Chapter 1

To be clear, Nikolai is grateful the rookies aren't growing up the way he did in the PHL.

Nikolai took the hazing to the chin – humiliation rituals, beat downs, grueling practices to prove he could "hang" with the big guns on the team.

He weathered it with pride because at the time, he thought that that was what it took to be a man in hockey.

Now he knows better.

Now he knows that a good team isn't born out of some psychotic trauma bond reminiscent of frat boy hazing nor a boy's club with a veil of silence over the locker room that allows truly heinous things to be said.

A good team has each other's backs.

Encourages everyone to play to their full potential and be themselves.

Uplifts each other in the bad times and celebrates with each other in the good times.

That being said, there's still some part of Nikolai that balks at the request by the gaggle of rookies to watch The Brass Colossus, a veritable children's movie at the team's latest movie night.

"Come on man," Lindgren is yelling as everyone else tries to shoot down the cartoon idea, "they even watched it on Gavin Brooks.

It's like my favorite movie ever."

"Your favorite movie is a cartoon?" Pelletier asks.

"Yo don't clown on cartoons," Marsh is quick to say, which descends into very heated chirping about what type of TV he watches with his kids.

Nikolai settles down in the seat next to Callum and waits to see how this night will play out as the yelling gets louder and more aggressive in the face of something as sacred as the movie choice.

Reese wants to watch another titan movie, Dubois has some action movie he wants to see, Kessler is apparently watching through the Goldstone nominations and is campaigning to watch some depressing three hour long art house film that only Vance is semi okay with because Oduya is also watching the nominations and he's behind.

In the end, they watch The Brass Colossus.

When the rookies want something, they're quick to put up a united front.

And with four voices against a divided team, they're able to win more battles than Nikolai would like to admit.

Also, Callum babies them any time they are outside the rink.

Inside the rink, Callum will force the team to run bag skates until at least three people throw up.

He'll drag anyone who had a bad shooting percentage out onto the rink before practice and make them stay late until they identify what's going wrong.

He carries a tiny notebook on him in order to note down every tiny detail people need to fix in order to unlock their "full potential," including Nikolai which is insane because Nikolai is the best hockey player in the league.

Outside of the rink, though, Callum says shit like, "let's just let them watch it." And ends the debate everyone else was having.

Nikolai lays back against Callum, ready to suffer through an hour and a half of a children's movie.

But fuck the rookies.

Why is Nikolai so captivated by this iron giant alien?

He's trying to beat back tears watching the giant decide to sacrifice his life, squeezing the fuck out of Callum's hand who has that far away, thousand yard stare on that he gets when he's trying not to cry.

It's similar around the room except for the rookies who are openly and shamelessly weeping.

Full body sobbing is coming from the quadruplets of Beckett, Lindgren, Novak, and Gallagher who are huddled together on the ground in front of the TV.

Something ugly in Nikolai's chest rears its head at the scene.

Nikolai's been in this league for a decade now, and ten years ago, when he was new to the PHL, he would rather get all his teeth knocked out than cry in front of the boys.

He shudders to think of the things that would have been said about him if it came to light that he sobbed publicly over a robot cartoon.

And Nikolai spent his career on a team that's been generally very supportive and decent, especially since he's come out.

Brookhaven was a "good" team to play on, and Nikolai still wouldn't have dared request this movie, let alone shed a tear at it.

He swallows uncomfortably watching the rookies.

There's a tangled mess in his chest of habitual fear for them, messy jealousy that they're comfortable enough in their team to cry, and pride that he's built a space this safe for the kids coming up through the ranks.

There's this bitter teenager trapped against Nikolai's beating heart that yearned for this a decade ago.

Nikolai wants to pull him out alongside that anxious, teenage version of Callum and plop them down into this rookie dogpile and say:

It's okay.

You're going to be okay.

But he can't do that.

Time moves forward, always, pulling Nikolai away from that scared boy who was half in love with a person he should have never been allowed to know, hiding his tears in his pillow after bad losses and dreams of his mom Tanya.

Crying silently so his roommate never knew.

Since he cannot move back and fix what was broken all those years ago, all Nikolai can do is ensure that these silly little rookies who insist on watching sad robot cartoons get to grow up in the space that he always dreamed about.

Callum lays his head against Nikolai's shoulder, and Nikolai presses a kiss against the crown of his head.

He'll do that for both of them.

This is stupid.

Lindgren knows this is really, really, really stupid.

But look, he met a girl at the bar a few weeks ago and they've been texting a bit.

It's not anything super serious, but maybe he wants it to be serious?

And now they're both in the same city for the first time in a month and a half and Lindgren kind of wants to see her.

Scratch that, he really wants to see her.

Their flight leaves early tomorrow morning, but that means he has all night.

He wants to make it nice for her.

She's been hinting about moving on to the next level – read, in Lindgren's mind, sex – and now they have the chance to do just that.

She travels all the time for work just like he does, so the opportunity to see each other will not crop up again any time soon.

Gallagher said he'd hunker down with Emmy and Beckett for the night just to give him the space.

The time is nigh.

Except, she just let him know that she doesn't have any condoms.

Which is totally, completely fine except Lindgren doesn't have any either.

None of the rookies do.

How do none of the rookies have any?

Are they not young and stupid and sowing their seeds?

"That's disgusting Lindy never say that again," Emmy was quick to deny as they watched him panic pace around the room wondering what he should do.

But either way, it seems like everyone was planning for this to be a sexless trip, so Lindgren is shit out of luck except for the fact that he knows two players on his team who are definitely, absolutely not missing the chance to fuck no matter what city they're in.

That's how Lindgren finds himself tiptoeing down the hall towards Callum and Nikolai's room.

He's not really sure why he's tiptoeing.

He's absolutely allowed to be out in the hall at this hour, but there's just something about the whole situation that feels clandestine.

He makes it to their door with no one spotting him.

Then he takes a deep breath, gathers his bravery, and knocks.

No one answers.