gronk me harder

[whynot]

Not sure how to explain it. No way around it. The frustration in the locker room has begun to feel like malaise, a kind of inevitable fog weighing down their hands and dulling their skates. It's like everyone's waiting waiting for the season to end, the fight gone out of them. Sometimes literally, the beat writers would hazard. Har har. Roll tape of Dalton Prout dropping Lucic with one punch. Things like that. That part's not new to Griff, but the size of the kingdom is. Everyone's got sharp claws and wants to use them, everyone except the fucking team itself.

"It's all the injuries," Morrow says. "We can at least get that wild card spot."

Getting kicked in the teeth for a wild card spot is no way to be. Jordan guesses, rather creatively, that it's the absence of Boychuk. You can't really know, Seth tells them. We can't really know. We're just the schmucks from Providence.

No one sees Marchand coming until they hear his voice. "Half the team is schmucks from Providence, boys."

Jordan jumps a foot in the air, and Morrow goes red, goes "Uh..."

Marchand smacks Seth's back, ostensibly supportive, but it stings. The Bruins' instability is hitting everyone in different ways, and Seth is beginning to recognize the signs.

"Don't sell yourself short," Marchand says, and then he winks.

So there's that.

*

It's cold in the players' lot, but the cold doesn't bother Griffith. He was born in the dead of winter. There's barely anyone in the lot and that's a blessing after the circus inside. The ruckus, the hubbub, everyone crowding around the veterans, wanting to know what's going on, but the faces of the franchise have nothing new to say, and Griffith keeps tripping over reporters on the way out of the locker room.

He takes a second and just breathes in. Boston clangs around in the distance, never truly quiet in this town, but that's it. Seth just wants to savor a little peace before he goes home and passes out. It's been a hard fucking day.

Marchand's voice behind him yells, "Griff!"

It's Marchand and Smith, and Marchand's already a little off-center. Griff saw the flask earlier, passed surreptitiously between him and Smith while their center diverted media attention. Saint Patrice lives up to his myth. The Bergeron line is only 66.6% delinquent, at most, because Patrice is the kind of guy that NESN tries to sell a "that guy's dog understands English AND French commands" story about.

"Whatcha got!" Smith yells.

"I got nothing, man," Seth replies. "Same old shit."


lol, idk, sometimes my post-game analysis is just fic that goes nowhere. Say if this is a 'verse or a timeline, then next time I can write about the blowjobs that I think this ficlet meant to get to. EXPRESS YOURSELF. Try it, NESN. Spice up your overtime!

Speaking of which, the internet has discovered Rob Gronkwski erotica on Amazon. It is called A Gronking to Remember, and it gives me hope. If someone can publish "do to me what Gronk does to a football" and make money off of it, then there is hope for me. Plus, a part of me kinda hopes that Gronk wrote (dictated?) this as an elaborate prank and is giggling to himself as Boston sports internet goes belly-up.

Unrelatedly, do you guys read Lackadaisy? Because I am in a glass case of emotion re: Viktor and Mordecai and I must scream.