Ruth Sadelle Alderson

Uh, I forgot to mention in the original post that I tend to wander a little from prompts, so this is more gen than anything else. It also got longer than expected, so if you prefer, you can read it at AO3

The problem with being a telepath, instead of an empath or something, is that it only gets you so far over the language barrier. If Sid can take the time to visualize something and it's not too abstract a concept, he can get it across to Geno even without the language, but you don't have that kind of time on the ice, so at the beginning it's him thinking, "pass," and Geno thinking things at him in Russian that he doesn't know if they mean Geno's open or has two men on him or if they just mean he's having fun. (Usually they mean he's having fun, no matter what else is supposed to be contained in the message. Geno loves hockey as much as Sid does.)

That part gets better over time. Geno learns more English, Sid learns enough Russian for them to communicate even if Geno laughs at his pronunciation when he tries to say it with his mouth instead of his mind, and it makes them pretty effective on the ice.

It's all normal, until Sid's taking a nap in the middle of summer and wakes up from a dream he knows wasn't his feeling like he might cry. He doesn't even know what the dream was about - the dialogue was all in Russian his dreaming mind couldn't quite catch, and images in dreams don't always help make sense out of things - but he knows it felt like Geno, and like sadness and loneliness.

Sid grabs his phone and texts, What's wrong? even though he knows it's the middle of the night in Magnitogorsk, before he realizes that nothing about that is right. It's not that he's never had anyone else's dreams before, but telepathy isn't supposed to work over that kind of distance, and telepaths aren't supposed to be able to exchange emotions without some kind of empath in the mix.

Sid gets up from his nap and makes sure to keep his phone close, so he's ready when it vibrates with Geno's reply: nothing wrong

Sid hits call and listens to barely half a ring before Geno answers and says, "Nothing wrong."

"I had a dream," Sid says. "Your dream, I think," and he was so, so sure about that because everything about the dream felt like Geno's mind in his, but if everything's fine, maybe he was wrong. "It was sad."

Geno makes an admonishing noise. "Was just a dream. Nothing wrong. Stop worrying."

Sid makes a face. "I'm the Captain," he says. "It's my job to worry."

"Worry about negotiations," Geno says.

Sid's exasperation comes out in a sigh. "I wish we could just sign an agreement already. I just want to play hockey."

"You always want to play hockey," Geno says.

It's not until much later that Sid realizes Geno never said it wasn't his dream.