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in which avery sets fire to martin's brain "What is so funny?" Martin stops in the middle of the room on his way back from the shower, barefoot, a towel slung low around his hips. Sean is sitting up in bed, shirtless, wearing his glasses and drinking tea -- he's got his laptop flipped open and he's laughing every few seconds, engrossed in whatever it is that he's reading. He looks up at Martin and flashes him an easy grin. "I'm reading about Sidney Crosby." Of all the things Martin expects him to say, that is definitely not it. "Are you.""Yup." Sean takes a sip of his tea. "And his girlfriend. Who's having another man's baby." Sean squints at the screen. "I think it was her professor's. There was a whole thing at this bachelorette party for her friend, who's marrying the professor's brother. Shocking! There was a confrontation. People cried." Martin has been in the States for a long time. He considers himself as competent with English as his native Quebecois French, but there are times he wonders if Avery is speaking some entirely different language. This would be one of them. "Sidney Crosby, the hockey player?" "Um, duh. I know you're old, but geez, Marty. Of course I mean the hockey player." Sean is very good at lighting up Martin's temper in a way few people have ever managed. Sometimes he thinks the reason he's sleeping with Avery is because he couldn't play hockey in jail, and the only other option besides fucking him would be killing him. There's a quick flare of irritation at Sean's caustic remark, but it fades almost immediately, snuffed-match quick. "Right. Of course. He is dating an unwed mother?" "Unwed mother? Did you just say that?" Sean snorts, goes back to his laptop, sipping his tea. He looks very much like an accountant. "It's not nineteen-fifty-five." It's snowing outside, the flakes sticking to the window and the morning light is dim enough that feels like dusk. The room is warm, bright-lit, and there is absolutely nowhere he has to be today. His last game ended with a win and a shut-out besides, and he woke up that morning with Sean's mouth around his cock, eager and hot. He's in a mood to be indulgent. "How should I have said it?" Sean looks up, appearing briefly startled by Martin's lazy amusement -- it's not a tone he takes often with Sean, who is, if anything, astute to Martin's moods more than most people. "Single mom?" "But she's not single. She's dating Crosby." "Okay...knocked-up physics student." Martin blinks. Pucks traveling at a hundred miles an hour are easier to keep track of than this conversation. This is not an uncommon thing with Avery at all, but he's never quite gotten used to it. "I have no idea what you're talking about." Sean nods wisely. "I know. It's hard to process why a smart chick would ever want to hook up with Crybaby Crosby, knocked up or not." "Well, he does make a lot of money. Children are expensive." "You're so romantic." Sean flutters his eyelashes at him from behind the clear frames of his glasses. Martin likes the glasses. He's never told Sean that, and he probably won't.. "Where exactly are you reading about Sidney Crosby's pregnant, physics-student girlfriend?" "Oh man, when you say it all serious like that it's hilarious. And it's on the Internet. You know about the Internet. I've seen your website. There's not a thing on it about me, you're such a jerk." Martin finds his coffee mug on the edge of Sean's dresser and takes a sip of it. It's nearly cold, sugary-sweet like a dessert. "Maybe if you were knocked up." "Ha! Awesome, we'd be the worst parents. Our kid would have my fashion sense and your sense of humor. Meaning he'd be well-dressed and have no idea how to take a joke." Sean peers at the screen again, quiet. "Oh man, it turns out Azure's ex-boyfriend the professor tried to pay Crosby for the baby. Maybe it is Crosby's baby because they had an affair one night? I can't tell." "What website exactly are you reading?" There's no telling with Sean. "Is it Twitter?" "Haha! You're in rare form this morning, Brody-bear. Morning blowjobs obviously agree with you." Martin shrugs, smiles at him. "Oui. Shoving things in your mouth first thing in the morning is very agreeable." "This is a story. Um. It was written by..." Sean taps on a key repeatedly. "Skybornedoll." "A story." "Do you need a dictionary? Une storie, you know." Sean waves a hand. "Fiction. It's not real. Oh my god, did you think all that was real?" "I don't know what you're talking about," Martin points out, running a hand through his damp hair. "Mostly I am thinking you are crazy, petit." "It's so cute when you call me French names, but that one makes it sound like I have a small dick." Sean points at him. "I do not have a small dick, Martin." "I'll notify my webmaster." Sean's mock-scowl turns into a grin. He looks delighted. "Maybe our kid would have a sense of humor. Look, I'll explain -- people write stories on the Internet, right?" "Oui. Sometimes you email them to me." "You actually read those? Goddamn. This is kind of like those stories, except with more feelings and stuff. There's still porn, though. It's very dramatic, too. There's a lot of talking in all capital letters." Martin makes a face. "Porn about Sidney Crosby?" The thought of that is vaguely horrifying. "Please don't ever send me that." "Yup. I looked to see if there were any stories about you, but no. Me neither. Actually it's mostly about Crosby, Toews, and that fucker Max Talbot. Anyway this one is called I Couldn't Stay Away. There's a lot of crying in it." "Well, you said it was about Crosby." Martin drops his towel, ignores the catcall Sean gives him and pulls on a pair of cotton pajama pants. It's the one item of clothing he keeps at Avery's apartment, because the one time he borrowed Sean's, they were silk. Martin found them somehow embarrassing. "Also there are eighty-six chapters. I'm on sixteen, but I skimmed through a lot of the parts with sex in it. Because, ew." Sean crooks a finger at him. "Come on. You know you want to see." "Non." Martin shakes his head. "Absolutely not. ""Absolutely oui, you do." Sean's smile is inviting, teasing, a little bit of a challenge -- everything Martin has, for one reason or another, been unable to resist about the man. "The curiosity is killing you, I know it. Come on, we're going to have the dramatic confrontation between Azure -- that's Crosby's preggo girlfriend -- and the evil professor. I bet he has a mustache. Come see." Sean pats the bed next to him. "I was thinking I would make breakfast. That has to be better than reading pretend stories about Crosby on the Internet, yes?" "There will be time for omelets after Azure and Sidney's epic love concludes with a wedding, Brody. C'mon." It's a testament to just how relaxed he is that he pads over to the bed and sits next to Sean, leans in to look at the laptop. "I'm not reading eighty more chapters of this." "No, me neither. My attention span has like, ten minutes left at the most." Sean scoots over, angles the laptop so he can see -- then he seems to think better of it and he waves his hand in front of the screen, grinning. "I hope our fictional child does get my sense of humor. You make this joke entirely too much, Avery." "It's a classic, baby." Sean settles back and nods at the screen. "Go ahead. Tell me a story. Wikipedia says you're really good at that." Martin ignores him, reads the first line out loud in a dry voice. "The day after her confrontation with Sebastian, Azure wakes up enfolded in the warm circle of Sid's arms, love cocooning her like a beautiful sunrise." Sean chokes on his tea, laughing so hard the laptop starts shaking. "Oh my god, that was funny. Seriously you should have heard how you just said that." "Don't spill tea in the bed," is Martin's only reply. "Fuck you, it's my bed. I'll spill tea wherever I want." "You've been in America too long. You're picking up their bad habits." Martin reaches out and scrolls quickly down the page, when it appears the beautiful sunrise of love is about to turn into a very long, involved love scene. "I'm not reading this part out loud." "No, do it," Sean crows, putting his mug on the table and folding his hands behind his head. "Get me hot, Brody." "Sean, this is written by perhaps a fourteen year old girl." Martin reads another sentence -- Sidney's mouth tastes like heaven, his body is chiseled like a Greek god and his voice whispering "I love you, Azure," is the sweetest music she has ever heard -- and snorts a laugh. "Or by Crosby, perhaps." "That is the best thing I have ever heard." Sean leans in closer, presses against Martin's shoulder. "Keep going." "Mon Dieu, this goes on for quite some time. This must be the real reason Crosby's out of the lineup." Martin keeps scrolling, pausing every so often to note if the absurdly detailed sex scene is still going on. "I'm not sure he could play hockey, after all this...exertion." "You could," Sean says, and there's a smugness in his tone that is very clearly proprietary, which is new. "Then again, all you have to do is stay at the end of the ice and swat at the pucks with your protective pads and giant stick.""My giant stick." Martin looks over at him, raises an eyebrow. "If you are writing stories about me, make sure to use that line." "They're not stories, Brody. Everything I say about you on the Internet is one-hundred percent true." "Perhaps so is this. You don't think Crosby --" Martin stops scrolling, grateful that the next line he reads is not about Sidney Crosby's prowess in bed or his ability to use his tongue like a mechanical sex toy, " --smiles like the dawning of a new day after a long, snowy winter's night?" "What? Ugh, no. He smiles like an infuriating little prick who plays for the Penguins." Martin finds he can't quite look away, can't quite stop himself from wanting more -- like a reality television show or, more appropriately, the man in bed next to him. "Apparently Talbot is giving Sidney a heart-to-heart about the value of a truly good woman and how love will chase the loneliness from Crosby's soul. He found this out when he fell in love with Desi, despite the --" Martin holds up his hand and makes air quotes. "Whole situation with her best friend and the stalker." Sean leans over his shoulder. "Max Talbot, Love Sage. Yeah, I buy it." "Apparently the problem is that Sidney is worried the professor will attempt to reclaim the baby after Sid has lost his heart to the child." Martin clears his throat. "If you ever tell anyone I just said those words, I'll beat you to death with my very large stick." "Hot." Sean bites him on the shoulder. "Skip to the end." "Really?" "I'm kind of invested now, dude. What if she goes back to Sebastian, for the baby's sake?""You are not invested." Martin looks at him, almost pleadingly. "Please say you're not." Sean widens his eyes. "Open your heart to their love, Martin." "Must I?" Martin sighs, clicks through several more chapters. There are more love scenes, each more elaborate than the last. He could have lived the remainder of his days without ever reading the phrase he drove his hardness into her like he was dying to be one with her, joined together in the fusion of their passion. "At the end, Sidney rescues her from an ill-advised wedding to Mike Green and adopts the baby. They name him Chance, and he is photographed in the Stanley Cup, which the Penguins win after beating the Capitals.""Wow, the NHLPA must approve one hell of a wacky realignment plan. And Mike Green? Where did he come from?""He meets Azure sobbing in a flower garden after Sidney leaves her. Sidney witnessed a confrontation between her and the professor, in which he overheard things and incorrectly assumed she was leaving him for the safety and security of becoming the wife of a professor of...French literature." Martin tilts his head, as if that will help any of this make sense. "Green was, I suppose, wandering through the garden because he had nothing better to do." "So still on the IR, then." "Apparently. Ah, Mike Green will be featured in a sequel, where he will find love with Azure's best friend, K'aayli. She is an up-and-coming singer in a punk rock band, with a Southern accent and a bad breakup with someone named Pete Wentz." "Is there a link to that one?" There is. Martin resolutely closes the laptop. "Non.""I don't believe you." Sean's mouth is rougher, more insistent, doing interesting things where his neck meets his shoulder. "I'm devastated by your lack of faith in me, petit. If only Mike Green were outside to make me feel better." Sean's laugh is warm against his skin. "Oh fuck no, I am not going to be the Sidney Crosby of this story. Besides, I don't just leave people alone. You should know all about that by now." Sean licks the bite on Martin's shoulder, mouth moving slowly upwards. "I'll raise another man's baby, Brody-bear, but I'm not putting it in the Cup unless it's got my name on it. Yours is on there enough already, old man. You could take a picture, though." "You're so very generous, Avery." Martin's eyes close, leaning back against the headboard, one hand sliding up roughly to grab at Sean's hair and pull him closer. "I'm a stand-up guy, Brodeur."Martin waits, one eye opening slightly in suspicion. He catches Sean's grin before he says huskily, "A stand-up in front of your net and score on you kind of guy." Martin reaches out and pushes the laptop off of Sean's knees and grabs at him, roughly pinning him down. "Why don't you try being less of a stand-up guy and more of an on-your-back one, hmm?" "Okay, but I better get an omelet out of it." Sean puts his hand on his stomach, expression serious. "I may be eating for two, you know." Martin gets on top of him, shuts him up by kissing him. It's not the dawn of a new day, but it's probably going to lead to sex. Frankly, he likes that a hell of a lot more.