#also we're handwaving how Geno can write in English but has his usual speech patterns he has a really good editor okay?

[fanforthefics]

For the @sidgeno-fluff-fest prompt “farming”. As per usual, went sideways. Comes in around 5k. 

Geno drives for hours before he gets to the farm. It’s not something he’s surprised about—he’d been warned that this was the middle of nowhere—but he’s still somehow taken aback, by the long rows of trees on either side of the road, by the few cars around him. There’s isolation and there’s isolation, and this is clearly the latter. He stops the car a few times to snap some pictures; the magazine will like that.

He knows before he sees the number that he reached the farm. There’s a stone wall around the edge of the property, not tall enough to prevent jumping but a clear barrier, and beyond it fields of something growing in neat rows. Geno sees a big red barn, then it falls out of sight around a curve in the road as he keeps driving until he reaches a gate. The gate is big and imposing, and it has a modern security system on it—clearly the best money can buy.

Geno rolls down the window to push the button. The humid summer heat blasts in, not quite kept at bay by the laboring air conditioner of his car.

“Yes?” a staticy voice comes over the intercom.

“Is Geno Malkin,” Geno tells the button. He’s not sure if there’s a camera, so he looks as trustworthy and as like the ID photo security had requested he send ahead of time as possible. “For interview?”

“Oh, yeah. Come on in.”

The buzzer sounds, and the gate swings open. Geno closes the window thankfully, and drives through.

The lane is long and winding, through more fields and what looks like a pasture, given that there are some sheep on it. Then Geno rounds a curve, and there’s the house. It’s an old sprawling farmhouse, somehow both utterly and charmingly cliché. To its side there’s a fenced off area with more things growing; next to that are some chickens. And on the porch is the man Geno came to see, leaning casually against a pillar in jeans and an old Habs t-shirt that’s barely holding on to his arms with a baseball cap over his head.

Sidney Crosby, the boy wonder who became one of the most solidly producing musician of the generation, whose face has been on billboards over Times Square and Vogue magazine and, admittedly, on Geno’s wall, stands on the porch of his farmhouse much like he once had a stage: confident, proprietary, and more attractive than he had a right to be.

///

Geno parks his car at the end of the driveway next to an old, worn-in looking pickup and a Chevy Tahoe. Even Crosby at his height—which, arguably, he hasn’t considerably dropped from—had never been one for flashy purchases, but still, part of Geno wonders if there’s a Mercedes in the barn of something. Or, realistically, this isn’t Crosby’s only house. He has one in New York, and there’s a rumor that he has one back in his Canadian home town, though no one’s been willing to confirm that to Geno. Maybe there’s more flash there.

Crosby’s come down from the house while Geno’s busy making sure he has everything, so he’s waiting a few meters away when Geno gets out of the car.

Geno’s seen him in person once before, at a concert years ago, and while he’d been in the press seats then he still hadn’t been nearly important enough to get close enough to really see Crosby. Up close, Geno can see that what everyone has always said about Crosby is true—he really is different in front of cameras. Geno’s always found all the pictures of Crosby a little endearingly awkward, like he’s not sure what to do with himself. But in person, Crosby’s a lot to take in.

“Hi!” Geno says, when he’s managed to get out of the car. “Geno Malkin.”

“Sidney Crosby.” Crosby reaches out to take Geno’s hand. He’s got a firm handshake, with callouses on his palms like he doesn’t just sing for a living. Geno very firmly tells the part of him that is still eighteen years old and dreaming of stardom and a place where he could be himself and dreaming about the boy on TV with his pretty eyes and solid ass to shut up. He’s a professional. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet,” Geno agrees. He lets go of Crosby’s hand before he holds on too long.

“Do you need a hand? Is there anything else?” Crosby asks, looking back at Geno’s car.

Geno raises his eyebrow. “You say no video.”

“You’d be surprised what interviewers will bring,” Crosby replies easily. “Come on, let’s go back to the house, it’s too hot out here.”

Geno, who’d been a little distracted by the heat by the way the skin of Crosby’s forearms glowed in the sun, nods a little sheepishly. “Yes, good.” He falls into step with Crosby. “What weird things interviewers bring?” he asks. He’s putting the interviewee at ease. This is his job.

Crosby shrugs. “The best was when they brought two Labrador puppies,” he says instead of answering. Geno doesn’t push right now, not when he’s still trying to get past that famed Crosby bland good nature.

“Puppies always best,” Geno agrees as they climb onto the porch.

Crosby smiles at him as he pulls the door open. “You don’t mind dogs, then? Good.”

He doesn’t explain more, but he doesn’t have to when the barking starts, and nails on hardwood herald the arrival of a yellow lab, who noses at Geno’s knees and keeps barking excitedly.

“Sam!” Crosby orders, but it’s softened by laughter, and the dog—Sam—ignores him. So does Geno, who kneels down to greet him properly.

“Hi, you good boy, yes,” he murmurs, petting the dog and laughing a little as Sam licks at his face. “Yes, best boy.”

When he looks up, Crosby’s looking down at them, and while his face is generally set in a neutral smile, there’s something that looks like more of a real smile at the corner of his eyes—the smile Geno had seen when one of his team had snuck videos of him in a recording studio, his guitar on his lap and his eyes half closed as he sang.

Geno swallows and stands up. He is a professional. This should be like any other interview he’s ever done.

“Had him long?” he asks, gesturing at Sam.  

Crosby’s eyes flick over Geno, like he’s evaluating. “A few years,” he says. “I got him a little after I got back into it.”

After the concussion, he doesn’t say, but he doesn’t have to. Anyone who follows the music industry even a little—or is a Sidney Crosby fan—knows about the accident that took him out of the game for almost two years, right at the height of his fame. Geno can remember seeing the youtube video that showed it—the light falling on stage, Crosby’s collapse.

But the Crosby now doesn’t look anything like the still figure on the stage that the video shows. This Crosby looks strong enough to lift an ox. “So,” he says. “Living room okay for the interview?”

“Yes, okay. Wherever you most comfortable.”

“Great.” Crosby leads the way to the living room, which looks, in all honesty, more like a decorator decorated than he did. It’s comfortable enough, but it has the slightly too-polished look Geno associates with rooms no one lives in. In a corner of the room, there’s a display case; Geno can just see some gold gramophones statuettes there.

Crosby takes a seat on the couch, gestures Geno to an arm chair. When he sits down, he spreads his legs a little, claiming the space. Geno doesn’t think at all about the strength in those thighs. Whatever Crosby’s been doing up here on the farm, it’s working for him.

“Oh, hey. Want something to drink first?” Crosby asks, just as he gets settled.

“No, good.” Geno shakes his head. “If you want, should get.”

Crosby shrugs. “I’m fine for right now.” He leans back in the couch, clearly waiting.

Geno had prepared questions—had worked hard on the questions, because he knew perfectly well that this interview could make or break his career. No one had really interviewed Sidney Crosby for years, not since he got enough fame that he didn’t need the interviews for promo. Certainly no one had gotten to come to his house. Geno’s doing okay for himself, but neither he nor his magazine are nearly at the level where they should be the ones here.

And yet. Here he is, with Sidney Crosby looking levelly at him. The boy Geno had been couldn’t even have conceived of this.

“Why farm?” he asks, instead of all of them. “Thought you would go back to Canada, to boat.”

It startles a laugh out of Crosby, something loud and unpracticed. It’s maybe the first thing about him Geno’s seen that didn’t seen polished; it’s incredibly charming, as is the color that dusts across his cheeks after.

“I, uh. Don’t know, really.” Crosby pushes his lips together. “I love Cole Harbor, and it’ll always be home, but it’s not exactly someplace I can disappear. Up here, there’s nothing.”

“Yes, I see.”

Another quick smile from Crosby. Geno isn’t keeping score, but he definitely thinks he’s winning something. “Are you going to write any of this down?” Crosby asks, nodding at Geno’s bag.

“Will write down when you say something interesting,” Geno replies, maybe too informal, but he sees the glint in Crosby’s eyes. Maybe he says he wants to disappear up here, but he doesn’t look like he wants Geno to stop teasing. He’s a reporter, he needs to adapt to the needs of the interviewee. “May take long time, but willing to wait.”

“We’ll see what wins, your persistence or my media training,” Crosby agrees. He settles back, and crosses his arms over his chest. If it’s a move meant to distract Geno from that persistence, it’s a good one; it pulls the fabric of his t-shirt taut over his arms and shoulders so that Geno could probably see every muscle there. Muscles that he’s definitely, under different circumstances, imagined licking. “I should warn you, people say I’m competitive.”

Because Geno is very tactful, he doesn’t make the obvious retort of ‘no duh.’ There are maybe three things the world is sure about Sidney Crosby: that he’s an amazing musician, that he will never say anything about his private life if he can say a bland nothing instead, and that he’s an awful loser.

That must play out on Geno’s face anyway, because Crosby gives a rueful half smile. “Yeah, I’m not very good at hiding that one.”

Geno shrugs. “Can’t hide everything,” he replies, though Crosby’s lived his life doing as much of that as he can. But people have asked him why he’s so private for years and no one’s ever gotten an answer. Instead, he asks. “You not go into something where get to win lots, though?”

“I almost did,” Crosby says, and Geno tries not to scramble for his notepad. It’s part of the mythos of Sidney Crosby—the hockey prodigy who chose music over the ice—but it’s not something Crosby talks about, really.

“Why not, then?”

Crosby hums. “A lot of reasons. Hockey had gotten…bad, around then. I mean, music doesn’t mean people are ever showering me with praise, but hockey—it got dangerous.” He doesn’t have any emotion in relating this, but Geno grits his teeth and tries not to think about that kid. “And there was a lot of family pressure, and hockey was always going to have a shelf life in a way that music doesn’t have to, and…” Crosby shrugs. “I think in some ways I loved hockey more, and I didn’t want to make that my life too.” He smiles again, just a little crooked. “Now I can just kick friends’ asses on the ice for fun.”

“Not kick mine,” Geno boasts, partly because he might be a competitive asshole too, but also because he isn’t thinking. This is so much more than the usual anodyne answers Crosby usually gives.

“Yeah?” Crosby asks. His eyes are glinting again, and they flick up and down Geno quickly. Assessing. “We’ll have to see.”

Geno refuses to blush. “So, music instead? Ever regret?”

The smile fades into thoughtfulness. “Regret’s not the right word. There’s always a path not taken, eh? Sometimes I wonder. My life would be pretty different. But if I’d gone the hockey route, I’d probably wonder too, so.” He shrugs fatalistically. “I’m happy. That’s what matters.”

Geno doesn’t say what he thinks, that he’s not sure Crosby does look happy. He’s a reporter, he’s not here to judge. But he is here to observe, and he hasn’t seen anyone other than Crosby’s dog—hasn’t seen evidence of another person, or of a house that’s really lived in. When Geno pictures happiness, it’s the noise and craziness of his parents’ house; it’s dinner with Gonch’s family and the girls talking over each other; it’s cuddling someone close.

But he doesn’t know Crosby, not really. No matter how often he’s listened to his music.

“Do you have questions about the album, then?” Crosby asks, and Geno starts. Right. He can be a professional.

“Yes, now you warmed up,” he nods. “So. Mr. Crosby—”

Crosby laughs, that same suddenly loud noise that makes Geno grin back. “Sidney. Sid. Seriously, Mr. Crosby?”

Geno’s still smiling, because of the laugh and because Sidney Crosby just told him to call him Sid. “Not want to presume,” Geno demurs.

Crosby shakes his head, and there’s a quick glance at Geno from those hazel-gold eyes. “I don’t mind you presuming,” he says, and Geno’s heart does something that definitely isn’t beating normally. “And anyway, don’t make me say the clichés about my dad. Sid.”

Geno had tried very hard to train himself into thinking of them as two separate people—as Crosby, who he was going to interview professionally, and Sidney, whose poster he’d had on his wall and whose songs he’d had memorized. If he did that, he wouldn’t get mixed up with those teenaged dreams he could never quite quash, of Sid murmuring to him to call him Sid and looking at Geno like he what he meant was kiss me.

But then again, Sidney had asked. It would be rude not to. “Sid, then. So, tell me about new album? Why now?”

Sidney straightens, and that honey-sweet look disappears from his face like it had never been.

They talk for a while longer, about Sidney’s music and his new scheduled tour and all of the conventional interview questions. It’s more of the same, that Geno’s read in every interview of Sidney’s since he was sixteen and had to use google translate to make sure he got everything.

When they’re done with questions, Sidney volunteers to show him around the house, and it’s not like Geno is going to say no. The rest of the house is sprawling, and it’s the same impersonal decoration until they get to the studio—that’s clearly where Sidney spends most of his time, professionally set up with all of Sidney’s instruments and recording equipment and a couch with a notebook on the seat and the pillows messy, like Sidney had just gotten up from it when Geno had rung the bell.

“You play something?” Geno suggests with his most innocent face on, once Sidney’s finished showing him the recording equipment—apparently it’s very good and Sidney’s really into it, which is another one of those inexplicably charming things about him.

Sidney snorts. “Yeah?”

“Need full experience, yes.” Geno nods very solemnly.

Crosby shakes his head, but he grabs a guitar. “Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“So you can’t record,” Sidney explains. He’s looking at Geno like this is a normal request. “I’ll play you something off the new album, but you need to give me your phone.”

It seems like a fair trade. Geno pulls his phone out of his pocket and hands it to Sidney, who puts it in his own pocket and sits down on the couch. He leans over the guitar, fusses a little with the tuning.

“Okay. So this is one of the newest songs,” Sidney warns. “I’m still working out some kinks. Just as a warning.”

“Yes, sure it will be very bad,” Geno agrees, and leans against the wall. “Sell no records, for sure.”

He’s not even sure if Sidney’s heard. He strums the guitar, then he starts to sing.

It’s—Geno’s loved Sidney’s voice for over a decade now, and he continues to improve and innovate on his music in ways that never fail to awe Geno. Geno’s a fan. Geno’s listened to his songs on CDs, on ipods, in person and in shitty youtube concert recordings.

None of that is anything like listening to him here. Like standing in this small room with just Sidney’s voice and the guitar to fill it, hearing Sidney sing about what it feels to always be searching and never finding. Watching Sidney’s fierce concentration on the song, how his tongue pokes out of his mouth even when he’s just playing, the way it fills his whole body. Geno doesn’t breathe for what might be hours, though its actually only maybe a minute.

When Sidney’s done, he glances up at Geno. His cheeks are a little flushed, and there’s a smile on the edge of his lips like just experiencing the music made him happy. “That bad?”

Geno draws in a harsh breath. This is the moment he’ll play over in daydreams, he knows—the moment when in his dreams he’ll know what Sid wants, and Geno will push him back into the couch and see if he can make him that happy too, see if he can communicate just how amazing Sid is with his body because words can’t be enough.

“Eh, all right,” Geno manages to say, and Sidney laughs. He sets the guitar back on the stand, and gets up. Geno can’t help watching the pull of his t-shirt, how he shakes out his fingers. His article is going to be a fannish mess and he can’t even bring himself to care.

“Want to see the good part, now?”

Geno is a professional, and doesn’t hit on his interviewees, or on international pop sensations who probably get hit on all the time and don’t want to deal with it from Geno. So he doesn’t make a quip about the bedroom. Instead,

“This not the good part?”

“Nah. Let me know you why I bought the place.”

///

Geno’s not sure what he’s expecting, but it’s definitely not for Sidney to take him outside and walk him around the fields and tell him about the new bean growing techniques he’s using. He gets really into it, too, more into it than anything else Geno talked with him about, his hands moving excitedly as he sketches things in the air, his eyes lit up. Geno’d always heard Sidney was a weird guy beneath the pop star polish, but he hadn’t expected farming.

It’s part of the whole realization of the experience—that Sidney Crosby is everything and nothing like he expected; as attractive and personable and good and self-contained, but also more than a little dorky and funny and more humble than anyone with a Grammy should be. And also more knowledgeable about beans than anyone else with a Grammy, probably.

“You really into this,” he observes, as they circle around to what Sidney called his personal garden—it’s the part the farmhands allow him to actually touch, he’d admitted with a sheepish smile that wasn’t helping Geno’s wanting to kiss him problem.

Sidney shrugs. “It’s cool, eh? To make something tangible. I didn’t really expect to actually run it, but.” He makes a face, and his cheeks are a little tinged with red. “I don’t exactly do things halfway.”

“So now you farmer.”

“I guess. When I can get up here.” They’ve made it to the pasture, and Sidney leans forward, bracing both of his forearms on the fence. Geno gets the no picture rule, but it’s such a waste to miss this—Sidney’s bare, muscled forearms gilded in the late afternoon sun, his hair just a little messy from the day, his ass even more too much than usual, all set against the backdrop of the green grass and blue skies. “I don’t spend as much time here as I’d like. And with the tour, I won’t be up here soon again.” He’s still looking out over the pasture, and his tongue flicks out to lick his lips. “Even when I’m not here, though, it’s nice knowing that it exists. That it’s a place for me to come back to. That even if everything else goes to shit, it’s here. The sun’ll come up, the grass will grow. I’ll have beans, come fall.”

He’s smiling a little again, and Geno is suddenly, viscerally struck by how abnormal this is. Sidney Crosby doesn’t say things like that to reporters. Sidney Crosby doesn’t sing new songs, he doesn’t invite reporters to his private sanctuary, he doesn’t tell them to presume. This is like something out of one of Geno’s teenaged dreams, but he’s not a teenager and he’s not dreaming.

“Why me?” he asks. “Why have me interview?”

He doesn’t fill in the blanks, and Sidney doesn’t ask him to. They both know that Sidney could have had anyone up here in an instant, and that he chose Geno instead of Rolling Stone.

Instead, Sidney nods slowly, though he doesn’t look at Geno. “During the concussion—a lot of people said I was done. That I’d never make it back.” His hands on the fence flex and close, the muscles working smoothly beneath his skin. “And when I was at my worst, I believed it. But you wrote an article—you probably don’t even remember it, I don’t know how I found it, but it talked about me coming back like it was a given. Like you couldn’t imagine me not coming back. Like it was important to you, and to everyone. It was—I could barely look at the screen long enough to read it, at that point. But it made me want to come back too.”

Sidney glances over at Geno then, and his eyes are solemn and the same honey-brown as the sun-warmed wood and he’s looking at Geno like there’s nothing else in the world. “That article meant a lot to me. And I wanted to help you out too.”

Geno’s heart is beating double time, or maybe not at all. He remembers that article. Maybe he could recite it. It hadn’t been much, just a few paragraphs, but—he remembered that time too, remembered Sidney unconscious on the stage, the few photos after of him, gaunt and somehow small, in a way Geno had never thought of him before. It had made Geno want to wrap him up in blankets and hold him tight and promise him that no one would ever hurt him again; failing that, it had made Geno hope someone else was telling him that. He hadn’t dared hope that his little article would have helped.

“Know article help you, that enough,” Geno says. Too honest, maybe, but true. “That what I want it to do. You best. Want to make sure everyone remember.”

Sidney smiles again, but it’s different from the shock of a grin before, or the media smile. It’s a slow, sweet smile, and it cuts through Geno more than any flirtation might. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” Geno doesn’t break eye contact. Sidney’s smile lingers, then he glances back down at his hands.

“Also, I’ve read some of your other stuff. You’re really good. You should be doing more.” Sidney says. “This should give you a boost.”  

“Everyone want to read about you?” Geno teases, and Sidney shifts, clearly uncomfortable.

“I mean—or, I don’t mean. It’s not that—it’ll get you some viewership. I can send it to my PR people, they can spread it—”

“Sidney. Sid,” Geno interrupts, before Sidney can apparently turn full Canadian apologetic on him. “I tease. Of course everyone want read about you.”

“Well, I didn’t want to presume,” Sidney shoots back, though his cheeks are tinged red.

Really, there’s only one thing Geno can do with that. “Maybe I want you to presume,” he echoes Sidney from earlier.

Sidney smiles again, slow and a little less sweet—a little more of the confidence he has on stage, that this is his territory. It’s not necessarily how Geno had fantasized Sid looking in bed, but it definitely will be now.

Then a phone rings, and Geno jumps. It only makes him feel a little better that Sidney starts too. He digs in his pocket, pulls out a phone.

“This is my sister, sorry,” he says, the heat gone like Geno had imagined it. “I need to take this.”

Of course he does. Sidney’s never been shy about talking about how his sister is the most important person in his life. Of course he really meant that.

“Yes, take,” Geno agrees. Sidney give shim an absent nod, then puts the phone to his ear.

“Hey Taylor,” he says into the phone, and he’s smiling again as he wanders a little away.

///

Geno leaves not long after Sidney gets off the phone, with an apologetic speech from Sidney about how he has a call with his foundation he needs to get on soon. It’s not like Geno can say no to that, so he lets Sidney and Sam usher him back to his car.

He opens the door, and then there’s nothing to do but get in it. He takes one last look around the farm as he goes—for the article, he tells himself, but really he knows it’s for Sidney, standing easily on his land, looking less like a celebrity and more like someone Geno could imagine coming home to, with his dog at his feet and some dirt on his hands.

“Thank you for talk,” Geno says, sticking out his hand. “And for let me see farm.”

“Yeah, of course. Thank you for coming. I hope you got enough for your article.” Sidney takes his hand, shakes it. Geno tries to fix the feeling in his mind—what Sid’s skin feels like. What having him this close feels like. The exact angle of that crooked smile.

“More than enough,” Geno assures him. He doesn’t want to let go, but he does. Sidney doesn’t comment if the handshake went on too long, just hovers as Geno gets into the car and starts to closes the door.

Right before the door closes, Sidney straightens. “Oh, wait!” Geno freezes. Sidney digs into his pocket, and holds something out to Geno—his phone. “Don’t want to forget this.”  

“No, be bad,” Geno agrees, and takes the phone. Inexplicably, Sidney goes red again. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Sidney drops his hand when Geno has the phone. “Um. Bye, I guess.”

“Yes, bye,” Geno agrees, and then there’s nothing more to do but get in and drive back down the lane. He sees Sidney in the rearview mirror one more time, silhouetted against his farm with his dog at his feet, then he’s rounded the bend and he’s gone.

///

Geno stops for gas a few kilometers away, and pulls out his phone as he fills up to check in with his editor and tell him he’s got everything he could ever need while he’s at it, and also maybe to whine a little bit about how Sidney Crosby is actually perfect and it’s not fair why couldn’t he be one of those celebrities who are awful when you meet them?

There’s a notification waiting for him, from a—and he nearly drops the gas nozzle—Sid.

He fumbles his phone open, so the whole message shows up. It’s long. Geno can’t breathe.

This is Sidney Crosby, the text reads, and Geno manages a laugh through his shock. I took your number from your phone, I hope you don’t mind. You really should put a passcode on it. I just wanted to say that I enjoyed meeting you in person today, and that if you wanted, you could text me sometime. If you need some more for the article, or if you don’t. Now that you have my number.

Geno stares at his phone as the gas flow clicks off. He leave the nozzle in the car so he can compose a text with both hands.

Hi, he writes carefully. This is Geno. Are you serious about texting?

Three dots pop up, then, I told you. I’d like you to presume.

Geno closes his eyes, but the words are still bright in his mind. The part of him that is still sixteen slowly sinks to the floor in ecstasy. The part of him that is in his twentys replaces the gas nozzle and pays, then gets in his car.

Once he’s there, he gathers his courage. He doesn’t think there’s more than one way to read this. He doesn’t think Sidney would be too mad if he read it another way. Be careful. I might presume a lot.

Three dots, then.

Good.