Write My Heart Upon My Sleeve

by Nofsky8

Summary:

Sidney's name mark begins to gain color his final year in the Q, but it's not until after the draft lottery that it really darkens up. He takes his wrist guard off that evening, and it's gone from a faint shadow to a dark bruise – like someone's dipped a pen in water.

 

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Soulmates, and the choices made to get there.

Notes:

Wrote this in my notes app on the plane when I didn't have access to Ellipsus to continue writing any of my other fics.

Sidney's name mark begins to gain color his final year in the Q, but it's not until after the draft lottery that it really darkens up. He takes his wrist guard off that evening, and it's gone from a faint shadow to a dark bruise – like someone's dipped a pen in water and smeared it across his skin.

Sid figures that means he's been chosen for a team. For Pittsburgh, probably. Maybe. Sid's trying not to get his hopes up before it's official, just in case. He doesn't want to jinx it.

His mark is only a few shades darker, maybe, the night after his draft. Sidney had sort of hoped it would finish filling in that night; lot's of guys' do. The team that drafts you dictates a lot about your future: what city you'll live in, how you'll develop as a player, who you'll meet.

Sidney has to remind himself that it's not just his future, his decisions, but his potential soulmate's too. Maybe it's his soulmate who's not decided yet. Maybe she – or, when he's feeling brave in the middle of the night, he – is a bit younger than him, and haven't gotten accepted into any colleges yet. Or he has to wait for them to start applying for jobs in another city.

Sidney tries not to dwell on it too much. He has hockey to play. Penguins hockey. He gets to live with Mario Lemieux.

The Lemieux kids ask about his mark. They're all younger than him, so none of them have settled marks either, and they're all desperately curious too see his dark smudge. Sid tells them about it slowly darkening all throughout high-school, from a faint shadow to something that was definitely there, then the sudden overnight darkening. They make up stories for him about what she'll be like, what she's doing now that's left is so his mark hasn't decided yet, what she might do that will make it come in. It helps a lot, actually. It forces Sidney to remember that his mark's not really in his hands anymore. Sidney's set on Pittsburgh.

Sometimes, when he's huddled over his computer watching Evgeni Malkin's highlights in the Superleague, Sidney wonders if his soulmate could be another hockey player. Someone who hasn't been drafted yet, or who will be traded to the team later. Sidney doesn't think he would mind, especially if it was a player like Malkin – someone who knows the game as well as he does, sees the plays and makes them happen. They could train together. Sidney thinks he might even like it if they were bigger than him – which is usually about where he shuts those thoughts down.

 

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Zhenya's mark darkens like a bruise the night of his draft. He runs his fingers over it that night, curled up in his hotel bed. His future is here, in America. In the NHL. Pittsburgh.

Then the lockout happens, and playing in the Superleague that year is a no-brainer.

Zhenya wants to go to the NHL as soon as the lockout ends, but he's young and dumb, and he lets the team convince him to sign on for one more year.

"Soon." Zhenya whispers to his mark in the dead of night. It hasn't darkened any since his draft, and Zhenya is certain that means his soulmate is in Pittsburgh – or at least North America.

His mark does darken that summer though. Only once, over night. Zhenya wakes up and sees it's inky-spill – his brain still in a morning fog – when he gets up to check Pittsburgh's draft prospects.

Zhenya's hopeful that means it will start to form letters soon, but it doesn't. He turns in his letter of resignation to the team at the end of the following season – just a formality, his agent assures him. The Metallurg front office shreds it.

His parents join the discussion on backup plans.

Zhenya cries the night they make him sign for another year. Not in front of the Metallurg management or anything, but curled up in his own bed in the dark.

They have a back up plan, they do, but the front office hasn't given Zhenya back his passport since the season ended in May, and he's terrified that they never will. That he'll be stuck here forever, in terrible limbo being paid millions of dollars to play hockey for a team who has him trapped.

He presses a his lips to his wrist, and promises his soulmate he'll take the first chance he gets. That he won't hesitate, not anymore.

 

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When Zhenya climbs out of that bathroom window in Helsinki, his mark starts tracing out letters. He won't notice until nearly midnight that evening, holed up with his agents in a tiny apartment near the US embassy, but he thinks it starts then.

Zhenya lands in Los Angeles less than 72 hours later, and he's so excited and relieved and emotional that he stops in the bathroom in LAX to check under his wrist guard, and the blurred outline of Sidney stares back. Zhenya only knows the Latin characters so readily because they're Sidney Crosby's . They could still be any Sidney's, the last name hasn't come in yet, but Zhenya knows that's how Sidney Crosby spells his name in English.

It's all Zhenya can do to breath, and then he realizes he's smiling, and he can't stop.

Zhenya keeps smiling all through the two weeks he's stuck in L.A. with JP, and the letters of Sidney's last name finally coalesce.

Sidney Crosby in sharp black lines, darker than any tattoo could manage.

 

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Sid's mark starts to change at the end of the summer before his second year in the NHL. He worries he's imagining it at first, and then they find out Evgeni Malkin's gone missing. Sidney lets that carry him through his worry and excitement; something tangible and real, and definitely, probably happening.

Except Sid's mark is definitely happening too. It takes him longer than it should have to confirm, because it turns out his mark is in Russian and he only recognizes the Cyrillic characters when the blur letters of Malkin start forming. Sidney's watched enough of Evgeni Malkin's highlights and interviews and press releases that he'd probably recognize Malkin's name in his sleep.

And then he hears Malkin is coming to Pittsburgh, and all Sidney has left inside is joy.

 

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It's not that Zhenya's never thought about boys. He knows they're nice to look at – he plays hockey for fuck's sake, he's seen a lot of naked guys – but he just never thought his soulmate would be another boy. He wasn't sure it was really possible.

But then he's shaking Sidney Crosby's hand – after he's gotten over meeting Mario Lemieux – and he's entirely certain he could grow to love Sidney Crosby, in all the same ways a husband is suppose to love his wife and then some.

 

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Sidney can't stop smiling at Evgeni Malkin. He looks tired, and he keeps asking Gonch and George Birman to translate for him instead of speaking English, even though he seems to understand what everyone else is saying just fine. He also keeps grinning at Sidney.

Sid's going to play hockey with this man. He's maybe (probably) going to fall in love with this man.

Sidney Crosby is going to spend the rest of his life with Evgeni Malkin and he couldn't possibly be happier.

Notes:

Love you all! <3