missing?”
“Probably just skipping the first few days of training camp? I’m not sure.”
“Do you think he’s coming here?”
Mario hums, but then shakes his head. “He has a contract, doesn’t he? And he hasn’t told anyone he’s coming.”
Sidney nods, and stares at the table, and at his wrist. Nobody hears a thing about Malkin for days, and then for a week. Mario’s not all that worried, as far as Sidney can tell, because Malkin’s not really their problem yet—he isn’t signed with the Penguins, even if he was drafted by them. He’s not even in the U.S., so it’s not like there’s anything they could do. And it’s not like Malkin is missing any games, just... training camp.
He could just be out partying or something.
Sidney is worried though, because what sane hockey player skips training camp? That’s—that’s crazy, you don’t just do that unless something serious happened. And nobody’s heard from Malkin in twelve days, unless somebody is lying about it. Mario gives him a long look the third time Sidney asks if there’s been any information, and Sidney has to look away before his entire face turns red and gives away why he wants to know.
He thinks Mario might have guessed already though.
But then a few days later Nathalie comes and pulls him out of the guesthouse, tells him she needs help with dinner, and Mario blinks at him when he comes in the door, and says, “Malkin is here.”
Sidney almost trips where he’s taking off his shoes. “What?”
“Malkin, he’s—at the airport. Barry’s picking him up, and they’re coming over for dinner and we can figure out what the hell’s happening.”
Nathalie asks, because Sidney is still stunned, “Does that mean he’s going to play for the Pens this season?”
Mario grins and says, “I don’t see any other reason he’d be here.”
“Sidney, are you alright?” Nathalie asks, looking at him carefully.
Sidney swallows, and then says, “Yeah, I—yeah. What did you need help with?”
He peels potatoes while Mario calls more people, and Gonch and his family show up a little while later. Gonch shakes his head and says, “I’m the short notice translator. Volunteered to let the guy stay in our guest room while he’s here too,” when Sidney asks why he’s there.
Gonch’s wife starts helping Nathalie make dinner, while the kids run off to play with Mario’s kids, and Gonch settles in to help Sidney peel potatoes until they’ve done enough that they’re just kicked out of the kitchen altogether.
“Interesting story, isn’t it?” Gonch says, and Sidney blinks, looking up from where he was watching the kids play that game where you jump on pillows, pretending the regular carpet is lava or something.
“What?”
“Malkin sneaking out of Finland,” Gonch clarifies. “The KHL won’t be happy with him.”
“Why’d he sign the contract to stay on for another year if he wanted to come play in Pittsburgh?” Sidney asks, finally. It doesn’t make sense.
Gonch shrugs, but says, kind of slowly, “He was probably pressured into it. Russian agents aren’t any nicer than American ones. Still, leaving like this... can’t wait to hear how it all happened.”
“Yeah,” Sidney says, although he thinks he might already know. If Malkin really did want to come play for the Penguins—if he’d wanted to for a while already, and just hadn’t been allowed to—
He goes out front with everybody else when Austin yells from the living room that a car is pulling into the driveway. He feels like his heart is in his throat and his hands are all clammy, so he wipes them against his jeans, but it doesn’t seem to help. Malkin looks up when he gets out of the car; he seems mildly surprised to see the crowd of people waiting for him, Sidney thinks, before Malkin’s gaze shifts and he sees Sidney.
Sidney holds up his hand, awkwardly waving. He feels like an idiot, the same way he always feels when he’s meeting new people, or doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be doing, or saying. It doesn’t normally matter: he doesn’t care if people think he’s weird, usually. But he doesn’t want Malkin to think he’s weird.
Gonch is giving him a funny look, he knows, but Malkin is still staring at him, and Sidney can’t look away either.
Mario says something, probably a hello, and Barry responds, getting out of the car behind Malkin. But Malkin is ignoring them both, just like Sidney is, and—and fuck it, Sidney thinks desperately, and takes a step forward, and then another and another.
Sidney’s never actually kissed anyone. He’s never wanted to, and never met anyone else named Evgeni anyway, so there wouldn’t have been a point. But now he’s standing in front of Malkin, and Malkin is curling a hand into his t-shirt, pulling him closer, and then—and then Sidney can’t help it, he just leans up and Malkin doesn’t even hesitate; he meets Sidney, kissing him hard.
They break apart and Sidney stumbles backward a step, licking his bottom lip. He feels like he’s burning up, hot and embarrassed and happy at the same time. Sidney can hear Mario say his name from behind him, a questioning tone in his voice. He doesn’t turn around though, still looking at Malkin, still can’t tear his eyes away.
His lips feel bruised already, and he just wants to lean back in and kiss him again, and again, and—
Ignoring everyone behind him, Sidney just bites his lip and says, in the best Russian he can manage, “Приве́т. Меня́ зову́т Сидней.”
Hello, he thinks, my name is Sidney. His heart is in his throat; it feels hard to even breathe. He doesn’t feel calm at all, and his hands are all sweaty again, even though it’s chilly outside. He thinks he should hate this, the way his body isn’t listening to him, is turning against him, but he’s been waiting for so long; he refuses to wait any longer, not now that Malkin is here, standing right in front of him, has kissed him.
Malkin breaks out into a small smile, and says, in pretty terrible English, “Yes. Sidney.” But then he lifts his wrist, and fumbles to rip off the wrist guard he’s wearing, and everybody behind them must know what’s going on when he shows the letters on his wrist to Sidney, when Sidney sees his name written on Malkin’s wrist, familiar handwriting stark against the color of Malkin’s skin. “My Sidney,” Malkin says, softly.
Sidney swallows the lump in his throat, and reaches out to touch the name. He nods, and says, “I—yeah.”
It’s almost belated when he takes off his own wrist guard, letting the Cyrillic text, the Евгений, be visible again for the first time in ages. Malkin huffs softly and grabs Sidney’s wrist, says something in Russian, and then, English, “Mine.”