Me, three years Superleague.
The stakes are high for an impromptu scrimmage — the loser has to do push-ups. But Evgeni Malkin doesn’t want to, and gets Sidney Crosby to do his penance for him.
Wait, where the fuck did the rest of my tags go on that Geno gifset? It's supposed to go:
#oh my fucking god?! #dying of want #i've never seen an au where one of them is still a professional athlete but in a different sport #how has this never been written #why doesn't this exist? #so many opportunities for flail and cuteness #sid obviously is utterly oblivious at first because what even are other sports outside of hockey #evgeni who? #steelers what? #russians play football? #who cares about football honestly he has tape to review #and maybe geno makes his first flaily overtures when gonch is still on the team so he has an in #'seryozha put in a good word for me' #'seryozha invite me to one of your aftergame parties' #'seryozha pass sid this note have him check does he like me yes or no' #and finally someone in the media picks up on it #and asks sid semi-jokingly about malkin's 'admiration' (read: crush) #and sid is caught off-guard for the barest moment and goes 'uhhhhh' while blushing horribly #before he collects himself and gives one of his usual perfect soundbite responses #but geno watches the interview like fifty times #all riveted because blush and eyelashes and talking about zhenya #and he moons about it intolerably until a teammate or someone tries to smother him with a pillow #and then the steelers hit a slump or something and geno is all pissed and depressed and hard on himself #and sidney is out with his long-term concussion and everything in life is basically miserable #but moping about it isn't going to do anything so geno sends a note or something to sid along the lines of #'i come back - win superbowl - you come back - win cup'
CONT: #because why not #and then it becomes this thing where they're motivating each other #or at least the lines of communication are open and they're being inspired by each other #Geno putting his nose to the grindstone and uplifting his team like he's always admired Sid so much for doing for the Pens #Sid realizing that life exists outside of hockey and that making him even more strongly refuse to shut down and give up hope #and Geno's competitiveness and drive reinvigorates Sid's passion and yearning for his own game in a burning way that wipes out despair and leaves determination to come back from this and burn even more brilliantly #and they FALL IN LOVE AND EVERYTHING IS BEAUTIFUL AND VICTORY #epilogue: Geno proposes with the Super Bowl ring he won because of Sid and Sid counters with his Stanley Cup Ring that he won because of Geno and RAINBOWS AND PUPPIES GAHHHHHH #/falls over and dies
