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It's the kind of electric game that never happens anymore, the kind with the last violent March love in the air and a desperate need to push on. Laffy's got his first hatty, and Chris his 300th (even if it looked like it wouldn't happen for a minute there), and Troubs is back, and somewhere in the middle, Quickie becomes the winningest American goalie of all time.
It's hard for him to think it won't be overlooked - after all, the golden first pick has his hat trick, and Chris and Mika are making those eyes at each other that for sure mean that they're going to slip off to some closet later, and Igor's been off since Denver.
He's then delightfully shocked, nearly, when they swarm him like a cloud of locusts. He's not exactly delighted with his play; letting in five goals isn't the kind of night you dream about to break a milestone; but they are delighted with him, and he soaks it up. Igor, too, seems to have shaken whatever infected him in Colorado, and the old adage that a mask serves to protect a goalie's decency from the television cameras seems to be true, tonight.
It's glowing and brilliant on the ice, and the locker room is somehow even better. There's kisses pressed to his helmet and then his sweaty hair, as he slowly divests himself of pad after pad after layer after layer until he's shirtless and skateless and slowly, slowly cooling down. Igor, sitting beside him, looks like there's a glint in his eyes, the kind of thing that usually comes over him when he's watching tape of Henrik or talking about Staying With Tyoma, capitals necessary. It's aimed at Jonathan, though, which is disorienting, to say the least.
He finds a shirt to do media in that doesn't look like he'll sweat through it in 30 seconds, runs his face under the tap in the bathroom, and scrubs dry to look presentable for the scrum. It kind of blows by him, water under a very, very wide bridge, that is largely made of Igor's big brown eyes staring him down as if the media scrum is somewhere he'd like to be.
When he finally escapes, it's as though something has suddenly set free Igor, and he follows Jonathan into the showers, and then out. Jonathan watches as Igor races to get dressed and then just sits, simply waiting. He dresses, and then he sits, and waits.
Jonathan knows a lot of goalies: it's a hazard of being a goaltender, that even before the day of catastrophe last year, he'd known more than twenty just because he'd played with them, barring the fact that forwards are perhaps the worst people to be around at the All-Star Game if you don't already love them.
Igor is the kind of goaltender who seems to have been raised in goaltending; he's quiet nearly to a fault, and you kind of have to wait him out to hear what he has to say, if he doesn't want to say it. He's funny as hell, but all the Russians are, really.
"That was good," is what he leads with, which is very Igor and also not really what he knows Igor wants to say. It's a tactic, and one that he maybe appreciates. "Can have a kiss?"
"Sure," Jonathan assents. It's a little strange to ask consent for what the team's been taking all night, but he appreciates the sentiment. It's not until Igor is standing over him, brushing his hair back and pressing a hand to his beard that he understands the kind of kiss Igor was actually asking for.
"Still can have?" Igor asks, his voice now nothing more than a murmur.
Jonathan nods softly into Igor's palm, and just like that, Igor is leaning in and he's being kissed senseless. He doesn't really want to think about where these skills came from - Tyoma or Henke or someone else, probably - and he kind of can't , because Igor is consuming his everything. Igor's slighter than him, but standing over him, he feels small, suddenly. It's a feeling most near relief, that matches the sense when the final buzzer resounds. It feels, in the moment, like he doesn't need to do anything: he doesn't need to stand up, or catch, or stop, or do the splits at thirty-fucking-eight years old. (And for all Marc says about keeping limber, he felt the year settle into his bones in January, and it doesn't seem to be going away. He knows how to combat it, but there's a new kind of levity to the crackling of his joints that, while likely anxiety-borne, isn't comforting.)
Igor pulls away just as Jonathan's head is getting fuzzy, and he smiles that soft smile that the cameras love so much.
"Good," he says, though it's really halfway between a question and a demand, though it was required to be good for Jonathan, that it couldn't have been bad, but that he wants the affirmation anyway.
"Good," Jonathan answers, breathless.
Igor grins, then, in that kind of way he does when he makes a goal in practice: triumphant and resonant.
"You have plans?" he asks glibly.
"No," Jonathan says, which is true. His plans are mostly to go home and watch Anže play hockey with a backup in his net and a team of people he doesn't know anymore.
"Good," Igor says again, this time a little more contentedly. "Come home with me."
Jonathan tries to come up with a good reason to say no - there must be one, there is one, buzzing in the back of his head, though he's not sure if that rule is to do with Anže and Drew or all teammates, anymore - but he can't dredge it up from behind the mountain of exhaustion settling in.
"Sure," Jonathan says, and pulls on his hoodie.
They walk out into the chilled New York night and drive into the cold Connecticut night, a difference so barely existent it might as well not be made, and drag themselves into Igor's house.
Igor retrieves two bowls of fruit from his fridge and pours honey on them before handing one to Jonathan with a spoon and keeping one for himself.
"Thanks," Jonathan mutters.
"You wanna watch?" Igor asks, and gestures to the TV.
Jonathan shrugs, so they migrate to the massive white sofa and Igor turns the television on, not to the Kings/Flames game, like Jonathan thought might happen, but rather to Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
"I like the hair," Igor says nonchalantly.
It's good TV, good for not thinking about the weather in LA right now or what Henrik Lundqvist might be doing currently. Good for not pondering the meaning of Igor's hand tracing patterns on his thigh or the fact that he's listing more and more into Igor's side. Good for not considering team balance or equitable responsibility or any of Anže's other favorite bullshit things to excuse why being fuckbuddies was fine, but having an actual relationship where they dated wasn't.
Which - it's not like he misses that, exactly, being jerked around and then spending the night at Drew's when he couldn't stand it anymore, sleeping on a couch that was getting too lumpy for him, even when he wasn't in his thirties.
Igor's arm, the one not attached to the hand tracing circles on his thigh, slides across Jonathan's shoulders and pulls him in, and Jonathan lets himself be pulled, sinking into Igor's warm, solid side. It's nice, to rest here and not need to be anything other than present; it's what he likes about being a backup, anyway, what he discovered in Vegas and what he's rapidly learned in New York.
He can be comfortable, get comfortable, and still be excellent when he's needed, just by virtue of being fucking present. He gets the win now by feeling himself existing, no longer drifting in three directions, tethered only by the puck and a desire to win no matter what.
Igor's top hand is now stroking down his arm in a soothing motion he's seen used on Artemi when he's particularly incensed, and Jonathan thinks now that he's probably calmer than Artemi has ever been. Than anyone has ever been, actually - he's probably the most calm person in the universe, right here. Guy Fieri is droning on in the background about a hamburger, but all Jonathan can focus on is the feeling of Igor's hand on his arm and the rise and fall of Igor's chest below his.
"Kiss?" Igor asks from somewhere above him, and Jonathan nods, waiting for the gentle pressure of lips against the crown of his head, but instead, he feels his chin being tipped up and Igor's lips against his own, a careful, chaste kiss, nothing like the one they shared in the locker room. "You wanna go to bed?"
Jonathan nods, letting his beard and stubble rasp against Igor's shirt. They stumble up the stairs together, into Igor's bed with his 330 thread count Egyptian Cotton sheets that Henrik definitely talked him into buying.
Jonathan's the small spoon, which is a new experience - Anže was a bed hog, and Drew's opinion on cuddling was that the less heat shared, the better. Igor is a possessive cuddler, the kind of thing you expect from a goalie (Jonathan's heard all about Marc-Andre's spectacular octopus imitations and he knows more than he ever wanted to about Adin's flailing if he doesn’t have a bed partner). There is very quickly no way that Jonathan could extract himself from the bed and the fancy-as-fuck pillows and sheets and duvet without waking Igor, since Igor has managed to wind himself completely around Jonathan's person, pinning him in place.
And so it is that he falls asleep like that, his starter wrapped around him, covered by a blanket and an overwhelming sense of lightness.