#and Dick loves his weird quiet twenty-something who has the social skills of a rat

[arkangelo-7]

The dichotomy of Batman and Robin is so fucking funny because on one hand you have a brooding, dramatic millennial with a rigid moral compass and a sense of extensional dread, and on the other you have an emotional support child that is somehow the literal embodiment of both sunshine and straight-up murder.

[punmasterkentparson]

Sleep Talk

inspired by this post, because i think it’d be hilarious if Alexei Mashkov talked in his sleep and unwittingly inflicted it on Kent. But then feelings happened?

also on ao3.

“I love you, big rat.”

Kent is in the process of picking his clothes off Alexei Mashkov’s hotel room floor in the near-dark when this statement comes from the bed. In slow motion, Kent turns. He can just make out Alexei’s silhouette from the lights of Vegas coming through the hotel room window.

He doesn’t know which he’s more baffled by: the love confession from a guy he literally just hooked up with last night, or the attached nickname that’s either an insult or an unfortunate mistranslation from Russian.

“...Sorry, what?”

Alexei is still horizontal in bed, but he shrugs as if he’s sitting up. He hasn’t even opened his eyes. “It’s fine. Take the turtles with you, they’re lonely.”

Kent gapes. “What turtles?”

“The ones underground. Don’t feed them after midnight.” Then, as if that has concluded the conversation, Alexei rolls over under the blankets and presumably goes back to sleep.

Kent pulls on his clothes and sneaks out of the room. As he drives himself home, he wonders under his breath, “Turtles?!”

--

All-Star weekend is a gift and a curse. It’s a curse because it pulls Kent out of regular season and away from his team. It’s a gift because he loves kicking ass in the skills competitions. But mostly, it’s a gift because this year, when he’s out at a bar and spots Mashkov watching him, the hot tingle he gets isn’t residual terror from the memory of being single-handedly yanked out of a dogpile and yelled at in Russian last year.

Okay, it isn’t just from the memory of that.

The first hookup had involved a some name-calling and taken a while to get from ‘resentful opponents’ to ‘resentful opponents working off sexual tension.’ This time, it’s easier. All Kent has to do is slip Mashkov a napkin with his room number on it and then tell everyone he’s calling it a night. The guys accuse him of being a wet blanket for ditching the party early, but that just means they’re all still out when Kent lets Mashkov into his room at the hotel.

Mashkov blows him on the bed, both of them still half-dressed, then turns Kent around and fucks his way to orgasm between Kent’s squeezed thighs. It’s almost as good a workout as the day’s events had been. It’s definitely more satisfying. Lying on the bed afterward, Kent feels like his brain has melted, in the best way.

Mashkov, facedown on the blankets at Kent’s left, grunts. “We messy. Get towel.”

Kent’s legs are slippery with lube and his muscles are jelly. “You get it.”

“Rock paper scissors you for not go.”

Kent snorts but holds up a hand. They throw down, and Mashkov loses.

After they’ve wiped up the spunk and Kent has graciously tossed the towel back in the bathroom, Mashkov rolls off the bed and starts collecting his clothes. Kent watches, thoroughly enjoying the muscular flex of Mashkov’s ass whenever he bends down. “You wanna just stay over?” he asks, without even thinking.

Mashkov turns, nose wrinkled in confusion. “Why?”

Kent shrugs. “’Cause I wanna blow you tomorrow morning, and if I do it in the locker room or the showers, the guys’ll complain.”

Mashkov laughs, shakes his head, and says, “Okay. It’s good plan.” He pulls his briefs back on but leaves off everything else. Kent goes to brush his teeth, and when he comes back to bed, Mashkov is already under the blankets and half-asleep. Even with the heat on in the room, Kent gravitates to pocket of warmth on Mashkov’s side.

Even though he can’t quite admit it to himself, he falls asleep faster and easier with Mashkov there. He even drops into a deeper sleep than usual.

So when Mashkov grabs his arm in the middle of the night, Kent startles awake like he’s been stabbed.

“The fuck!? Oh, shit. Mashkov, what the hell--”

Mashkov responds in Russian.

“I don’t know what the hell you just said?”

“Oh, sorry,” Mashkov says, in what is...Jesus Christ, is that Jack’s Canadian accent? “We’re not in Russia?”

“We’re in Florida. Why do you sound Canadian?”

Mashkov frowns. “What is he usually?” he asks, his accent now closer to Rhode Island.

Kent stares, wide-eyed, and for the first time in his life entertains the notion that body-snatchers are real. “You’re Russian? But you speak English?”

“Oh,” Mashkov says, thankfully back to his normal accent. “You don’t say.” And he lets go of Kent’s arm and rolls over. Within ten seconds, he’s snoring.

Kent can’t get back to sleep for another half hour.

--

In the morning, Kent wakes to find Mashkov already sitting up in bed and scrolling through his phone.

"Do you talk in your sleep?" Kent blurts.

Mashkov jumps at the sound of Kent's voice. He puts his phone down and looks over. "Little bit? Why, I'm say something last night?" He's grinning.

"You grabbed me in the middle of the night and asked if we were in Russia. You had a Canadian accent. And you talked about yourself in the third person."

Mashkov laughs. "Sorry. It's happen sometimes. Never remember what I say."

"In Vegas you talked about turtles," Kent says accusingly.

Mashkov laughs some more and shrugs. "I don't know what it's mean. It's just my brain, you know? Say stuff, I'm not thinking."

"Your brain has weird thoughts."

Mashkov winks and puts his phone on the nightstand. "Maybe you guess what my brain is thinking about now? Give you hint, it's about your mouth and my dick."

Kent rolls his eyes and shoves him, right before ducking under the sheets.

--

They hook up twice more during the All-Star weekend. Then it's back to the regular season. They're on opposite ends of the country more often than not, but Kent somehow ended up with Alexei's phone number (and vice versa) so the distance between them seems to shrink.

It turns out that Alexei is fun to talk to even when he's NOT sleep-talking. He's a social media fiend who Instagrams everything he eats, and also things he wishes he could eat--like ice cream.

"I'm lactase intolerant," Alexei tells him over Skype one night. The video is off but they've got audio, and Kent is at home so he's multitasking by talking to Alexei and also cleaning Kit's endless toys off the floor. Alexei adds, "It was first English I learn when I come here. Because agent not want Mama and Papa kill him because I die in milk accident."

Kent laughs so hard that Kit flattens her ears. "So that's why your Instagam feed is full of cheese."

"Want to eat so much," Alexei moans. "Sometimes in off season I'm eat a little, even though make me sick and have gas. Trainer always know, always sigh like I'm disappoint her. And then ban me from office, sometimes weight room, because she say farts is smell too bad."

Kent laughs harder. "Shit, you're ridiculous."

"Takes one to know one," Alexei replies, and even through the connection, Kent can hear the grin.

A week later, Kent is in Toronto and Alexei is in Tampa. The Leafs trounce the Aces, and the Falcs lose in a shoot-out.

Kent doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He just wants to sleep. From the lack of texts on Alexei’s end, he guesses the feeling is shared. It’s fine. Everyone deals with losses their own way. Kent knows his own grief cycle by now, and how to get himself through it by the time he has to play another game. He gets on the bus to the hotel, chats with the guys who need to talk about it, and then goes to his hotel room and finds something mindless to watch for an hour. By the time he’s brushing his teeth and turning off the lights, he’s not exactly calm, but he’s not wound up so tightly that he’ll get caught in a spiral of doubt and self-blame the second his head hits the pillow.

He expects to fall asleep. He can’t.

Taking his phone off the nightstand, he checks for texts. There aren’t any. He sends a quick message anyway.

u up?

There’s no reply for such a long time that Kent gives up and puts the phone back. He’s just starting to drift when a buzz startles him back awake.

yes. skype?

Kent stares for a second. His heart thumps hard in his chest. He just sent a text, he wasn’t asking for...

He thumbs open the app and hits CALL.

Alexei answers without video. “Don’t want talk,” he says, apologetic. “Sorry. Just... sound. Room quiet, head loud.”

Kent is already lying back down, resting the phone near his head. “No, it’s okay. I get it.”

Rustling bedsheets come through the connection. “Thank you.”

Kent doesn’t say ‘you’re welcome,’ because he feels like he needs this, too. Alexei is right; the room is quiet and his head is still too loud. But with the background susurrus of someone else’s breath, he falls asleep within minutes.

Then, in the middle of the night, he stirs. It takes him a muddled moment to understand what woke him up. There’s a voice, tinny and digital, coming from his pillow, and it’s speaking in Russian.

Kent blinks at his phone, glowing in the dark. The Skype connection never cut out.

“Alexei? Are you sleep talking, or are you awake?”

“Fuck you, Santa Claus, you owe me twenty dollars,” Alexei replies, clear as day and clearly dead asleep. Kent has to bury his face in the pillow to keep from laughing. When he can manage speech, he says, “That dick. He should pay you.”

“If it’s yellow, they’ll buy it,” Alexei mutters, sounding pissed as hell. Kent puts his face back in the pillow; there are tears coming down his cheeks.

Alexei goes on, “Nevermind, it’s Wednesday,” and then two seconds later, snores lightly as he falls back into deep sleep.

It’s a long time before Kent calms down enough to sleep again. And even then, he’s still smiling.

--

The Aces’ last game of regular season is in Providence. It means nothing, because everyone has known since last week that the Falcs are going to the playoffs, while the Aces are not.

Kent works hard not to think of it as a throwaway game. He knows the team is just ready for the season to end. They missed a wild card spot by one point, which they’d have gotten if they’d pushed a game against the Hurricanes into overtime. And even though Kent knows that the Falconers win 3-2 because they’re riding the high of success while the Aces are mentally checked out, it still feels like the last nail in a coffin being lowered into a grave that he dug for himself through an entire season’s worth of small mistakes.

He doesn’t meet Alexei’s eyes when they go through the handshake line. For that reason, it’s not remotely a surprise when Alexei tries to call him after the game. But by then, the Aces are already on a flight back to Vegas, so Kent doesn’t get the notifications until after they’ve landed and disembarked.

Alexei called five times and left two messages. Kent ignores them all. When a sixth call comes through, he waits until it disconnects and then turns off his phone.

This isn’t like the few other times they Skyped overnight. Alexei can’t share this loss with him. Kent would rather he didn’t try.

--

Nashville knocks the Falcs from the playoffs in game seven of the second round. It makes Kent feel like a dick. Alexei has texted him several times and tried to call him as well, and Kent hasn’t responded, on the grounds that he wasn’t ready to stop feeling like shit. Now, Alexei will be grieving, and Kent wants to call him. But after what he did, he wouldn’t be surprised if Alexei gave him the cold shoulder in return.

He almost doesn’t reach out. But he knows he’ll be angrier with himself for not trying, than getting cut off permanently and knowing he earned it.

At 10pm on a Saturday, Kent gets up the nerve to dial. Alexei doesn’t take the call. Kent’s heart sinks into his socks and he curls up around Kit on the bed.

Ten minutes later, his phone buzzes with a text.

skype?

“I’m sorry,” Kent says as soon as the audio call connects. It’s the exact same thing as an actual phone call, but there’s symbolism at work here that doesn’t escape him for a second. “You tried to talk to me. I should have answered.”

“Apology accepted. Is okay.” Alexei sounds tired, raw. Like he’s been taking out his frustrations on himself at the gym, but instead of earning some peace, he’s just hollowed himself out. Kent knows the feeling.

“I’m sorry I’m like this,” Kent says. He’s still wrapped around Kit, one hand petting her and the other cradling the phone. If he closes his eyes, it feels like Alexei is in the room with him. “I’ll probably always be like this.”

“Could be worse. Could never call.”

Kent swallows. “Guess that’s true.”

“I know is true.”

Alexei sounds so confident that it drags a faint smile out of Kent. But it fades as he murmurs, “And, I’m sorry. For...” He doesn’t have to say it for Alexei to know what he means.

There’s a small silence, and then Alexei whispers, “Me, too. Want so much. Think we get, this year.”

“Yeah.”

They both fall silent. Neither hangs up. It’s getting late, and Kent knows he should sleep. He’s already dressed for bed. But he doesn’t want to hang up, not yet. “Do you want to... I don’t know. Talk about it?” The words feel trite as soon as they’re out of his mouth.

“No. Not about... Don’t want talk about it. But maybe just... we talk?” He sounds hesitant. Kent has never known him to be hesitant.

“That sounds good to me,” Kent says. But then he can’t think of something to say.

Alexei chuckles. “I don’t know what talk about.”

“You could just go to sleep,” Kent says. “You talk in your sleep, you’ll say something eventually.”

“Yes, ‘weird shit,’ you tell me.” There’s still exhaustion coming through, but warmth is creeping into Alexei’s tone. “Why you want hear if it’s weird?”

“‘Cause it’s also fucking hilarious. I told you about Santa, right?”

“Asshole still owe me money.”

Kent guffaws, startling Kit. “Well, Christmas is over, so you’ll have to head up to the North Pole if you want him to pay up.”

Alexei snorts. “You say I’m say weird shit.”

“You do. You know that first night we hooked up, in Vegas, you called me a big rat?”

“I call you big rat even when not sleeping, that’s not weird shit.”

“You monologue, sometimes,” Kent insists. “In Russian. Other times you’ll have halfway normal conversations with me, which isn’t even weird, it’s creepy. And you keep asking me about turtles. Why the fuck do you care so much about turtles?”

Alexei isn’t even listening anymore, he’s laughing. It makes Kent grin, still alone on his bed in the dark except for his cat, but with Alexei’s voice filling the room it doesn’t feel so awful.

That doesn’t change how tired he is, though. A yawn escapes him.

“Kent?”

“‘M here. I can keep talking. I just might fall asleep in the middle.”

“Okay.” Alexei is smiling too, Kent can hear it. “Maybe it’s same for me, too. But I like this. I like be with you when I’m go to sleep.”

Kent’s chest feels a little tight. He reaches down to tug the bedsheets over himself, and tugs the phone closer. “Yeah. Me, too.”