Work Text:
I’m only one call away, I’ll be there to save the day
Superman’s got nothing on me; I’m only one call away
Just call on me, sister, when you need a friend
We all need somebody to lean on
- One Call Away/Lean on Me , Charlotte Ave
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There was a skinny kid with long blond hair curled up asleep in KK’s stall when Seth got off the ice from practice in Edmonton. Or at least, he thought the kid was asleep. It wasn’t like he was snoring or anything.
“Hey,” Seth called, and the kid started to stir, making a confused grumble as he came to. “Did you get lost? Is there an adult looking for you?”
The kid lifted nervous eyes to look at Seth, and something clicked.
That was a very, very familiar face in a much too small body, familiar eyes and a familiar mole and just overall a familiar person, who was about fifteen years younger than he should be.
“Oh, fuck,” Seth swore, and the young version of KK burst into hysterical tears.
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KK—or, more accurately, Jesperi, since he hadn’t yet received his English nickname at age ten—spoke not a lick of English, and only barely calmed down when Fishy came sprinting into the room, murmuring soothing Finnish.
Jesperi had apparently decided Seth was safe, and was currently attached to his hip like a rather lanky barnacle. Seth was entirely fine with his personal space being invaded by his best friend, but it was an entirely bizarre experience to have that friend be fourteen years younger than he should be, less than a third his usual weight, and speaking exactly none of their mutual language.
It also turned out, once his hysterics calmed down enough that Fishy could ask a few questions, that ten year old Jesperi had no idea what was going on. He had no idea where he was, who anyone else was, or what had happened.
He also had immediately made fun of Fishy’s accent, according to Fishy’s put-out translation.
“His dad is a hockey player,” Fishy explained, once he’d gotten over being insulted by a ten year old. “Or, well. Was before Jesperi was born, and worked for a team in Finland when Jesperi was ten.”
He said something to Jesperi in Finnish, and got a quick reply, mumbled into the sweaty side of Seth’s t-shirt.
“He thought he’d maybe gotten a concussion, and saw his name on the stall and thought it was his dad’s,” Fishy translated. “And thought he’d wait until his dad came back.”
“And his dad didn’t come back, I came in and woke him up,” Seth finished. “That explains the crying.”
Jesperi mumbled something into Seth’s shirt, then peered up at him with unnervingly big brown eyes.
Fishy’s expression softened, and Seth thought he was going to start cooing at Jesperi and pinching his cheeks. “He’s asking if you’re his best friend.”
Seth spluttered. “Of course I’m his best friend!”
Jesperi said something else, and kicked Seth in the ankle.
“He says his best friend is named Eino and he wouldn’t ever have as dumb a moustache as you currently have,” Fishy informed Seth, not bothering to hold back his laughter. “And he can’t be as short as you.”
Seth was going to have to find some Finnish dude named Eino and square up. The dude was probably like, a normal guy these days. Maybe played rec league hockey, definitely had a normal job. Seth could definitely kick his ass.
“I’m Jarvy, and I’m your best friend now,” Seth told Jesperi, elbowing Fishy until he translated. “Come on, man.”
Jesperi giggled, and that was a hell of a lot nicer than Jesperi in tears.
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A quick teamwide text message had kept the locker room from being invaded by nosy teammates, and simultaneously summoned Steeler and Svech, both of whom were familiar with curses.
“Marc deaged Eric at least twice a month when we were kids,” Steeler said in amusement, watching as Jesperi tried to murder Seth under the guise of a piggyback ride.
Seth was pretty sure ten year olds weren’t supposed to be this tall or this bony, or like, this vicious. He didn’t remember being this brutal at wrestling when he was ten.
Or maybe that was just Jesperi. Who knew what the Kotkaniemis did for fun as kids? Maybe they wrestled Finnish moose for fun, or whatever. Reindeer? Whatever big mammalian creature they had out there wandering the Finnish backwoods where Jesperi had spent his summers.
“I could try to Break it, but historically I’ve not done well at Breaking anything on KK,” Steeler added, right as Jesperi managed to get himself under Seth’s arm and take them both down to the padded flooring.
Seth was never going to live down getting scruffed and face washed by a ten year old, not with how Fishy was absolutely, completely, 100% filming Seth’s humiliation.
At least Jesperi was nice enough to sit up and let Seth’s hair go when he noticed Steeler and Svechy both looking at him.
“I could try,” Svech said, watching Jesperi just as intently as Jesperi was watching him. “The last few times something has stuck, I’ve been the one to get it off. Just since I’ve been sitting next to him, though.”
“Don’t look at me,” Seth said, putting his hands up and immediately getting tackled by Jesperi again. “Jesus fucking Christ, ow--”
Fishy said something sharp in Finnish. Jesperi bolted upright and perched himself immediately in his stall, his feet dangling and kicking a few inches above the mat.
Everyone stared at Fishy.
“I told him if he didn’t start behaving, he wouldn’t get any ice time tomorrow,” Fishy said, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. “And that I’d cut all his laces to keep him from sneaking out.”
Seth sometimes forgot that Fishy was like, the middle child to end all middle children.
“I’d have just made him play goalie,” Steeler said mildly. “It’s what Eric would do to me and Jared.”
Jesperi said something, sticking his tongue out at Fishy, and the two of them devolved into familiar Finnish bickering.
Steeler clapped Svech on the shoulder and extended a hand to help Seth up. “I’ll go fill the coaching staff in on what’s going on. Text me if you need a hand, Andrei.”
Svech nodded, and like Seth, watched Jesperi and Fishy argue.
“Which one got de-aged again?” Svech said to Seth, and immediately got beaned in the forehead with a roll of stick tape that Fishy swiped from KK’s stall. “Ow, you fucker.”
Fishy pointed at Jesperi, who was still kicking his feet and trying to look angelic. He was missing by a mile though, and looked more constipated to Seth’s unfortunately familiar eye.
He still needed to exact revenge on KK for destroying his bathroom after an ill-thought-out trip to Cookout at two AM had resulted in what Seth was currently dubbing a hate crime. What kind of hate crime was still to be determined, but it was probably almost certainly one.
“You need to fix him,” Fishy announced. “So I can kick his ass.”
“Is he okay with it?” Seth asked immediately. “Or do we need to call in McKenna and Dr. Dail?”
Fishy made a face, but dutifully translated the question.
Jesperi nodded quickly, and sat patiently, looking up at Svech with a frankly baffling amount of trust, considering Svech was a large Russian man that Jesperi 100% had never met, and who was speaking a language that Jesperi 100% did not speak.
KK did a lot of shit that Seth didn’t understand, but this was definitely up there.
Svech looked at Jesperi, and then over to Fishy. “I’m going to try and feel out the curse. Is he okay with that?”
Fishy and Jesperi had a short exchange, during which Fishy barked out a surprised laugh and Jesperi broke into a big grin.
“He says he knows how to sit for curse breaking,” Fishy translated after a minute. “He says Kassu--that’s his older brother--curses him a lot, and their dad had to Break a lot of curses.”
Jesperi piped up again, looking directly at Seth this time.
“He’s asking if he can hold Seth’s hand,” Fishy said. “He says that would make it easier.”
Seth scooted over to sit next to Jesperi, and instead of taking Seth’s hand, Jesperi leaned fully into Seth’s side, snuggling in close.
“I thought he said he wanted to hold my hand?”
“He did,” Fishy replied, looking fond. “I think he trusts you.”
“He’s never met me!”
“Have you ever been de-aged?” Svech asked, and Seth had to shake his head. Chrono Regression curses tended to hit Nulls the hardest, and Breakers after that. It was dangerous to target a Caster with an aging curse, and rare for one to stick if someone did decide to use one. Young casters had very little control over their powers, and hitting them with something that potent often led to irreversible and dangerous side effects.
“You don’t know how you know people, but you still have the same feelings about them,” Svech said. “He knows you’re his best friend, and he trusts you more than anyone else here, probably.”
Seth probably shouldn’t feel as gooey about that as he did.
Jesperi kept himself curled into Seth’s side but extended his hand for Svech to hold as Svech folded himself down to rest on his knees in front of Jesperi and Seth, putting himself at eye level with Jesperi.
“I’m going to start by just feeling for the curse,” Svech explained, and waited for Fishy to translate. “If it hurts, he needs to tell us right away and I’ll stop. I won’t try to disentangle it until we have a plan.”
Fishy translated, and Jesperi nodded in agreement.
“Starting now,” Svech said.
Seth rubbed Jesperi’s shoulder slowly, remembering how his parents could comfort a student when something had gone wrong with magic or school. He’d spent a lot of time with kids around Jesperi’s age in his mom’s classroom, helping out after school or just waiting for various school activities to wrap up.
It was cool to watch Svech curse breaking from this angle, though. Usually when Svech was Breaking shit, Seth was disoriented enough he wasn’t watching the expressions play across his face, or listening to the way Svech muttered things to himself under his breath in Russian.
After a long minute, Svech sat back on his heels. “Huh.”
Seth didn’t need to speak Finnish to understand the “mitä?” Jesperi came out with. Fishy didn’t bother to translate it, either.
“It’s definitely a time-delayed curse,” Svech said. “It could have been there for--well, months. I’d assume they’d have found it when we do annual physicals at the beginning of the season. So I guess it could have been there since September. But it’s just--sitting there. Right in his shoulder. It’s not a very active curse, it’s just in there pretty firmly.”
Given that it was only late October, Seth got the feeling that Svech was probably underselling how entrenched the curse was.
“So how long until we can get it out?”
Svech shrugged. “I’ll have to look again, but most de-aging curses are time limited. I’ve never actually had to Break one, since they usually expire after a day or two.”
“So he’s going to have to stay with someone for the night, then,” Seth concluded.
Jesperi said something in a rush, a long string of words that Fishy immediately responded to, followed by vigorous nodding on Jesperi’s part.
“He wants to go with Seth,” Fishy translated. His expression was politely dubious, which was about fifty degrees less dubious than Seth himself felt about Jesperi making that particular choice. “I asked if he was really sure, and he said yes.”
Seth was mostly certain that was a Really Bad Idea, capital letters and all.
On the other hand, he’d had plenty of sleepovers with KK, so it couldn’t really be all that different. They’d watch a movie and order room service, or something, so KK didn’t have to go out and deal with Edmonton.
“We could probably get him a linguistics charm module for him in the short term,” Fishy said, still looking like he was thirty seconds away from taking Jesperi with him anyways. “Like PK used when he first got here.”
Charm modules were functionally iPads loaded with translation software and a charm that checked the accuracy of what someone said, and then spat it out in their own voice. They worked, if slowly, and it was usually easier to just try to learn a language if you were going to be dealing with it in the long term.
So it looked like Seth was going to be babysitting a ten year old for the foreseeable future.
Great.
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No one wanted to let the ten year old stay alone in an Edmonton hotel room, so Seth ended up having a cot moved into his room for Jesperi, and one of the coaching staff took a trip to Superstore to pick up a couple of days of clothing that would fit a ten year old.
Whoever had done the shopping had also picked up a toothbrush and toothpaste, an inexplicable Lego set, and like three boxes of fruit snacks. There was also an iPad that hopefully had a Finnish charm module loaded onto it.
“Huh,” Seth said, and waved the Lego set at Jesperi. “Wanna work on this?”
Jesperi’s eyes lit up, and he made to grab for the Lego set.
Seth pointed at the pile of clothes that he’d dumped out of the reusable tote bag. “Change?”
Jesperi tipped his head to the side, and Seth sighed, picking up the tablet. “Can you pick some clean clothes and change?”
The tablet dutifully regurgitated Seth’s question in Finnish. Jesperi brightened, bouncing over to the pile of clothing. The adult, Hurricanes-branded t-shirt he was wearing still fit more like a dress, and Seth didn’t even want to think about how tightly they’d needed to cinch that pair of shorts to stay on Jesperi’s hips.
As Jesperi dug through the pile to find something he liked, Seth noted a plain hoodie, a few pairs of fleece-lined sweatpants, a pack of socks and another pack of underwear. There were two or three t-shirts, and a long-sleeved henley. Adorably, there was a child-sized pullover sweatshirt with a plaid Mickey Mouse face on it.
Whoever had done the shopping definitely had a sense of humor: they’d chosen a pajama set with a hockey-playing moose on it, along with the bold text WORLD CLASS SNORER.
Seth had shared a room with a sleeping KK before, and he was, in fact, a world-class snorer. It was a shame the pajamas probably didn’t come in adult sizes, because Seth needed to make sure adult KK got a pair of these.
Mostly, Seth hoped they weren’t going to need all of these clothes, and that hopefully someone had saved the receipt, or something.
Jesperi took the Mickey sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and a handful of other things into the bathroom, including a glittery blue plastic hairbrush.
Seth hoped that Jesperi knew how to handle his own hair, because Seth was not good at like, braiding or styling hair or whatever. He’d try, but Jesperi might end up needing the same close-cut buzz his adult self was sporting.
Now that Jesperi was in the bathroom, Seth needed to figure out what he was going to wear to bed, because he usually slept in his boxers, and he was not exactly thrilled at the idea of sleeping in his boxers in front of a literal child. Jesperi probably wouldn’t be a fan either, because as much as he liked and trusted Seth now, Seth was still kind of an adult stranger to him.
He had some soft sweatpants and a team t-shirt he could sleep in, and he’d deal with a couple of nights of sleeping a little more clothed than usual for the sake of making everyone more comfortable with the situation.
Jesperi tumbled out of the bathroom with an armful of fabric that he dumped onto Seth’s hotel bed. His hair had been brushed, and he still had a smear of toothpaste on his cheek, which was possibly the most KK thing Seth had seen out of this child version of his best friend so far. There was a tag sticking up at the back of his neck, but he was dressed like--well, like any of the kids that came to Canes games, or one of the Martinis, just with longer hair.
Beaming, Jesperi took the iPad and said something into it, and it spat out a question. “Can I build Lego now?”
Seth checked the clock. It was only just after four local time, but their bodies would be treating it more like six PM with the jetlag.
“Sure,” Seth decided, and handed over the Lego kit.
Jesperi was happy to build Lego dinosaurs following the pictogram instructions that came in the box. Seth built one too, but mostly tried to find the pieces that Jesperi occasionally lost in the hotel bedding.
Jesperi chattered the whole time, only about half of it getting caught by the charm module. It didn’t seem like Jesperi actually wanted much of a reply, and that fit with what adult KK was like, entirely intolerant of silences.
At some point, Fishy came by with two takeout boxes of pasta and vegetables.
“I asked them to leave the peppers out for Jesperi,” he said dryly. “But if he tries to argue about the presence of vegetables, tell him he could be eating mashed turnips instead.”
Jesperi had taken his clamshell container and was dubiously poking at his chicken and vegetable medley, prodding at the little cherry tomatoes with obvious distaste.
Fishy said something to him that the linguistics module clearly didn’t catch, but Jerperi’s reply was cheerfully caught and translated by the iPad.
“But they’re gross,” the iPad repeated in English, nearly whining. “And I don’t like chicken.”
Seth had seen adult KK absolutely hose truly ungodly amounts of both chicken and tomatoes on the regular. KK’s go-to Chipotle order usually included extra salsa, even.
“Eating from restaurants is a lot less common in Finland,” Fishy told Seth, expression only a little cranky. “It’s a strange thing to get used to.”
Fishy deigned to stay with them while Jesperi and Seth ate, all three of them sitting cross-legged on the floor. Jesperi did fuss about the tomatoes. Fishy managed to convince him to push them to the side and focus on the rest of the meal.
From what Seth could tell, they weren’t actually too worried about KK’s diet plan. Jesperi had a ten year old’s body and nutritional needs, and whenever he returned to his adult size, they could figure out if anything needed to be changed to compensate.
“He’s never seen Jurassic Park,” Fishy said conversationally, when Jesperi proudly showed off the Lego dinosaurs he’d made. “You could put that on.”
Seth looked at Jesperi, who was nodding hopefully. “It’s not gonna, like, give him nightmares or anything?”
Fishy snorted inelegantly. “If he makes it to the end of the movie, I’d be shocked. Getting deaged is a massive energy drain, and now that he’s eaten? I’d guess he passes out in the next half hour.”
Seth blinked. “Have you been de-aged before?”
Fishy shook his head. “No, but it happened a few times when I played in Finland. And these things never last all that long, anyways. I remember being ten--you imagine being that young and all this going on around you. It’d be tiring no matter what.”
Jesperi tugged at Fishy’s sleeve, pointing at the TV again.
Indulgently, Fishy took the remote and started navigating through menus. “I can set it to Finnish audio,” he told Seth. “And English captions, if that works for you.”
Seth didn’t have any objections, and he’d seen Jurassic Park enough times he probably didn’t actually need the captions, even.
Fishy stayed for the first few minutes of the movie, waiting long enough for Jesperi to be entirely engrossed, before turning his attention to Seth.
“You’re doing better with him than I expected,” he said bluntly.
Seth wrinkled his nose. “I’m good with kids. It’s not like I’ll kill him or anything.”
“No, but you worry when something is wrong with your friends.” Fishy glanced over at Jesperi. “And you and KK are close. This can’t be easy.”
“It’s not like he’s dead,” Seth protested. “Come on, I can handle a little deaging curse.”
“I’m not saying you can’t.” Fishy crossed his legs at the ankle. “But you also don’t have to pretend to be okay with it if you’re not. It’s not the first time Svech has dealt with Chrono Regression either, and he’s across the hall.”
Seth didn’t actually know what to say to that. He was handling this just fine, and didn’t need Fishy’s micromanaging at the moment.
Maybe tomorrow, when he was supposed to convince Jesperi to sit quietly while the rest of the team had morning skate and a game, maybe then he’d need backup.
But also--Seth was used to kids. This wouldn’t be all that much of a problem.
“You could call his brother,” Fishy suggested idly, getting to his feet and stretching. “You know Kotka’s passcode, don’t you?”
Seth had long given up on getting Fishy to explain why he called KK Kotka, even though he was still desperately curious. “I mean--I don’t know it for sure but I can guess.”
“His face is still more or less the same. You could probably use Face ID.” Fishy yawned. “I’m next door if you need anything, and as long as you charge the charm module it should get you through.”
Fishy departed with a wave, leaving Jesperi and Seth to watch the movie.
Calling Kaspari wasn’t actually all that bad of an idea. It would be a familiar voice, someone who knew Jesperi well enough to assuage any lingering fears that something had gone wrong. Seth had met the rest of the Kotkaniemis. He knew exactly how close KK was with his brother, and how close young Jesperi had been with his older brother in particular.
He did have adult KK’s phone. Seth knew KK’s passcode, and he could definitely figure out which contact was Kaspari’s.
Well, probably.
With Jesperi flopped out on his rollaway cot watching the movie and idly playing with his dinosaurs, Seth could tinker with KK’s phone.
Jesperi was starting to get the squirmy kind of cranky that kids did when they were fighting sleep, so Seth figured there was no time like the present to try a phone call.
KK had conveniently labeled his family in his contacts with a blue heart, and Seth was able to find Kaspari and dial.
The phone rang, and rang, and Seth had a horrible moment of remembering timezones existed. Seth knew KK usually called his family after games when it was late enough wherever they were to be early in Finland, though, and Seth mostly hoped that KK’s brother wouldn’t be too upset at getting called maybe a little too early.
Thankfully, Kaspari picked up.
“Hei,” Kaspari said cheerfully, and then was off in a long string of Finnish. Seth caught a couple of words--mostly swear words, if he was honest--before he was able to interject.
“Um, hi,” Seth said. “This is Seth--um. Seth Jarvis.”
“Is Jespu alright?” Kaspari asked immediately. “Since you’re calling? Do I need to see if Äiti can fly out?“
“KK’s fine, he’s just ten,” Seth said. Kaspari barked out a startled and relieved laugh. “And—I dunno, I thought hearing a familiar voice would help.”
“A Chrono Regression spell? Put him on,” Kaspari said. It sounded like he was holding back laughter. “I’m sure he’s been a handful.”
Seth paused the movie, to which Jesperi squawked indignantly and grabbed at the remote. Seth pointed to the phone, and hopefully managed to not butcher how he said, “Kaspari?”
Jesperi took the phone quick as anything and was off like a shot, babbling in excited Finnish.
Seth busied himself with cleaning his own teeth in the bathroom, giving Jesperi and Kaspari time to chat. When he came out of the bathroom, Jesperi was holding out the phone with a bright smile.
Seth took it, and Jesperi threw his arms around Seth’s waist, hugging him tightly before darting off back to the cot.
The phone was still showing an active call, so Seth lifted the phone to his ear.
“Thanks for calling,” Kaspari said. “He had a lot of questions and I was able to answer a few. He should be a little less anxious now.”
“Fishy suggested it.”
Kaspari’s laugh was so close to KK’s that Seth almost thought he was on the phone with the other Kotkaniemi brother. “Aho’s a good guy.” There was a beat of quiet, then Kaspari clearly decided to ask about whatever was bothering him. “It takes a lot for a curse to stick to a null. Do you know what happened? He’s very confused.”
“We think he got hit by a time-delayed curse at some point in the season.” Seth said, regurgitating as much of what Andrei had told him earlier. Looking over, he could see that Jesperi was still flopped out on his cot, propping his chin on his hands and watching the TV with big eyes. “Andrei thinks that it’ll wear off sooner than later.”
“It only ever lasted about a day when I cursed him when we were kids,” Kaspari confirmed. “I can’t see it going any more than that. He’s slippery when it comes to magic.”
Seth really, really hoped Kaspari was right.
After hanging up, Seth got distracted by his phone. When he next looked over towards the rollaway, Jesperi had tipped over to his side and was sound asleep, cuddling a pillow close like a teddy bear and his knees tucked up nearly to his chest.
Adult KK didn’t sleep like that, or at least he didn’t when he crashed at Seth’s. He was a back sleeper, and Seth wondered what had changed.
He gently tugged the duvet loose from underneath Jesperi, collecting a few stray pieces of lego, and tucked Jesperi in.
Jesperi squirmed, nose wrinkling, then exhaled with a long sigh and slipped into deeper sleep.
Seth was struck by the fact that someday--maybe even someday soon--he and KK wouldn’t play for the same team. Sure, they both had solid contracts, but trades happened. Offer sheets happened. Injuries. Retirement.
Seth had talked to KK in some way every day of his career with the Hurricanes, and with Jesperi being a ten year old, all Seth wanted to do was talk to adult KK about it.
It wasn’t like KK was dead, he just--wasn’t available right now. He was right there, he was just--ten years old at the moment. He’d be back to normal in a day or two. Seth’s best friend wasn’t like, dead or anything. He was just--ten years old. Temporarily.
He left Jesperi asleep in his rollaway cot and slipped out of the room. Maybe a walk would calm himself down, and he could take a lap or two of the floor, get himself under control. Adult KK slept like the dead, and from the child-sized snores coming off the rollaway, Jesperi was probably the same.
After Seth’s first circuit of the hotel floor, he ran into Svech, who was keying into his room. Svech took one look at Seth’s mess of an expression, and bundled Seth into his room.
Svech didn’t ask, didn’t pry, just settled himself against his hotel bed headboard and kept Seth close. Seth wasn’t quite sure how it happened, but he ended up in Svech’s lap, chest to chest, his face turned into Svech’s neck and his tears soaked up by Svech’s collar.
“What’s going on?” Svech asked, when Seth got his tears under control. “Hey. I’m here.”
Seth scrubbed at his eyes, feeling like they were full of grit. “Just--it sucks that KK’s not here, or whatever.”
Svech rubbed a big hand up and down Seth’s spine, the pressure equal parts soothing and shivery.
“Hey. He’ll be fine,” Svech rumbled into Seth’s hair. Seth shivered a little. “It’s okay to feel freaked out. It’s weird to see him this young. He’ll be fine.”
“I just--what if he’s stuck like this?”
“He won’t be,” Svech said confidently. “If it lasts longer than a week, there’s specialists for this kind of thing.”
“But--”
“He won’t be.”
“You don’t--”
“Know that? I do.” Svech hummed lowly, pressing his lips to Seth’s hairline. “He will be fine, Seth. I’m worried about you right now.”
“I’m fine.”
“You were sparking hard enough I thought you were going to set the hallway on fire,” Svech said flatly. “Come on, breathe with me.”
“Fuck you,” Seth grumbled, but let Svech lead him through some breathing cycles.
It took a minute, but Seth could feel himself relax and stop shaking with nervous energy.
“What are you actually worried about?” Svech asked, his hand finally stilling from where it had been rubbing sweeping arcs across Seth’s back. “KK will be fine, and playing against the Oilers--we’ve got that handled. What’s going on? How can I help?”
Seth chewed on his thoughts, and finally came out with, “I’m not usually responsible for a kid.”
“No, you’re not.”
“And I don’t want him to get hurt, or do something that’ll--I dunno, fuck KK up when he’s back to normal.”
“You won’t.” Svech exhaled, his breath curling across Seth’s skin. “It’s a temporary de-aging spell. It’s got a limited amount of energy containing his mass, his mental state--when I tested it out earlier, it didn’t have that much fuel to keep it going, and KK doesn’t have innate magic to feed it. It’ll wear off. Chrono Regression doesn’t leave any kind of long-lasting marks.”
Seth made a face. “I know that, but--I don’t…I dunno. I can know that logically, but emotionally--”
“Emotionally, your best friend is a child and you don’tt know what to do with it,” Svech murmured.
“Yeah.”
“Look, Steeler can stay in your room,” Svech started, reaching for his phone. “You can stay here--”
“No, it’s fine,” Seth got out, scrambling off of Svech’s lap. “Thanks, sleep well, good night!”
Seth didn’t flee back to his room, but it was a close thing.
"This is entirely your fault," he informed Jesperi's sleeping form.
Jesperi didn't reply.
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KK was still ten when Seth woke up the next morning.
Which, like. Wasn’t entirely unexpected, but Seth was not super thrilled to be down a best friend for the day.
Jesperi was already up, playing with the Lego dinosaurs. He lit up when he saw Seth was awake.
When he saw Seth was awake, Jesperi said something into the iPad was dutifully carrying around. “Is there hockey today?” the tablet read out in Jesperi’s voice.
It was weird as hell to hear what was distinctly KK’s voice and accent, but fifteen years younger.
Seth took the iPad so he could reply. “Yeah, morning skate and then a game tonight.”
“Am I playing?”
Seth took a long look at ten year old Jesperi, hair messy and pillow creases on his cheek, all of maybe eighty pounds soaking wet. “Sure, let’s put you in against the Oilers. I’m sure that’ll go well.”
Jesperi giggled.
“We’ll see about skating, but you’ll probably watch the game as an injured scratch if you’re not back to adult KK by then.”
They both got dressed, Seth in the workout gear he’d be wearing into the rink for morning skate, and Jesperi in a green henley and the same pair of jeans from the day before.
Seth took one look at the rat’s nest on Jesperi’s head and decided that someone else was going to need to help Jesperi with that nonsense. He grabbed Jesperi’s brush and his room key, and the two of them headed down the hall for hotel breakfast.
Jesperi happily filled his own plate from the buffet-style spread4 and settled in at the table, cheerfully waving at the teammates he both did and didn’t know.
Svech took the seat to Seth’s other side, greeting him with a quick hug and a cup of fruit salad.
Seth had been hoping no one noticed he hadn’t picked one up; he wasn’t a fan of fruit in Edmonton in October. Shit was always a little weird.
“Sleep okay?” Svech asked, leaning around Seth to talk to Jesperi.
Jesperi nodded, scooping another spoonful of eggs into his mouth.
Seth was sparking a little--he always did in high-stress situations, and he was pretty sure that this fucking counted as a high-stress situation--and, well. Seth made constructs when he had an excess of magical energy, so he ended up shaping a little brontosaurus out of yellow sparks.
Jesperi was visibly thrilled, poking at the tiny dinosaur with first his spoon and then his fingers.
Most of Seth’s constructs weren’t particularly bitey, and brontosauruses were herbivores anyways, so Jesperi’s literal child hands were probably going to be safe from dinosaur teeth.
Seth hoped he was remembering that correctly.
Maybe he should google that. Or ask someone who might actually know.
Seth turned in his seat to try to find one of the, like, adults on the team. Burnsie had a couple kids who were Jesperi’s age and older--he probably knew shit about dinosaurs.
Before Seth could flag down Burnsie, Jordo stepped up, kneeling in front of Jesperi at one of the circular tables they were all eating at. “My daughter has hair about your length. Would you like some help brushing it?”
The charm module dutifully repeated Steeler’s offer back in Finnish.
Jesperi considered it, then nodded. Steeler took the proffered brush, sat in the chair next to Jesperi, and started helping work out the tangles in Jesperi’s baby-fine blond hair as Jesperi worked his way through his plate of sausage, eggs and toast. The brontosaurus was trying to climb into the cup of milky coffee Jesperi had acquired.
Seth hoped they weren’t going to find out if tiny magical brontosauruses could swim in coffee or not. He was also pretty sure coffee wasn’t good for ten year olds, but Jesperi wasn’t actually ten, and besides, it was mostly milk. And Europeans were weird about kids and coffee and alcohol and shit.
Besides, it was weird as hell to see Jesperi in his usual spot at the hotel breakfast tables, feet kicking since he was a few feet shorter than he’d been the day before. It was equally weird to see Jordo in dad mode. Seth didn’t think he’d heard a single teammate use the f-word the entire morning.
Maybe Seth should watch his mouth around Jesperi more, but also, it wasn’t like adult KK didn’t know the words, and Jesperi didn’t speak enough English to distinguish swear words from like, normal words.
As if Svech could read Seth’s mind, he got kicked in the ankle. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop thinking of what you can convince little KK to say. He’ll get revenge, you know it.”
Seth made a face at Svech. “Okay, but it would be funny as hell.”
“Don’t start things you can’t finish,” Svech warned. Next to them, Jordo got Jesperi to tilt his head to the side so he could work out a snarl behind Jesperi’s ear. “Feeling better?”
Seth flushed at the reminder that he’d cried all the fuck over Svech the night before. “Yup, never better,” he rushed out. “Do you think KK wants more eggs? I think KK wants more eggs,” he said, and fled the table.
He got stopped by McKenna before he could make his way back to the table with a fresh plate of eggs and toast.
“One of the Oilers trainers has an eight year old boy and an eleven year old girl,” McKenna said briskly. “They were already going to attend the game tonight, so Lawson said she’d just bring them by this morning and if Kotkaniemi isn’t back to his regular age by gametime, he can just watch with them.”
“Is that a thing we’re thinking might happen?” Seth asked. It looked like Steeler had finished up with Jesperi’s hair and was chatting cheerfully at Svech. The charm module was propped up on the table, and Seth was vaguely wondering if it was translating into English or Russian.
It was--kind of hot to see Svech being good with Jesperi. All gentle and indulgent and shit. Jesperi was probably talking his ear off about hockey circa 2010, or maybe the Lego they’d built the night before, and Svech was listening with a smile on his face and everything. It kind of made Seth wonder what Svech would be like with a kid of his own. The little brontosaurus was sitting on Jesperi’s shoulder, too. It was real stupid cute.
Work thoughts. They were at work. KK was ten. Seth needed to get his head on straight.
“The game falls within the forty-eight hour window,” McKenna replied. “And watching the game with other kids will probably be more interesting for him than sitting up in the press box with other scratches.”
Seth thought about the press suite in Edmonton, how bored out of his mind he would have been as a ten year old, even watching hockey. “That makes sense.”
The kids ended up being Jesperi’s new best friends within fifteen minutes of meeting each other. Sophie was a full three inches taller than Jesperi and played goalie on a local rec team; Jack was apparently a soccer player before he was a hockey player, but still doggedly kept up with his sister. Jesperi skated better than either of them on a kid-sized pair of skates bought from the pro shop, but it was clear that the language barrier wasn’t slowing down their yelps of joy on the rink that wasn’t being used for Hurricanes morning skate.
Seth left them for morning skate with the three kids shrieking in some kind of multilingual preteen communication. He and Blaker were the last ones on the ice, but no one gave Seth shit; everyone knew that Seth was corralling KK, even with the language barrier. Blaker, on the other hand, got ribbed to hell and back for oversleeping, apparently.
Practice was weird without KK there. Svech scruffed Seth, and Blaker raced Seth to collect the pucks, but it was still--weird. KK had missed time for injuries before--his fucky knee, an injured shoulder, a concussion or two--but his complete and sudden absence was still weird. Seth couldn’t help but hope he changed back into his adult self while they were at morning skate, and he’d just--join them on the ice, or something.
After morning skate, Seth took a detour over to the other rink, where Jesperi, Sophie, and Jack had been joined by two other kids and a familiar face--Derek Ryan was making lazy loops around the center of the ice with the five kids darting around him.
“Room for a few more,” he called out cheerfully, and that was when Seth realized that Fishy and Svechy had followed Seth over.
Seth had vaguely known some of the Oilers had kids that were like, ten, like Steeler did. So it probably wasn’t surprising that the two other kids were clearly mini-Ryans. It seemed a game of keepaway had developed with five kids on the ice, with Sophie camping out in the goal and Jack shrieking with glee anytime he managed to get a puck away from one of the bigger kids.
“You could have called--we’ve got a pile of skates that these two have outgrown,” Ryan said when Seth took to the ice. “He’s a fast little guy, isn’t he?”
Jesperi was zipping around, weaving past Jack and one of the younger Ryans. The shot he fired off slipped past Sophie, resulting in a celly from Jesperi and Jack, and an inappropriately filthy curse from Sophie.
“It’s not like he’s slow as an adult,” Fishy pointed out. “Did McDavid text you?”
“Jordo did, actually,” Ryan replied. “And Lawson mentioned her kids might have company tonight. Chrono Regression happens to the best of us. I remember getting cursed when we had an away game in Minnesota. I’ve been told I spent most of the weekend with the Staal kids. Eric Staal, that is.”
Ryan grimaced when his daughter took a tumble, assisted by a hip check from his son. “Careful, you two!” He waited for his son to help his daughter up before turning his attention back to Fishy. “I don’t remember much of it, but by all accounts it was a decent weekend.”
“Good to see you again,” Fishy said, greeting Ryan with a crisp, one-armed hug. “That must have been before my time with Carolina, then.”
Ryan barked out a laugh. “The year after, actually.”
Seth had vaguely known that former Canes played elsewhere in the league; Ryan’s time with the Canes had ended in 2018, maybe? 2019?
“Skinny said he’d come by too,” Ryan added. “Heaven knows he got de-aged enough times with the Hurricanes.”
So there were definitely worse ways to spend the half hour before they needed to head back to the hotel for lunch and afternoon naps than playing keep away with five kids, two Oilers, Svech, and Fishy.
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Instead of napping at the hotel, Jesperi stayed at the arena with the Lawson kids to watch a movie and do whatever kids did when their parents were working the game that day and they had to, like, exist in a hockey arena.
Jesperi had grown up like that. The Lawson kids had grown up like that. Seth hadn’t.
Seth was not going to start petty beef with an eleven year old over who was KK’s best friend. He wasn’t. He was going to be the bigger person. Literally, but also emotionally.
He was still kind of concerned they were going to get Jesperi back wearing a kid sized McDavid jersey. It was bad enough that KK was ten in Edmonton, but putting him in a McDavid jersey would have been adding so much insult to injury.
Ten year old Jesperi definitely didn’t know who McDavid was, though, so that was a bright spot. A Gretzky jersey would be less embarrassing, and possibly even acceptable.
Seth was lost enough in thought that he nearly missed Svech catching Seth’s door when they got back to the hotel.
“What?” Seth asked.
Svech shouldered his way in. “You’re sparking,” he said, matter of fact. “I thought we could nap together, get that under control.”
That…made a weird amount of sense.
“Do you need to change?” Seth asked.
Svech shrugged, kicking his shoes off. “I showered after skate, and these are clean clothes. If you’re okay with it, I thought I’d just nap in this.”
Seth had been planning on stripping down to his boxers, but he could sleep in a t-shirt and shorts if that meant he could get Svech cuddles.
“Ninety minutes work for you?”
“As long as we’re up by three. Bus call is three-forty-five.”
Seth did the mental math. “So an hour and forty minutes?”
Svech liked the same white noise that Seth did, the same amount of darkness with the blackout curtains closed. It was easy to share naptime with him, especially since Seth could feel the sparks crawling over his skin.
He wondered if Jesperi was having fun with the Lawsons. Sophie and Jack were nice enough, but maybe KK would like hanging out with them more than he did with the team. IF he wasn’t back to normal by tomorrow, maybe he should stay with the Lawsons or the Ryans instead of flying back to Carolina or coming to Calgary with the team. Travel had to be stressful for a ten year old--maybe he could go to Winnipeg and stay with Seth’s family. His mom taught kids that age, she’d know what to do with Jesperi. If he was stuck as a ten year old forever, Seth had grown up just fine, and KK could be Seth’s actual brother, or something. They could share custody instead of Jesperi going back to Finland forever.
Svech skimmed his palms up Seth’s arms, sweeping up the sparks and absorbing them with a faint gasp. “Hey. He’ll be fine.”
Seth hated how well Svech knew him. “Maybe I’m all sparky about playing the Oilers tonight.”
Svech snorted. “You’re not.” He let Seth’s arms go and sat on the edge of the bed, peeling his socks off. “Come on, let’s nap.”
Napping with Svech was even better than a regular afternoon nap, not that Seth was ever going to admit that. Seth could--and did--nap whenever he could, but for some reason he never slept better than when Svech spooned up behind him, hand warm over Seth’s heart. It was probably the fact that Svech was absorbing all of Seth’s stray magic, so it was easier to fall asleep without the ticklish wisps of magic ghosting over Seth’s body as he sunk into sleep.
Seth woke up first, before his alarm went off. Svech was breathing in that deep, easy way that indicated he was still dead to the world, and they’d only cuddled up closer in their sleep. Seth was tucked into Svech’s side, his face pressed into Svech’s armpit.
He probably shouldn’t find that attractive, but it was nice to be this close.
Seth’s alarm was going to go off in like five minutes, so he peeled himself off of Svech’s side and decided it would probably be best for everyone if he was already mostly changed and in the bathroom by the time Svech woke up.
He’d hung up his gameday suit once they’d landed, and he’d hung it in the bathroom the night before to steam while he showered, so it was even mostly wrinkle-free. He had a couple of tie options that went with it, and his cufflinks were probably somewhere at the bottom of his bag again. He took his toiletry kit and went to shave, flicking on the fan and the lamp just as his alarm went off.
Svech stretched, turning off Seth’s alarm, and greeting Seth with a sleepy smile. “Feeling calmer?”
“Fuck you, I’m always calm,” Seth said, still not entirely awake and also lathering up his face with shaving cream to clean up the edges of his facial hair. “But I’m not sparking anymore if that’s what you mean.”
“It wasn’t, but I’ll take it.”
Svech swung his legs over the side of the bed, stretching again. His shirt rode up, and Seth was not thinking about his abs, he wasn’t--
“See you down at the bus?”
“Yeah,” Seth said, and tried not to think too hard about it.
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Jesperi and the Lawsons--and the Ryans, now that Seth knew what they looked like--were all clustered up at the glass during warmups, waving frantically with a big cardboard sign that was...mostly illegible. Seth squinted. That was definitely a whale, and also a dog? And a liberal helping of glitter. Seth wondered whose idea it was to be down at the Hurricanes end, rather than over at the Oilers side.
Seth banged on the glass and flipped a puck to them, watching as it got passed from hand to hand before ending up in Jesperi’s.
Jesperi waved frantically before the puck disappeared into the kangaroo pouch of his hoody.
Someone had scrounged up a child-sized Hurricanes hoody in Edmonton, somehow. Seth was not questioning whatever magic had happened there. Maybe a shrinking charm or a transmutation spell? It wouldn’t stick permanently, but Jesperi probably wasn’t going to stay a child permanently.
Probably.
“Is that KK?” Burnsie asked, coming up behind Seth and hip-checking him. “Looks just the same.”
“I was worried they’d get him in Oilers gear,” Seth admitted.
Burnsie laughed loudly, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Nah, kid’s got too much team pride for that, even at--what is he, ten?”
Jesperi was waving frantically at Burnsie, and received a friendly tap on the glass in return.
Seth figured that Jesperi and the other kids would be up in the family suite, probably, rather than in seats in the lower bowl. With Ryan’s wife and Mr. Lawson managing the group, that would probably be easier. It would be what Seth would do, anyways.
With another tap on the glass and a wave at the cluster of kids, Seth skated back over to the bench for his warm-up ritual with Svech.
From there, the game kicked off with the Oilers taking an early lead, and the Canes clawing it back in the third period with goals from Ghost and Neci, Fishy sealing it in the final seconds of overtime.
A point was better than no point, so Seth was going to take it. After the game, Seth was excused from media responsibilities--probably a good idea, if they didn’t want everyone to know about KK being, well. Ten--but that didn’t mean he wasn’t present when questions got asked.
“And how long can we expect Kotkaniemi to be out?” one of the reporters asked.
Coach looked exhausted, but he always looked like that, in Seth’s opinion. “It’s a magical impairment,” he said, glancing over at KK’s empty stall. “We expect a return as soon as the spell wears off. It gives us an opportunity to shake up lines and take a fresh perspective on our hockey.”
Thankfully, the media corps took that as a reasonable answer.
Jesperi was falling asleep on his feet by the time the team finished up with media and getting their gear sorted. Svech ended up giving mostly-asleep Jesperi a piggyback to the bus, where Jesperi ended up snoring and slumped into Seth’s side. His mouth was open, and he was probably drooling onto Seth’s suit. Svech definitely took a bunch of pictures.
“I’m surprised he made it through the game, what with overtime.” Seth looked up to see Steeler standing in the aisle, looking down at Seth and Jesperi. “A day like that would put my girls out for a week.”
“Adrenaline is a hell of a drug,” Marty said cheerfully, pushing at Steeler’s shoulder. “Cap, move your ass. I want to sit down.”
“He’ll probably be back to his adult self tomorrow morning,” Freddie said when he was passing by. “Spells like that don’t like energy consumption.”
Seth was not going to ask how Freddie knew that, because it probably meant that Freddie had de-aged people, and he did not want to be Freddie’s next target.
Back at the hotel, Seth woke Jesperi up enough to clean his teeth and change into pajamas, and then passed out himself, waking up when there was a loud thumping noise around three AM. They’d be having breakfast and then flying on to Vancouver that morning, so Seth was not happy to be woken before his regrettably cheerful five AM alarm.
“Jesus,” a familiar voice groaned from the rollaway, and then-- “What the fuck am I wearing?”
Seth immediately sat up, and switched the bedside lamp on. There was adult KK, in a kid-size pyjama set that was 100% too small for him and straining at the seams, looking entirely befuddled to be sitting on the floor.
That was probably going to be a problem to get KK out of those pajamas, but Seth was sure they could scrounge up a pair of scissors from somewhere. It wasn’t like they were going to need kid-sized pajamas anytime soon.
If they needed kid-sized pajamas for someone else sometime soon, Seth was going to make someone else deal with it, holy shit.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Seth asked, scrambling out of bed. “Holy shit, KK, you’re an adult again.”
KK groaned, scrubbing hands over his face. “I got de-aged?”
“You were ten,” Seth informed him. “And now you’re not.”
“How long was I ten?” KK squinted, then looked down at his pajamas. “Jesus. Long enough for you to get me clothes, I guess.”
“You don’t remember?”
“I mean--I remember it as a thing that happened when I was ten?” KK shook his head. “Did we play yesterday? Did I miss the Edmonton game? Fuck.”
“We won,” Seth told him helpfully. “But you were an injury scratch.”
“Did anything weird happen? Or dumb? I feel like I remember hanging out with other kids.”
Seth grinned, reaching for his phone. “Oh, I’ve got pictures.”
KK’s groan made the last two days entirely worth it.