Archive of Our Own

A blanket had fallen over Los Angeles. 

Sid leaned over Zhenya’s lap to frown out the plane window as they began their descent into the city. The smog was thick and heavy. At the rental car lot, Sid curiously sniffed at the air like he was trying to taste the ozone. 

Zhenya kept a close gaze on Sid as they waited at the counter for the keys to be brought out. Sid’s fingers were tapping at the countertop, the only obvious sign of his agitation left. The plane ride had settled him. Before they’d driven to the airport, Sid had been buzzing around his house, stuffing last-minute items into his bags with a flat, pinched expression on his face. It was a look Zhenya had seen with increasing frequency during the playoffs. Sid, reserved and taut and gripping his stick tighter as the games wore on. 

Their postseason had ended with an ugly whimper at the hands of the Islanders, and the next morning Sid had told Zhenya he was going to California. So here they were, Sid starting to look more human, Zhenya quiet and waiting to see if the version of Sid from early in the season would return.

“Maybe we get this,” Zhenya said to him, gesturing at a convertible that looked low enough to hurt his knees when he got out of it. “Blend in, you know.”

Sid gave Zhenya a strained, closed-lip smile, and Zhenya’s hand faltered before he dropped it to his side. The attendant brought the keys to their car, an SUV that Zhenya thought was much too big for LA, and they drove off toward the ocean.

“Stairs,” Zhenya said simply once they got to their destination. 

“It’s not so bad,” Sid said as he pressed the lock button on the key fob repeatedly. The SUV honked twice. “Only a few flights, eh? Third floor, c’mon.”

Had Zhenya known that California had fewer elevators than Florida, he would have considered packing less. He waited for Sid to shoulder his carry-on backpack and then swooped in, grabbing the handle of Sid’s hardside suitcase. 

“Geno,” Sid complained as Zhenya trudged up the first few steps of the condo building. He took his sweet time, adding a convincing wobble to his bad knee.

“You pack too much,” Zhenya tossed over his shoulder. 

“Hand it over,” Sid said, just a step behind. “You’re going to pull something.”

That was rich, coming from Sid. The Islanders had nearly ruined his shoulder in the playoffs, and Sid hadn’t helped the issue by latching onto Horny at locker cleanout and trying to wrestle him to the ground. Sid’s bonding methods with the team consisted of beating their asses on the ice and then trying to grind them into the carpet afterwards. He had gotten too ambitious in challenging Horny, who lacked Sid’s sheer mass but had a surprisingly good submission hold. 

“No, too slow,” Zhenya grunted, shuffling onto a landing and up another step.

Sid fumbled with his keys for only a minute before he let them into the condo, and Zhenya immediately let the luggage tumble to the floor.

Sid let out a huff that might have been a laugh. He stepped around the strap of Zhenya’s carry-on and moved deeper into the hallway. 

Zhenya watched him go, his heart settling slightly at the sight of the upturned corner of Sid’s lips, the hint of a real smile. Sid had been cool and efficient at the airport—it was hard not to be with their experience—but he had turned sluggish when Zhenya left him in the first class lounge for too long. He’d spent most of the flight with his enormous headphones on, listening to one of his podcasts. He hadn’t even touched the brick of a book he’d ordered specifically for the trip. 

“Make yourself at home,” Sid said, chucking the car keys onto a countertop before reaching for the fridge door. The movement made a tentative hope bloom in Zhenya’s chest. No matter if they were in Pittsburgh or in California, Sid’s first stop would always be the fridge.

California, Zhenya insisted to himself as he stepped over the mess of luggage, would be the solution to all his problems. He took a cursory glance at the kitchen as Sid stared into the empty fridge—it was decent, with a big island that probably sold Sid on the condo at first glance. The condo wasn’t very big, which didn’t surprise Zhenya at all. 

Zhenya ventured into the bedroom and made a face once he saw the bed. It wasn’t going to be big enough; it had only taken a month for Zhenya to convince Sid to replace the queen he had at his Pittsburgh home. Zhenya’s good advice apparently hadn’t stretched to the West Coast. He had half a mind to tug Sid onto it and prove his point before he sweet-talked Sid into letting him pick the restaurant they’d go to for dinner.

The bedroom was clean and sparse in a way that felt like any of the beige hotel rooms they lived in on the road. There was nothing on the walls except a horrible hanging thing made out of fake, cheery driftwood. There were too many words on it. Zhenya read beach and then lost interest, veering toward the sliding glass door to the balcony.

“Geno?” Zhenya turned to see Sid stepping into the bedroom. Sid had his luggage in hand, and he dropped it in front of the closet doors before popping his larger suitcase open. “Did you hear me?”

A smile grew across Zhenya’s face as Sid stripped off his t-shirt. 

“No, listening now,” he said, watching Sid root through his hastily-packed clothes. The KT tape wrapped around his shoulder was pulling Sid’s pale skin back towards his shoulder blade, the second piece of it edging up toward his neck. It would leave a delightfully weird tanline for Zhenya to lick in the coming days. 

“I said I need to get dinner with Pat.” Sid tugged a presentable button-down from underneath a pair of athletic shorts. 

“Geno?” Sid said, looking up when Zhenya didn’t respond. 

Zhenya’s smile had vanished. “Pat?” he asked bluntly. “Business dinner?”

“Yeah. We need to catch up on some things. Agent shit, you know,” Sid said. He put on the shirt, looking down at each button as he fastened it. 

“Agent shit,” Zhenya repeated. “Fine.” 

Sid tugged at his slacks as Zhenya retreated to the living area of the condo. He made a beeline for the kitchen. The fridge was just as empty as it had been when Sid checked it a minute ago.

“I can grab something to-go for you,” Sid said, his voice floating in from the bedroom. 

Zhenya shut the fridge as Sid emerged from the bedroom, tugging a hand through his curls. His hair was growing longer than he liked. There was a faint hint of stubble on his chin. He looked put-together and pressed in his business-wear.

“Geno,” Sid began.

“I say it’s fine,” Zhenya said. 

“I’ll try to be back before 7. We’re meeting Andy early tomorrow.” Sid raised an eyebrow, like Zhenya needed reminding. Andy had been practically all Sid talked about for the past few days. 

Zhenya just looked at him until Sid rapped his knuckles against the granite countertop in a goodbye. He gave Zhenya that same small smile before taking the rental car keys and disappearing out the front door.

Zhenya braced himself over the countertop for a minute, maybe two, before he collected his messenger bag from the hallway. 

California was just Pittsburgh, then. Sid would drift around, increasingly distracted and disappearing into meetings and PR events and job obligations. Zhenya would watch and wonder why Sid looked grayer every day, and crack jokes that Sid didn’t always laugh at anymore. 

He dumped the contents of his bag onto the counter, letting it all spill out across the granite, and picked around in it until he found his wallet. 

The spare keys to the condo were already in his pocket. He left. 

The neighborhood was all condos, huge earth-colored buildings neatly separated by wide streets. Palm trees were evenly spaced out every twenty feet along the sidewalk. Zhenya had lasted maybe five minutes wandering around the carefully-manicured streets before he pulled up a rideshare app on his phone. 

“Go to Venice,” he’d told the driver.

The Venice neighborhood was cramped, homes and restaurants and shops squished up against one another. For a moment, Zhenya was 20 again. LA was cleaner now in some ways—the buildings, the sky—and dirtier in others—the sidewalks, mostly. The big billboard with the half-naked woman on it was gone, replaced by a mural that had been scrawled over with graffiti. 

When he found the hotel, something nervous and wriggling landed in his stomach. 

The hotel looked the same, mostly. The awnings out front had been swapped from green to black. Zhenya could feel a ghost inside him tugging at his memories. He wanted to follow his instincts, the well-worn path of going inside, taking a turn toward the elevators and going up five floors. It felt less like a memory and more like a dream. Zhenya lingered for only a second more before he walked past the doorman and took a left away from the hotel. 

Zhenya paused at a crowded intersection. A car honked at him before he jogged across the crosswalk. He paused again a few feet onto the sidewalk before deciding to veer right. He could just barely orient himself. He’d had dreams of walking this path, but it had looked so different then. 

He had been young and dumb and overwhelmed by America. There had been one place where he’d felt a bit safer during it all, a hole-in-the-wall he’d stumbled upon when he’d heard loud, angry Russian and seen a beautiful blonde woman pushing a drunk out the door. 

He was wondering if Yulia would still be working the bar all these years later when he hesitated. He turned, taking a few steps back, and looked up at a stout, crammed-looking building.

This was it. This had been it.

The metal siding had been stripped of its violently teal paint. The faded tiki sign was painted over. The Bora Cafe was gone, replaced by a sleek-looking, modern restaurant that had an unpronounceable name in thin, black font.

Zhenya stared at the building, baffled. He wasn’t sure, seeing it and its white-washed siding, how he’d thought it would have survived when everything else about LA had changed. The Bora Cafe had seemed like an outgrowth of the city’s bones when he’d come here for the first time. LA had been hot and smoggy, and Yulia, the snide woman who seemed to do everything in the cafe short of own it, had passed Zhenya a cold beer after he’d shown up for breakfast for the third time in three days. 

He had hoped to show Sid this place, this strange little diner with its greasy burgers and limp pickles and the mean Ukranian server who Zhenya had been able to talk to in this massive concrete city. 

The new restaurant that had so cleanly wiped the Bora Cafe away seemed to serve some sort of fusion food—Mexican and Korean, if Zhenya had to guess. Sid would hate it. It was just as well that this was apparently a business trip for Sid, Zhenya thought bitterly. Zhenya’s plans had been spoiled from the start. He’d been stupid to look forward to it at all.

He stayed there only long enough to nearly get bowled over by some reedy tourist on a scooter before he walked the single block to the beach. 

The pier at least looked the same. Zhenya walked the whole way out, until he was leaning against the stained concrete barrier separating him from the Pacific. 

It was easy enough to tune out the noises around him—the tourist families with their loud children, the teenagers laughing, the panhandlers rattling coins in styrofoam cups—and just watch the waves. He’d done that many nights when he’d been here before, when Olga the translator got sick of eating dinner with him and his English was still too sparse to go out with the hockey players he’d practiced with during the day. Zhenya had always been prone to melancholy, as his father liked to sigh, and California and its bustling, happy facade had been the perfect setting to feel lonesome in. 

When he’d agreed to follow Sid out to LA, he hadn’t expected to feel that way again. 

Zhenya reached into his back pocket and tugged out the passport.

He had thought about pulling it out instead of his driver’s license at the airport, waiting for Sid to notice the difference. He’d chickened out in the security line. 

A joke would have been fun; Sid might have laughed, startled out of his strange, stewing mood, but Zhenya had selfishly realized he wanted tenderness instead of laughter or distracted indifference. He’d thought maybe over burgers, maybe if he’d been able to make Sid smile at stories of Zhenya’s first helpless stumbles in America, it would have felt appropriately sentimental to pull out the passport and show Sid. 

Zhenya cracked open the passport. His own unsmiling face stared back at him. His American face.

He looked at it for only a few seconds before closing it. The sun set into the Pacific. Everything was streaked orange and pink, and the little blue passport in Zhenya’s hands felt insubstantial and light. If he put it down, it might disappear. 

Zhenya pushed open the condo door and almost immediately slammed face-first into the wall as his foot caught on the edge of his luggage. He caught himself with a hand pressed to the drywall, cursing as he kicked his suitcase until it hit the baseboard. 

The light in the kitchen was on.

“Are you drunk?” Sid asked from down the hall after a moment.

“No,” Zhenya said as he walked into the kitchen, peering first at Sid’s back as he loaded what looked like groceries into the cabinets and then at the countertop. It was clean, Zhenya’s messenger-bag mess squirreled away somewhere. 

His gaze drifted up to Sid’s broad back. He’d lost the button-down and slacks, traded for a worn-out black t-shirt and basketball shorts. There was a mess of mostly-empty bags by Sid’s feet, all with the logo of the grocery delivery service Sid used. Sid’s routines stayed the same out here, then. 

Everything about Sid was the same. Sid had promised Zhenya a lot out of California. A change of scenery, he’d said, when he’d first proposed it. Later, as they cleaned the dishes after dinner, he’d quietly admitted that there were people who knew about him in California. 

“We can,” Sid had started, and then stopped. “We can be a bit more open. Maybe.” 

Zhenya’s heart had roared to life at the words. The idea of being able to touch Sid outside of the confines of their homes was the first piece of tinder to catch fire in his mind. The flames had spread; maybe, then, if these people Sid trusted saw Sid and Zhenya together, Sid would stop stonewalling Zhenya about letting their closest inner circle know—Kris especially, who’d been looking at Sid and Zhenya with a strange expression for the better part of the last season. 

Sid’s words had sounded like a promise of change. Zhenya had expected more. It had been foolish of him. 

Sid slid a bag of flaxseed into place. 

“I didn’t know you were going out,” he said, reaching down for his coconut shreds next. “Did you eat?”

“Yes,” Zhenya said. Barely. Two burgers from McDonalds, which had felt nostalgic in an emptier way. He was no longer 20. He’d probably be paying for it when they had to train.

“Right,” Sid said, notching his big bag of chocolate-laden granola up onto the shelf. “It’s late, of course you grabbed something.”

Zhenya’s American passport sat heavily in his pocket. He felt raw.

“What?” he asked, and it came out brusque. 

“Nothing.” Sid closed the cabinet. “We should hit the hay. We’re meeting Andy at 7.”

“In a little bit,” Zhenya said. He didn’t want to get into bed with Sid right now, not with the tension he could see hiding in Sid’s shoulders. He felt empty in a way that went deeper than his hastily-bought dinner. There was Sid, in his own little world, and here was Zhenya, wanting things. It felt an awful lot like being hungry for… something.

A fight would do.

“Your call,” Sid said as he picked his phone up from where it had been laying next to the sink and took a step toward the bedroom. “We’re not getting any younger, eh?”

There it was, the meat Zhenya had been waiting to sink his teeth into.

“Hear enough about this from team staff, Sid, stop,” he said, and Sid’s lips pressed together. 

“Andy’s going to be waiting for us tomorrow and I don’t want to be late. He’s not going to go easy on us because it’s the offseason.”

“Why you start training so soon?” Zhenya demanded. “No day off, we get here and it’s business, training.”

“I come here to train,” Sid said, frowning. “I have to stay in shape, alright, that’s the other side of the coin. I know you’ve never had to, but I—”

“Bring me for what, then?” Zhenya snapped. “Invite me for cardio in bed?”

Sid’s gaze flickered over him, and Zhenya felt picked apart. He could see Sid cataloguing the anger and frustration on him, and it just made the hunger in Zhenya’s stomach turn into a bottomless pit. 

“Geno,” Sid said softly. “That’s not… no.”

Zhenya had been hoping for Sid’s anger. It was easier to bite when Sid was unsettled and upset. Faced with Sid’s sad eyes and careful tone, Zhenya was just ashamed.

“Go to bed,” Zhenya told him, turning his back on the kitchen. He didn’t want Sid’s attention like this, sparking along his raw nerves. “I will come later.”

Zhenya hid himself away in the media room, turning on the TV and cranking up the volume. He flicked through the channels until he found a soccer game and settled in. 

Zhenya watched the screen unseeingly as Sid moved through the condo. He saw Sid walk by to the bedroom and listened to the shower starting. Rashford scored on a penalty kick and Zhenya was aggressively trying to care as he listened to Sid fuss with the luggage in the bedroom.

He was finally getting invested when Sid carefully stepped into the edge of his vision. Zhenya didn’t look as Sid crossed over to sit on the far end of the couch; Zhenya’s legs were stretched out over the cushions, and while Sid might have normally used it as an excuse to sit on Zhenya and make him fold up, Sid managed to wedge himself up against the couch’s arm. 

Zhenya darted a glance over. Sid had his phone in his hands, but it wasn’t on. He tapped at its sides once, twice, but didn’t wake it up. His gaze was on the TV even though he disliked soccer almost as much as Zhenya disliked golf. 

Only a few minutes passed before Zhenya felt a careful touch at his ankle. 

Sid’s fingers were gentle, just tracing across the dips of Zhenya’s ankle. They carefully slipped down and circled the raised bump of the joint. 

Feeling swelled in Zhenya. It was a deep heartsickness, fueled by the tender knowledge of how long Zhenya had wanted Sid and how new this was between them, how badly Zhenya craved his touch even after such a short time. In his darker moments, he thought he could have Sid touching him like this all the time and it still wouldn’t be enough. 

Sid’s palm came up and settled across Zhenya’s skin in a warm press. His thumb rubbed through the fine hair on Zhenya’s shin. 

California, Zhenya insisted to himself, was a place for fixing things. 

They stayed like that, touching and quiet and distracted, until Sid finally squeezed Zhenya’s ankle purposefully.

“Bed?” he asked quietly. He only let go of Zhenya once Zhenya moved to get up, and even then, Sid pressed a hand to Zhenya’s waist as they walked into the bedroom. 

Zhenya stripped himself down to his boxers and burrowed into the crisp, fresh sheets. Sid slid in after him, and the heavy dip of the bed was something that Zhenya wanted to bottle up and hold close to his chest.

“Night,” Sid whispered, his palm against Zhenya’s back, right between his shoulder blades. It took Zhenya a long time to fall asleep. 

Zhenya didn’t remember his dreams very often. It was a blessing more than a curse, or so he thought. The dreams he did remember were the dark ones, the anxiety-spiked ones. Sometimes, though, his dreams were good. Sometimes his dreams were full of warmth, and wetness, and the feeling of someone getting him right. 

It was always Sid, if Zhenya had any say. Sid, holding him tight. Sid, kissing him so deeply Zhenya couldn’t breathe. Sid, eating Zhenya whole. 

Zhenya woke to a wet, firm suck on the head of his dick.

He couldn’t move for a few seconds, still trapped in sleep. He needed to move the blanket. He needed to see it. Sid rarely went down; his jaw kept him from doing it for long, the joint a little stiff and strange even all these years after having it broken. 

When he was finally able to push the covers down, Sid’s dark-lined eyes opened, and the corners of his stretched lips tipped up.

Sid made his mouth wet and soft for Zhenya’s cock. It felt like a dream; the unfamiliar bed, the gauzy light coming in from the balcony, the spit leaking out of the corner of Sid’s mouth as he sucked on Zhenya’s soft dick. Zhenya tried to choke out his name.

Sid was a dream like this. His hair was a fluffy mess, and Zhenya’s dick throbbed at the sight of the crow’s feet around his eyes. He was smiling at Zhenya around Zhenya’s cock, and Zhenya felt like the air was being sucked out of his lungs.

Sid’s hand came up to gently roll Zhenya’s balls between his fingers, and Zhenya raised his wrist to his mouth, setting his teeth into the skin. 

When Sid pulled off, he let the tip of Zhenya’s dick rest against his bottom lip. It glistened against Sid’s skin. 

“You don’t have to be quiet,” Sid said. Every word rocked Zhenya’s cock, the air cool on it from Sid’s saliva. “This isn’t a hotel.”

Zhenya let out a weak sound around his wrist and Sid plunged himself back down. He kept his tongue gentle, letting his neck do most of the work. It was a brutal sort of blowjob, one where it felt less like Sid was working Zhenya over and more like Sid was trying to fuck his own mouth on Zhenya’s dick. It felt like Sid was trying to give something to Zhenya. It felt, faintly, like an apology. 

Zhenya watched the top of his head, thick with hair. He watched the muscles in Sid’s shoulders shift with his neck. He watched Sid’s gorgeous fingers, holding the base of his cock steady. 

Sid finally sucked, hard, and Zhenya let out a guttural moan. 

Sid moaned back, pleased. His free hand got adventurous, slipping away from Zhenya’s balls and kneading at his thigh, working up past his hip and pressing at the soft skin over Zhenya’s stomach. Sid pressed harder, like he was keeping Zhenya in place, and Zhenya’s shaking hands landed in Sid’s hair. 

“Sid,” Zhenya gasped, and Sid looked up at him knowingly. “Sid.”

When Zhenya came, Sid worked his mouth all the way down until his nose was buried in the thin curls around Zhenya’s cock. His throat worked around the head of Zhenya’s cock and Zhenya felt the life bleed out of his limbs.

His hands slipped limply off of Sid’s head. His legs were dead weight. All that moved was his shuddering chest and his cock slipping wetly from Sid’s lips.

Zhenya was drifting when he tried to haul Sid up. His fingers moved slowly. It was impossible; Sid’s shoulders were too thick to get a hold on, and Zhenya’s hands were floating near Sid’s neck, just barely curling into Sid’s messy hair when Sid pushed himself away.

“Sid,” Zhenya finally managed. He wanted Sid in his arms, to give as good as he’d gotten, to make Sid beg. 

Sid winked. It was horribly corny. It made Zhenya’s stomach fumble and trip anyways.

“Up and at ‘em, tiger,” Sid said. His voice was throaty and pleased. “Andy makes us do extra circuits for every minute we’re late.”

“Wait,” Zhenya said, but Sid hauled himself up off the bed. 

Zhenya could see the hardness tenting the front of his shorts. Sid closed the bathroom door behind him. The pleased haze of the blowjob flattened. 

He slumped back down into his pillow. The mattress was still indented with the shape of Sid’s body. He closed his eyes.

LA’s gyms matched its streets. The fieldhouse was shiny and new and full of indecipherable geometric murals. The turf was sharp enough to scrape Zhenya’s palms when he went down for the last roll over the finish line.

“Geno,” Andy announced, pleased, and Sid let out a bellowing groan, flopping down onto the ground, the bill of his hat hitting the turf first and popping the cap right off of his head.

Zhenya leaned over and raised a single, bitchy eyebrow. Sid huffed out another breath and covered his face with his hands. He was so sweaty his palms slipped against his skin. 

“He’s one over you, champ, pick it up,” Andy said, and Sid dropped his hands down.

“One more,” he demanded. He sounded exhausted. The effort and sweat looked good on him. He was flushed a healthy pink, sweat wicking away like tears around his eyes. Despite it, he looked more relaxed than he had in months. If this was California on Sid, Zhenya liked it. He wanted to see Sid all pink like that from the Malibu beach sun, and wondered if he’d look the same in Miami. Zhenya wanted to kiss him.

“Geno?” Andy asked, and Zhenya grinned.

“One more,” he goaded, warbling in an awful impression of Sid’s hollowly-deep voice. 

“Yak fuckin’ yak, bud,” Sid said, taking in one more huge breath before grabbing his cap and rolling himself back up onto his feet.

They’d been going for well over an hour; Zhenya’s quads were twitching from exertion, and his knee protested as he rocked onto his feet. The circuit Andy had them running was a lot of lateral movements, weaving around and jumping over obstacles Andy laid out.

It had taken Zhenya a few runs to get used to the training style. Sid had jumped into it effortlessly. He looked better than good—he looked happy. He’d hugged Andy with a thump to Andy’s back and grinned at the list of torture exercises Andy had listed on a whiteboard. Zhenya watched the unguarded, relaxed expression on Sid’s face and thought about people knowing about Sid. Andy was one of Sid’s oldest friends; it would make sense.

Zhenya took his sweet time getting back to the start of the course, stretching out his weaker leg every few steps. He hadn’t been one for summer training like this in the past. His body hadn’t needed this careful conditioning, toning each muscle and tendon to work effectively or spontaneously or whatever ridiculous words Andy liked to swing around. Zhenya had been younger then, though. His body had worked as it should. He hadn’t been slow like this last season, feeling lost on the ice when his feet couldn’t push him fast enough. 

Zhenya didn’t really buy that the rolling and ducking interspered through the course was going to do much on the ice, but Andy insisted, and Sid did what Andy insisted. 

And it was deeply satisfying to beat Sid at it.

They bent down again at the start line. Zhenya watched Sid’s toes start to edge past the white mark on the turf. 

“Back to line,” Zhenya said, just loud enough for Sid to hear.

“I’m not doing shit,” Sid said, and his brow was furrowed in genuine frustration, but he glanced Zhenya’s way for just a second. 

His lips tilted up in the ghost of a smile, and Andy clapped his hands. 

Sid had a faster start than Zhenya, but Zhenya’s legs took care of that quickly. He bolted past Sid, his long strides vaulting him over the short hurdles. He could hear Sid’s breath behind him. It felt like being chased. Some strange little animal instinct in Zhenya’s chest kicked to life, and Zhenya threw himself to the other end of the course, grinding his teeth as his ankles strained on the quick turn. 

Sid, much too close, closer than he should have been, brushed his clawed fingers against Zhenya’s shirt, seeking a hold. It exploded Zhenya faster, a prey animal’s panic flying through his veins. The spin around the cone was easy, like skates sliding on ice, and when Zhenya crashed to the ground over the finish line, the pained sound Sid made was a victory unto itself.

Zhenya pushed himself up onto his arms. Sid was only a scant foot away, laying on his back, his chest heaving. His cap had fallen again. Zhenya grinned around his own panting breaths and snagged it with exhausted fingers. He didn’t even get up; he just shifted on his ass, sliding closer until his hips were planted next to Sid’s. 

Sid cracked open his eyes. His face was red and anger flickered over his eyebrows and lips. Competitive outrage looked good on him. He looked like he was considering wrestling Zhenya to the ground.

Zhenya was not a graceful winner.

“Hat for loser,” he crooned, and he placed the hat over Sid’s forehead and eyes. All that was left was the sweat-slicked pinkness of his mouth.

Zhenya tilted his head, and he leaned in.

“Jesus!” Sid said as Zhenya’s breath hit his face. He rolled onto his side; Zhenya’s lips scraped his ear. 

Sid was scrambling up, his fat ass in Zhenya’s face for a second before he whipped around. He wasn’t looking at Zhenya.

“Asshole,” Sid laughed, but it was a harsh noise. “Stop fucking around, eh?” 

Zhenya was frozen where Sid had left him. It took him a moment to process the derisive, barked tone. Sid lifted his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face, pacing blindly into the course. He kept his back to Zhenya.

“Walk it off, Sid,” Andy called out, jolting Zhenya out of his stare. Andy gave Zhenya a grin as if to say well played, as if Sid’s loss made his anger a funny joke.

Zhenya felt burning-hot. If he hadn’t already been flushed from exertion, the shame welling up in his stomach would have turned him beet red. Sid’s rejection was not a new thing; Zhenya had been left cold after many quiet, subtle touches around the rink ended in Sid neatly extricating himself, but it had always been smooth and done with a little smile, like it was a game they were playing.

It had never been violent like this. It had never felt cruel.

“Alright, c’mon,” Andy demanded. “One more drill, then we can break.”

Sid paced on the far end of the fieldhouse. His hands were linked together and resting on the crown of his head. Zhenya busied himself with his water bottle, drinking until his breath stopped shaking.

Andy used Zhenya to demonstrate the start of the next race. They began facing each other, legs braced as they tilted forward and gripped onto each other’s shoulders. Andy said something about balance and reaction time, and Zhenya absorbed little of it. 

When Sid finally stepped up to get into position, Zhenya hesitated for a fraction of a second. Sid did not. He gripped onto Zhenya’s shoulders and stared down at their feet, waiting for Andy’s signal. His hold on Zhenya was firm and neutered. There was no heat in it. 

Sid’s flat expression pinched as Zhenya’s hands hung limply at his sides.

“Geno?” Andy asked. Zhenya put his hands on Sid’s shoulders. 

Andy clapped. Zhenya flung himself away before Sid could push him.

Andy looked between Sid and Zhenya again.

They were tucked away at an outdoor table, the sounds of the city loud as they ate. Zhenya poked at his tuna like it deserved it. He had a bowl filled with some sort of grain, a rainbow layer of vegetables, and the bright-pink of raw fish. It tasted fine, in a healthy sort of way that probably cost too much money. It was very Sid. Zhenya jabbed at his tuna harder.

“You heard from Mike at all this summer?” Sid was curled over his bowl, his big thighs spread and flattened against the seat. His slouch would be hell on Zhenya’s back. 

“No,” Andy said, looking at Zhenya once more before trying to settle into the conversation. Sid had a rolling cast of friends from Canada that Zhenya recognized by face, not name. There were too many Mikes and Steves and Joeys, all the adoring boys Sid had wrapped around his fingers as he rocketed through youth hockey. He’d pulled so many of them into the Penguins over the years: Andy, and that man in the Pens’ youth hockey program, and Zhenya swore there was another who worked in the offices. 

The year Taylor had spent working for the Penguins had left Zhenya heartsick in a way he couldn’t fix, not with his own sibling an ocean away, living a life Zhenya knew nothing about. Sid was a magnet, pulling people into his path. It had worked on Zhenya just as well as the others.

“He’ll be at the wedding, right?” Andy asked. Zhenya crunched loudly on a slice of radish.

“I asked Taylor to invite him, yeah,” Sid said, spearing the last shred of chicken in his bowl of brown rice. “It’d be nice to get on the lake with him and the guys, though.”

“How’s that going, wedding stuff?” Andy asked. “Is everyone excited?”

Zhenya glared down at his stupid grain bowl. Taylor’s wedding invitation had been stuck to the fridge for almost a year. It had been the subject of every phone call Zhenya had overheard in Sid’s house. It was going to be a production. Zhenya had been waiting for half a year to talk about it. 

“Busy,” Sid murmured, scooping up more rice. 

Zhenya narrowed his eyes. 

“So busy, his family can’t even come for playoffs,” Zhenya told Andy, barely looking away from his quinoa as he spoke. It felt like a jab at Sid, a petty little dagger. Zhenya knew about Sid’s inner life, and he was going to let Andy see it. “He’s not see them for so long.”

“Yeah, it’s been crazy,” Sid said, his voice tight. “It’s fine, it’s not like the team managed much on the ice anyways.”

“So, Geno,” Andy cleared his throat. “First time in California outside of the season?”

“Yes,” Sid said. 

“No,” Zhenya said. The way Sid paused, his fork halfway to his mouth, was a more satisfying win than anything that had happened in the fieldhouse. “I come here for three weeks, before Pittsburgh.”

“Last year?” Andy asked.

“Before rookie year.” Andy’s eyebrows ticked up an inch. “Contract, Russia was all messed up. Agents put me here, we practice, then I go to Pittsburgh.”

“I remember that,” Sid said faintly. 

“Was big deal, you know… no English,” Zhenya told Andy. “Can’t talk to other players, can’t do anything but wait, hope agents fix. Can’t even call friends, my parents. No one.”

Zhenya had been overwhelmed by it all. The daily machinations of the hockey camp were just as foreign to him as the movie set the camp had taken a tour of on their day off. He had no tongue with which to speak, only a body for him to play hockey. It had crashed over him like a tide, and through it all he just had to wait. He had gotten very good at waiting. 

“Damn,” Andy said. “Not a bad place to hang out, at least.”

“Nice to come back.” Zhenya looked over at Sid. “When Sid want us come here together, I think, okay, maybe nice to see again. Been too long, maybe nice, see everything with Sid.”

Sid dropped his fork onto the table. 

“Yeah, well,” Sid said. “It’s a good place to train.”

Sid tapped at the steering wheel as they baked in the afternoon LA traffic. It was disgusting; they’d barely moved in the last few minutes, and even with the air conditioning cranked up as high as it could go, Zhenya could still feel sweat slipping down his back where it was pressed up against the SUV’s uncomfortable leather seats. Sid turned the radio on and then off. The ambient noise of the cars around them was ratcheting Zhenya’s frustration higher. 

Andy knew nothing, and Sid wanted to keep it that way, given how he’d nearly broken Zhenya’s nose trying to get away from Zhenya’s lips. Sid had promised Zhenya crumbs— Some people know about me there —and Zhenya had yet to find any. 

“Did you go somewhere last night?” Sid asked finally. “Somewhere that you knew when you were here before?”

Zhenya thought of the Bora Cafe, wiped from existence like it had never been there.

“No,” he said. “Nothing.”

Sid was silent the rest of the drive. At the condo, Zhenya fled to the TV room again and immediately bought the telecast of the UFC Fight Night he had missed while they packed for the flight to California. Sid poked his head in just as the weigh-in finished.

“Hey,” he said. “Is this live?”

Zhenya shrugged and then watched in peevish curiosity as Sid situated himself on the couch. If Sid disliked soccer, he hated UFC fights. But Sid didn’t comment, just furrowed his brow.

Anger still churned in Zhenya’s chest; anger and shame and the growing, inescapable thought that this was as far as he and Sid would ever go. Zhenya had known Sid for over a decade and he was still lost and adrift in the uncharted waters of whatever they were now. More than teammates. More than friends. 

Less than partners, apparently. 

Sid scratched at the stubble peeking out of his jaw. His fingers stilled and drifted to his lower lip, which he worried between his thumb and forefinger. It had been too long since Zhenya had kissed him. If Zhenya kissed him right then, Zhenya thought he might bite.

“Jesus,” Sid muttered as the Brazilian’s fist smashed into the Georgian’s face. 

“Maybe they add chair, you like more,” Zhenya muttered. It was meant to be rude, but Sid’s smile tugged his lip from between his fingers. 

“I still think you’d like WWE, if you gave it a chance,” Sid told him. “It’s all of the fight with less of the blood.” 

Zhenya rolled his eyes. The blood was the point of it all. Sid’s childhood obsession with men in leotards flipping each other around meant he lacked any appreciation for a real fight. What Sid liked was the pageantry. 

“Pussy,” Zhenya said. Sid huffed out a laugh. Zhenya didn’t smile back.

After a few more punches, Sid glanced Zhenya’s way. 

“Is there anything you want to do tonight?” Sid asked. “Do you have any dinner ideas? There’s like, Topgolf and stuff like that too. Or shopping, I know you’re bored with the stores in Pittsburgh.”

Had Zhenya wanted new clothes, he would have gone back to Moscow. Had he wanted to watch Sid play golf games, he would have checked himself into a hospital for concussion symptoms. 

“No,” Zhenya said, and watched the Georgian feint before sneaking an uppercut to the Brazilian’s jaw.

Sid kneaded at his leg. It was interesting to see him get uncomfortable at a fight. Sid was not the squeamish type. When Sid glanced over to Zhenya, Zhenya darted his gaze back to the screen. 

They hovered around each other until dinner. Zhenya did his best not to look at Sid head-on; Sid determinedly went about his daily routine. He disappeared for a run and when he came back he was sweaty and a little more golden from the sun. He banged around in the kitchen in search of his protein smoothie supplies, and Zhenya felt a sudden, lancing want for Pittsburgh-in-winter, for the feeling he’d had in his chest as he’d heard these noises in Sid’s home just outside of Sewickley. 

That had been shortly after they’d gotten together. They’d spent the season before last exchanging too many coded, complicated looks, and right before the season ended Zhenya had downed three vodka sodas in quick order and cornered Sid in his entryway for a careful, aching kiss. He’d ended up on his knees minutes later. 

They’d agreed to take the summer apart. When they’d returned to Pittsburgh for training camp, Zhenya had fallen into Sid’s bed and never left. He knew the sounds of Sidney Crosby, domestic creature. Sid was too loud in the kitchen and lumbered around corners. He left streaks of toothpaste in the bathroom sink and had cardboard boxes of promotional athletic wear jammed into every corner of his closet. He could cook a half-decent meal but got homesick at even the mention of seafood. 

They made quiet conversation, Zhenya scrolling on his phone as Sid sautéed a medley of peppers and onions over the stove and frowned at the chicken under the broiler. Sid jiggled the baking sheet with a towel-wrapped hand and made a sound that meant These are done, please set the table. Zhenya went in search of the plates; it took him three tries to find the right cabinet. 

When he turned to set the table, Sid was leaning up against the countertop, the dish towel flung over his shoulders. He was watching Zhenya, and Zhenya tried hard not to prickle under the attention. He didn’t care for it when Sid got quiet and so obviously thoughtful.

“Wine,” Zhenya demanded.  

Sid, his fingers playing at his lips, looked at Zhenya for only a second more before he tugged open the fridge for a bottle of white. The dinner itself was fine; Sid’s chicken-cooking was a careful science, and Zhenya picked the onions out of the serving dish and heaped them up onto his plate. 

Sid’s shin brushed against his. Zhenya allowed the indulgent touch. Sid’s movements were careful and full of intent; he pressed his shin to Zhenya’s, and then his knee. When he tapped his toes against the bottom of Zhenya’s foot, Zhenya put down his wine glass. 

Sid smiled at him entreatingly. 

Zhenya took an aggressive bite of his chicken breast. 

It was foolish, he tried to convince himself as Sid’s wandering hand brushed his wrist, to waste the last scraps of attention Sid was willing to give him. If Sid was going to starve him for this out in the real world, then Zhenya could eat himself sick on it in private. 

“Help me with the dishes?” Sid asked quietly, running his thumb across Zhenya’s knuckles.

They washed by hand. Sid chipped burnt spices off of the baking sheet while Zhenya rubbed their wine glasses dry. Sid’s arm and hip kept bumping into him. Sid was obvious. Zhenya was so in love he felt hollow.

It wasn’t enough.

When Zhenya put the last plate on the drying rack, Sid’s big hands pressed into his waist. 

“Sid,” Zhenya murmured as Sid leaned in close to Zhenya’s neck. Sid’s big nose skated over the top of Zhenya’s spine before his lips pressed against Zhenya’s skin. Sid’s fingers dug into the fabric before slipping lower, reaching for the hem.

Zhenya turned in Sid’s arms. It wasn’t easy; Sid’s grip was strong, but Sid let him twist around, and when Zhenya carefully cupped his face, Sid just stood still and let Zhenya look his fill. 

The wrinkles in Sid’s forehead were setting more with each year. Zhenya caught the glint of a few stray gray hairs that Sid kept pretending he couldn’t see. Zhenya’s thumb scraped over Sid’s stubble.

“Geno?” Sid asked finally, and Zhenya leaned forward to press a short kiss to Sid’s lips. 

“I will use bath,” Zhenya told him. “Still sore.”

“Oh,” Sid said. 

His hands moved on Zhenya’s sides, a gentle rub up and down. It made Zhenya want to rock into Sid’s grip. There was so much power held there, and if Zhenya wanted to indulge, he could. If this was truly all he’d get from Sidney Crosby, then—

“See you for bed,” Zhenya said, and extricated himself from Sid’s grasp. 

The bathroom off the master bedroom really was a treat. Sid’s bathrooms in Pennsylvania were similarly overdone, a simple indulgence Zhenya had often taken advantage of. He filled the free-standing tub with water hot enough to scald his skin and plunged himself into it like a crab to be boiled. He let his body relax and his mind drift. 

Anya used to tell him he needed to learn how to let his thoughts go. It seemed like a stupid concept—his thoughts lived in his head; where else would they go?—but there was a sort of power just in floating and thinking of the press of the water around him. There was a float spa down in Miami, where they had weird egg-shaped pods full of saltwater. Anya had driven him to it and nearly forced him into one of the pods. He’d come out blinking at the Miami daylight, relaxed in a way that felt soul-deep. He wondered if Sid would benefit from such a thing. There were lots of things in Miami that had made Zhenya think of Sid.

Zhenya’s face was almost entirely submerged, only his lips and nose hovering above the surface, when a finger brushed against his lips. 

Zhenya jerked so violently that water splashed over the edges of the bath. He shoved himself up into a sitting position, scraping his hair out of his eyes.

“Whoa, easy,” Sid said, like he was calming a skittish horse. “I was just checking on you. You’ve been in here for a while.”

Zhenya blinked the water out of his eyelashes. Sid came into focus; he was only in his ratty sleep shorts. He was watching rivulets of water skate down Zhenya’s chest.

“Be out soon,” Zhenya said when he finally got his tongue to work. 

When Sid stood up, his knees cracked and he wiped his damp hand over his chest. The skin glistened. His footsteps were heavy as he returned to the bedroom. 

Zhenya stayed in the water until it got unpleasantly cool. He really was sore; had he been sincere about his recovery, he would have taken an ice bath after their training session. He was still accepting that aches and pains were just part of hockey at his age.

He hauled himself out and half-heartedly mopped up the mess around the tub. He kicked the dirty towel towards the hamper in the corner and sped through his evening routine. He leaned in close to the mirror to pick at his teeth; he’d left his glasses somewhere in his luggage.

Zhenya tugged on a pair of boxers and made his way into the bed. He had to scoot in close to the hulking shape of Sid beneath the covers. The bed had no room for them to spread out, and Zhenya shuffled his legs, trying to catch the blankets comfortably between his knees. 

A hand curved around his hip and pressed low on his stomach. 

“Sid?” Zhenya murmured. He hadn’t realized Sid was still awake, and—

Sid’s teeth grazed the back of Zhenya’s neck.

Zhenya reached for the hand, but it moved up, skating up to the thin patch of hair between Zhenya’s pecs. His fingers splayed, palm heavy, Sid pushed, and suddenly Zhenya was caught between Sid’s chest and his hand. Sid’s face pressed against his neck, his nose teasing at Zhenya’s ear. He didn’t recoil from Zhenya’s damp hair. 

“Sid,” Zhenya whispered again. Sid could feel the quickening of his heartbeat through his ribs. His hand was a brand on Zhenya’s bare skin. 

When he rocked his hips against Zhenya’s ass, his half-hard cock slid perfectly against Zhenya. He ground in, and Zhenya’s chest shuddered with a breath under Sid’s hold.

“Yeah,” Sid murmured. It was hot and right in Zhenya’s ear, so quiet that he could barely hear. It felt dirtier this way. 

Zhenya tried to roll onto his back; the faster he got his hand on Sid’s dick, the faster he could stroke Sid off. Sid didn’t let him move. Sid held Zhenya there, braced against his wide body, and slowly thrust his hips into Zhenya. 

Zhenya gasped as the tip of Sid’s tongue traced the shell of his ear. 

“Let me fuck your thighs,” Sid whispered. Zhenya was overheating, pressed here between Sid’s arm and the weight of his want. Sid’s leg shifted, almost hooking over Zhenya’s; he was able to grind more fully against Zhenya’s ass like that, and Zhenya’s breath shuddered out of him. Sid felt every shake of his lungs with his hold on Zhenya’s chest. 

“Geno,” Sid said. It was a rumble from Sid’s chest to Zhenya’s back. He felt hot and slick, sweat building between their bodies. “I’ll make you feel so good. I want you to feel good.”

Sid’s hand finally moved, sliding down a scant few inches until his fingers could pluck at Zhenya’s nipple, and Zhenya’s neck lost the will to hold his head up. He collapsed down against the pillow, and Sid made a low, pleased noise.

Sid pressed wet, dragging kisses across the back of Zhenya’s neck. His hand moved down Zhenya’s torso until he cupped Zhenya’s dick. He kneaded at Zhenya, teasing until Zhenya started squirming and hardening in earnest. 

When he finally tugged Zhenya’s boxers down, it was only to Zhenya’s knees. 

“Sid,” Zhenya complained. It felt cheap, disheveled, like they were on the verge of getting caught and Sid wanted to be able to cover Zhenya up at a moment’s notice. 

Sid gripped Zhenya’s thigh so hard it startled Zhenya. He hauled Zhenya’s leg up until he could slide his cock between Zhenya’s thighs, and then he gripped onto Zhenya’s hip hard as a vise.

“That’s it,” Sid murmured to him as he rocked his hips. It was too dry. It was hot and dragged against the soft skin of Zhenya’s inner thighs. He could feel the head of Sid’s cock trapped right behind his balls. He wanted to rock into it. He wanted more of it. He could never have enough of it.

“Lube,” Zhenya croaked. He wanted it; it was so close to the feeling of fucking, and it got slick enough that sometimes Zhenya could fantasize that he was getting wet for Sid on his own, that Sid could fuck into him quickly and easily and—

“No,” Sid panted. “No, Geno, like this.”

He thrust his hips against Zhenya’s ass, the filthy smack of it loud in the silent bedroom. Zhenya moaned. Sid snapped. 

His hips shifted, and suddenly he was rolling Zhenya over, almost onto his stomach. His hand on Zhenya’s hip had fallen, digging into the mattress to hold himself up. 

“Touch yourself,” Sid grunted into Zhenya’s wet hair. “Geno, get yourself there.”

Sid’s weight was pushing into Zhenya, and he struggled to get his hand between his body and the mattress. Sid was overbearing on top of him, braced on top and around and over him, swallowing up everything else. It was just Sid on top of him, and Sid’s demands to get himself off.

“Sid, please,” Zhenya begged, wanting Sid’s touch.

“You’re so good, Geno, you’re—” Sid bit out before he latched his teeth into Zhenya’s shoulder. 

He pressed his body harder into Zhenya’s, tilting Zhenya’s hips into a better angle. It set Zhenya’s core on fire. Zhenya’s body could be perfect for Sid. He could be everything Sid needed like this. 

Zhenya’s breath caught, and he ground his hips down into his fist as he came. 

“That’s it,” Sid groaned, and his next thrust shook Zhenya against his pillow. Zhenya tried to drag his hands up to brace himself but he was caught under Sid’s body, under Sid’s heat, with the feeling of Sid’s dick all slick from sweat and precum grinding between his thighs, and Zhenya let out a weak, embarrassing sound. 

Sid’s hips pressed flush to Zhenya’s thighs, and the wetness of his cum stained Zhenya’s skin. 

They stayed there, limbs heavy, chests shaking with too-loud breaths, until Sid finally pulled away. The slip of his cock from between Zhenya’s thighs was a wet, sticky loss. Zhenya felt tacky and tangled in his own boxers. The bed was ovenlike. 

Sid’s forehead pressed against the base of Zhenya’s neck, and Zhenya’s breath faltered for a second.

Sid stayed pressed to Zhenya like that, hot as a sun. One minute Zhenya was dazed, feeling slick with sweat and the wetness of their sex, and the next he was asleep.

For all the beauty of the bathroom, the water pressure in LA was mediocre. Zhenya spent less time that he’d have liked in the shower before accepting defeat and investigating the kitchen. Sid had been dead to the world when Zhenya woke in the morning feeling crusty. Knowing Sid, the time change would mean nothing to him; he’d sleep in for as long as he was capable, and only then would he haul himself out of bed

Zhenya yanked open one cabinet and then another. Granola supplies. Sid’s dried fruits to put in the granola. The nasty “organic” jerky he liked to munch on. He moved on to the fridge, pausing when he saw the big black takeout box shoved to the back of the top shelf. 

Zhenya’s eyebrows drew down as he took the styrofoam box out of the fridge and popped the lid. It was steak, an enormous cut of it, marbled with delicate streaks of fat. Expensive, then, with the garnish still on top. The meat looked a little grey with age, but it was expertly seared. There were roasted potatoes tucked in alongside it—Zhenya’s favorite side dish.

Zhenya swallowed. 

He was mopping the last of his eggs up with a piece of toast when Sid finally joined him. Sid looked rumpled but happy, and he brushed a hand over Zhenya’s shoulders as he went to throw together one of his gratingly complicated granola breakfasts. 

They ate in silence, the sound of Sid’s crunching breakfast the loudest noise in the room. Sid swallowed noisily before dropping his spoon into his bowl. 

“There’s a beach close to here. Do you want to…?” He trailed off, clearly hoping Zhenya would pick up the rest.

It was better than training, and it was miles better than whatever else Sid did in his free time, like golf. Zhenya nodded, and Sid’s face rearranged into a satisfied, determined expression. 

The beach was fine—the sand was scorchingly hot, but it wasn’t terribly crowded. Zhenya lounged under the sun until he felt overheated and retreated back into the shade of the umbrella. Sid baked belly-down, the KT tape a dark and dramatic shape curving over his back. He’d had Zhenya help put it on before they left. Zhenya had smoothed it over Sid’s skin thinking of the muscles underneath, of how Sid had pushed Zhenya down beneath him the night before.

Sid’s phone rang.

Sid didn’t stir for a moment, and Zhenya briefly entertained the idea of kicking some sand at him, but Sid eventually raised his head and reached into the bag of beach supplies they’d carelessly dumped near the towels.

Zhenya couldn’t see Sid’s eyes, covered with the big black sunglasses he’d stolen from Zhenya’s luggage, but Sid’s mouth twisted into a little pucker as he looked at his screen. He swiped at a button.

“Hey, Pat,” Sid said quietly.

He pushed himself up from his stomach, turning over to sit and look at the ocean. Zhenya’s rising heartbeat sounded like waves lapping at his ears. 

“Yeah, I… sorry, it’s loud here, let me just—”

Sid hauled himself up, dusting the sand off of his thighs. He pivoted and glanced at Zhenya; Zhenya couldn’t tell what sort of expression was on face, not with the baseball cap tugged low over his forehead and Zhenya’s massive sunglasses eating up everything north of his nostrils. Sid grimly pursed his lips and trekked toward an even emptier stretch of sand.

The summer heat was abruptly oppressive. The oily smear of the sunscreen on Zhenya’s palms made him feel dirty, and when it smudged on the too-warm screen of his own phone, he sneered. 

Through the sun’s glare and his own disgusting fingerprints streaked over the glass, Zhenya fired off text messages. One to Max, asking him how little Milana was doing. Another to Kolya, who had fled Los Angeles weeks ago when the Kings’ season ended without a path to the playoffs. 

His thumb lingered over Anya’s name.

They spoke sparingly these days. With Anya, it was easy to fall into a familiar rapport. Her tongue was a rapier and Zhenya enjoyed sparring. It could feel a bit too much like it had when they were together.

He’d enjoyed sparring with her a lot of ways, before it had gone sour, their relationship pulled thin across the ocean.

Sid, Zhenya saw, was wandering near a lonely copse of palm trees. His shoulders were hunched up around his ears, the KT tape a stark mark against his skin. Had Zhenya not seen the dark tape on his skin, his eyes would have slipped past Sid entirely. Sid wandered, anonymous and listless, further away.

Have you gotten your new co-anchor to quit yet? Zhenya sent to Anya, and rubbed a hand down his thigh.

“I think we should go,” Sid insisted for the third time.

Zhenya leaned back on the couch, hissing when the cotton of his shirt rubbed against his tender skin. He was exhausted and faintly heatsick; they’d spent far too long at the beach, and Zhenya, bored, had ventured into the waves and earned himself a light sunburn

“We order in,” Zhenya sighed, rubbing at his eyes underneath his glasses. “Or go see friends. You say you know people out here—okay, then we do restaurant.”

He dropped his hand when Sid didn’t respond right away. Sid looked unsettled. He’d been at Zhenya’s heels since the phone call ended, from disappeared to tightly in Zhenya’s space. He’d wanted to know what else Zhenya cared to do in California—maybe rent a boat, or go on a hike. Zhenya had stared at him after the hiking suggestion, and Sid had gone a little red and offered a trip up to Malibu, mealy-mouthed.

Zhenya had only managed to shake Sid off by taking a painfully cold shower to wash away the saltwater. 

“Don’t care,” Zhenya said as Sid opened his mouth again. “Not in mood for club, Sid. You don’t even like.”

“I like it.”

Zhenya rolled his eyes.

“Sidney Crosby likes club in California. Okay.” The words meanly dripped out of Zhenya like an oil slick. Sid had his little plans in California, his meetings and training, and whatever Zhenya cared to do was an afterthought. Sid couldn’t be bothered to think twice about Zhenya, tired and sore, to give him an easy night in.

“I go there every year,” Sid said. He was quieter, and he passed his phone back and forth between his hands. Sid only fidgeted this aimlessly when he was most uncomfortable. It felt darkly satisfying to push him into a corner like this.

“Sure,” Zhenya said dismissively. 

The silence felt good for a few seconds, like it meant Zhenya was winning. Getting Sid to shut up was a win unto itself.

“It’s a club for guys like us, Geno,” Sid said. 

Zhenya let out a huff of breath. “Oh, special athlete club? Okay, Sid, no—”

“Geno,” Sid snapped. “It’s a gay club.”

Zhenya watched the anger spark through Sid’s jaw. He was grinding his teeth and looking determinedly past Zhenya’s left shoulder. 

“Gay club,” Zhenya repeated slowly. “You go every year.”

“Yes,” Sid said. “We should go. You’d like it.”

Zhenya squinted at him. It was hard for him to picture Sid in a gay club. Sid, one-of-the-boys Sid, quick-to-roll-out-the-keg Sid, eyes-above-chest-level Sid. There had been a reason Zhenya had pined from afar for years until Sid had slipped up enough for Zhenya to wonder.  

“Fine,” Zhenya had said, leaning back into the cushions harder, crossing his arms over his chest. “You take me to club.”

Sid’s choice in clubbing attire was unremarkable. He wore a t-shirt that was at least a little tighter around his chest and waist. His pants were dark and fit well. For a brief moment Zhenya wished he had his full closet in Pittsburgh, where there were likely some ratty old ripped club jeans rotting away in a drawer, but he settled on the tightest pair of pants he’d packed and a button down shirt. He left the top few buttons undone. 

The car ride was too long. The traffic in LA never seemed to break; it was just a constant slow drudge through the city’s clogged arteries, and it gave Zhenya plenty of time to think about summertime Sid sneaking away to secret gay clubs in California. Sid glowed with the sunset, the golden light gilding his edges. His eyebrows were drawn severely down as he navigated through the clog of vehicles. He was handsome in the dramatic light; Zhenya could picture the club lights on him. 

Zhenya had expected the club to be furtive and hidden away, maybe with a secret door and a password. Something fantastical and stupid, something that belonged in an impossible story about Sidney Crosby going to gay clubs in Los Angeles in the offseason to find men to touch.

Zhenya ground his teeth as he smiled at the bouncer. The club was a nice-looking building just off of the main street. It was unassuming except for the glowing neon sign hung on the brick wall and the humming bass Zhenya could feel through the soles of his shoes.

Sid’s face was set, neutral and deceptive. The bouncer flagged them through and Sid turned to Zhenya, tilting his head so they’d walk in together. 

Zhenya hovered a hand behind Sid’s back, and they walked through the door and into a dimly lit dreamscape. 

It reminded Zhenya of the clubs he would sneak off to in Moscow—dark spaces full of pitch-black corners where two bodies could press together. The lights flickered and flashed with the beat of the music. The colorful strobes bounced off of the dancing figures. The difference between a place like this and Moscow was that back in Zhenya’s country, the darkness was for safety. It was better not to see anyone’s face too closely.

Sid, Zhenya thought bitterly, wouldn’t have the guts to seek out a place like this in Moscow.

Sid was quick through the crowd; despite his big body he was able to shoulder his way to the bar. The club was packed, and Zhenya saw California’s hedonism and vanity on every glitter-smeared, tightly toned body they passed. Men came here to perform for each other. 

Sid looked over his shoulder again. He kept turning to make sure Zhenya hadn’t been swallowed by a man with too-white veneers or shockingly blond hair. Zhenya reached out a hand and gripped onto Sid’s arm, making Sid tug him along. 

They grazed the edge of the dance floor and Zhenya dug in his heels. Sid jerked when Zhenya didn’t let him go. Zhenya could only see flashes of Sid’s face when Sid peered at him, and Zhenya leaned in incredibly close, his fist tight in the fabric of Sid’s shirt. 

“Dance,” he murmured into Sid’s ear.

“Geno,” Sid said. He had to yell to be heard over the thumping music, and Zhenya realized with a thrill that he liked it, making Sid call out his name. He wanted to hear it again. “I was going to find us a place to sit.”

Zhenya pressed the side of his face to Sid’s. Sid stiffened under his touch. It was electric. It felt like being a snare, like tying Sid up in his trap and hoisting him close. Zhenya would keep him here for a long time. Forever, maybe, if he could touch Sid’s skin like this, surrounded by a hundred faceless people.

Zhenya gripped onto Sid’s hips and settled himself against Sid’s body. It was easy to fall back into it even though it had been years since Zhenya had moonlit as a clubrat in Europe. In the darkness and the glittering lights he could be young again. They could have the whole of their future out in front of them still. Zhenya could be full of audacity and want, unafraid to lose anything because of it.

He ground his hips into Sid’s, a dirty little sway of movement. Sid’s breath fluttered out against Zhenya’s neck. 

Sid wasn’t a good dancer. He wasn’t a dancer at all; Zhenya had to hold onto him to help him sway with the humming bass. When he felt like Sid was at least willing to move his hips to the beat, he slid his arms up Sid’s body, delighting in the way Sid held his breath, before he looped his arms around Sid’s shoulders and drew him in close.

“No one sees,” he murmured into the hair above Sid’s ear. Sid might not have heard him. It didn’t matter. It was a lie. People could see them if they looked close enough, if they knew how to recognize the press of Sid’s shorter body into Zhenya’s, an embrace they’d done so many times in front of thousands. This was that same hug, made grimier by the slow thrust of their hips. 

Zhenya could feel arousal building low in his gut. Sid had been his for the whole season but here Zhenya was having him outside of the confines of their homes. He dug his fingers into the back of Sid’s neck. Sid’s hands had come up to his waist and Zhenya felt the sudden hitch in Sid’s hips. Sid was liking this. He was capable of liking it. 

Zhenya curled his fingers into the hair at the base of Sid’s neck and tugged, tilting his face up. Zhenya spotted his lips in a flare of pink light, and he leaned in.

Sid jerked in Zhenya’s hold. They stumbled, nearly colliding with the men pressed in around them. Ice flooded Zhenya’s veins. 

He let go of Sid. Sid was a pit of shadows, then a burst of blue light across his chest, a streak of yellow over his eyes. Zhenya didn’t want to see whatever it was on Sid’s face—anger, fear, he didn’t care to parse it out. The thudding music gave his heart a kickstart. 

“Going to bar,” Zhenya spat. He didn’t want to look at Sid at all. “Get you drink.”

He left with a shove to Sid’s shoulder, thrusting himself blindly through the sea of bodies towards  the bar. He didn’t pay attention to who he knocked out of his way as he leaned up against the bartop. It was packed with people, the two bartenders slinging drinks right and left. 

Zhenya braced his elbow on the bar, then let his forehead fall into his palm.

Not even here, then. Not even in this dark place, full to the brim with other men grinding against each other to the beat of the music. Sid had come here every summer to what—look at men and refuse to touch them? Zhenya’s head spun, the heat exhaustion from earlier pressing in at his temples. Sid had dragged him here only to pull away from him in an anonymous crowd of desirous men. It was salt in a gaping wound.

It reminded him of an older, strained relationship pulled across two countries. That relationship had been impossible to reconcile too. 

“You alright, big guy?” Zhenya heard as a large hand clamped down onto his shoulder. 

He looked up. The man gripping onto him was beefy, with a full beard and bright eyes. He looked strong in a more functional way than a lot of the men here; he could probably put his muscles to use. 

“Fine,” Zhenya said, and the man’s smile widened. 

“Where you from?” the guy asked, and Zhenya didn’t waste a second on feeling self-conscious about his accent. Here, it could be an asset. It could be a thing other men liked. 

He had never worked too hard to pick up in America; his type was mean and long-legged and Russian, or it had been until Sidney Crosby had wormed his way between Zhenya’s ribs and made a little home for himself there without even realizing it. 

“Someplace you never go,” Zhenya said anyway, because he liked to flirt and it was an easy mirror to cover up his ache with. The man’s eyebrows rose in interest, and Zhenya gave him a small smile. 

It felt good to be wanted out in the open like this.

“Want to tell me more about it?” the man asked, and he stepped closer to the bar. 

For a moment, Zhenya considered it. A man who would pursue him in public, who might kiss him when he wanted to be kissed. Who would sit tight against him as they drank with their friends, an arm looped unmistakably around Zhenya’s shoulders.

Zhenya wanted a lot of things, but he didn’t want this man in the middle of them. Zhenya wanted impossibilities: he wanted hockey to never end, he wanted to never have to miss either Moscow or Pittsburgh, he wanted Sidney Crosby’s hand in his on a warm summer-night sidewalk. 

Zhenya dismissed the man with a half-smile, turning back to the bar to wave at the bartenders. A rum and Coke for Sid; something fruity and expensive for himself. He downed half of his before he even vacated his spot at the bar. He wasn’t feeling generous but he was homesick for how he’d felt last October, blazing into Pittsburgh full of childish giddiness because he had finally been getting what he wanted. He’d been so wrapped up in Sid and the hope that this could be it for him. 

Zhenya was still clinging to that feeling. It was just how things had begun to unravel with Anya. Zhenya had thought he knew what his life would look like: hockey and a pretty wife by his side, waiting for him at home. He’d held onto that dream for too long, well after he learned that wasn’t all he wanted. Anya had her own life to live, anyway. Their expectations had clashed and sparked against each other until finally Anya had to do what they both needed and cut Zhenya off at the quick.

It was a sinking realization, that Zhenya would buy Sid a drink for a few more nights of that happy October feeling, or as close as he could get to it now. He didn’t have it in him to walk away from people, Sid least of all. It would be Zhenya returning to Sid miserably until Sid was just as miserable and had the courage to excise Zhenya from his life. 

Zhenya fought to get back to where he’d left Sid, but that corner of the dance floor had been overtaken by enthusiastic bodies. Zhenya looked toward the nearest wall instead, somewhere Sid would ensconce himself.

Sid wasn’t alone.

He was standing stiffly against the wall, hands dug into his pockets. The other man was close to him, a distance that meant either interest or familiarity. Zhenya couldn’t see much of the man in the low lighting. He was reedy, with an intentionally-coiffed wave of hair flopping on his head.

Zhenya pressed himself up against Sid’s side. 

“Found your drink,” Zhenya told him loudly. Sid’s hand fumbled against his to take the glass, fingers warm and a little clammy on Zhenya’s skin.

Zhenya felt tall like this, looking down at the stranger. He hooked his arm around Sid’s back, his fingers rubbing through the fabric of Sid’s shirt. Sid couldn’t pull away, jammed up against the wall.

“No drink for me?” the man asked. His teeth were dull in the blacklights just like Sid’s. Fakes. Was he an athlete too? He was too skinny, Zhenya thought disdainfully as he raised an eyebrow at the guy. It had been a while since Zhenya had been able to play the part of a dog pissing on its property, but he still had it in him.

“Who are you?” Zhenya asked. It was rude. It often made Anya curl in closer to him when they’d been together. He’d gotten good head after being a protective asshole in front of her. 

“Connor. Who are you, Russia?” Connor asked. He looked between Sid and Zhenya with interest. 

“Evgeni,” Zhenya sneered. Connor grinned back, but his smile was all teeth. 

“He’s mean,” Connor laughed. The noise was polished like a newscaster’s. “You have a type, Sid.”

Zhenya stilled. 

Connor’s lean towards Sid wasn’t predatory. He looked up and down Sid’s frame with interest, but of the passive sort, a gaze that spoke to pleasures already experienced. 

It was when Connor reached out and pushed at Sid’s shoulder, a gesture so reminiscent of the locker room, of the friendly team bullying Sid soaked in gleefully, that Zhenya felt the realization douse him, sharp and cold. 

“Share the foreign ones around, won’t you?” Connor asked, his laugh unkind. 

“I don’t go home with you,” Zhenya said. He wouldn’t. Not like Sid had. He could read now in the way Sid was all tense and refusing to look Connor in the eye. Zhenya wondered if Sid had looked this ashamed when Zhenya tried to kiss him. 

“Are you sure? Does Sid have you exclusive? I can share,” Connor said, all bravado. Zhenya could punch him. A neat fist right under his jaw. It might draw blood. It would feel so satisfying.

“Leave him alone, Connor,” Sid said, voice hard. 

“That’s cold. He’ll last you a week, you know how you are, let me at least—”

“He’s a friend,” Sid bit out. 

“Jesus!” Connor jumped back out of the range of Zhenya’s drink. It was mostly ice, clattering to the floor along with the glass from his numb fingers. 

“Is he drunk already? You piece of shit,” Connor said in an admiring tone, smiling at Sid. 

“Geno?” Sid asked. 

Zhenya pushed himself away from Sid.

He got turned around once on the way to the club’s door. The room was dark and pulsing and Zhenya had difficulty telling up from down.  

This was what Sid had been so desperate to show Zhenya: the club where he brought the men he fucked. Where he knew men who were rude, who were strangers, who made lewd comments and leered at each other. This was where Sid wanted to be with Zhenya. Not at golf with his friends, not having an intimate dinner at the condo with Andy—here, in a loud club, where Zhenya was just as worthless as any other weekend fling Sid apparently liked to swap out seasonally.

Sid’s hand landed on Zhenya’s shoulder just as he reached the entrance. Zhenya shrugged Sid off easily and blew past the doors and the bouncer. 

“Geno!” Sid cursed. Zhenya kept walking, all the way to the valet, and stood frozen as Sid caught up.

Sid said his name again, and Zhenya closed his eyes.

“Don’t talk,” he said.

“G-”

“Don’t,” Zhenya said. He took a deep breath so his voice wouldn’t wobble.

Zhenya wished he were behind the wheel of the car as they weaved through the crowded city streets. A perilous, cliffside drive out of the movies would be fitting. He wanted to skid around a corner and make Sid gasp or curse or yell. He wanted to scare Sid. He wanted to push Sid out of the car entirely. A friend.

He ground the heel of his palm into his thigh and stared through the windshield at the neon city. He was sick of this city. He was sick of the beautiful trees and the pale buildings and how Sidney Crosby moved through it like a ghost, unseeable to everyone. Everything out here was fake to Sid, Zhenya most of all. 

Sid let out a soft “Shit” as the car in front of them braked quickly. It rocked Zhenya in his seat. The stupid SUV was just as horrible to drive around LA as he’d expected. Zhenya looked over, mouth open, wanting to mock Sid for the godawful vehicle, but the words didn’t make it out of his throat.

Sid’s eyes were narrowed. In the shadow of the night and the heavy set of Sid’s brow, they were practically black. The streetlights were dull orange glows on Sid’s skin; the electronic billboards and signs threw him into much starker relief. He looked furious. It was an expression Zhenya associated with the rink, with the Penguins being down by two as the game died off by the minute and nothing was going their way.

Sid caught him looking.

He snagged Zhenya’s gaze, and Zhenya wanted to pettily look away. Instead he was trapped, held there until Sid finally urged the car forward again. 

Sid took a hand off of the steering wheel and put it on Zhenya’s leg, right above Zhenya’s own clenched fingers. 

Zhenya ached. He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. All he wanted was to feel that touch higher, harder, constantly. 

Zhenya closed his eyes and counted his breaths until they got to the condo. He got out of the car before Sid could, hurrying into the building. Sid was hot on his heels. Zhenya could feel Sid’s breath on his back. He wanted to turn around and push Sid away. 

In the condo, Zhenya kicked off his shoes and made for the kitchen; their dinner hadn’t lasted him through the club. 

Sid’s arm wrapped around his waist.

“Enough,” Zhenya snarled, feeling wild. Sid felt like he could touch Zhenya here, like the privacy of the condo meant Zhenya was all his for the holding. It made Zhenya want to bite like an animal. He wasn’t a thing to hide away. He was sick of it.

Sid stepped right into Zhenya’s space, his chest pressing against Zhenya’s. Zhenya looked down at him and curled his lip.

Sid was devastating like this. His hair was just starting to curl around his ears again. His facial hair was a neat dusting of stubble across his face, making him look older and serious. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were deep-cut creases into his skin.

Zhenya wanted so badly to keep him.

“Then tell me to stop,” Sid said quietly, wrapping his fingers around Zhenya’s wrist. 

Zhenya couldn’t.

Sid tugged Zhenya to the bedroom. It was a flurry of clothes tugged off of limbs and sheets kicked down the bed. Sid pushed Zhenya down onto the bed and immediately followed after, his wide hands wrapping around Zhenya’s thinner wrists.

Sid buried his face in Zhenya’s neck, his lips sucking and nipping at Zhenya’s skin. It was hot and close and Zhenya squirmed under Sid’s weight. 

Zhenya let out a weak sound when Sid sucked over his Adam’s apple, and he gasped out a faint “What?” when he realized Sid was saying something.

“I’m sorry,” Sid murmured, and Zhenya’s heart clenched. “He doesn’t get to talk about you like that, God, Geno, I—”

He nipped at Zhenya’s throat roughly, grinding the tendon between his teeth for a moment, and Zhenya thrust his hips up into the solid weight of Sid’s body.

“I’ve got you,” Sid groaned against Zhenya’s throat. “I’ve, Geno—”

He was furiously methodical about stripping off the last of Zhenya’s clothes. Zhenya was white-hot with all of Sid’s attention on him, soaking it in. This was all he wanted, just a fraction of this somewhere other than their bed. Sid had so much to give. Zhenya wanted it all.

As soon as Sid tugged off Zhenya’s jeans from where they’d been tangled onto his foot, his big hands pressed into the backs of Zhenya’s thighs. Zhenya tried to ground his heels into the mattress so he’d be able to thrust back up and meet Sid’s hips, but Sid’s hold tightened and then shifted. It went from a gentle cupping of Zhenya’s legs to a firm hand around each of Zhenya’s knees, Sid’s thumbs digging into bones as he powered Zhenya down.

Zhenya’s chest shuddered as Sid pressed him in half, Zhenya’s thighs tucked up against his chest, Sid’s heavy torso leaning down onto his own. He was trapped against the mattress.

“That’s it,” Sid told him, and he leaned in for a kiss that Zhenya greedily took from his lips. 

Sid’s tongue pressed into Zhenya’s mouth just as his hips shifted. Sid knew his body better than anything. Every slow roll was intentional. He hitched his hips as he nipped at Zhenya’s lower lip, the hard length of his cock rocking against Zhenya’s erection. 

“Let me fuck you,” Sid whispered, and Zhenya’s yes was lost to Sid’s tongue. 

Sid worked Zhenya open with knowing fingers. He held Zhenya down with one commanding hand on Zhenya’s soft gut, the other pressing behind Zhenya’s balls. It was too easy, how Sid knew just how to coax Zhenya’s hole open with a teasing fingertip, and then two wide fingers hooked inside of him, pulsing against his prostate in practiced thrusts.

“Not yet,” Zhenya begged in Russian, and Sid soothed him with kisses and gentle touches down his sides, like he wasn’t stretching Zhenya filthily and crooning about it. 

“You’re so good for me,” Sid told him. “Can you take it, G? Are you ready?”

“No,” Zhenya said throatily. Sid smiled, and there was an edge to it.

“You are,” he murmured, stroking at Zhenya’s prostate. 

Sid fed his cock into Zhenya’s softened hole easily. It was a slick grind, and Zhenya could feel the lube leaking out of him as Sid pressed inside. The tape on Sid’s shoulder cut a dark mark up by Sid’s neck, and Zhenya reached for it, digging his fingers into Sid’s traps and pulling him down.

Sid settled on him heavily. His soft stomach pressed into Zhenya’s, his arms boxing Zhenya in close. Everything was hot and tight and Sid. 

Sid rocked his hips, and Zhenya closed his eyes.

“Hey, look at me,” Sid said. His voice was deceptively soft. 

Zhenya squeezed his eyes shut tighter. Sid’s lips dragged against the corner of his mouth, up his cheek, to his ear.

“I said look at me.”

Zhenya’s exhale was so loud. He felt on the edge of something.

“I know you like it,” Sid whispered to him. “I know you want to. You can. Just look at me. I want to see you. You’re taking me so good. You’re so hard, I can feel it.”

Zhenya’s eyes fluttered back open.

“There you are,” Sid whispered to him. His lips were tender on Zhenya’s face, and when he thrust in, Zhenya could feel all of Sid’s body moving. His thrusts were deep, and Sid got him good, he always did, but his hands were desperate and needy on Zhenya’s body. 

Sid’s hand shifted, and he braced his hands on Zhenya’s shoulders. His grip was harsh, harder than anything he’d given Zhenya before. It would bruise. Sid had never held Zhenya hard enough to mark him. Zhenya moaned helplessly. 

He didn’t care if Sid marked him up. If Sid needed him this badly, then maybe he’d need Zhenya in other ways. Zhenya tried to reach up for Sid, to cling to him, but Sid’s hands pinned him down. 

“Sid, please,” Zhenya begged. He was achingly hard, his cock trapped between their bodies. 

“I’ll get you there,” Sid moaned against Zhenya’s cheek. “I’ll, Geno, fuck, I’ll get you—”

With Sid’s heavy body pressing him into the mattress, Zhenya came into the hot grind of skin between them. Sid let out a filthy noise as Zhenya tightened around him, and Zhenya forced his eyes open again to watch. 

He had Sid for now. Whatever came of it, he had this for now, and the curve of Sid’s open lips as he came was the most beautiful thing Zhenya had ever seen.

Zhenya woke up alone and bruised. 

He stretched, his back popping audibly, and sighed. The sheets were a tangled mess around him, and there was a pillow down on the floor in front of him. He felt good, worn out like he’d just had a good workout. There was evidence of Sid everywhere; Zhenya’s cum streaked across his stomach, the soreness in his biceps, the tenderness of the skin around his hips, the flaky mess between Zhenya’s inner thighs. 

Zhenya turned around to bury his nose into Sid’s pillow. The billowing white curtains caught his gaze, moving with the ocean breeze coming in through the open balcony door.

He could hear Sid’s voice. It was faint; Sid had left the sliding door open, and his voice carried on the fresh air from the coast. Zhenya watched the light, summery fabric wave and twist in the morning sun.

“I’ll be there in time,” Zhenya heard. “The suit—yeah, the suit got done weeks ago. I’m ready to go, okay?”

Taylor, then. Wedding plans. Zhenya hadn’t seen Sid’s groomsman suit yet, though Sid had spent several afternoons at the tailor’s. Zhenya had fantasized about how the suit would cup Sid’s ass if it fit well. He wanted so badly to be there to analyze the suit himself.

“Yes, I’m with him,” Sid said, and Zhenya’s bruises ached beautifully.

It had been months ago, at the very beginning of playoffs, when Sid told Zhenya that Taylor knew. They’d been in bed. It was late at night, after Sid had stewed moodily over dinner. In the pitch-black of the bedroom, Sid had confessed; Taylor knew about Sid. Taylor knew about them. Zhenya had hugged him tight to his chest, happy and hopeful in a way he couldn’t quite bear to relive. That had been the first spark in his chest, igniting the hope that this could mean just as much to Sid as it did to Zhenya. He’d been certain then that it would be a matter of time before Sid told Kris, and then the whole team, and then he’d help Zhenya pick out a suit to wear to Taylor’s wedding with him.

It had never happened. Sid had grown drawn and quiet about the wedding instead. Zhenya had chalked it up to having a sister, or to being an older sibling—fuck if he knew. Sid was mercurial sometimes, and Zhenya had been willing to wait out this mood of Sid’s before it had grown, and grown, until they ended up in California.

“Yeah, the condo’s fine, listen—” Sid began, and his tone shifted into something harsh.

“No,” he said, and Zhenya’s easy breaths faltered. 

“I told you I’m coming up to help,” Sid said. “‘I’ll handle the caterers. It’s fine, Taylor, we’ll have all the people we… no, we already—Taylor.”

Sid’s voice was as curt as it ever got towards Taylor. It was still tender, but it had a steel undercurrent that Zhenya knew. Zhenya clenched the sheet in his fist. 

“No, I'm not—I don't want—he doesn't—stop,” Sid huffed out a breath. “I told you he’s not coming.”

Zhenya closed his eyes.

“I don’t want him involved,” Sid said.

The water pressure in the shower was still shit. It was a good place to cry anyway. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Andy asked Zhenya as Zhenya clutched his side and rolled over on the turf. 

Sid stood a few feet away. His hackles were up. Zhenya had been trying to take a bite out of him all morning at their training session, and Sid had been able to ignore it until the most recent drill. Sid had beaten Zhenya to the soccer ball at the middle of the field. Zhenya had beaten Sid for possession of the ball after the fact, and it had come to blows.

“Nothing,” Zhenya growled through his teeth.

“Pull it together, both of you,” Andy said. He was actually angry in a way Zhenya had never seen. It was a small, petty victory. Zhenya was going to rip California down around him.

On the drive back to the condo from the fieldhouse, Sid didn’t even try to speak. He hadn’t gotten a word out of Zhenya until they’d been with Andy in training. His knuckles were tight on the steering wheel and Zhenya was both sick and satisfied. He was too proud to speak to Sid right now. He was going to pour gasoline on the last scraps of their relationship until Sid set it on fire. He was going to hate himself for it after it was done, but he was grimly committed. There was no salvaging this. 

Sid escaped to the shower as soon as they were inside. Zhenya, still sweaty and exhausted, slumped onto the couch in his workout gear, phone in hand. 

Anya picked up on the third ring.

“It’s close to midnight,” she said, her voice clipped. 

“You’re not going to sleep for another hour,” he drawled. Anya was a night owl. It had worked out nicely for post-game dinners and other, more private pursuits. 

“Why are you calling me, Zhenya?” she asked. It was a breath of fresh air to hear his name said like that. 

“Is it bad to catch up with a friend?” he shot back, settling deep into the couch. The afternoon sun was just starting to shine through the big windows. Zhenya stretched out his legs. 

“It is when you’re on your honeymoon. Aren’t you?” she nearly crooned. “Grisha told me you’re not in Miami. Did Crosby spirit you away?” 

“I’m going to be in Miami soon,” Zhenya said. Anya’s quick tongue stilled. 

“Oh?” she finally asked.

“Maybe next week,” Zhenya admitted. “I’m not sure yet.”

Anya was quiet on the other end of the line. Zhenya wiped his sweaty palm on his disgusting workout shirt.

“Would you like to come visit?” he asked.

“I’m a working woman,” Anya said, her tone reserved. “I can’t drop everything for some athlete.”

“You never do,” Zhenya said. His heart was in his throat. “But a vacation might be nice.”

He could picture her, hair tied up in a bun, tight as a ballet dancer, in the loose sweatpants she wore around the house after a long workday in stiff professional clothes. Anya had never been anything but forthright with him. His ego had taken many bruisings at her hands, but the bruises had made him better most of the time. Like all Zhenya's relationships, it had been good until the end set in.

“Are you sure about that, Zhenya?” she asked. Her tone was soft and serious. 

“Geno?”

Zhenya looked up. Sid was standing just around the corner. His towel was thrown over his shoulders, and he had a loose pair of boxers on. His wet hair stuck to his forehead. His big brown eyes were fixed on Zhenya, a pinched fold of stress between them.

“Tend to what’s yours, Zhenya,” Anya murmured. She hung up without another word. 

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were… oh,” Sid said as Zhenya let his phone slip from his ear. “Was that your mom?”

“Friend,” Zhenya croaked. The back of his neck felt hot. He tapped mindlessly on his phone so he’d have something else to look at other than Sid.

“Okay,” Sid said. “I just wanted to let you know, I just called Nobu for a reservation. Dinner at 7?”

His tone was hopeful; Zhenya tried to make a trip out to the swanky Japanese restaurant every time they were in California during the season. It was such an obvious peace offering. 

Perhaps, Zhenya thought, it would give him some sense of closure to this wonderful, painful little interlude in his life. 

“Dinner at 7,” Zhenya agreed. 

They dined al fresco in Malibu, tucked up against the edge of the patio with the low purple tide lapping further and further out to sea. Zhenya sank back into the deep seat, flinging his arms out on the back of the low chair. Sid was distractedly attentive—he was so busy watching Zhenya that the waiter took him by surprise.

“Do we need more time?” the young man asked.

“No. Devil killer, large glass,” Zhenya said. 

Sid fumbled for the menu, his lips pursed as he quickly sought out—“Uh, the sour, please. Yuzuri sour.”

The waiter left; Zhenya tapped his fingers on the back of his seat.

“You gonna hate that,” Zhenya told him. “Yuzu, it’s like, fruit.”

“It’s fine,” Sid said, thumbing at the edge of the menu aggressively, trying to lay flat a bent corner.

Zhenya sipped on his sake as Sid ordered plates of food for them both. Sid would tell the waiter they wanted the lobster shiitake salad, and then the bluefin sashimi, and after each one he’d look up at Zhenya like he was trying to see if the puck had crossed the goal line.

Zhenya’s sake was crisp, with a slow-burning spice after every sip. He drank it slowly as Sid offered him yellowtail sushi and grilled shishito peppers. Zhenya ate, and ate, and Sid watched him, picking at the ceviche, his untouched drink balancing perilously near the table’s edge.

“We should talk,” Sid finally said, and Zhenya’s glass stopped halfway to his lips, “about next season. When we’re getting in for camp, that sort of thing.”

Zhenya put down his drink.

He was sick of this. He was tired. He couldn’t even muster any anger, just exhausted grief. Sid refused to even commit to a groveling dinner date, bringing up the season like Zhenya cared about hockey at the moment.

Sid stared as Zhenya reached into his back pocket. He flung the passport onto the table, right between the ceviche and the Japanese snapper. 

Sid frowned down at the little blue booklet. 

“What’s that?” he asked, and his eyes were dark when they met Zhenya’s tired ones. 

Zhenya just gestured at it with loose fingers. It was obvious. 

“I’m American,” he said. It was the first time the words had left his lips. They felt alien. “Citizenship, been working on for past few year.”

Sid’s expression of shock was well-contained. It only appeared in the sudden slackness of his jaw and the way his eyes got a little wider. He picked up the passport, and Zhenya’s heart oozed like an open wound. 

“You… really? What about Russia? Did you give up—” 

“Both,” Zhenya said. “I have both, Sid.”

For now. He’d have both for now, until he fell in love with another man and had to take a handsaw to each of his ties back home before they would be used to strangle him. If Zhenya was to find love like this again, he needed to have somewhere other than Russia to run to.

“Why?”

Sid cracked open the flimsy cover and peered at Zhenya’s photograph. His fingers brushed against the laminated paper. 

“My future gonna be here,” Zhenya said, and it was easier to say it with Sid’s intense gaze focused on the serious, wholly American Zhenya on the passport. “I want to be here. It’s place where I don’t need to hide.”

That drew Sid’s eyes up.

“What do you mean?” he asked. His voice was very quiet.

“I’m talk with J.P.,” Zhenya said. It felt like he was opening a floodgate. He was swept away by the momentum of his own secret. “We make plan, like, for maybe come out.”

Sid’s lips parted. 

“Barry knows?” he whispered. 

“About me,” Zhenya said. He hadn’t wanted to pull Sid into the talks with his agent, not when their relationship had been so new and undefined. “We talk and make strategy for if I’m let people know about me.”

“Why?” Sid asked again. His expression was strange and unpleasant, a mix of raw shock and the neutral, relaxed face he used for the public. 

It made Zhenya’s temper spark. The plan was mostly damage control, a series of checks and stops to kick into gear if the news ever broke. If Zhenya wanted to publicize it on his own terms, J.P. told him that it would be a much bigger project, something they could work on later, when it felt right. 

“Because I want future,” Zhenya said, voice dark and seething. “Getting old, Sid, and I’m think, maybe marry, maybe babies, and if I do that with—” he faltered, “guy, then I need plan. Plan for future, it’s what I want.”

Sid was very still. It was unnatural on him; he was always moving or readjusting or thumbing at his own skin. Zhenya’s heart froze in time with him. Sid, pale and unmoving on the coast of a strange city, was never how Zhenya had pictured this happening. An imagined ocean roared in his ears.

“I think we should get the check,” Sid said.

Sid’s fancy little cocktail nearly fell onto the deck as Zhenya abruptly stood. He dropped his napkin onto the ceviche, tugged his passport from Sid’s numb hands, and walked into the restaurant.

“Geno, wait, fuck—” he heard Sid curse. Sid was fumbling with his wallet, and Zhenya doubted he had enough bills to cover the enormous tab he’d racked up on Zhenya’s behalf.

Good, Zhenya snarled to himself, and he pushed through the door and out into the parking lot. 

He had enough knowledge of this particular stretch of Malibu—every year, he came here every year and now he’d never be able to look at Nobu again—to turn left and head down the thin little sidewalk. The highway buzzed past him, cars driving off away from the sunset. 

Zhenya walked with his head down, his passport gripped tight in his fist. He had been so foolish. He’d been foolish from the start. Sidney Crosby, the boy with the sweet media smile and the warbling laugh, had been made for the public. He was patient and giving and kind, and it was no wonder Zhenya had fallen for him. It had been a horrible mistake. He could admit that now, as he stalked down a lonely highway. How stupid of Zhenya to think that the Sidney Crosby built for the world was also built to love him back.

“Geno!” Zhenya heard, and he grit his teeth and picked up the pace. “Geno, stop, Jesus—”

Zhenya walked quickly past the sky-tall hedges and slated privacy fences until the beach broke in front of him. He sped up, Sid on his heels, and blew through the enormous gates that led onto the Malibu Pier. 

He stormed past the fisherman reeling in the last catches of the day, over the creaking boards, until his hands landed on the worn, painted wood of the railing. 

Zhenya stared out at the Pacific. 

Sid came to a standstill behind him. It was a careful distance—there were still people milling around as the sun set over the ocean—and every inch of it hurt. Zhenya gripped onto the railing and wished his heart was easier to cage. He should never have let himself get this far. He should have never let Sid reach in and teach Zhenya how it felt to have Sid hold his heart. 

“I’m sorry,” Sid said.

“For what,” Zhenya rasped. 

Sid said nothing in response. The water wavered in Zhenya’s vision; he blinked once, then twice, and tasted the ocean on his tongue. They stood there, silent and unmoving, as the sun dipped itself beneath the horizon.

Sid cleared his throat roughly, and said, “It’s good you have a plan.”

You. Not we. Not us.

Zhenya stared out at the dusky waves. They blurred into the orange-pink haze where they met the water. The sun was an orange smear; there was no telling where the sky ended and the water began. The ocean swallowed it all down. 

Zhenya thought of the promises he’d made himself over a decade ago, staring out at this same water. He had been so frightened, and California had been the land of dreams. 

“Don’t touch,” Zhenya snapped. Sid’s hand was hovering just over his arm. It slowly retreated back to Sid’s side. 

“I can’t have this talk here,” Sid said. He sounded upset, and Zhenya was sickeningly pleased about it. 

“Yes, here,” he said horribly. 

“I can’t,” Sid said. He came up next to Zhenya then, facing him, as close as he could be without touching him. “Geno, I can’t.” 

“Won’t,” Zhenya spat, but he turned, making Sid follow him as he stormed back down the pier. Zhenya took the stairs down to the beach. His shoes sunk into the sand as he walked further and further from the last swimmers of the day. 

Sid wanted space. He wanted privacy. Fine; Zhenya could give him that. He’d given so much of himself to Sid for scraps of Sid-in-private in return. The sadder a story Sid gave him, the more he could cry it into Anya’s bosom later. 

When they were the only ones for a long stretch of sand, Zhenya finally looked at Sid.

He was pathetic and anxious. He looked so miserable that it ruined Zhenya’s vicious bite when he said, “Tell. Who’s gonna hear?”

There was nobody but them, just how Sid wanted it. 

Sid looked helpless, lost for words. He opened and closed his mouth twice before taking an enormous breath. He stopped. He looked firmly at the crown of Zhenya’s head to avoid looking in his eyes.

“Stop it,” Zhenya snarled at him. “You bring me here, you lie and say we see friends, but you hide us from friends. All we do is meeting, training, and you take me to club.”

Zhenya’s voice dripped acid. Sid took it all in with his stupid wide eyes and his silent, open mouth, and his dumb expression pulled the next words from Zhenya’s throat.

“I’m good for fuck, that’s it. Not for friends, not even for club. Maybe you find nice California girl to take to wedding, show to mama and papa, leave Geno back in condo for next time you want dick sucked.”

“Stop.”

Zhenya stopped. His hand, lifted in a furious gesture, fell back to his side.

Zhenya watched the tear track down Sid’s face. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Sid cry. 

“Jesus, Geno, stop,” Sid muttered, and he brought a hand up to rub at his eyes. He did it with the side of his fist like a child. In the darkening streaks of the sunset, Zhenya couldn’t see the gray in Sid’s hair or the lines in his face. He was young again, and Zhenya’s rage flowed away and left emptiness in its wake.

“I don’t just want to fuck you. I just, I can’t—” Sid started, and he held his fingers to his eyes: his thumb on his right, his index on his left. His wide palm covered his nose, but his lips quivered. His mouth shook for a moment, trying to form words before he could finally force them out.

“I came out to my family,” Sid whispered. His breath hitched halfway through. “Not just Taylor. Before playoffs. And they didn’t—Geno, they…”

He had to collect himself, and as he took quaking, hiccuping breaths, Zhenya started to feel cold.

“My parents,” Sid said slowly, with only a slight wobble, “didn’t like it very much.”

“Sid,” Zhenya murmured.

“We’ve been trying,” Sid continued, and he started losing control of his voice again. “Taylor and I have been trying to—and Taylor has… she’s in the middle of it, and the wedding is coming up, and it’s not—it’s not fair to her, and all she wants is for us to be there together and to be happy for her.”

Sid dropped his hand and shook it. Little flecks of saltwater flew from his fingers and onto the sand. He laughed once, a scratchy, bitter bark.

“We can’t even get through a conversation,” Sid said. The anger behind his voice seemed to sap him of energy rather than strengthen him. “Not even with Taylor there. I haven’t spoken to them in two months. That’s why they didn’t come for playoffs, not the wedding.”

Zhenya stared at him. It was unimaginable—a Sid without his parents close by. Zhenya had met them so many times. Troy, proud and stern and so full of the exact same quiet, hungry determination he knew in Sid; Trina and her love of chatter, and her smiles and how they looked exactly like her childrens’. Sid was every inch their son, and he had been so deeply loved.

“That’s why I had to meet with Pat,” Sid said. “We had to talk about steps forward.”

“Steps forward?” Zhenya asked quietly. 

“Like, help,” Sid said. He ground the words out like it was painful to say. “Someone to help us talk. Thirty-two years, and we need someone to help them talk to me. God.” 

Sid wiped angrily at his eyes again, and under his nose. 

“And then, the foundation—my parents helped me set everything up, so what happens to it? We could need lawyers, and—”

He broke himself off for another long, shaking breath. 

“You didn’t say.”

“How could I?” Sid muttered. “Fuck, Geno, you heard—”

“How I’m help, if I don’t know? How I’m know? Sid, you…”

Zhenya paused. Sid had kept so much from Zhenya, and his wounds had been worsened by his isolation. Sid had put himself on an island to drown when the tide came in and he refused to ask for help.

“I feel like shit,” Zhenya said, and Sid flinched. Just barely, a little hitch backward. “We old, Sid. I can’t do anymore, hide in your bedroom. If we together, then you say.”

“I was trying,” Sid said. 

“Try to do by yourself,” Zhenya told him. “Why you think you can do that? Who said you have to do like that?”

Sid bit down on both his lips, looking down at the sand.

“Talk to me. We do together,” Zhenya murmured, and he pulled Sid into his arms.

Sid went without protest. He collapsed into Zhenya’s chest, his face a damp wetness right under Zhenya’s chin. 

“It will be okay,” Zhenya told him. He spoke in low Russian. They were promises he couldn’t be sure he’d keep. There was no need to make Sid understand him. “It will be alright.”

“And I kept making you angry,” Sid whispered into Zhenya’s skin, “and I couldn’t—not you too, Geno, I—”

“Be quiet, I love you,” Zhenya murmured.

He held Sid long after the last of the sun fell into the ocean. They warmed each other as the heat leached out of the air. Zhenya breathed in the scent of Sid’s shampoo and rubbed his face against Sid’s still-thick hair. His hands rubbed along Sid’s back, his fingernails catching on the raised edge of the KT tape. 

When Sid finally made to pull away, Zhenya’s arms creaked in protest. 

“I’m sorry,” Sid muttered, wiping the back of his hand under his nose.

“Yes,” Zhenya said softly, and he offered his palm to Sid. 

Sid didn’t hesitate as he took it, and Zhenya pulled him to the water. 

He kicked off his shoes. Sid followed. The water still held its warmth from the summer sun, and Zhenya squeezed Sid’s hand in his as they walked in the wet sand. The weak waves slipped over the ground and teased at their ankles. They walked for minutes in silence, Sid’s slowly-regulating breaths starting to line up with the ebb and flow of the water.

“Miami is nice,” Zhenya said. “Good food. Maybe too much beach for you, but Moscow is good too. Ibiza, Italy…”

“Geno…”

“Is nice, like, private,” Zhenya said. “Quiet. Maybe just you and me, we take some time. Eat so much food in Italy, get private island so we just sit on beach and get soft.”

“I—”

“Whatever happen,” Zhenya said, and he looked at Sid. Sid’s eyes were exhausted, but there was a little smile teasing at his lips. Zhenya would do so much to see that smile. “Wedding, yes, maybe no. We talk, figure out. Then we go away.”

“And we’ll come back,” Sid said.

“No,” Zhenya told him, squeezing his hand. “We done with California. Go somewhere new.”

Sid looked him over slowly. His eyes lingered on Zhenya’s chain, at his neck, at his lips. He was soaking Zhenya in. 

“Alright,” Sid said. He lifted their twined fingers to press a kiss to Zhenya’s knuckles.