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2minsforslashingtitle: Miracles in Hockey
involves: Tom Barrasso/Ron Francis
part: Brass Bonanza (II): you work all your life for that moment in time; it could come or...
rated: NC-17
time: ~February 19, 1984 (It may be getting after midnight by now...)
notes: The title is from Tommy's own mouth, in this video where the Hurricanes asked Americans about the effect of the Miracle on Ice (at Lake Placid at the 1980 Winter Olympics) which took place 30 years ago today [plus 10 days]. His smile-and-answer-from-nowhere is almost as much of a miracle. ("When it comes to hockey, absolutely.")
summary: "It's not that hard if you're ready. And I think I'm ready." -- Tom Barrasso, "No Keeping Him From His Goal", Sports Ilustrated, 10.31.1983 (fast times at olympic highs, 2.19.1984)
prior to this: (I) is here
dedication in perpetuity: to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nofaves , for being there as audience and consultant and suggestioner and sounding board -- and everything else. Une amie merveilleuse!
disclaimer:OH ST. RONNIE FRANCIS I'm sorry!!!...well, not really. ;D Seeing as how I was an infant at this particular date, and given the extremely likely possibility that Barrasso would kill me for writing this in the first place, and then again for not verifying if it WAS (lol), there is no WAY I would claim to know the extent of the truth. in anything. Tommy, I'm not saying you actually did this.
feedback: is still very much greatly, incredibly, thankfully and (somewhat) humbly appreciated. Even in two years.
=+=+=+=
It was a very long first kiss.
"...Nice to meet you," he said very quietly at the end of it, while I was wondering how everything could look the same around me when I'd just felt the balance of it all shifting. "I think you should call me Ronnie."
I knew I would; it was something gratifying to hear, but I just brought my mouth back over to his, not caring to speak at the moment.
"So... I pronounce that right?" I inquired, when my tongue was free again. He blinked. Then he snorted, and started laughing, silently, and shaking his head.
"Does anyone ever tell you you're strange?"
Precocious, cocky, arrogant, gifted, conceited, driven, mouthy, outspoken, well-spoken, brilliant, intense, over-ambitious, temperamental, "doesn't always play well with others", uncompromising, 'remarkably talented', every variation of 'asshole' imaginable, "look, he's 18, he just got out of high school and he wants to play the hardest position in the NHL, let's point and stare"... Strange?
"...No. They just think it. You're convincing me I need the practice." I turned his jaw and found his mouth, and found out that I could stop thinking and the world would dissolve to the warmth of the back of his neck in my palm.
I didn't think he'd be hard to persuade, but...he lowered his head; he was kissing my throat, doing it slowly -- and my blood was suddenly running hot and cold. No idea why; why it should be his mouth, there, like that, doing to me what it was doing....
"So...can you stand me?" Forget that, can you lay me? How about that? How about --now?
He re-emerged into my line of sight, looked at me like it was his fault for making me ask, since it was, and closed his eyes, smiled, and nodded. He kissed me on the mouth again and...I still couldn't get enough of that, either.
"Your eyes," he said to me.
"What?"
"They're not blue. I thought that they were."
"No." Gray. Light gray, and I've never lost a staring contest. Some people like them, some people don't.
"I like them."
"Get to know me better."
=+=+=+=
I took him to my bedroom and it was dark and easy to shed each other's clothes and touch each other's cocks. And keep kissing. It felt like writing a new language, his mouth and mine.
With our pants halfway down his cock slid in between my thighs, hard and warm, and he moved it gently, but when the only way I could translate that something inside me was going to break with pleasure was moan "Ronnie, Ronnie," he got harder and faster...
Basically, we ended up on the floor and I had his absolutely spectacular ass in my hands; warm, solid, rounded muscle in both, and he had no objections to my fingers in the divide, exploring the hottest part, using the sweat collecting there, teasing him. Dropping my fingers farther, touching him between his legs, behind his balls. I liked having him tense and respond on top of me.
"You trying to make me shoot, Tommy?" (Or just living up to your name? Don't you make your living stopping the shots?) he muttered, while his tongue waged a war with my own.
"Maybe I'm just seeing what you like." (Since when are you considerate, Barrasso? When you're fucking Ronnie Francis, apparently you are....oh, who was I kidding. My hands were simply doing exactly what they wanted and if he enjoyed it, that only meant more pleasure for him, more power to me. I was actually very curious to see what he liked, but altruism was definitively being outweighed by sheer voluptuous greed just then. Though I couldn't say it wasn't mind-blowing, life-altering in itself.) I licked his ear.
He seemed amused. "I'm not hard."
"Mmm...oh yes you are." I contradicted him.
"I won't be in a minute," he informed me.
"I can set you up again." His dark eyes were taking some kind of measure of me as he went slower for a moment, I could tell.
"Cocky, Tommy Barrasso." The last part couldn't have sounded more like 'asshole' if he wasn't trying. In more than a decade since other people had discovered the immediate and unfailing alternative to my last name, and in the something less than a decade since they had discovered their favorite adjective to attach to it, this was - absolutely - the greatest experience of it I had ever had.
"That's the word." (Truthfully, right then he could've called me anything he wanted -- or maybe I can be pleased, that it showed so unmistakeably that he knew he was doing this with ME.)
"Careful what you say," I added. And since he'd given me the choice, I flexed and shifted my thighs around his cock and slid my finger right there against his rim to feel it while he came. Pulled him down to me with my free hand tangled in his dark sweaty hair and kissed him hard enough to bruise, teeth clashing. I wanted his mouth, wanted him to take my tongue in it about as badly as I had ever wanted anything. His groan didn't exactly make it out of his throat but it was in my ears, vibrating in my cock and in his, and I knew he couldn't stop anymore and he was going to move against me until he came, wordlessly demanding it now.
"Oh fuck, Ronnie...shit, you're amazing." I wasn't that far myself, the way I kept rubbing against his stomach, but I was also getting really perilously close to just babbling about how unbelievably fucking good he felt, everything felt; and the thought, the thought of another guy's penis and just how it would feel, ejaculating, hard... "Let it go." I was gasping. "Fuck, please, just let it go."
And he did, right there between my legs, spurting his come and pulsating it in a warm wet flood. It was on the rug, sopping, and then we were both dripping and adding to the mess, but I felt secretly, fiercely, incredibly glad and aroused by it, like his load might just be the best thing that ever spilled there.
Ronnie was panting with his head down against my shoulder, but eventually he picked his head up, looked down at me pointing up, and then back up at me.
"So what do we do about you?"
I took his chin in my hand and kissed him before responding.
"I intend to follow through with my prior claims. You," I said as I pulled him up and walked him backwards towards the wall. "...are the subject of those claims." I sank down to my knees in front of him and made my intentions clear.
Sucking him hard, sucking him until he came again, getting myself off as I did it...It was like some kind of feverish dream. I was grinning at his cock in my grasp but before I could open my mouth, there was a hand on my shoulder.
"Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa...Wait a minute." And he pushed me away, and went to sit on my bed, leaving me no choice but to follow him, confused.
"Wha....?"
Where he promptly grabbed me, and kissed me, and refused to let me argue with his hand getting a firm grip on my cock and moving over it until I came, very shortly afterwards.
"I don't understand," I said while he was wiping his hand off on my stomach.
A sharp spark lit somewhere deep down in his gaze. "You don't understand a lot." He looked at me and spoke slowly, with eyebrows raised. "How stupid ARE you? How do you know I don't have something? How do I know you don't? Don't you know people are dying these days? You can't just take penicillin for everything anymore."
"I'm allergic to penicill--I couldn't even--It'd probably kill me fir--" More importantly. "How many people do you think I've been with?"
"How would I know? You weren't exactly shy."
I rolled over and spoke to the wall because I didn't feel like making my confession to his face. "I never did anything like this. Not with a guy."
"Tommy." Apparently, he'd lain down behind me. "Tomcat, out on the prowl...not quite, eh?" If I hadn't just prowled after him tonight, then I don't know what I'd done.
"Don't call me 'Tomcat'."
"Isn't that your nickname?"
"It's a stupid, stupid, stupid name." But his hand was stroking my side, up and down, my chest, my hip, my ribs, my thigh. He kissed the back of my neck, and then he did it again. I couldn't help but shiver, and then he spoke quietly into my ear.
"Tommy, that was what I thought. But you won't let yourself be taken for an innocent at anything, will you? You won't - and you could've fooled me. You seem like you know what the hell you're doing.
"Look, unfortunately, that's not even all that matters." Fuck, then why the hell did I tell him?!?!?!?!
"...So tell me about Russia, already."
"Huh?" I blinked at the abrupt change of subject.
"You were going to tell me about Russia... Unless you're a complete liar," he smiled, reminding me that, in fact, I had promised to tell him about last year's World Juniors in Leningrad; it was partly why he'd come back with me, tonight. "Are you sorry you didn't go to Sarajevo, now?"
"Well, just think, if I'd made Juniors the year before I could be telling you about exotic and equally arctic Minneapolis...and look how the U.S. did, in Yugoslavia. Or didn't. Sorry not to finish seventh? Out of eight?"
ABC and CBC'd been running highlights of the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo and the closing ceremonies there, late into the night, so we'd watched them when we came in. (Tretiak shuts out the Czechs and the Soviets win the gold and the hockey universe rights itself, once again...)
"Maybe 'cause you weren't there."
"Miracles don't happen twice."
"I...am disgustingly jealous of you, Tommy, you know that? National team. Other countries. Different rules. I wonder what it's like. I don't think I'll ever find out. There's a surplus of decent hockey players in Canada. You might have noticed."
"Too bad you're up here. If only you were Mario Lemieux, maybe you could sue to get into it. Or you could've taken his spot this year."
"I'm also a little too old for juniors, at this point. Guess I have to settle for the NHL."
"I saw Lemieux when I was in Russia, though....hell, I could be standing there just watching him at practice, trying to figure how out the hell I could stop him! And I wasn't the only one there."
"So he's really going to be the next Gretzky?"
"Yeah. He's just...astonishingly gifted. And this guy the Czechs had in net. Hashe.... Hasek. Yeah. He's...insane."
"He's a goalie, Tommy. You're repeating yourself."
"No, I'm serious. He's not like anybody else. The way he plays, it's like...he's making it up as he goes along. And it works." I was trying to find the words to illustrate, not wanting to have to actually get up and do it.
"...Chasing the puck WAY out of the net. Like, halfway to the blue line out. And he's not that great at playing it, either. Or he just drops the stick and grabs it with his blocker hand to make a save. Yeah... 'stop, drop, and roll'. That's how he usually makes saves.
"...He tripped a guy on a breakaway. Like, turned himself into a speed bump. Who DOES that? And...they named him Best Goalie. Of the tournament.
"So the USSR...is about as cold as Buffalo. Leningrad's kind of the best of it though, being right on the Baltic Sea. It's beautiful, really, for being under Commie oppression and everything. Peter the Great built it because he wanted it to be the best of Russia. I hear it's a lot better in June. Doesn't get dark." I was thoughtful, trying to picture it. "That'd be something to see. It was damn dark and fucking freezing, while we were there."
"And... I saw you play last year, you know. At the Garden - but I went to the Mall and saw some games there, too." Shit, Barrasso, sound a little more like you were just in high school, why don't you?
"You went from Boston to Hartford?"
"I wasn't the only one who went there to see the Bruins! And then especially second semester; senior year; the season's over; no one's giving a shit about school; I've got the desire and the time and the capability to watch hockey, so why not? Take the car; take the train, miss dinner. Get home late. Get yelled at more often then not, even if they thought I was still inside state lines." All that time, looking out of the window in winter darkness, turning over and over in my mind what I was going to do after the draft.
College, right? Okay, so play for the Olympic team first. Yet I couldn't let the thought go, that maybe, maybe I could make that jump, land safely even if it was on ice in the National Hockey League.
"So you ended up going Whale watching."
"Those stupid long pants."
"Well, you must've liked what you saw."
Easy, undeniable. (Well, maybe not the way he skated, but...) He had skill; a lot of it. Dangerous; nevermind being able to score; he could and would set anybody up for a goal.
And fuck talent, he'd work one end of the ice just as hard as the other.
Like he was customized and fantasized for a goalie.
Someone who cares, who will never forget about you and never, ever, abandon you.
I don't believe in fate, but I smiled and wondered if I couldn't take some productive inspiration, that he was there, Opening Night, and I was stopping him, my first game, my first win, the first time everything was official, the first time everything was for real.
...And then I saw him, up-close and clear, and my eyes -- my entire body didn't want to stop following him. Swallowing -- my mouth was dry before I even noticed I was doing it.
"Hard not to," I said, looking him over most appreciatively, head to toe. "Or not too hard. Hard, anyway. I mean...it is the NHL."
(Why, was I supposed to be talking about something else?)
...That hair, those eyes, that body, that mouth.
And...it probably should've felt more bizarre, or uncomfortable, that I was lying there narrating 1983 for him when he was lying there with me just as absolutely naked as I was. If I'd bothered to think about it.
"Everything goes hard with you, huh, Barrasso? Not everything's hard." To demonstrate it he kissed me very slowly, gently, working my mouth over with thorough care -- and encouraging me to reciprocate.
"...Damn, Ronnie." I was trying to find the oxygen for speech after that. "You win."
Something told me I could trust you; I could ask you, and neither of us would end up taking a swing at the other. But I never would have guessed you'd be this amenable...
"Don't argue with the veteran, rookie."
"You win even if you're proving my point," I said, looking down at the two of us and emphasizing the last three words.
"Shut up, rookie." He lazily grinned at me, then his face softened, and turned more serious, and the tips of his fingers were brushing my hair. "You know, Tommy...so that I'm the first one you've been with like this...?"
"Yes?" I said, nonchalant, because I flatly refused to be embarrassed about it; what was the point?
Doesn't everybody have to start somewhere?
"So let me show you what you missed," he said simply. And kissed me. "You mean no one's ever touched you like I have... like I'm doing right now...?" Between his hands and voice he seemed to be viewing me with this combination fluctuating between genuine gratitude, pure appreciation, and utter horniness. "...It's an incredible fucking turn-on, Tommy, is what it is," he lowered his voice, and murmured in my ear, warm, and mind-blowing.
It felt like something had seized me, physically... Okay, so it had, but... psychically seized me at the same time.
Never in my entire life had I ever been so grateful for being uncomfortable, mistrusting most people, and having ridiculously high standards.
"I think... you just found an effective way to get me to shut up, Mr. Francis, sir..." I said, absently; unnecessarily, really, with lust completely overunning my brain, coursing through me so strongly that I was surprised I could even speak, and didn't care where my capacity for speech had gone. Words - any words - all words - seemed incredibly stupid, and utterly immaterial.
"Are you done?" he asked, looming over me mock-threateningly.
"Yessir."
"Good." And his mouth dropped over mine.
Am I sorry I didn't go to Sarajevo? Was he serious?!?
Yeah, so I could have been in Sarajevo. Hmm, where and with whom (and how, especially how) would I rather be spending my time right now -- with that asshole Chelios and that idiot kid Eddie Olczyk and Coach Lou from Brooklyn?
Over in the Eastern Bloc under even more surveillance?
Or flying like an eagle and brandishing... whatever... right here in Buffalo, where the weather's the same and training camp's at Lake Placid and I am as free as I have ever been and unencumbered enough to be doing this with "ohhellfuckingyesRonFrancis"... and really, really, really enjoying it...
I wasn't making noise because I wanted to argue with him -- that was for certain -- but I would argue there was no way - absolutely no fucking way - that even Tretiak was having a better night than this.
involves: Tom Barrasso/Ron Francis
part: Brass Bonanza (II): you work all your life for that moment in time; it could come or...
rated: NC-17
time: ~February 19, 1984 (It may be getting after midnight by now...)
notes: The title is from Tommy's own mouth, in this video where the Hurricanes asked Americans about the effect of the Miracle on Ice (at Lake Placid at the 1980 Winter Olympics) which took place 30 years ago today [plus 10 days]. His smile-and-answer-from-nowhere is almost as much of a miracle. ("When it comes to hockey, absolutely.")
summary: "It's not that hard if you're ready. And I think I'm ready." -- Tom Barrasso, "No Keeping Him From His Goal", Sports Ilustrated, 10.31.1983 (fast times at olympic highs, 2.19.1984)
prior to this: (I) is here
dedication in perpetuity: to
nofaves , for being there as audience and consultant and suggestioner and sounding board -- and everything else. Une amie merveilleuse!disclaimer:
feedback: is still very much greatly, incredibly, thankfully and (somewhat) humbly appreciated. Even in two years.
=+=+=+=
It was a very long first kiss.
"...Nice to meet you," he said very quietly at the end of it, while I was wondering how everything could look the same around me when I'd just felt the balance of it all shifting. "I think you should call me Ronnie."
I knew I would; it was something gratifying to hear, but I just brought my mouth back over to his, not caring to speak at the moment.
"So... I pronounce that right?" I inquired, when my tongue was free again. He blinked. Then he snorted, and started laughing, silently, and shaking his head.
"Does anyone ever tell you you're strange?"
Precocious, cocky, arrogant, gifted, conceited, driven, mouthy, outspoken, well-spoken, brilliant, intense, over-ambitious, temperamental, "doesn't always play well with others", uncompromising, 'remarkably talented', every variation of 'asshole' imaginable, "look, he's 18, he just got out of high school and he wants to play the hardest position in the NHL, let's point and stare"... Strange?
"...No. They just think it. You're convincing me I need the practice." I turned his jaw and found his mouth, and found out that I could stop thinking and the world would dissolve to the warmth of the back of his neck in my palm.
I didn't think he'd be hard to persuade, but...he lowered his head; he was kissing my throat, doing it slowly -- and my blood was suddenly running hot and cold. No idea why; why it should be his mouth, there, like that, doing to me what it was doing....
"So...can you stand me?" Forget that, can you lay me? How about that? How about --now?
He re-emerged into my line of sight, looked at me like it was his fault for making me ask, since it was, and closed his eyes, smiled, and nodded. He kissed me on the mouth again and...I still couldn't get enough of that, either.
"Your eyes," he said to me.
"What?"
"They're not blue. I thought that they were."
"No." Gray. Light gray, and I've never lost a staring contest. Some people like them, some people don't.
"I like them."
"Get to know me better."
=+=+=+=
I took him to my bedroom and it was dark and easy to shed each other's clothes and touch each other's cocks. And keep kissing. It felt like writing a new language, his mouth and mine.
With our pants halfway down his cock slid in between my thighs, hard and warm, and he moved it gently, but when the only way I could translate that something inside me was going to break with pleasure was moan "Ronnie, Ronnie," he got harder and faster...
Basically, we ended up on the floor and I had his absolutely spectacular ass in my hands; warm, solid, rounded muscle in both, and he had no objections to my fingers in the divide, exploring the hottest part, using the sweat collecting there, teasing him. Dropping my fingers farther, touching him between his legs, behind his balls. I liked having him tense and respond on top of me.
"You trying to make me shoot, Tommy?" (Or just living up to your name? Don't you make your living stopping the shots?) he muttered, while his tongue waged a war with my own.
"Maybe I'm just seeing what you like." (Since when are you considerate, Barrasso? When you're fucking Ronnie Francis, apparently you are....oh, who was I kidding. My hands were simply doing exactly what they wanted and if he enjoyed it, that only meant more pleasure for him, more power to me. I was actually very curious to see what he liked, but altruism was definitively being outweighed by sheer voluptuous greed just then. Though I couldn't say it wasn't mind-blowing, life-altering in itself.) I licked his ear.
He seemed amused. "I'm not hard."
"Mmm...oh yes you are." I contradicted him.
"I won't be in a minute," he informed me.
"I can set you up again." His dark eyes were taking some kind of measure of me as he went slower for a moment, I could tell.
"Cocky, Tommy Barrasso." The last part couldn't have sounded more like 'asshole' if he wasn't trying. In more than a decade since other people had discovered the immediate and unfailing alternative to my last name, and in the something less than a decade since they had discovered their favorite adjective to attach to it, this was - absolutely - the greatest experience of it I had ever had.
"That's the word." (Truthfully, right then he could've called me anything he wanted -- or maybe I can be pleased, that it showed so unmistakeably that he knew he was doing this with ME.)
"Careful what you say," I added. And since he'd given me the choice, I flexed and shifted my thighs around his cock and slid my finger right there against his rim to feel it while he came. Pulled him down to me with my free hand tangled in his dark sweaty hair and kissed him hard enough to bruise, teeth clashing. I wanted his mouth, wanted him to take my tongue in it about as badly as I had ever wanted anything. His groan didn't exactly make it out of his throat but it was in my ears, vibrating in my cock and in his, and I knew he couldn't stop anymore and he was going to move against me until he came, wordlessly demanding it now.
"Oh fuck, Ronnie...shit, you're amazing." I wasn't that far myself, the way I kept rubbing against his stomach, but I was also getting really perilously close to just babbling about how unbelievably fucking good he felt, everything felt; and the thought, the thought of another guy's penis and just how it would feel, ejaculating, hard... "Let it go." I was gasping. "Fuck, please, just let it go."
And he did, right there between my legs, spurting his come and pulsating it in a warm wet flood. It was on the rug, sopping, and then we were both dripping and adding to the mess, but I felt secretly, fiercely, incredibly glad and aroused by it, like his load might just be the best thing that ever spilled there.
Ronnie was panting with his head down against my shoulder, but eventually he picked his head up, looked down at me pointing up, and then back up at me.
"So what do we do about you?"
I took his chin in my hand and kissed him before responding.
"I intend to follow through with my prior claims. You," I said as I pulled him up and walked him backwards towards the wall. "...are the subject of those claims." I sank down to my knees in front of him and made my intentions clear.
Sucking him hard, sucking him until he came again, getting myself off as I did it...It was like some kind of feverish dream. I was grinning at his cock in my grasp but before I could open my mouth, there was a hand on my shoulder.
"Whoa. Whoa, whoa, whoa...Wait a minute." And he pushed me away, and went to sit on my bed, leaving me no choice but to follow him, confused.
"Wha....?"
Where he promptly grabbed me, and kissed me, and refused to let me argue with his hand getting a firm grip on my cock and moving over it until I came, very shortly afterwards.
"I don't understand," I said while he was wiping his hand off on my stomach.
A sharp spark lit somewhere deep down in his gaze. "You don't understand a lot." He looked at me and spoke slowly, with eyebrows raised. "How stupid ARE you? How do you know I don't have something? How do I know you don't? Don't you know people are dying these days? You can't just take penicillin for everything anymore."
"I'm allergic to penicill--I couldn't even--It'd probably kill me fir--" More importantly. "How many people do you think I've been with?"
"How would I know? You weren't exactly shy."
I rolled over and spoke to the wall because I didn't feel like making my confession to his face. "I never did anything like this. Not with a guy."
"Tommy." Apparently, he'd lain down behind me. "Tomcat, out on the prowl...not quite, eh?" If I hadn't just prowled after him tonight, then I don't know what I'd done.
"Don't call me 'Tomcat'."
"Isn't that your nickname?"
"It's a stupid, stupid, stupid name." But his hand was stroking my side, up and down, my chest, my hip, my ribs, my thigh. He kissed the back of my neck, and then he did it again. I couldn't help but shiver, and then he spoke quietly into my ear.
"Tommy, that was what I thought. But you won't let yourself be taken for an innocent at anything, will you? You won't - and you could've fooled me. You seem like you know what the hell you're doing.
"Look, unfortunately, that's not even all that matters." Fuck, then why the hell did I tell him?!?!?!?!
"...So tell me about Russia, already."
"Huh?" I blinked at the abrupt change of subject.
"You were going to tell me about Russia... Unless you're a complete liar," he smiled, reminding me that, in fact, I had promised to tell him about last year's World Juniors in Leningrad; it was partly why he'd come back with me, tonight. "Are you sorry you didn't go to Sarajevo, now?"
"Well, just think, if I'd made Juniors the year before I could be telling you about exotic and equally arctic Minneapolis...and look how the U.S. did, in Yugoslavia. Or didn't. Sorry not to finish seventh? Out of eight?"
ABC and CBC'd been running highlights of the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo and the closing ceremonies there, late into the night, so we'd watched them when we came in. (Tretiak shuts out the Czechs and the Soviets win the gold and the hockey universe rights itself, once again...)
"Maybe 'cause you weren't there."
"Miracles don't happen twice."
"I...am disgustingly jealous of you, Tommy, you know that? National team. Other countries. Different rules. I wonder what it's like. I don't think I'll ever find out. There's a surplus of decent hockey players in Canada. You might have noticed."
"Too bad you're up here. If only you were Mario Lemieux, maybe you could sue to get into it. Or you could've taken his spot this year."
"I'm also a little too old for juniors, at this point. Guess I have to settle for the NHL."
"I saw Lemieux when I was in Russia, though....hell, I could be standing there just watching him at practice, trying to figure how out the hell I could stop him! And I wasn't the only one there."
"So he's really going to be the next Gretzky?"
"Yeah. He's just...astonishingly gifted. And this guy the Czechs had in net. Hashe.... Hasek. Yeah. He's...insane."
"He's a goalie, Tommy. You're repeating yourself."
"No, I'm serious. He's not like anybody else. The way he plays, it's like...he's making it up as he goes along. And it works." I was trying to find the words to illustrate, not wanting to have to actually get up and do it.
"...Chasing the puck WAY out of the net. Like, halfway to the blue line out. And he's not that great at playing it, either. Or he just drops the stick and grabs it with his blocker hand to make a save. Yeah... 'stop, drop, and roll'. That's how he usually makes saves.
"...He tripped a guy on a breakaway. Like, turned himself into a speed bump. Who DOES that? And...they named him Best Goalie. Of the tournament.
"So the USSR...is about as cold as Buffalo. Leningrad's kind of the best of it though, being right on the Baltic Sea. It's beautiful, really, for being under Commie oppression and everything. Peter the Great built it because he wanted it to be the best of Russia. I hear it's a lot better in June. Doesn't get dark." I was thoughtful, trying to picture it. "That'd be something to see. It was damn dark and fucking freezing, while we were there."
"And... I saw you play last year, you know. At the Garden - but I went to the Mall and saw some games there, too." Shit, Barrasso, sound a little more like you were just in high school, why don't you?
"You went from Boston to Hartford?"
"I wasn't the only one who went there to see the Bruins! And then especially second semester; senior year; the season's over; no one's giving a shit about school; I've got the desire and the time and the capability to watch hockey, so why not? Take the car; take the train, miss dinner. Get home late. Get yelled at more often then not, even if they thought I was still inside state lines." All that time, looking out of the window in winter darkness, turning over and over in my mind what I was going to do after the draft.
College, right? Okay, so play for the Olympic team first. Yet I couldn't let the thought go, that maybe, maybe I could make that jump, land safely even if it was on ice in the National Hockey League.
"So you ended up going Whale watching."
"Those stupid long pants."
"Well, you must've liked what you saw."
Easy, undeniable. (Well, maybe not the way he skated, but...) He had skill; a lot of it. Dangerous; nevermind being able to score; he could and would set anybody up for a goal.
And fuck talent, he'd work one end of the ice just as hard as the other.
Like he was customized and fantasized for a goalie.
Someone who cares, who will never forget about you and never, ever, abandon you.
I don't believe in fate, but I smiled and wondered if I couldn't take some productive inspiration, that he was there, Opening Night, and I was stopping him, my first game, my first win, the first time everything was official, the first time everything was for real.
...And then I saw him, up-close and clear, and my eyes -- my entire body didn't want to stop following him. Swallowing -- my mouth was dry before I even noticed I was doing it.
"Hard not to," I said, looking him over most appreciatively, head to toe. "Or not too hard. Hard, anyway. I mean...it is the NHL."
(Why, was I supposed to be talking about something else?)
...That hair, those eyes, that body, that mouth.
And...it probably should've felt more bizarre, or uncomfortable, that I was lying there narrating 1983 for him when he was lying there with me just as absolutely naked as I was. If I'd bothered to think about it.
"Everything goes hard with you, huh, Barrasso? Not everything's hard." To demonstrate it he kissed me very slowly, gently, working my mouth over with thorough care -- and encouraging me to reciprocate.
"...Damn, Ronnie." I was trying to find the oxygen for speech after that. "You win."
Something told me I could trust you; I could ask you, and neither of us would end up taking a swing at the other. But I never would have guessed you'd be this amenable...
"Don't argue with the veteran, rookie."
"You win even if you're proving my point," I said, looking down at the two of us and emphasizing the last three words.
"Shut up, rookie." He lazily grinned at me, then his face softened, and turned more serious, and the tips of his fingers were brushing my hair. "You know, Tommy...so that I'm the first one you've been with like this...?"
"Yes?" I said, nonchalant, because I flatly refused to be embarrassed about it; what was the point?
Doesn't everybody have to start somewhere?
"So let me show you what you missed," he said simply. And kissed me. "You mean no one's ever touched you like I have... like I'm doing right now...?" Between his hands and voice he seemed to be viewing me with this combination fluctuating between genuine gratitude, pure appreciation, and utter horniness. "...It's an incredible fucking turn-on, Tommy, is what it is," he lowered his voice, and murmured in my ear, warm, and mind-blowing.
It felt like something had seized me, physically... Okay, so it had, but... psychically seized me at the same time.
Never in my entire life had I ever been so grateful for being uncomfortable, mistrusting most people, and having ridiculously high standards.
"I think... you just found an effective way to get me to shut up, Mr. Francis, sir..." I said, absently; unnecessarily, really, with lust completely overunning my brain, coursing through me so strongly that I was surprised I could even speak, and didn't care where my capacity for speech had gone. Words - any words - all words - seemed incredibly stupid, and utterly immaterial.
"Are you done?" he asked, looming over me mock-threateningly.
"Yessir."
"Good." And his mouth dropped over mine.
Am I sorry I didn't go to Sarajevo? Was he serious?!?
Yeah, so I could have been in Sarajevo. Hmm, where and with whom (and how, especially how) would I rather be spending my time right now -- with that asshole Chelios and that idiot kid Eddie Olczyk and Coach Lou from Brooklyn?
Over in the Eastern Bloc under even more surveillance?
Or flying like an eagle and brandishing... whatever... right here in Buffalo, where the weather's the same and training camp's at Lake Placid and I am as free as I have ever been and unencumbered enough to be doing this with "ohhellfuckingyesRonFrancis"... and really, really, really enjoying it...
I wasn't making noise because I wanted to argue with him -- that was for certain -- but I would argue there was no way - absolutely no fucking way - that even Tretiak was having a better night than this.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 08:07 pm (UTC)The narrative voice is just so unique, and really engaging. There are moments where you can just tell there's feeling behind it, and so much that's going on, because they're fully-realized characters.
"I like them."
"Get to know me better."
Aww. Sorry, had to be an enormous girl about that, so very sweet. This really nicely foreshadows some of what goes on later, when Barrasso is desperate, confused and unsure. I think that you presented that really successfully; the last chapter set up this very particular and demanding scenario, and I thought, "well, of course, it's not like Tom Barrasso could be awkward or bad at anything" and you just upended that expectation. Of course, it's sudden and strange, and mostly, I have no words for how wonderful Francis is (except asdfghjkl' best) and will just have to sigh delightedly.
Someone who cares, who will never forget about you and never, ever, abandon you.
Time to overshare! This nearly made me cry. Of course, since I like that, I am eagerly awaiting the next chapter, and hoping that this tension gets spun into something awesome, and very probably heartbreaking.
uh, this is like, the worst comment ever, sorry! I really really liked the story, is the point.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 08:42 pm (UTC)it's Tom F'ing Barrasso andif he were any more iconoclastic, he'd pull a Matilda and just destroy things telekinetically, instead of verbally.(apparently doing it with hockey pucks would have been too easy.) Like 'em or not, there's power.
How do you know what goes on later??? XD Did you hack my computer???? Oh wait, who's the protagonist here. Oh, wait, in this part of the story...
it's not like Tom Barrasso could be awkward or bad at anything
...THAT DIDN'T INVOLVE OTHER PEOPLE! XD
I love Ronnie Francis, you love Ronnie Francis, the whole universe loves Ronnie Francis with the exception of a certain former Hartford coach... Tommy loves vowing not to lower his ridiculously high standards! ;)
Someone who cares, who will never forget about you and never, ever, abandon you.
That was a relatively recent addition, so I'm glad the honesty of it beat the sap... (but based on a spiel of Tommy's about goalie abandonment on the ice and Jacques Plante's quote "A goalie has no friends. Good night.") (Me = "omg, that's why he fell in love with Ronnie - BACKCHECKING!!") I'm glad you were so emotionally touched (and are enjoying the story, hey!).
Next part's not finished, but not far from finished.
F "worst comment ever", after waiting 12 hours for it to be posted and another ~15 for somebody to comment, I think it was life-saving and author-revivifying! (thanks.)
So do I detect you have followed the Pens/Whalercanes? :)
no subject
Date: 2010-02-14 09:20 pm (UTC)The honesty totally beats the sap, not that I can be objective about this or anything. It's intrinsic to the position, and always slightly sad; you've expressed that really well, on top of everything else about Barrasso. (And that's as much as I'm going to try and explain it, gosh. How you keep putting words to this, I have no idea; I get frustrated even trying to write coherent comments, obviously :D)
"omg, that's why he fell in love with Ronnie - BACKCHECKING!
ahahaha, yes.
but not far from finished.
I am eagerly awaiting it! And I will try very hard to provide more useful and prompt feedback next time, honestly. Seriously, so looking forward to it, and so excited, already.
Whalercanes, if given those options. Mostly the Canes, actually, but I am learning, if I have to keep up with this story, right?
So I'm just curious
Date: 2010-02-15 03:54 pm (UTC)It's at least helpful if I know what I'm doing.
I have faith in your coherence. ;)
Bribes you with this picture of impossibility. (http://www.daylife.com/photo/00vk7SjfoldvX)
Oh, and I wouldn't worry about the breakup too much. (http://community.livejournal.com/2mins4slashing/644081.html) ;D You see where they are today.
Not without ohsomuchdrama in the interval.Re: So I'm just curious
Date: 2010-02-15 05:12 pm (UTC)"you keep putting words to this"
"This" is merely a convenient signifier for "Tom Barrasso," in that particular sentence, because at some point, I had to give up and retreat to pronouns. Of course, that's not the only thing that's special about the story, and I think there's more useful evaluation to be done :)
To start with, I think that this story is really effective, especially in portraying an indecisive and somewhat unsure mood, about which more later, but I want to be really clear on that, yay story!
The dynamic between those two central features, Tom's voice and the movement of the plot, is interestingly explored in the style you've chosen here; obviously, they're closely related, but there's space between them, in that, well, "unreliable" is perhaps not exactly the right word, but that's the best I can come up with. It is Tom Barrasso after all, if he wasn't troublesome, even in fiction, we wouldn't know what was going on.
This division of narrative voice and what is actually happening more evident in this chapter than the last one, because the way that the plot traces some of the same concerns, mainly Tom's inexperience, both sexually and interpersonally, but also the way that Ronnie is so careful, and somehow avoids disaster. (At least, for now.) (additionally, and not-that-relevantly, I should probably not be emphasizing that difference of freakish and competent, because it's sort of dumb, and doesn't express the depth of feeling
or of total disaster, when the drama hitsbut it works for me, right now.)You've really *got* the peculiar set of traits that make up a suitable narrative voice for Tom: cockiness, an undercurrent of uncertainty, almost mercurial shifts between the two, and a number of other, perfectly in-character things. That's really engaging, but I think that the story's appeal, for me, rests partly in what's not captured by that, what Tom doesn't quite notice. Like this line of Ronnie's, "Everything goes hard with you, huh, Barrasso? Not everything's hard." Yes, of course, it's funny and the kind of thing that young guys say, but it signals that there might be something else he's trying to say. That "something else" is, I think, what draws Ronnie in, and because there is some difference in what's explained, and explored in Tom's narrative, and what's actually going on, it's such a total cliffhanger, and makes them both much more appealing, and richer characters. (This mostly seems to be an overview of why I adore Ronnie Francis, oh well.)
Hmm, that's what I have for now that's specifically (almost? nearly?) related to your comment. I'd like to volunteer that there are lots of other awesome things in this story, and I hope that those get to shine through as well, in the next chapter.
Re: So I'm just curious
Date: 2010-02-15 07:42 pm (UTC)In the meantime, being a Canes fan, have you ever noticed Tripp Tracy and his hilariously masochistic
transparently closetedRL crush on ol'Tommy?I just keep needing to find people to appreciate this... (http://hurricanes.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?catid=684&id=28123) It's tremendous. Do a search for "tracy" to get #2 and #3, that's all of it... I figure this can keep you entertained between chapters. :D
All I can think of is the appropriate Barrasso retort at some point: You want to fuck me, or you want to *be* me, Emmet? Which is it? Do you even know??
Re: So I'm just curious
Date: 2010-02-15 11:20 pm (UTC)Ahaha, oh Tripp, when will you learn? Always entertaining, especially for the wacky personal space dynamics. I assumed that you were a Sabres fan, but watching the Canes clips, well, that's not something to be undertaken lightly, and I'm pleased to know that I'm not the only one. Uh, that was an awkward way of asking about your team?
Re: So I'm just curious
Date: 2010-02-16 02:12 am (UTC)Pens fan, actually. :D
(You never forget your first Stanley Cups. :P)
I just had to start from the beginning.
...How did you notice Tommy, anyway? I still didn't think he was that loquacious down in Raleigh... ;D
In Pittsburgh he remains under the cone of silence (and needs to grow up and let himself be inducted into the Pens' HOF, already. Remains to be seen if Ronnie his fellow theoretical inductee can cajole...9_9)
Re: So I'm just curious
Date: 2010-02-17 02:17 am (UTC)Not maybe that loquacious, but there's not *that* much competition! Honestly, I don't remember how, but it certainly happened, and now that you've started posting this, I will have to keep up.
Oh my, that picture is great! Totally saving it right away, and mulling over this whole concept of Barrasso growing up, :D
Re: So I'm just curious
Date: 2010-02-17 02:50 am (UTC)I'll probably have to start using these (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/fangsb/pens/12486.png) -- at some point...
(And (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/fangsb/pens/12496.png) these..) (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/fangsb/pens/16540.png)
It's not that, just that Tommy's been about 2000 years old ever since he was born, and life and spirit haven't helped him to "grow down" much.
But apparently perfectly normal, accepted, and admired within the geographical limits of Greater Raleigh. (No one knows or cares who he is, that's the fun part for him there.) (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/fangsb/pens/10598.png)