Cracking Ice: cut scenes & outtakes

 

These are scenes that didn’t make it into the final “Cracking Ice” manuscript but still amuse me/provide some insight into things that could have happened or things that might happen in the future with Carry and Keenan. Obviously they only make sense if you have read “Cracking Ice” to the end.
 

The Proposal: take 1

 

Author note: This was one of the possible scenarios for them getting together for real that I ended up discarding.

Keenan

"What is this?" The question couldn't have dripped with more disdain if it had been literally coated in oil.

Keenan looked down at the ring. It wasn't anything elaborate, of course, it might have taken him a while to accept he wanted Carry despite him being a man, but his maleness had never been in question.  "An engagement ring," he said as steadily as he could manage. He hadn't smelt this level of sourness in... He flinched.  It was the truth, but it was clearly the wrong answer. 

"Why are you showing it to me?"

"Showing it to you?" He gaped. "I'm giving it to you!"

Carry hand came up to knead his forehead, as if the conversation was physically painful. It wasn't like Keenan hadn't contemplated the possibility of being refused, but this wasn't a no, this was...

"What on Gaia made you think I would want it?"

"We are true pairing," Keenan said, feeling lost. 

"So what?"

"Call me crazy, but I have very good proof you want me!"

"I do want you," Carry agreed, sounding almost angry about it. "I don't want to be your omega."

"Whose then?" Keenan asked, heart beating hard enough to hurt.

"Nobody's!"

"Nobody's?” Keenan echoed uncomprehending. 

"Mine!" Carry snapped.  "I don't want to belong to another person, is that really so crazy?"

"But..." He trailed off, he felt like he had just managed to clear his mind enough to unjumble his thoughts and feelings about Carry and now his teammate had dropped his neatly ordered plan and shattered it beyond repair. 

"You really thought I was just gonna drop off hockey and what? Go play house for you?"

"Drop hockey?" Keenan repeated, horrified. 

"Maybe this was a bad idea," Carry continued. "I thought you understood—"

"I don't,” Keenan interrupted before Carry could get out something he would regret. “Why don't you explain it to me?" he asked in his most reasonable tone.

This gave Carry pause. Had he not expected Keenan to want to understand at all?

"I'm attracted to you, and I enjoy... I like being with you,” he said all this like it was an admission. Keenan wondered what 'being' meant, but he didn't dare interrupt, “but I don't want... I don't want to pay for it," Carry gritted out at last. "I don't understand why I need to pay for it."

"You don't, I wouldn't ask you to," Keenan promised, infusing all the sincerity he was able into his voice.  If Carry thought bonding meant giving up hockey it was no wonder he was insulted to be asked. "I would never make you give up something you are so clearly meant for."

Carry sighed, defeated instead of incensed. "But you could... If you were my alpha. I wouldn't be free."

"So you don't trust me."

"I do. About this. But I don't want to have to trust you, I want to be free to make my own choices. I was a child once; I don't intend to ever be one again."

"So you don't want to..." He couldn't say it. He couldn't ask if Carry wanted to end things between them.

He looked sad about it, at least, regretful even. But did he regret it ending or it ever beginning? "I didn't mean to offer you something I can't give,” Carry said, it sounded like an apology even though it wasn't; it was an explanation.

And Keenan had never been taught to give up, an alpha wasn't meant to, and a hockey player even less. "Wait,” he said. You clung to victory like your life depended on it, that was all Keenan knew how to do. So he clung now, even though he wasn't even sure it was a victory he clung to what he wanted, even if it was maybe going to destroy him. “What about what you have given me? Do you want that?"

"Do you?" Carry asked and it was a serious question: did he want to bed his omega true pair and never claim him? More to the point, could he?

Carry saw his hesitation. "Think on it," he offered, gentler that he had ever been in bed and brushed his lips against Keenan's cheek.

He had let Keenan see his desire before, unabashed and desperate during heat... No, he had had no choice about that. He hadn't revealed anything, he had simply been unable to conceal it. This was intentional, though, a gesture of affection Carry had openly offered the lover he so carefully guarded himself from. 

It seemed almost cruel, for all Keenan knew with certainty it was also true.

It was a dilemma, only it didn't feel like a real choice at all. He couldn't walk away from this any more than he could walk away from his career. Literally, really, since there was no way in hell he could play with Carry if he couldn't have him, even worse, if he had to know someone else was helping him through his heats.

 

 

The Proposal: Take 2

Author’s note: This one could technically happen.

 

“Will you marry me?”

“Marry?” Carry echoed.

“Like betas, just... a ceremony, and a paper, and... rings.”

“Rings. Two of them?” It was normally the omega who wore the collar or ring, but some people had taken to exchanging them.

“It's not binding! I looked it up,” Keenan said. “But it would… I think it would feel right, to wear a ring you put on me.”

“You can't put it on me,” Carry said. Keenan nodded.

“I know, it's fine. I want you to put it on yourself.”

“Then I'll be able to take it off.”

“Yes.” Keenan's eyes were shinning. “Yes, you will. But...” He licked his lips, and shrugged, smiling tentatively, as if he thought Carry would make fun of him for it. “I hope you won't. I hope I can make it worth your while.”

And Carry couldn't keep it back any longer, he threw himself at Keenan, knowing he'd be caught, knowing it was right. Keenan's arms came around his way. Strong, a support that would not fail and would not be taken away. “I love you,” he said, and it was the first time he had been able to get the words out since... Except that didn't matter anymore. He didn't need to feel guilty about having been naive once because he wasn't anymore: he had someone to trust who deserved to be trusted. And he could give him the truth, could offer his heart to be crushed knowing it'd be treasured. “I hope you didn't go off and buy the rings on your own,” he added, failing to scowl against Keenan's warm, soft neck.

“I wouldn't dream of it.”

 

Carry realises his feelings: Take 1

“I didn’t know!” Carry said, but he wondered if he was telling the truth. How could he not have seen it? “I really… He said it was okay, that he wanted to, but then he was all spacey and I had to help him with the bond, and then Puccio pushed me and—”

“Okay, okay,” Thomas interrupted. “Calm down. It’s fine. Well, it’s not, but it will be. You asked me for help and I said I would help you.”

He could almost believe it when Thomas said it like that, clearly still indignant but pushing past it, already thinking of a solution. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” the beta warned. “I’m thinking this is going to include a lot of begging, possibly on your knees.”

“Okay,” he agreed. He didn’t see what else he could do. He could hardly show up on Keenan’s doorstep and tell him he...

“You are sure, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but… I don’t want a bond.”

Thomas’s silence almost echoed through the line. “I don’t think I understand.”

“I talked to a doctor, a new one and she said… She gave me new suppressants.”

“And that will stop you from bonding?” Thomas guessed.

“No, but it makes it harder. Less likely. So…” He thought about explaining how sex with alpha outside of heat would regulate his cycles, then discarded the idea. “So I could try, if… If he wanted to.”

“Just so I’m clear, we are talking about a relationship here, aren’t we?”

“Yes!”

“Okay, because… well, you know how he feels about you.”

Carry’s stomach twisted, with fear and hope and regret. He’d assumed once Keenan’s feelings were just the product of hormones and after the speech he’d realised how wrong he was… but it’d been almost a month of not seeing each other and Keenan had said he wasn’t attracted to men in the first place, how likely was it that he was still interested? “I’m serious about this,” he managed to say.

“I… I miss him,” he confessed. “It’s… it’s not even been a month and I just… I don’t know what I’ll do when we have to go back, but I tried to—”

“What?”

“I tried to… be with someone.”

“Oh, um, tried?”

“I couldn’t go through with it.”

“Okay.”

“He asked me if I had someone special, and I realised… I do. Only I said no to him, when he asked.”

“Wait, what? Keenan asked you out?”

The Double Date That Wasn’t

Author’s notes: I imagine something like this will totally happen.

 

“Carry?” Thomas said, and Carry found he was watching him closely. “Is this about meeting a strange alpha?”

“Just a stranger,” Carry explained. “I don’t like it.”

“If you think about it, I was a stranger too, before—”

“We had hockey,” Carry told him with a sigh. He was used to the way his mind worked not being in sync with other people. “What am I supposed to talk about with your boyfriend?”

“Me?” Thomas offered, pouting a little.

Carry rolled his eyes at him, although he guessed he could try telling Uriel about how Thomas had got high and tried to give him a lap dance because he looked sad.

“Okay, let’s go in.”

 

&

 

Uriel came to open the door for them wearing an apron, which Carry noticed because the one thing he wouldn’t do with a stranger was look them in the eye. His shields were open but not completely—he could clearly control how much he projected—and all Carry could smell was carrot cake and sprinkles. A happy smell, he thought, even though he didn’t like sweets that much anymore.

He raised his head and focused his eyes on Thomas’s boyfriend’s left ear and turned his own dial from level 1 to level 3—just enough for a hint of nerves to filter through.

“Hello, thank you for having me,” he said, offering a bottle of sake. “I’m not sure if this will go with the meal, but if not, you can enjoy it at another time together.” He turned to his linemate to include him in the offer

He could feel Thomas staring at him like he’d grown another head.

“Thank you,” the alpha said, voice deep but very soft. He took the bottle with care by the neck, far enough from Carry’s hands holding the base that there was no risk of touching him. “I made falafel for a starter, so sake should go well with it.”

“Can we sit down?” Thomas asked, sounding pained. “You guys need to relax.”

Carry refrained from rolling his eyes at him. Like it was that easy, meet a stranger—an alpha, at that—and just become their best friend without knowing the next thing about them other than one of your best friends liked to bang him.

“This way,” Uriel indicated and they followed him into a kitchen with a table big enough for four.

Carry only realised he was playing with his phone inside his pocket when Thomas took out his own. “Where in all the realms is Keenan?”

“His journey is longer,” Carry offered, shrugging off his coat and setting in on a chair before stopping cold. The table wasn’t small, but still...

“Please take the head,” Uriel told him. “And I thought Keenan could sit to your right and Thomas to your left. “You can be a centre this once, right?”

The awkward joke made Carry glance up before he thought better of it. He needn’t have worried, Uriel could only manage a forced smile before his gaze flickered towards the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Carry told him, since he didn’t know how to respond to the joke.

Thomas groaned. “I somehow managed to forget both of you are terrible with strangers,” he said when Carry turned to him. “Uri, go bring us some glasses for the alcohol to make this less weird. Carry, sit down and open that bottle.”

Uriel returned with proper wine glasses, which of course weren’t sake glasses, but Carry forgave him when he was allowed to pour. Having something to do helped as much as the sip of sake they had for the first toast.

“To Keenan getting here soon!” Thomas chanted and Carry wasn’t sure about Uri, but he could certainly toast to that.

When his wayward boyfriend finally rang the bell, Carry accidentally hit his glass with his wrist. It fell over, although there were only a few drops left to stain the table—thank the gods Uriel didn’t bother with a table cloth. Of course, his parents only did because the wooden tables where they ate were worth considerably more than the fine damask covering them.

Thomas rushed to the door without asking his boyfriend a thing and after a beat, Carry’s brain caught up with the fact that he was alone with a strange alpha. Not that he was scared, but it was uncomfortable.

“This table seems old,” he said, mostly to fill the silence.

“It is,” Uriel agreed. “My mothers gave it to me, saved them arguing about whose family it had come from.”

“They got together young?”

“Yeah, secondary school. They’re both betas but they were young enough they didn’t even know that back then. Then they went and became rebels, lived in a commune for a while. Until they adopted me and brother, pretty much.”

“They sound... They’re okay with this?”

“Thomas? Yes, they love him, and his sisters too. Have you met them?”

“Not yet,” Carry admitted, feeling a little guilty. Not that Thomas had met Sandra, but it felt wrong all the same. He knew how much his linemate loved his little sisters.

“I can recommend it,” Uri said easily, then frowned a little, glancing towards the door. “They’re taking quite long, aren’t they?”

He was right, Carry realised, getting to his feet and turning towards the door. He heard the alpha do the same, but they had no trouble navigating down the corridor with the appropriate distance between them.

The front door was closed but Carry saw Keenan’s coat hanging from it at once. At least he was pretty sure it was Keenan’s coat because he’d never seen it dripping like a slow motion cascade before.

“Oh, they must—”

But of course Carry didn’t need any indications to find his alpha, he stepped away and opened the right door without hesitation.

Only to find Keenan in his underwear, shivering and rubbing a towel over his own head.

It took him a moment to identify what was odd about the situation—this had to be Uriel’s bedroom. He carefully stepped away from the doorway, thinking of how to apologize for Thomas’s faux pas. It was quite obvious Uriel wasn’t pleased, there was an edge of citrus to his scent that had Keenan straightening where he was standing next to the open closet doors.

Thomas turned around just then with a shirt and jogging pants. “Hey,” he told them, completely oblivious. “Good thing I left some clothes here, don’t think your things... What did I do?”

Uriel’s scent had an edge to bitterness to it and Carry had a mad impulse and stepped forward. “You just invited a complete stranger into his bedroom, Thomas!”

“But...” Thomas’s green eyes were wide and alarmed “Okay, I’m sorry, obviously I crossed a line. I didn’t... I wouldn’t mind. Keenan can finish getting dressed in the toilet.”

“No,” Uriel said at once. “There is no need. Please...” He swallowed. “I’ll wait in the kitchen.”

His scent was still bitter when he left but he hadn’t even sounded angry. Carry was impressed, and Thomas... Gods above and below, did betas really know nothing?

Except Thomas’s heartbroken expression made it clear he was well aware he’d fucked up. “Okay, guys, now it’s when you use your superpowers for good. Gonna go grovel, maybe on my knees...”

“I’m sorry, Thomas,” Keenan said, his voice sounded rough, like he was getting a cold, and his shields were closed. “I should have known, I was distracted.”

Thomas waved him away. “Just call out before you come for dinner,” he recommended with false cheerfulness, then turned and left them alone.

Keenan groaned and Carry huffed his annoyance. “No comment,” he told his boyfriend. “Come here with those clothes, if you touch the bed, I will punch you.”

Keenan jerked away like the object in question had caught on fire, and then close enough Carry could offer him an arm to hold onto so he could put on Thomas’s spare pair of trousers. The shirt followed—a little too tight and showing Keenan’s nipples were still not quite recovered from the close call with what had to be a proper downpour. He was still shivering a little too.

Carry couldn’t resist him like that. He opened his arms and Keenan pressed close, sighing a little as his cold body came in contact with the warmth of Carry’s. Carry rubbed his waist. “Fuck, you’re freezing.”

Keenan clung to him. “I got lost,” he explained. “And then...”

“Shut up,” Carry told him lovingly. “Just think of how to phrase your apology to the alpha whose bedroom you just invaded.”

“I didn’t touch Thomas,” Keenan offered, which would have been more meaningful if Thomas had been an omega, of course, but Carry supposed could be counted on his favour. Except...

“Like he’d have touched you in the state you were in!” he hissed, pinching Keenan’s hip and making him jump.

Keenan nuzzled his neck. “I hate the cold,” he said quietly, a confession of sorts.

Carry pulled back, rubbing at his arms, then pointed at the corridor. “I’ll get you a jumper, I saw where Thomas keeps his clothes and I won’t touch anything.”

Not that an alpha would mind much if an omega did, he didn’t say. He didn’t need to, of course.

&

Once he could be sure his lover wouldn’t develop hypothermia, they made their way back to the table. Keenan made him pause for a moment to listen in before crossing the threshold, but of course Thomas and Uri were just talking.

“I apologize,” Keenan said as soon as the other alpha looked up. “Thomas was really worried about me and I just... let him. It was a dick move to go into your bedroom and it won’t happen again.”

Uriel hesitated, then nodded his acceptance with hesitant smile. ”I know how he gets.”

Keenan returned the smile, smelling relieved and happy.

“Excellent!” Thomas clapped his hands. “Food!”

Carry wasn’t sure if he thought it’d be summoned by the gesture, but Uriel’s scent had gone back to carrot cake and his eyes were soft as he turned to the kitchen.

The falafel, which Carry thought he’d tried once at a party his parents had dragged him to, seemed designed to make a mess. Pitta bread might have had a pocket to fill but it did not have enough room for onions, red peppers, eggs, tomatoes, garlic sauce, lettuce and the falafel balls themselves. Carry filled it conservatively, even if it meant he couldn’t get in any pickles, and managed a bite without spilling anything on himself.

Thomas and Keenan were either hungrier or less interested in keeping their clothes unstained because their own pittas looked about to burst.

“This is so good,” Thomas told Uri, his grin so bright it could have probably recharged the solar lights stuck to the walls.

Uriel, who clearly was familiar with the process, also had a relatively neat sandwich. “You put too much inside,” he warned, not like he particularly cared or like he assumed Thomas would listen.

Thomas did indeed shrug him off. “It’s fine,” he said, licking the side of his hand when some garlic sauce spurted out.

Carry laughed, looking away and discovered Keenan, on his other side, was pretty much in the same situation. Minus the licking, for which he was grateful, but Keenan was too busy to look at him and Carry accidentally met Uriel’s eyes across the table. He got the full force of his amused smile, a little crooked. He guessed he could see what Thomas saw in the guy, objectively speaking.

“Uriel’s mothers were activists in their youth,” he told Keenan.

He felt his alpha paused next to him, but Uriel spoke first, “Don’t let them hear you using the past tense. They’re still very much involved.”

“What kind of activism?” Keenan asked, his scent rising, salty and sweet at once. Suddenly Carry wanted fries more than anything in the world. He sighed and made himself take another bite of falafel—it didn’t matter if it was summer, he couldn’t eat fries every time Keenan felt a positive emotion around him.

“Well, they were involved in several but I think the biggest deal for them was trying to give kids chances to improve themselves while they were young enough so they could catch up to kids with more resources without needing to be singled out later on. They started several afterschool and weekend clubs all around London. Kind of like what Thomas does with the kids at the Peckham Centre, but with a little more emphasis on life skills like cooking and organizing one’s time.”

Thomas’s cleared his throat, licking his thumb more like a cat showing his teeth than someone who should have known better manners. “I’m sure you didn’t just imply hockey is not an important life skill to us,” he said slowly, a dangerous glint to his expression Carry couldn’t figure out if it was serious.

Uriel raised both hands, eyes widening but mouth smiling. “Of course not, working in teams, coordination... err... Speed. All essential life skills.”

“Perhaps not as essential as eating, though,” Keenan suggested, wryly and Thomas shot him a betrayed look that almost made Carry spit out his mouthful.

 

Some random bits & bobs

And Carry did feel guilty, because he had known the Titans would fuck with him, he'd known they'd blame him for getting traded. For sleeping with Pucio. It was always the omega's fault, of course, because alphas didn't go after omegas, protocol wouldn't allow it. So Carry must have asked Pucio, Carry must have seduced him. And Pucio wasn't to blame, of course, because who would turn down a free tumble?

It didn't matter that Pucio had plenty of betas to sleep around, or that Carry had heats to contend with that nobody but an alpha could alleviate. Or that Carry had played his best when he'd been with them, practicing until he could barely stand and scoring a fair amount for a rookie with less ice time than his skill deserved.

He wasn't their teammate anymore and that meant he was only one thing to them: an omega.

 

&

"See? You're getting confused now..."

"I'm not confused, Carry. If anything I'm just getting it."

And he reached out and took hold of Carry's wrist. It was nothing like his touch during heat, it didn't feel like a balm on an open wound—relief so absolute there was no room for anything else—it was just skin. Human, warm, soft despite the calluses where Avali's thumb was rubbing the vulnerable skin if his inner arm. There wasn't the haze of heat to excuse how hard Carry's heart was beating as he stared at his own arm, at Avali's darker skin on his. He... Carry wrenched his arm away. "What are you doing?"

"I'm asking."

Carry took a step back, in shock, not fear. There wasn't anything to be afraid of because there was no way in hades he would... "No," he gritted out and he knew his voice sounded thin.

"Why not?"

"Because I won't. I will not give it up. I will never give it up. Not for you, not for... They can cut my leg off tomorrow and I'll come back with a prosthetic. There is nothing..." Else, he thought. But the word didn't come out. It didn't feel true.

 

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