#learning curve ❤︎ rasmus sandin

[bunting27]

leanring curve ❤︎ r. sandin

chapter one. carter walker

a/n: kyle dubas. sleep with one eye open.

summary: carter finds herself in toronto, ontario after finally leaving behind her life in california. 

warnings: language, allusions to toxic relationship, i have never been to an airport or a pawn shop, pls bare with me

wc: 1.9k

✏︎

his words rang in her head over and over as she shoved clothes and necessities in a duffel bag as fast as she could manage.

if you really wanted to leave, you would. but i think you know deep down that you could never make it without me, you’re completely fucking useless. i take good care of you, and you’re just an ungrateful brat

if he really knew her at all, he’d have known she’d take that as a challenge. so here she was, packing everything she could while he was in a meeting. 

she could feel the tears welting in her eyes as she pulled off her engagement ring and slotted it into her jewelry box, but she refused to cry because of him anymore, so she held them there. she was careful with the box as she placed it into her bag and eased her way down the stairs and to the garage door.

there were cameras, but she knew well enough where they were, and she’d been studying how to bypass them without activating them for months. she took the path to the road she knew would cause the least amount of movement warnings on them and then sprinted to the nearest bus stop.

as soon as she was situated in the bus, it had felt like a weight lifted off her shoulders. that was until her phone went off, and it was tucker. 

tucker dawson : you’d better be going on a fucking jog

tucker dawson : attachment, 1 image

she inhaled sharply at the image he had sent her. a screenshot of her location labeled ‘carter’s iphone’ that was brightly highlighted at the bus stop her route had recently passed.

she hardly gave it a second thought before she opened the window on the bus and tossed her phone out of it, the other passengers on the bus giving her weird, judging looks until she flipped her hood over her head and sat back down.

-

carter took the box out of her hoodie pocket and placed it gently on the table in front of the man, whose interest was piqued. the box was wide but thin, covered in a soft velvet fabric that was kept perfectly maintained. 

when the man opened the box, his jaw fell open and he looked at her, flustered and at a loss for words. the box held two rings - her engagement ring and one tucker had given her when they first met. along with a necklace and a pair of stud earrings that matched the second ring.

her face never wavered as the man admired and muttered compliments at the pieces. she didn’t want the whole spiel she normally got about how whoever got her these must love her so much. it was bullshit and she didn’t think she could hear it again without falling apart and listing every reason why tucker’s feelings for her were not ones of love.

“if you don’t have enough cash on hand a cheque will suffice” the man paused and stared at her for a moment.

“yes- yes ma’am. if you don’t mind, i will need to check these for authenticity. i’ll also need government identification and if possible, proof of purchase” she had never been so glad that tucker never gave a shit about her, because both of the rings were originally bought in the wrong size, so she had the receipts.

you’re so fucking ungrateful. here, take the receipts, go get them resized yourself. i did my part already.

she kept them for so long, something in the back of her mind telling her that one day it would save her ass. as usual, she was right. she almost teared up in relief as she pulled out her wallet, grabbing her licence and the two receipts. 

‘yes, of course. here you go,” she watched calmly as he scanned the diamond and the rubies for authenticity, and then quickly checked overall for any signs of the jewelry being fake or any wear and tear. 

he handed her her drivers licence back and pulled his checkbook out from the drawer where he was sitting, an exasperated smile on his face. 

“the dates on the receipts for the rubies are a couple years old, but the diamond ring is fairly new. they’re all kept in such perfect condition, though. so i think i can offer…” he scribbled some numbers down on a stray piece of paper, circling the final sum and showing it to her. 

it was far from a lowball offer, which she was ecstatic about, and she knew it would cover her flight and any basic necessities when she got to wherever she was going, at least until she got a job. so she took it. happily.

as he was writing out the cheque, he was gushing. “thank you, miss. for your contribution to our shop. these are just wow-” at those words, the owner came barreling around the corner, and carter smiled to herself. 

“james, how many times have i told you not to thank people while giving them our money, i- holy mother of christ, carter? sweetie what are you doing here, you’re loaded” carter nodded to the small collection she had just sold away and smiled sadly to the woman.

“you never did like tucker, auntie nat. i’ll see you around. thanks for your help, james”

-

carter let out a shaky sigh as cold water hit her face. it was almost two in the morning and she was exhausted, shaking and trying to keep it together long enough to ask the woman at the front desk for her ticket. 

it was so easy to sell off some jewelry that he’d gotten her, but now that she was actually at the airport, preparing to leave, everything was hitting her all at once. she wasn’t just leaving tucker, but her friends and everything she had in california.

she’d be starting off new, which she needed, but she still knew that she would miss it here, and that it wasn’t all bad. it was hard to let go. regardless, if she didn’t leave now she didn’t know if it’d ever be possible again, so she was just gonna have to suck it up.

the airport wasn’t as loud and overwhelming as it usually was, but it was still california, so an unreasonable amount of people were around to catch flights at this time of night. carter kept her hood over her head and her hand tight on the strap of her bag, walking out of the bathroom with her head down. 

she only looked up to see the list of flights coming up, and the desk receptionist was clearly in a snotty mood, so she tried to be quick, but her eyes were watering and the board quickly became a blob of light. 

“who comes to the airport in the middle of the night and doesn't know where they're trying to go?” carter bit the inside of her cheek and looked back down, wiping her face roughly in frustration. 

“wow, fuck, okay. get me far, but not like different language far. and fast. one way” the receptionist rolled her eyes and started typing away, looking back and forth between the screen in front of her and carter, who was staring at her feet.

the receptionist asked her several questions, such as her name and email, baggage questions and little things that carter was spewing out answers to faster than her mind could even comprehend.

“toronto. boarding in fifteen” carter nodded, digging her hand into the pockets of her sweatpants and handing the woman a handful of cash, about five hundred dollars.

“that enough?” the woman’s eyes blew wide and she nodded, printing off a ticket and handing it to her. carter walked rapidly to her section and sat, waiting for boarding to be announced without even taking her change. she just wanted to be alone with her thoughts for a minute. 

it felt like forever before she was finally in her seat, and when the plane took off, she felt like she could breathe for the first time in years.

-

carter decided she could thank tucker for one thing and one thing only - his absolute incapability to use any and all social media platforms. because it made her resume stacked in terms of social media management. it had only been three weeks of hotel hopping in toronto and she had an interview lined up earlier this morning. she’d be starting at her new job on saturday.

the perks were endless - a lot of travelling, benefits, and she’d be surrounded by her sport constantly. the job wasn’t at all physically challenging, so her knee wouldn’t give her any issues, and she assumed she wouldn't have any nagging co-workers asking her why in her right mind she’d leave beautiful california for the dumpster fire that was toronto in october.

she spent the last of the money she had on a used car, which she was able to pick up a few days ago, some clothes, food, furniture and her first and last on an apartment. 

on top of that, tucker hadn’t found any borderline psychotic ways of tracking her down yet, so her stay in toronto had been glorious so far. she was currently sat on the floor of her new place assembling ikea furniture, which given the circumstances wasn’t horrible.

she continued to tell herself that at least she wasn’t going from living off seven figures to living in a used 2002 honda civic. 

she guessed there were two things she could thank tucker for - stupidity and horribly expensive taste in jewelry.

-

so far, carter’s first day had gone amazing save for one thing - auston matthews asked a lot of questions. a lot of spontaneous, personal questions. she could have expected that from mitch, who was publicly known for his filterless mouth, but auston? she didn’t see that one coming.

what happened to your knee? where are you from? when did you get to toronto? why socials management? california? huh. you’re really quiet, are you alright? 

she almost cried tears of joy when someone shouted his name across the dressing room at the ford centre. 

“matty, jesus. let her breathe, bro.” both carter and auston whipped their heads around to face rasmus, who was chuckling at them to himself. 

auston pouted, wanting to ask a boatload more questions and figure out literally everything there was to know about her. he wasn't sure if it was his lingering trust issues or his inability to keep it in his pants, but she had piqued his interest. 

carter, however, smiled at ramsus and mouthed a quick ‘thank you’ before using the distraction from her personal life as an escape, walking over to a group of player’s she hadn’t met properly. 

auston followed behind her, watching as she quietly went about introducing herself to players and staff. she often took looks behind her, wondering why he was being a shadow. she didn’t want to say anything, though. she just wanted to be neutral and do her job so she could continue to live under tucker’s radar.

“how did you do that to your knee?” he had asked the same question, worded differently, about three times now and she had yet to come up with a great answer, so she gave the only one she could think of.

“i played hockey. couldn’t afford surgery to fix it back in anaheim” both of auston’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and carter was just hoping he wasn’t thinking up the logistics of how a knee could get so badly screwed in a supervised game of hockey.

luckily, if he called her bluff, he didn’t say anything about it. instead, he took it upon himself to invite her to a dinner him and some of the guys were having over at his place that night.

against her better judgement, she agreed.

[bunting27]

leanring curve ❤︎ r. sandin chapter three. the anaheim ducks

a/n: i contemplated not adding the ducks to this but it makes more sense in my head for carter to be more comfortable being open with her support system from home rather than auston who she’s just met, sorry to those of you who only pay attention to tml <3

summary: carter is weary about being back in california for the first time since she’s left.

warnings: allusions to toxic relationship, language probably, 

wc: 1.7k

taglist: @emsully2002 @sidcrosbyspuck @nylwnder @kenanlotus0​

✏︎

“come on, sit with me” the team was playing anaheim tonight, and auston could tell that carter had been off since the night before. 

he thought that he’d finally got her to be comfortable - at least around him - but it was like all his progress in getting the two of them to be friends was down the drain the minute the road trip was brought up.

he hadn’t really stopped to consider that she was going back home for the first time yet, since her being from california was never at the front of his brain. in his head, she’d always been around, at least it felt that way.

“sorry, matty. i have to finish some stuff for the media accounts” he raised an eyebrow, almost laughing at her.

“bullshit. you finish that stuff like a millennia before it needs to be posted, i know you do” she groaned, leaning her head back in frustration and then planting her face into his chest. he smiled, knowing that he was gonna get his way.

he lead her to where he sat last year, seating her by the window and taking the chair closest to her. michael and justin sat across from them, while mitch was in the aisle next to auston’s with zach. 

everyone else found their seats, and since it was the first trip of the season, carter figured everyone else would be getting to know one another or they’d be catching up from the offseason and she could tune them out.

boy was she wrong. it took ten minutes before auston had gone from calmly trying to get her to talk more and be involved in conversation to convincing everyone else to also try and convince her.

michael had given her a spot in an ongoing mario kart tournament that she did not ask for, mitch was asking ten questions a minute, justin was giving her a spew of tips on how to beat michael specifically at mario kart, and timothy, zach and rasmus were laughing quietly and giving her pitiful looks.

the other players were mostly chatting with one another or keeping to themselves. she tried with no avail to put her headphones on and flat out ignore the handful of voices that were trying to get her attention, but auston had taken her them and stuffed them in his bag

she was trying to pull it back from between his legs, but he would catch her every time, and now they had just been tugging it back and forth between one other, laughing. 

in the midst of the friendly game of tug of war, though, rasmus had caught her attention and discreetly nodded over to the empty seat across from him. she let go of the bag, causing auston to smack himself in the face with it, and then she climbed over him.

“i’m going to the bathroom” he stared at her, mouth agape in offense while she walked to the bathroom and tried not to start laughing hysterically at his expression. 

she stood in the bathroom for a moment before flushing the empty toilet and washing her hands, then she peeked her head out of the door to see that auston was deep in a conversation with rasmus about his role in the power play.

she took the opportunity to walk by, take the bag and jump over austons leg in the aisle to get to the seat across from rasmus. she hugged the bag to her chest when he made an attempt to swipe it back from her, staring at him with a close-lipped grin.

he looked at her, then at ramsus, almost buffering in his seat before he crossed his arms like a child. “you’re a traitor, sandman. a traitor”

ramsus laughed and then turned to face her, a big smile on his face. 

“you seem to have this thing where you keep saving me”

“you seem to have this thing where you keep needing saving”

-

carter walked into the honda centre tucked under auston’s arm. she had been taking glances around every once in a while, and almost everyone had noticed she was on edge. nobody said anything to her outright, but she could feel that they were confused. 

her heart almost came out of her chest when she made direct eye contact with trevor zegras, and he stopped abruptly, mouth agape and eyes wide. 

in true trevor zegras fashion, his confusion was replaced with excitement on a dime and he took it upon himself to yell her name across the room and come barreling towards her at top speed. 

she met him in a hug, but covered his mouth before he could yell anything again. auston stopped to keep an eye on her, brain finally registering why she had been so weird on the flight and for the day or two leading up to the road trip.

this was a twisted homecoming.

he listened in as she pulled away from the hug but kept her hand over trevor’s mouth, curious to see if he’d finally get any information from her.

“you cannot tell tucker im here, trev. i swear to god. you never saw me” he nodded, pulling her back into him and letting his eyes fall shut.

“promise, c,” he paused for a moment, still clutching her close to him with his nose in her hair, and she could almost sense that an idea was forming in his brain.

“... can i tell jimmy?” she smiled into his chest, laughing lightly. she knew he’d tell jamie, whether he’d asked her if he could or not, but she trusted the two of them enough to not out her new life to tucker.

she murmured a small ‘yeah’ and turned back to auston. 

“i’ll be back in a minute, yeah? i’ll text you if i get lost” she wouldn't. he knew that now, but nodded reluctantly regardless and slowly made his way over to where the team was getting themselves situated, while trevor wrapped an arm around carter’s shoulders and led her to the ducks area.

“he’s not here, is he? tucker?” trevor shook his head, looking down at her with a sad smile.

“we just sort of.. ghosted him, after he texted the groupchat asking if you were staying with any of us. we figured you found a way out, only ever stayed friends with him because of you. he never comes to games anymore” she slowed her walk down to a stop and hugged onto him tight, eyes watering and vision blurring.

“thank you for sticking around” he nodded into her hair, locking his arms back around her and squeezing so hard her heels came off the ground. 

when they pulled away again the first thing carter saw was jamie, who was looking at her like he’d just seen a ghost. she smiled at him from where she was down the hall, nodding to tell him that he could come over.

“oh my god where have you been, c. why didn’t you say anything. you could’ve stayed with us, you know you just need to as-” 

“shut up and hug me, nerd” he rolled his eyes and hugged onto her, still shaking his head like a disappointed, exasperated mother. it was hard for him to contain his smile, though. he’d wanted to pretend like he was upset with her, but he was honestly just so glad that she was safe.

the three of them ended up sat on the floor, carter with her legs over jamie’s and her head on trevor’s shoulder. they talked for far too long, catching up even though it had hardly been two months since they’d seen one another. 

“ok, i’m gonna go before auston puts out a search warrant. was good to see you guys” she eased herself up, struggling to get onto her leg without putting too much pressure on her knee. the boys shared a look as trevor grabbed her arm to help her up.

“oh my god, i’m joking. he’s not that overbearing,” jamie shook his head and ruffled her hair.

“not that. your knee… it happened months ago, you still can’t put any direct pressure on it?” she chuckled awkwardly, then followed with a lengthy period of awkward silence. 

she coughed, eyes flickering between the two boys for a moment. “you know me, i haven’t necessarily been… taking care of it?”

you want to go off to who knows where, for what? hockey? we’ll fucking see about that. you won’t make it anywhere, anyways.

they didn’t look convinced, and it was not difficult to lie to trevor, so she knew she had to have been doing a horrendous job. 

“you don’t need to lie anymore, c. he’s not here” trevor nodded to that, kissing the top of her head and rubbing her back. 

“here. put your new number in there. when you’re ready, we’ll listen,” trevor handed her his phone and watched as she quietly put the number in and texted herself some random nonsense.

“thanks, guys. one day” she hugged them both one more time before making her way back to where the away teams stayed on game days. 

-

carter had thought that seeing jamie and trevor would have helped her be at ease, but here she was, staring at the ground in front of the door of auston’s hotel room much too late for it to just be for a simple question.

he opened the door, almost expecting a kid who had maybe seen the team checking in and had been going door to door to meet everyone, but instead he saw carter. 

he frowned, standing aside so she could come in. after a long, long time of him asking questions and her dodging them with shrugs, shakes of her head and silence, he sighed.

“carter, you need to tell someone. i don’t know what, i don’t know who, but it’s not me. if it was, you would’ve told me twenty minutes ago. you’re torturing yourself” 

she gulped, looking down at her phone and staring at trevor’s contact.

stick 🍓: you still awake?

z ☺︎ : you had to ask?

stick 🍓: jamie?

z ☺︎ : he’s being jamie

z ☺︎ : you wanna come over?

stick 🍓: you had to ask?

z ☺︎ : ordering mcds

stick 🍓: omw

[bunting27]

learning curve ❤︎ r. sandin

chapter two. team building

a/n: i promise more sandy and c content is coming at some point 

summary: auston wants carter to be more comfortable around him and the team.

warnings: drinking, so much am34 best friend content

wc: 1.6k

taglist: @emsully2002​ 

✏︎

“who’s all coming tonight?” auston had made it his day’s mission to follow around carter everywhere she went, so she thought she might as well ask while he was there.

it was the first time that day that she had been the one to initiate a conversation, so he was ecstatic. he proceeded to list some of the players that would be over at his house, along with some maybe’s and a handful of people he hadn’t asked yet.

“will there be drinks?” was her only response to him, and he stopped in his tracks when she said it.

she stopped as well, a look of slight terror taking over her face. she was stood there wide eyed, pulling her head back while he was smiling like an idiot.

“there will- yes. yeah, there will be drinks” she chuckled awkwardly at his strange response, nodding and taking his current state of whatever this was as an opportunity to walk away from him. 

she made her way over to the first person she saw, which happened to be ramsus, who had been sharpening his skates and listening to music.

rather than do anything normal, such as tap him on the shoulder or wait to grab his attention, she pulled the headphones off his head and was met with a confused side eye. “sorry. i’m carter, the new media lead. can you please pretend that we are having a very important conversation about hockey things”

that did not come out like it was meant to, but ok.

luckily, he laughed, and started talking about random nonsense until auston was in earshot, and he quickly realized why she had been in such a hurry to acquaint herself with him.

“how many questions have you been asked?” she pursed her lips, practically feeling the alternate’s presence behind her as she thought about it.

“this hour? about twelve hundred and eight. give or take”

-

when carter knocked on the door to auston’s condo, she almost wanted to bail. the walk there was fine, but hearing the chatter from inside the home come to a complete stop after her gentle knock on the door made her want to crumble into the patterned hallway carpet beneath her and leave town again.

she looked petrified when auston opened the door, a stark contrast to his look of glee when he realized she’d actually showed up. 

“hey, c. was starting to think you weren’t gonna come. c’mon, let’s get you a drink” she hesitantly followed him in, trudging behind him to his counter where he opened a cooler and told her to take her pick. 

she eyed the container before leaning down and grabbing a mike’s hard - something light she was familiar with and she knew wouldn’t make her do anything worth regretting. 

before they made their way to what she assumed was the living area where everyone was surrounded with boxes of pizza, cooler and beer, she made direct eye contact for the first time since they’d met.

“you gave me a nickname” he grinned down at her, nodding happily and ghosting his hand over her back to lead her over to where the rest of the guys were.

“i never got the chance to ask what people called you. from your team” she paused for a moment, fighting back the smile at the memories of her last time on the ice.

“stick. my last name is walker” she clarified before he could ask where the name came from, and she caught the way his face scrunched. she was praying that it was because of her strange nickname, and not because of her name in general. 

before he could ask, she found herself a place to sit and cracked open her can, taking a gulp. 

-

in hindsight, it probably would have been a good idea to go home along with the ‘older’ players about an hour ago, because the younger ones had the peer pressure capabilities of high school jocks.

the one mikes that carter thought would leave her with hardly a buzz turned into several tall boys, an unknown amount of beer from many rounds of a makeshift pong game, and two shots. 

currently, her right arm was linked with none other than michael bunting’s as they competed to see who could chug another beer the fastest. 

she was having more fun than she would like to admit, something that in the morning would give her nothing but a lethal amount of anxiety. would she remember everything she had done? would she do something stupid and be the only one to remember?

those were thoughts for future carter, though, because she beat michael by a hair in their little competition and now she was celebrating by jumping into the arms of auston matthews and downing another shot.

“you having fun?” she nodded, wiping her mouth from the remanence of beer from her cup and slowly squirming down from the position she’d somehow landed in their hug.

“why did we bring out shot glasses again? that was a bad idea” she held the hiccup that was threatening to come out to hear his response. 

“i brought out the shot glasses so you would stop being so anxious. also, preseason starts in a few days and i’d be damned if i didn’t come out of the offseason having a little fun” she giggled, dragging him by the shirt to where the cooler was and picking herself up another beer. 

everyone was laughing and having fun, michael was trying to redeem himself by kicking mitch and alex’s asses in beer pong with mac, and carter felt like she didn’t need to be looking over her shoulder for the first time since she’d walked out of her old house.

she could only hope that feeling would be constant in toronto - during times like this, sober, at work, at her apartment, doing things a young girl with a healthy life would do. everywhere. 

auston had been watching her so closely, and her name had felt so familiar, that the lurking ideas in the back of his head, whether they be of distrust or lust, were gone. 

he could only hope that she would stay comfortable like this once she was sober, that they could be friends, that he could still find out anything there was to know.

-

carter woke up in a bed. not her bed, and thankfully not anyone else’s bed either. there was a solo cup filled with water along with a bottle of tylenol on the bedside table next to her, accompanied by a note.

don't freak out. you’re in my guest room

                                                        ,auston

she almost wanted to be offended that he could already read her so well he knew she’d panic, but she was more grateful that there was already water at her disposal, so she ignored it.

she eased herself up into a sitting position and eventually managed to read the back of the pill bottle to see how many she should take. rubbing her face, she got up and waddled over to the door across from her which she hoped led to a bathroom. 

she refilled her cup with more water and then lowered her face down to the sink to splash herself with some, sighing at the much needed cooling effect. 

she slowly opened the main door to the bedroom and tiptoed to the kitchen, where auston, michael and mitch had already been sitting with cups of coffee. she looked over to see rasmus and timothy laid in opposite directions on the couch and mac on the loveseat, while william was sprawled out on the floor with auston’s dog.

she didn’t say anything, but nodded to austons hand instead. he vaguely gestured to the cabinet where he kept the mugs and she grabbed one, filling it with her desired amount of ingredients to have a reasonable afternoon coffee.

“kerf went home?” she whispered, not wanting to hurt her brain or anyone else's with her normal tone. 

auston nodded, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “harvard’s a little less moronic than the rest of us when it comes to straight shots of tequila. he got an uber”

she swore she almost fell back asleep on him as she sipped her coffee, the three guys chatting quietly. auston tried his best to include her, to see if she’d be less uptight after last night, but she would just mumble responses and slip out of the conversation. 

he guessed he’d just have to keep trying.

the rest of the guys woke up one after the other, starting with timothy and rasmus when they had accidentally kicked one another, then mac, and finally willy when felix had decided he’d had enough sleep and walked on top of will’s torso to get over to auston.

auston ordered breakfast through doordash and everyone was currently sat on the couch, surrounded by cans and solo cups and scarfing down their food.

they had been talking about the night prior, thinking back on fun moments or their favourite part of the night that was meant to be a close to their offseason, and michael pointed at carter

“were you in a frat in your past life? who is that good at beer pong after three rounds of kings court?” carter smiled at the comment and swallowed her bite of food, setting her takeout plate on her lap.

“my ex was a business major and all of our friends were hockey players. i was in a frat in this life, unofficially. or maybe you all just suck at drunk hand-eye coordination” auston chuckled, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and ruffling her hair, while everyone else gave her joking looks of offence.

“don’t laugh, matty. i carried your ass, you suck too,”

he was still smiling, because she was smiling. she was comfortable and making jokes and that’s good enough for him, even if he’s part of her punchline.

[bunting27]

learning curve chap 2 tonight !!