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Zhenya was pretty nervous as he watched the plane’s descent into Halifax-Stanfield, the lakes and neatly-organized housing developments coming into view. In all the years that he and Sid had been friends, he’d never been here. Before, it had been easy to say no—he had plans to get to, plans to lie on the beach with Oksana and bake to a crisp, plans to spank the whole lot of his friends at pool, plans to marinate in his favorite sauna in Moscow.
But now—well—now Sid was undoubtedly part of those plans, or Zhenya wanted him to be. Sid wouldn’t come to the beach, but Zhenya could settle for lying around in his shorts in Sid’s grassy backyard and sunning himself by the lake. Probably he could convince Sid to take the boat out a few times—they could catch some haddock and kiss under the shade of the deck awning if they got far enough out that no one would see them.
At the taxi stand, Zhenya looked up and saw a big banner of Sid hanging from the ceiling, one from their last cup win, Sid beaming under the scruffy curl of his playoff beard, cup gleaming bright in his arms. That was a year ago now, and Zhenya smiled to see it, the most direct precursor to their relationship. It had been at that year’s cup party that Sid had kissed him, a little drunk, arms full of a box of empty beer cans. Zhenya had watched him trip a little over the entryway and tried to steady the box before everything ended up scattered across the kitchen tile.
“I’ve got it,” Sid had said, grinning up at him. “I’m not that drunk.”
“No?” Zhenya had asked. Sid had been lounging around on a floatie in the pool for at least an hour at that point, letting the rookies deliver him a steady stream of sangria and leaning up every so often to take a drink from the cup as it floated from one teammate to another. Zhenya had been trying and failing not to watch him; he was pretty drunk.
“Definitely not,” Sid had insisted, and then surprised Zhenya by leaning up and kissing him full on the mouth, the box crushed between their chests, Zhenya’s back warm against the closed door.
Zhenya’s phone lit up with a message from Sid a few minutes later: parked in arrivals—you out of customs yet? He had possibly been a little generous with his estimate on how long it would take him to get through the screenings—he’d certainly never been able to make it through the line at JFK that quickly.
yes, you’re late he sent back, and then hoisted his duffle on his shoulder, tossed his coffee cup in the trash, and walked out into the afternoon sun.
Sid’s car wasn’t hard to find. It was at least five years old, the kind of car that regular families liked to drive around Pittsburgh: thick tires, a bit of mud stained around the base of the door. Sid was leaning against the side of it when Zhenya approached, his hat pulled low over his face, arms crossed like maybe no one would notice him if he wanted it hard enough.
Zhenya could already see a couple of teenage boys rubbernecking him from the baggage counter. It was a fat chance that he would somehow not get spotted here, in this place where he was King.
He opened his arms for a hug when Zhenya approached, and Zhenya wrapped his arms around those thick shoulders and tried not to hold on too long, tried not to bury his face in the sweaty curve of Sid’s neck. When he pulled away, he patted Sid’s back a couple times like he would do with any friend.
“I see you made it here in one piece,” Sid said, swinging Zhenya’s bags into the trunk, amidst the mess of his own gear.
“Hmm,” Zhenya considered, “maybe not one piece, but I’m here.” He pulled his sunglasses down and looked at Sid through the rear-view mirror, the heft of his forearms, his chest stretching his t-shirt tight, dotted with damp patches of sweat on his stomach and underarms. Zhenya hoped that Sid didn’t want to run any errands on the way home. It had been over a month since Zhenya had departed Pittsburgh—a whole month too long.
When Sid got into the driver’s seat, he put his big palm on Zhenya’s leg and smiled at him and Zhenya felt his heart unwind a little, knowing that Sid was happy to have him here. Zhenya smiled back and tried not to think too much about how much he wanted to lean over and kiss him, still aware of the eyes on them from around the parking lot. It wasn’t weird for teammates to visit each other, but Zhenya could see the boundary—it was a sharp line.
Sid kept his hand there all through the drive, rubbing his thumb over the seam of Zhenya’s shorts. When they got far enough out that the suburban shopping centers turned into trees, Zhenya felt bold enough to drop his hand on top of Sid’s, entwining their fingers a little.
Sid smiled all crooked and toothy at him when they came to a stoplight. “I’m really glad you could come,” he said. “I hope I’m not doing too much damage to your summer routine.”
“Maybe new routine is okay,” Zhenya said—hoping that it was true—and he twisted their fingers together more firmly, until they were really holding hands. Sid’s hands were wide and warm and rough in the same spots that Zhenya’s were. It had been a whole year of this; he didn’t ever want it to get old.
At the house, Sid showed him around only a little—pointing at the garage and the walkway to the backyard as he keyed open the front door, giving him a cursory tour of the bathroom and bedrooms on the upper level when he went to drop off Zhenya’s bags. In the kitchen, Zhenya leaned against the counter and watched as Sid pulled a water jug out of the fridge and drank from it in long sips.
“You want me to make you some lunch?” Sid asked, returning the jug to the fridge and rifling through the rest of the shelves. “I have sandwich stuff, or some leftovers, or we could order in, I guess.”
“Sid,” Zhenya said, leering openly at Sid’s ass where it was pressing against the fabric of his shorts. They were finally alone, secluded by the lake, just like he had wanted. Maybe he was still a little hungry after forgoing the food service on his flight from London, but eating was far from the first thing on his mind.
“I could make you a smoothie if you don’t want any of that,” Sid said, standing up and shutting the fridge door. “Nate just turned me on to this new recipe app, it’s pretty good.”
“Sid,” Zhenya said again, trying to draw his attention. “C’mere.”
Sid looked up then, and turned to face him, a clamshell of strawberries still held in one hand. When he didn’t move, Zhenya rounded the counter and crowded in close, the clamshell a sharp edge against his stomach.
“Not hungry,” Zhenya said, and reached between them to grab the strawberries and place them on the counter behind Sid’s back. He raised his other hand to cup the curve of Sid’s jaw, where some semblance of a beard had grown in. “I miss you while I’m in Moscow.”
“We talked a lot,” Sid said, and Zhenya felt his hand slide up under the edge of Zhenya’s shirt to touch his bare skin. “I sent you all those pictures, like you asked.”
“Pictures very nice,” Zhenya said, scrubbing his hand back and forth through the coarse hair on Sid’s cheek. “Not same, though.”
The pictures had been nice: snapshots from Sid’s week in Los Angeles, a large colorful bird he’d seen in one of the trees by his condo there, a view from the top of one of the hills. Zhenya had only been in Los Angeles briefly—for in-season road trips, or the couple of weeks he spent there before he joined the Penguins—but it seemed nice, warm and sunny, full of sand and culture and good food. Maybe they would go together some summer, if everything worked out.
“I like this,” Zhenya said, still touching Sid’s beard, and then he leaned in to press his lips to it, right where the hair faded up into the soft skin of Sid’s cheek. “Looks good, you look like man.”
“Manly? I always look like a man, cmon—“ Sid said, pushing playfully at his chest. “Don’t start that shit.” Zhenya just looked down at him, his big, scrunched up nose, his crooked smile, his hands still gripping Zhenya’s sides, and felt terribly fond. He had known every version of Sid that had existed over the past decade, from the bald-faced teenager with a loud mouth and crooked teeth to this fully-grown version in front of him, self-assured and wrinkled around the eyes and pushing thirty-one.
“Mmm, okay,” Zhenya said, pulling Sid to him by the waistband of his shorts, walking them both backwards into the living room. “Maybe you show me.”
“You’re insufferable,” Sid said, but he pushed Zhenya down onto the couch and climbed on top of him, smiling like he was terribly delighted. “Remind me why I wanted you to come here again?”
Zhenya didn’t need to answer, he just tugged Sid’s stupid hat off of his head, sank his fingers into Sid’s hair, and pulled him down into a kiss. It had been way too long since they’d kissed—since that last morning at Zhenya’s house in Pittsburgh, standing against the door of Zhenya’s car—and Zhenya felt so eager that he turned it dirty right away, licking across the seam of Sid’s lips and into his mouth.
Sid’s mustache was scraping against the skin above his lip, but he loved it, knew it would turn red if they went at this too long and he wouldn’t even care. Sid had spent a weirdly long time this season letting his stubble grow out, longer than Zhenya thought strictly correlated with his points streaks. Maybe he knew just how much Zhenya liked it, the burn against his cheeks and inner thighs. Sometimes, when Sid went down on him, he’d pull off and look up at Zhenya and nuzzle his jaw along the line of Zhenya’s hip and Zhenya would clamp down his hands in Sid’s hair. Even the memory of it was pretty lethal.
“You wanna take this upstairs?” Sid asked, sitting up in Zhenya’s lap, his mouth puffy, his hair wrecked from Zhenya’s hands, heavy and muscular and all Zhenya’s. Zhenya wanted nothing more than to take him up to his bed and possibly never leave.
“Go, go—” he said, and watched Sid climb off of him and followed him up the stairs to his room, where Zhenya’s bags still took up half of the bed.
Sid’s room here was brighter than the one he had in Pittsburgh, with a windowed balcony door and light grey walls and a nautically striped bedspread. After Sid muscled Zhenya’s bags into a chair, Zhenya turned him around and pushed him down to the mattress, right in the middle of a spot of dappled sun.
“I miss this,” Zhenya said, running a hand up his foot and bare calf, warm and a little sticky from the summer heat.
Sid watched him with dark, smiling eyes, propped up on his elbows. “So you said,” he said.
“You don’t miss?” Zhenya asked, struck momentarily with an awful twist of uncertainty, the nervousness of his flight returning. He knew just how much Sid cared for him, but sometimes his brain made him forget, traitor that it was. Sometimes, he was convinced Sid would wake up and realize that Zhenya’s terrible moods or his fondness for splurging or the oceans separating them had just become too much. Maybe seeing him here, in Sid’s private space, would make him realize that Zhenya really didn’t belong.
“Of course I did,” Sid said, reaching out a hand to catch Zhenya’s wrist and pull him onto the bed. “C’mon, c’mere you big idiot—I missed you a lot.”
He put a hand on Zhenya’s neck and pressed up to kiss him, slow and sweet and open-mouthed. Zhenya delighted in it, and in Sid’s easy nature here, in this place where he had no real timetable to abide by. They could lie here and kiss for hours if Zhenya wanted them to, until someone got hungry or had to pee.
“Take this off,” Sid said, tugging at the hem of Zhenya’s shirt. Zhenya scrambled to obey, pulling it over his head too quickly and getting his necklaces tangled up. Sid’s hands worked the fly of Zhenya’s shorts open, and Zhenya could feel himself growing interested in the attention.
“Now you,” Zhenya said, nodding his head at Sid, who was still fully clothed, laying back and watching Zhenya with heavy eyes. Sid didn’t move to do anything but run his hands over Zhenya’s newly bared skin, up and down the sunburnt plane of his chest, thumbs catching the pendants of his necklace.
“Do it for me,” Sid said, putting his arms over his head, lax—like he would let Zhenya do anything to him. Zhenya knew better, he wouldn’t ever be the one in control here unless Sid willingly handed it over. Even at his most submissive, Sid was always the master of his own plan.
Zhenya couldn’t say that he didn’t like it that way.
He put his hands on the base of Sid’s t-shirt and rucked it up a little, revealing the warm skin of Sid’s stomach—tanned a bit, this far into the summer—and something he wasn’t so familiar with: a thin line of dark hair running between Sid’s belly button and the waistband of his shorts.
Zhenya stared for a second, mouth agape. Surely he would have noticed before, if Sid had any hair here, but there was no way. Every time that Zhenya had gotten him naked he’d been as smooth as he had been at nineteen, skin pink and shiny and warm to the touch. Zhenya had always just figured Sid was one of those guys who didn’t grow much—it wasn’t like Zhenya himself had anything much to write home about.
He pushed the shirt up more, all the way to Sid’s armpits, eyes fixated on the hair slowly appearing, thickening and fanning out across Sid’s chest, gathered a little around his deep-pink nipples. It wasn’t a ton—not like some of the men Zhenya saw at the banya, with hair long and curling over their stomachs and shoulders—but it definitely was a sight, a different version of the Sid that Zhenya knew.
He looked older, almost—maybe a little distinguished—and Zhenya tried not to think at all about how he resembled the men that Zhenya had gazed at in glossy magazines when he was young, all the sweaty Soviet soldiers of Zhenya’s dreams.
“What’s up?” Sid asked, now that Zhenya was just gawking. Zhenya looked up at his furrowed expression and tried not to dwell on the fact that his own face was probably a very unflattering shade of red.
“When you?” he asked, looking down again and then back up. Sid followed his gaze and looked confused for a brief moment before Zhenya watched it dawn on him.
“Oh—oh, the—” Sid said, picking one hand up to scrub through the hair fading down the center of his stomach, which Zhenya definitely did not need to watch. “Yeah, I, uh—I usually let it go for the summer, you know? It’s good to let it breathe a little.”
Zhenya certainly wasn’t thinking about any other hair that Sid was fond of letting go, or how far down the hair went, where it trailed into the waistband of his shorts. God—Zhenya needed to get him naked immediately.
“You shave?” Zhenya asked, putting a palm over Sid’s chest, stroking downward with the grain of the hair there. It was a little rougher than he had maybe expected. The hair on his own chest was soft and thin, just barely a suggestion.
“Wax, mostly,” Sid said, his chest rising and falling rhythmically under Zhenya’s hand. “I didn’t really have much until recently, but it, uh—it doesn’t feel too great under the gear.” Zhenya just kept running his hand over it, up and down, his little finger brushing Sid’s nipple. He hadn’t slept with a ton of men, before Sid, and most of them hadn’t had much. He supposed that athletes were all much the same.
“I could probably use my beard trimmer to cut it short if it bugs you,” Sid said, when Zhenya still hadn’t said anything else.
Zhenya’s eyes flicked up to look at his face, painted over with uncertainty. “No,” he said, maybe a little too loudly, and then continued, “I’m—don’t, I like.” He cupped his hand around Sid’s side, and tried to push tender feelings at him. Sid had to know how painfully Zhenya was into him by now. Maybe Sid thought of his body hair as something weird or off-putting, some gross necessity, but Zhenya really liked it.
“I like a lot,” Zhenya continued, rubbing his hands through it still, down Sid’s chest and back up again, the touch making Sid’s skin goosebump under his hands. “You do everywhere?” He trailed his fingers over the drawstring at Sid’s waist, the line where the hair disappeared.
“Why don’t you find out?” Sid said, and when Zhenya glanced up at him his face was stretched into a pleased smirk. Zhenya untied Sid’s shorts and pulled them down over his thighs and his fattening erection, and he was bare underneath for once, his dick bobbing up over a thick thatch of dark hair.
Zhenya looked up at his eyes, which were terribly dark, and then back down at his cock, flushed red and lying at a familiar angle. He knew how much Sid liked it like this, liked to lay back and raise his eyebrow at Zhenya and challenge him to just have at it—Zhenya was flushing hot just thinking about it, all the times Sid had stripped naked and dared Zhenya to touch him, as if Zhenya would ever not want to.
He leaned down to take Sid into his mouth, laving his tongue around the fat, warm head. When he bobbed down far enough, his forehead scraped against the hair on Sid’s stomach. He thought briefly that he might like it if Sid took a picture of him, after—his mouth bruised red, swollen and sore, the friction-rash blooming on his forehead.
Maybe Sid could keep it, tucked away in the folder on his phone where he saved all of Zhenya’s private snapshots. Zhenya loved it—when they were away—imagining him looking at Zhenya’s pictures and touching himself.
“God,” Sid said, his voice rough, his hands reaching down to thread into Zhenya’s hair. Zhenya felt his scalp prickle when Sid tugged and he moaned a little. “Geno—fuck, I forgot how good at this you are.”
“You forget already?” Zhenya asked, a thread of saliva connecting his mouth to the head of Sid’s cock as he pulled off. He was a little offended to think that Sid had forgotten all about it in the month they’d been apart. Zhenya hadn’t forgotten a thing.
“You know what I mean,” Sid said, hands still cradling Zhenya’s head, his palms warm and sweaty on Zhenya’s neck. “C’mon.” He pressed Zhenya back down, and Zhenya just indulged himself a little, burying his face in Sid’s groin, licking around the base of his cock where the hair was thicker, shouldering Sid’s thighs apart and nosing at the warm, musky skin near his balls.
“I’m probably pretty rank, sorry—” Sid said, but his hands stayed tight in Zhenya’s hair and when Zhenya put a hand on his cock it was as hard as ever, leaking a little at the tip. Zhenya had been blowing him after training sessions all season—Sid knew he liked it; he wasn’t the least bit sorry.
“Mmm, you fine—” Zhenya said, and then smacked a slow kiss to the head of Sid’s cock and hefted himself up. “Smell like work hard, I like.” He used to get a little embarrassed about it, how much he really didn’t mind getting up close and personal after practice, or bending Sid over the kitchen island after his morning workout and just—
Well, he wasn’t really embarrassed about it now—so what if people thought he was a gross athlete; he was. He liked Sid sweaty and pink and a little ripe, and he liked it even more now, the way the sweat clung to the hair dotting his chest and groin. Maybe he could convince Sid to keep it during the season; surely they made base layers that wouldn’t chafe too much.
“Come up here,” Sid said after a moment, tugging his shirt all the way off and scooting up so he was settled against the headboard, his stomach scrunching up a bit, the way that Zhenya loved. “Take your shorts off.”
Zhenya stepped off the bed and dropped his shorts and underwear, watching Sid watch him, running his eyes over Zhenya’s long legs and summer tan, hand curled loosely around his own cock. Sid looked like maybe he was trying to memorize the sight. Zhenya wanted him to—maybe then he wouldn’t forget, in the months between now and September.
“Did you wear sunscreen at all in Miami?” Sid asked, sounding only a little judgemental, and mostly turned on. So what if Zhenya liked to get a little burnt, lying around on his favorite deck chair and sunning himself while Seryozha’s daughters splashed him from the pool.
“Maybe,” Zhenya said, and dawdled around a little more, bending over to pick up his shorts and throw them at the laundry basket, giving Sid a full view of his ass and the sharp tan line from his trunks.
“Jesus—” Sid groaned. Zhenya wasn’t sure if it was physically possible for him to get any harder than he was, but his dick was sure trying. It felt painful, like maybe he’d been ready for this for the whole fucking month.
He climbed back onto the bed, dropping his legs across Sid’s lap, their cocks slotting together between their bodies, wet from sweat and the slick of Sid’s precome. “You want me to fuck you?” Sid asked, looking down and then back up into Zhenya’s eyes. “Or you just gonna rub off like this? You like the friction,eh?”
Zhenya scrunched his face up, and bent down to kiss his stupid smirking face. “Maybe I just come all over you,” he said, running his hands up and down Sid’s chest. “Maybe rub it all in, you’re so messy.”
“Let me get it in and maybe I’ll let you,” Sid said, quiet and hot, the air blowing against Zhenya’s cheek before he took Zhenya’s mouth in a slow, sloppy kiss, his tongue in Zhenya’s mouth, their noses bumping. Zhenya scraped his thumbnails down over Sid’s nipples and felt him yelp a little, squirming around and grinding up against Zhenya’s dick.
“Just like this,” Zhenya said. “Where’s the lube?” He couldn’t bear to leave Sid’s lap, couldn’t take his hands off Sid’s chest, scratching over and over through the growing hair, wondering how long it would get. All of this would be gone by the time training camp rolled around, Zhenya wanted to savor it. Maybe he would ride Sid every day until he had to catch his flight home, spread him out like a buffet and just look his fill. Who cared about anything else.
Sid leaned over and pulled a nearly empty tube out of the bedside table, and painstakingly squeezed some onto his hand while Zhenya laughed at him. “Need more,” Zhenya said, snickering, and squirmed and hissed a little when Sid brushed over his hole with cold, slick fingers.
“Stop being a baby,” Sid said, and pressed two fingers against Zhenya’s hole with more and more pressure until they sunk in. God, Zhenya had missed this maybe most of all. Sid’s fingers were thick and deft, and he’d learned so well last year, just the right amount of pressure, just the right angle.
He screwed his fingers in and out of Zhenya’s ass, quick and impolite, and Zhenya shut his eyes and pretended that he didn’t know that Sid was watching his face the whole time—his mouth that was dropped open, his cheeks that were flushed a shiny red. He felt himself twitch everytime Sid pressed in deep and knew he was leaking all over Sid’s cock.
“Look at me,” Sid said, and pulled his fingers out and wiped them against the soft part of Zhenya’s hip and held on. Zhenya opened his eyes and looked down at him, his eyelashes obscuring his eyes, his mouth bitten a deep pink. His chest was heaving, wet with perspiration at the center, where the hair was the thickest.
Zhenya thought sometimes about what it might have been like, if this had all happened a decade ago, when they were young and inexperienced—sneaking around, learning all of their stupid kinks together. But Zhenya preferred this Sid, older and sure in his own skin, unashamed and open and dirty. Zhenya loved that he knew what he wanted, and loved his fake teeth and the scar cutting across his chin and the soft layer of fat at his hips.
Maybe when they were retired, they could lay around by the pool and Zhenya could watch the hair on Sid’s chest come in a little grey—if they made it until then.
But getting maudlin about it was stupid, probably. They’d last or they wouldn’t, and for now Zhenya just lifted up and steadied Sid’s cock with one hand and sunk down on it, watching Sid’s face flood with pleasure, his eyes clenching shut for a moment like it was too much.
Sid was pretty close—worked up from Zhenya’s mouth like he always was—and it didn’t take him long to come, his fingers digging into Zhenya’s hips hard enough to leave a mark, his chest flushing pink under Zhenya’s hands.
“Fuck, fuck—” he said, as he held Zhenya still and thrust up into him. Zhenya had a couple of fingers held tight around his own dick, holding back his own orgasm. Sid had promised him that he could make a mess, and well—he really wanted to.
He waited until Sid stilled entirely, his dick going soft while Zhenya was still seated on him. Zhenya could feel the wet slick of Sid’s come in him, and probably it would leak out all over Sid’s cock and balls. Maybe he would rub that in, too.
“Well?” Sid asked, looking at Zhenya expectantly, moving one hand to brush a little against the head of Zhenya’s dick. “You gonna?”
He put his hands back on Zhenya’s hips, which he knew Zhenya liked, dipping his fingers down into the wet crease of Zhenya’s groin. “Bossy,” Zhenya said, and smiled down at him, keyed up and terribly fond. “Worst.”
He bent down to kiss each of Sid’s stubbled cheeks, and then his sweet, full mouth, because he wasn’t the worst at all. And then he put his own hand on his dick in earnest and balanced the other against Sid’s chest and stroked himself rough until he came, spurting out all up the center of Sid’s stomach, the white splatters stark against the sweat-dark hair.
Sid looked down and laughed a little, and Zhenya could feel himself smiling, gazing at his handiwork. He was happy to be here, wet and sticky with the ceiling fan whirring loudly above them.
“Messy,” Zhenya said, swiping his fingers through it, smearing it all over, up the line of hair on Sid’s abdomen, across to each of his pebbled nipples. He rolled off after he was done, letting Sid’s dick slip out of him, fully soft and shiny between his legs.
“I didn’t uh—I didn’t realize you would be so into this,” Sid said, looking over at Zhenya as Zhenya stared at the ceiling, his hand brushing up and down Zhenya’s arm.
“I’m—” Zhenya didn’t know what to say, and he felt his cheeks heat up a little. Of course he was into it, but he was into Sid’s everything. It was a little weird, maybe, to be so into something like that—it was just hair.
“It’s fine,” Sid said, propping himself up on his side to look at Zhenya more directly, his hand coming up to rest on Zhenya’s neck. “I probably would’ve showed you sooner, you know—if I knew.”
Zhenya laughed a little, looking up at Sid’s sheepish grin. “I don’t know you have, you know?” he said. “But I like—I like to see you, see real you, not just hockey you.”
“Hockey me is real me,” Sid said, and laughed his stupid laugh and buried his face in Zhenya’s neck. “C’mon, that’s silly.” He kissed Zhenya beneath his jaw, where his skin was the hottest, and then rolled back to rest his cheek on Zhenya’s shoulder, his chest hair tickling the skin of Zhenya’s arm.
Zhenya looked over at him, his cheeks and his big nose still flushed a ruddy pink, his hair sticking up in thick, dark tufts, and felt his heart swell. He’d been so nervous to come here, afraid that maybe this place was too small for him, too quiet. Maybe Sid would see Zhenya’s cracks, or show too many of his own.
But he was just Sid, the same man that Zhenya had always known, the same one that Zhenya probably loved, now.
“We gonna stay in here all week?” Sid asked, but he smiled at Zhenya like he might not mind doing exactly that. They could take breaks to order delivery a couple times a day, probably, or move downstairs to lie naked on the deck.
“Mmm,” Zhenya said, smiling back at him, rubbing his arm against the warm skin of Sid’s chest. “Maybe we will.”