Work Text:
And then he met a boy. Who promptly made him cry. Which would in many ways be on par for the rest of their relationship. No one ever told Jeff it would be like this. It's like he wants to vomit up glittering, gleaming, jewel and sparkle covered butterflies that have taken up residence in his gut the day he met Mike.
They don't see each other that much in the minors. In passing when they play one another which isn't as often as Jeff would like but often enough to fill what space is left in his gut with lead and tension. He likes the few minutes each game they spend on the ice at the same time and hates every minute that they spend so close yet so far apart. Jeff’s life is one cliche after another more often than he’s comfortable with.
They played one season - and not even a whole one - together on the Phantoms. In some ways, this is better and worse. They’re going to be on the Flyers together and nothing short of a career ending injury is going to stop that from happening at this point. Jeff had accepted that as a fact of his life. But he still, even now, after all these years could barely stand to be in the same space as Mike without wanting to lose what little food he’d managed to eat that day. This didn’t bode well for a future playing together. In their whole time together on the Phantoms, that almost violent recoil never abated, save for the moment he knew they’d won the Calder and he wondered if it would only go away if they kept winning bigger and better things together.
Things worked out in varying levels of okay when they're on the Flyers together. Mike stopped making him cry intentionally, but that didn't mean he stopped making him cry all together. Sure they drank too much, partied too much, slept around a lot too much and don't win as many as they should which was really what everyone should be caring about.
Somehow after he’s played game after game in the Big Show, Jeff came to realize that hiccupy vomity feeling he got around Mike wasn't exactly exclusive to him. He couldn’t say when he noticed. But one day he caught a look Mike gave him across the room and recognized the face because that's the face Jeff makes every time he thought Mike wasn’t looking.
He thought maybe they’d stop what they were doing and do something different. Only nothing really changed in any meaningful or positive way, the only changes Jeff could discern weren’t exactly changes he was sure he liked. For one, Mike seemed to Look at him more, in considering longing looks but with no follow through. Looks that made Jeff's chest feel tight and the ever familiar feeling of nausea roll through his body.
They started sleeping together in the most anticlimactic, cliched way possible - because Jeff’s life, even out of his melodramatic teenaged years and into his adult ones, was cliched after the other. It's is in a lot of ways the inevitable progression of their relationship. Once while out, they both struck out while trying to pull girls at a bar despite having won not only their last game but also their last home game. Jeff wouldn't say they were hot shit, but if someone else said it, he wouldn't deny it, especially considering they had both scored the game winning goals respectively. They were a little full of themselves and a lot bummed about still being shot down. Somehow it was decided that rather than continue to try their luck, they'd continue the small but well deserved party at home.
Then like every crap romance novel his sister gave him to read, one thing lead to the next and before he knew what had happened, his dick was in Mike’s month and it was quite possibly the best thing that’s ever happened to him, save for the Flyers calling his name during the draft. It’s not so much that it was a blur in his mind as it is there are just so many amazing things happening at one time and for once the frantic rolling nausea that haunted his stomach was absent. That’s what he remembered the best and the most about that night - also that Mike has sharp little teeth, had never given a blow job before and both things where terrible things to figure out when your dick is in someone's mouth.
Even that night as he laid on his couch pants in a heap on the floor with Mike laying next to him, he realized that wasn’t exactly the best plan he’d ever had. But, for once without a hard fought win under his belt, his stomach was settled. There were no butterflies, no nausea - well no nausea that wasn’t directly related to how much they’d drank - and no deep seeded need to find out where Mike was and get to him.
He played every game that season and the Flyers made it to the playoffs. Mike’s teeth were still unfortunately sharp, but he did get better at blowjobs - Jeff still counted everything about that as a win.
They made it to the conference finals only to lose to the fucking Penguins. He didn’t even get consolation sex out of it. Nothing about that did he consider a win.
They made it to the playoffs the following year, still lose to the Penguins. Who then win the Cup. No one can prove that there is a graveyard of burned stuffed penguin toys in the backyard of Jeff’s house, no one. Mike sees nothing. Mike says even less. He was captain now and the weight of their loss and the victory of their rivals sat heavy on his shoulder. There were consolation blow jobs that year but they were hollow prizes.
The thing Jeff learned in all the years he'd known Mike was that sometimes he was good with words. Sometimes there was a near constant stream of text throughout the day of meaningless rambles as they pop into Mike’s head. And other days, other days it was like Mike never learned that words were even a thing, let alone a means of communication. The steady, oppressive silence that last for days on end. No words, no text, no nods, no meaningful eye contact across the ice, not even grunts of acknowledgement should Jeff stand directly in his path. Those days all Jeff could do was follow Mike's lead and wait it out.
When they get traded from Philly, Mike to the Kings, Jeff to the Jackets, there was an oppressive silence that fell between them. In ways, it was worse with the distance than it would have been if they were in the same place. Jeff had nothing and didn’t know anyone in LA who could give him a good gauge on how Mike was doing. Jeff is more than aware of the thing he does, the needless checking of Mike’s location, wellbeing, general sense of self. When they were Together it was easier but the distance doesn’t sit well with him. He knew he wasn’t acting in a “manner most befitting of his age.” But given Mike hadn’t exactly been acting his age either with his cold shoulder silent treatment, no warning just packing up his things and moving to Los Angles without so much of a by your leave, Jeff really didn’t think anyone could realistically hold it against him. They did.
Eventually Jeff put his big boy pants on and accepted the unfortunate fact fact of his life - there was no career ending injury that would separate him from Mike but rather upper management proving a point. And that for the foreseeable future he would be stuck in the god awful state known as Ohio which lacked any sort of redeeming qualities.
The second unfortunate fact of Jeff’s life that would send the already and always active fluttering in his gut into fit after fit. As much as he hated being in Columbus, he knew in moments of clarity that he would hate it less if Mike was with him, if he didn't feel like puking every time he stepped into the locker room, onto the ice, into a bar, into his bed, did anything really that he used to do with Mike, in silence or otherwise.
The next nine months, in some ways, made Jeff wonder how women went about being pregnant only it’s not the same thing because it wasn’t as if he were actually pregnant given the amount he had been drinking but nor did he knew in June that nine months later something was going to happen, good and amazing would be happening in his life.
When Jeff got the call that he’d been traded to the Kings, he threw up. With no warning the second he hung up from his agent. Right in the middle of his living room. And then he sat there. When he finally pulled himself together, he sent one text and set about cleaning up his own sick. He did not look at his phone for a response until he was done.
He is neither shocked nor surprised when he walked out of LAX to find Mike loitering at the loading area, leash in hand - sans Arnold. Again with the Looks, like there hadn’t been nine months of silence sitting before them. The unwelcome return of a rabble of butterflies in his stomach.
In some ways, Jeff thought their relationship would end terribly, quietly though because neither one of them was the type to go out in a flash of fire or a roar of thunder, but rather gently and cruelly into the night.
When he woke up in Mike’s bed , cold and alone - not even Arnold for company - cum sticky and dried on his stomach, he was thinking that this was it. They’re finally back together only for this to be the last hooray. It left a sour taste in Jeff’s mouth as he lay there. The house was silent, save for the hum of the central air. He wasn’t bitter, or sad, maybe hurt and resigned.
He laid there, pillow on his face, waiting.
Door open, nails scampering on hard wood, door closed, Mike's voice was loud in the quiet of the house shhing Arnold.
Jeff removes the pillow off his face.
They went on to win the Stanley Cup that year and while neither of them managed to nail the game winning goal, they did master the art of consolation blow jobs after so many years of fuck ups and which in that case doubled as cup winning blow jobs which made them all the better.