Chapter Text
The buzzer sounded like a funeral bell.
Nate stood at center ice, stick dangling loose in his grip, staring at the scoreboard as if the numbers might rearrange themselves into something bearable. CANADA 2 — USA 3. Team USA erupted into a dogpile near their crease while twenty thousand voices in the arena split between ecstasy and devastation, and Nate couldn't hear any of it. Couldn't hear anything except the ping of the puck hitting the crossbar in the third period—his puck, his chance, a gaping net staring back at him like an open mouth, and he'd put it off the fucking iron.
Wide open. Five-hole vacated. The goalie sprawled two feet out of position.
And Nathan MacKinnon, one of the best players in the league, had missed.
Connor McDavid skated past him, tapping his shin pad wordlessly with his stick blade. Cale Makar followed, helmet already off, jaw clenched so tight the muscles in his neck stood out like cables. Neither of them said anything. What was there to say?
Nate forced himself through the handshake line on autopilot, gripping Team USA gloves and muttering congratulations he didn't mean, and then he was skating toward the tunnel, and that's when his eyes found the suite.
Sid was up there. He’d watched the whole thing from the box, leaning slightly against the railing, his right leg stiff when he shifted his weight, the faint hitch in his step still visible even from a distance. He wore a Team Canada polo stretched across those ridiculous shoulders, and from where Nate stood, he could still make out the expression on his face—not anger, not disappointment, but something worse. Something gentle. Something forgiving.
Nate looked away so fast he nearly tripped over the threshold into the tunnel.
The locker room was a morgue.
Twenty-three men sat in various states of undress, some still in full pads, some stripped to their base layers, all of them staring at the floor or the ceiling or their own hands. The silence was the loud kind—the kind that pressed against your eardrums and made the fluorescent lights hum louder.
Then the door opened, and Sidney Crosby walked in.
He moved carefully, favoring his right side, a slight hitch in his step tapping out a quiet rhythm against the rubber matting. He’d come down from the suite fast. His polo was slightly rumpled, his hair still damp from… something. Nerves, maybe. He’d been sweating up there, watching them lose the game he was supposed to be playing in.
Nobody looked up.
Sid stopped in the middle of the room and stood there, scanning every face. Nate could feel those hazel eyes land on him and he kept his own gaze fixed on the tape wrapped around his stick handle, picking at the fraying edge with his thumbnail.
"Hey," Sid said. His voice was quiet but it carried. It always carried. "Look at me."
A few heads lifted. McDavid's. Makar's. March, reluctantly.
"All of you. Look at me."
Nate raised his eyes. Sid was standing with his weight on his good leg, arms folded, and the expression on his face was steady. Controlled. Captain Canada through and through.
"You left everything on that ice," Sid said. "Every single one of you. I watched every shift. I saw Cale block that shot in the third with a broken finger." Makar flexed his hand unconsciously, the splint visible beneath his glove. "I saw Connor win fourteen faceoffs. I saw Marner play twenty-eight minutes on a pulled groin. You think I'm standing here disappointed?"
Silence.
"I'm not," Sid said, firmer now. "This isn't the result we wanted, but you competed. You played the right way. And I need you to hold your heads up when we go out there for that ceremony, because you earned the right to stand on that podium."
Nate's throat constricted. He could feel the sting behind his eyes and he bit down on the inside of his cheek, hard, tasting copper. You earned the right.Except he hadn't. They’d had the chance to take the lead with ten minutes left and he'd choked, and now Sid—who'd torn his MCL in the semifinal, who'd dragged his thirty-eight-year-old body through this entire tournament like a man possessed, who'd probably played his last meaningful international hockey game—was standing here telling them to be proud.
Sid's gaze lingered on Nate for a beat too long. Nate looked away first.
The ceremony was its own particular brand of torture.
Sid suited up for it. Full gear, Team Canada jersey, the C stitched over his heart. He skated out with the rest of them—slow, careful maybe, but on his own blades, boot and all—and bent his head to receive the silver medal with the same quiet grace he did everything else. The arena gave him a standing ovation that had nothing to do with the result. Forty years of hockey, and the man still made people rise to their feet.
Nate stood maybe seven spots down, the medal hanging against his chest like a millstone, and he clapped along with the crowd because that was what you did for Sidney Crosby. You applauded. You admired. You worshipped from whatever distance he allowed.
And then it was over, and Sid got swallowed by a media scrum the size of a small country—cameras and microphones and reporters asking him how it felt, was this his last Olympics, did he have any regrets—and Nate saw his window.
He peeled off. Changed fast, showered faster, and was in a cab back to the athletes' village before anyone noticed he'd gone.
The hotel room was small and aggressively beige. Nate sat on the edge of the bed in sweatpants and a hoodie, elbows on his knees, replaying the missed goal on a loop behind his eyes like a highlight reel from hell.
The pass had been perfect. Celebrini, threading it through two defenders, tape to tape, and there was the net—right there—and all Nate had to do was bury it, just guide it in, the simplest play in hockey, and instead he'd gotten too much blade on it. The angle had been wrong by maybe two degrees. The puck had climbed, caught the crossbar with a sound that might as well have been a gunshot, and bounced out.
Two degrees.
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars.
Sid had been watching. That was the part that made his stomach lurch. Sid had been right there in that suite, close enough to read the numbers, and he'd seen the whole thing unfold in real time. The pass, the whiff, the puck skittering harmlessly into the corner. He'd seen Nate's stick slam against the boards in frustration. He'd seen the replay on the Jumbotron, probably three or four times, the cameras zooming in on Nate's face as realization set in that he'd just cost them the game.
"Fuck," Nate muttered to the empty room.
He'd grown up with a poster of Sidney Crosby on his bedroom wall in Cole Harbour. Not a normal-sized poster, either—a life-sized fathead decal that his mom had ordered online, Sid mid-celly with his arms raised and his mouth open, the kind of image that made a ten-year-old kid from Nova Scotia believe he could be something. They'd trained at the same rink in the summers. Nate had been fourteen, scrawny, all elbows and bad skin, and Sid had been Sid—already a two-time Cup champion, already a legend, and he'd still taken the time to skate with the local kids. He'd corrected Nate's wrist shot. Told him he had good hands.
Good hands.
Nate barked a laugh that sounded more like a sob.
Twenty years of chasing that approval, of wanting to prove he belonged in the same sentence as Sidney Crosby, and when it mattered most, his good hands had betrayed him.
Dinner was mandatory. Nate knew because the team group chat pinged six times in a row with logistics—restaurant name, time, dress code (casual, thank God). He thought about faking a migraine. Decided against it when McDavid texted him privately: You coming? Sid's asking about you.
Four words that made his heart do something complicated and embarrassing.
Sid's asking about you.
He went.
The restaurant was a private room in the Olympic village's main dining complex—long tables, too many chairs, the muted energy of a team still processing a loss. Nate arrived late on purpose, sliding into a seat between Marner and Celebrini at the far end, as physically far from Sid as the table allowed.
It almost worked. Sid was at the head of the table—of course—flanked by coaches and Hockey Canada brass, deep in conversation about something that required a lot of nodding and hand gestures. He looked tired. The kind of tired that settled into the lines around his eyes and the set of his mouth. Every few minutes someone would lean in to tell him something, clap him on the shoulder, and Sid would smile that patient, practiced smile.
But he kept looking at Nate.
Not obviously. Sid was too smart for that. A glance between bites. A flicker of attention across the length of the table when the conversation shifted. Once, their eyes met over the rim of Sid's water glass, and the look Sid gave him was—
Nate didn't have a word for it. Knowing, maybe. Like Sid could see right through the careful distance Nate was maintaining and understood exactly why it was there.
Nate stuffed a forkful of pasta into his mouth and stared at his plate.
Dinner lasted an eternity. When the plates were cleared and the conversation splintered into smaller groups, Nate saw his chance. He stood, pushed his chair in, and made for the door with the unhurried pace of someone who definitely wasn't fleeing.
He made it to the elevator. Up to the fourth floor. Down the hallway, keycard out, door open—
"Nate."
The voice came from behind him. Close. Too close.
Nate turned. Sid was right there, six feet away, leaning on the wall beside the door with a look that said he'd been moving faster than a man with a limp had any right to.
"Sid, I—" Nate started, but Sid was already stepping forward, one hand catching the door before it could swing shut.
"Can I come in?"
It wasn't really a question. Sid was already crossing the threshold, his shoulder brushing Nate's chest as he passed, and the contact sent a jolt through Nate's body that was entirely inappropriate given the circumstances. He smelled like soap and something woodsy—cologne, maybe, faded to almost nothing after the long day.
Nate let the door close behind them.
The room felt smaller with Sid in it. Everything always felt smaller with Sid in it—rinks, locker rooms, countries. Nate hovered by the dresser while Sid lowered himself onto the edge of the desk chair, stretching his bad leg out with a wince.
"You've been avoiding me," Sid said.
"No, I haven't."
"Nate."
"Okay. Yeah. Maybe a little."
Sid studied him. That same look from the dinner table—careful, measured, like he was reading a play developing in front of him and already knew how it ended.
"It's not your fault," Sid said.
Nate's jaw tightened. "It was an open net, Sid."
"It hit the bar. It happens."
"Not in a gold medal game. Not when—" He stopped himself. Not when you're watching. Not when you're counting on me. Not when this is the last time.
Sid seemed to hear the words Nate didn't say. He always did. "Come here," he said quietly.
"What?"
"Sit down. You look like you're about to vibrate through the floor."
Nate moved to the bed because Sid told him to, and when Sidney Crosby told you to do something, your body obeyed before your brain caught up. He sat on the edge of the mattress, knees apart, hands gripping the duvet on either side of his thighs. Sid was maybe four feet away, and the silence between them was thick with everything unsaid.
"I've missed shots like that," Sid said. "Everyone has. You know what the difference is between that moment and the next one?"
Nate shook his head.
Sid leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, and his voice dropped to something private. Something meant only for this room. "You let it go. You let it go, Nate, because holding onto it doesn't change the score. It just eats you alive."
"Hard to let it go when—" Nate's voice cracked, and the humiliation of that nearly undid him. He was thirty years old, a Hart Trophy winner, and he was sitting here cracking like a teenager because Sidney Crosby was being kind to him. "When I wanted to win this for you."
The words landed between them like a grenade with the pin pulled.
Sid blinked. Something shifted behind his eyes—surprise, then recognition, then something warmer and more dangerous. He stood from the chair slowly, favoring his good leg, and crossed the narrow space between them.
"For me," Sid repeated. He was standing directly in front of Nate now, close enough that Nate had to tilt his chin up to maintain eye contact. This close, Nate could see the faint scar on Sid's upper lip, the flecks of green in his hazel eyes, the way his chest rose and fell beneath his black t-shirt.
"Yeah," Nate breathed. "For you."
Sid held his gaze for a long moment. Then he sank to his knees.
The movement was deliberate. Controlled. Sid lowered himself between Nate's spread thighs, his hands landing on Nate's knees, and the touch burned through the fabric of his sweatpants like a brand. The bad leg made the descent slightly awkward—Sid adjusted, shifting his weight—but there was nothing awkward about the way he looked up at Nate from that position. Nothing awkward about the intent in those eyes.
"Sid." Nate's voice was barely a whisper. "What are you—"
"Shh." Sid's thumbs traced slow circles on the inside of Nate's knees. "Let me take care of you."
Nate's brain short-circuited. Every fantasy he'd ever had—every late-night thought he'd buried under guilt and denial, every time he'd watched Sid's mouth move during a team meeting and imagined it wrapped around something other than a water bottle—slammed into him at once, and his cock responded before his higher functions could intervene.
Sid noticed. His gaze dropped to the front of Nate's sweats, where the fabric was already beginning to tent, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Something hungrier.
"There we go," Sid murmured.
His hands slid up Nate's thighs—firm, unhurried, palms flat against the muscle—and hooked into the waistband of his sweats. Nate lifted his hips on instinct, a full-body shiver raking through him as Sid tugged the pants down along with his boxer briefs. The cool air hit his skin and his cock sprang free, already half-hard and thickening fast, curving up toward his stomach.
Sid looked at it. Really looked, with the same studied intensity he brought to game film, and Nate had never felt so exposed in his life. His cock was flushed dark, the head swelling to a deep pink, a bead of precome already gathering at the slit because apparently his body had decided to abandon all pretense of composure.
"Fuck, Nate." Sid's voice came out rough. Wrecked. He wrapped one hand around the base, thick fingers not quite meeting, and Nate's hips bucked involuntarily. "You're big."
"Nnnhh—" Nate's head tipped back, tendons straining in his neck. Sid's hand was warm and calloused—hockey hands, skating hands—and the grip was perfect. Firm enough to feel, loose enough to tease. "Sid, you don't have to—"
"I want to." Sid squeezed, a slow pulse of pressure that made Nate's toes curl against the carpet. "Been thinking about this for longer than I should admit."
Before Nate could process that confession, Sid leaned in and licked a broad stripe up the underside of his cock, root to tip, tongue flat and wet and devastating. The sound Nate made was inhuman—a punched-out, strangled "aahh" that echoed off the hotel walls—and his hand flew to Sid's hair on reflex, fingers burying in those thick dark curls.
Sid hummed against his skin, the vibration buzzing through Nate's shaft, and then took the head into his mouth.
The heat was obscene. Wet, tight, silk-soft, Sid's lips stretching around the crown as his tongue swirled over the slit, lapping up the precome that had pooled there. Nate watched, hypnotized, as Sidney fucking Crosby—captain of every team he'd ever played for, the greatest player of his generation, the man whose poster had hung on Nate's childhood wall—hollowed his cheeks and sank lower.
"Oh God—oh fuck—" Nate's fingers tightened in Sid's hair. Sid took another inch, then another, his jaw working to accommodate the girth, and the visual alone was enough to make Nate dizzy. Sid's lips were shiny with spit, stretched obscenely wide, his cheeks concave with suction. He pulled back with a wet, filthy pop and looked up at Nate through his lashes.
"You taste so good," Sid breathed, jerking Nate's cock with his fist, spreading the slick mess of spit and precome. A string of saliva connected his lower lip to the head. "Tell me how it feels."
"Like I'm gonna die," Nate gasped. "Like—fuck, Sid, your mouth—"
Sid grinned, actually grinned, and swallowed him down again. Deeper this time. The head hit the back of Sid's throat and Nate felt the muscles constrict, felt Sid gag slightly and then push through it, nose pressing toward Nate's pelvis, throat opening up in a way that spoke of practice—and Nate was absolutely not going to think about that right now because he'd come in thirty seconds.
"Hhhnnggh—Sid—Sid, fuck—"
Sid bobbed his head, setting a rhythm that was deliberate and devastating—slow pulls back, cheeks hollowed, tongue working the underside on every stroke, then sinking deep until his nose brushed Nate's skin and his throat clenched tight. Spit was gathering at the corners of his mouth, dripping down Nate's shaft, pooling in the dark hair at the base. The sounds were obscene—wet, slurping, guttural—and Sid was making small noises of his own, these breathy little moans that vibrated through Nate's cock and straight up his spine.
"You're—oh my God—you're so good at this," Nate panted, both hands in Sid's hair now, not pushing, just holding, needing something to anchor himself. "So fucking good, Sid, your mouth is—aahh—"
Sid pulled off again, a mess of saliva stretching between them, and his eyes were glazed. Lips swollen, chin wet, pupils blown wide. He looked ruined, and he was smiling.
"Yeah?" Sid's voice was hoarse, scraped raw. He pressed his lips to the side of Nate's cock and mouthed along the shaft, kissing and sucking at the thick vein that ran along the underside. "You like that?"
"You know I do, don't—don't fucking tease—"
Sid laughed, low and dark, his breath hot against Nate's skin. He dipped lower, tongue tracing the seam of Nate's balls, and Nate nearly levitated off the bed. "Shit—"
"Sensitive," Sid noted, like he was filing it away for later. He licked back up, circled the head with his tongue, and then took Nate deep again in one smooth motion that had Nate seeing white.
The rhythm became relentless. Sid worked him with his mouth and his hand in tandem—fist twisting at the base while his lips and tongue handled the top half, spit easing the glide, every stroke pulling these involuntary twitches from Nate's hips. Nate was gripping Sid's hair hard enough now that it had to hurt, but Sid just moaned around him, louder, like the pain was part of it, like he wanted it.
"Sid—Sid, I'm—if you keep—" Nate's thighs were trembling, abdominal muscles clenching in tight spasms. "I'm gonna—"
Sid pulled off with a gasp, hand still moving, and looked up at him. His eyes were watering, mascara-dark lashes clumped together, lips puffy and abused, and his voice was a wrecked rasp when he spoke.
"Don't hold back." Sid's free hand gripped Nate's hip, pulling him forward to the very edge of the mattress. "Fuck my mouth, Nate. I want you to."
Nate made a sound that might have been a word in some alternate universe. "You—are you sure—"
Sid answered by opening his mouth wide, tongue extended, and guiding the head of Nate's cock past his lips. He looked up, held eye contact, and waited.
Permission. Given in the filthiest possible way.
Something snapped in Nate's chest—the last fraying thread of restraint—and his hips surged forward. Sid's throat opened for him, welcoming, and the moan that ripped out of Nate was guttural, animalistic, a sound he'd never heard himself make.
"Fuuuck—"
He thrust again, both hands cradling the back of Sid's skull, and Sid took it. Took all of it. His throat convulsed around Nate's cock, muscles fluttering, and his eyes rolled back—actually rolled, the hazel disappearing beneath his lids—and the moan he let out around Nate's shaft was so wanton, so debased, that Nate's vision went spotty.
"Jesus Christ, Sid—look at you—" Nate's voice was unrecognizable, shattered and awed. He pulled back, watched his cock slide from Sid's lips trailing thick ropes of spit, then pushed back in, slow and deep. Sid's throat bulged with it. Tears tracked from the corners of his eyes and he was grabbing at Nate's thighs, not pushing away but pulling him closer, fingernails leaving white crescents in the muscle.
"You want it like that?" Nate breathed, rolling his hips. "Yeah? You want me to use your throat?"
Sid moaned—a desperate, pleading sound, muffled by the cock filling his mouth—and nodded as much as the position allowed. His eyes fluttered open, half-lidded, hazy, tears and spit glistening on his face. He looked absolutely destroyed. He looked like he was in heaven.
Nate started to thrust in earnest.
Not brutal—he couldn't be brutal with Sid, didn't want to be—but deep and steady, one hand braced at the back of Sid's head, the other tracing his jaw to feel the way it stretched. Sid's throat was imposs
ibly tight, a slick vice grip that pulsed every time Sid gagged, and the sounds—God, the sounds—choking, wet, desperate—filled the small hotel room like pornography made audible.
"So fucking perfect," Nate groaned, hips snapping forward. He could feel saliva dripping down his balls, soaking the edge of the mattress, and Sid was taking every inch like he was made for it, hands fisted in the sheets on either side of Nate's legs, shoulders heaving. "That's it—fuck—take it, Sid. Take all of it."
Sid's moan vibrated through him, this wrecked, needy sound that went straight to the base of Nate's spine and coiled there, hot and bright. Sid pulled back just enough to breathe—a ragged, hitching gasp—before swallowing Nate down again, and his eyes opened, wet and unfocused, locking onto Nate's face with an expression of pure, delirious want.
"You look so good like this," Nate panted, brushing tears from Sid's cheekbone with his thumb while his other hand kept a firm grip in those curls. The tenderness of the gesture against the obscenity of the act made something twist in his chest. "On your knees for me—nngh—most perfect fucking mouth I've ever—Sid, Christ—"
Sid's throat constricted around him, a deliberate swallow, and Nate's vision whited out at the edges.
"Close—'m so close—" Nate's rhythm stuttered, thighs shaking, abdominals clenching in rolling waves. The heat was building at the base of his cock, heavy and unstoppable, molten pressure drawing tight. "Gonna come—Sid, I'm gonna come down your throat, you want that? Want me to—"
Sid's answer was to grab Nate's hips with both hands and pull him deeper, nose pressed flush against his pelvis, throat working in convulsive swallows around the head of Nate's cock. His eyes rolled up again, lashes fluttering, and he moaned—long, broken, begging.
That was it. That was all it took.
The orgasm hit Nate like a freight train. His spine arched, both hands clamping the back of Sid's skull, and he came with a shout that tore from somewhere primal—"Fuhhck—Sid—SID—"—hips jerking in short, helpless pulses as rope after rope spilled down Sid's throat. The pleasure ripped through him in blinding, cresting waves, whiting out coherent thought, and through it all Sid stayed exactly where he was, throat working steadily, swallowing.
Every drop.
Nate looked down—forced himself to, because he needed to see it, needed to burn this image into his memory—and the sight nearly stopped his heart. Sid's eyes were half-closed, dazed and glassy, lips sealed tight around Nate's shaft as his throat bobbed with each swallow. A thin trail of white leaked from the corner of his mouth, tracing the line of his jaw, and his expression was—serene. Blissed out. Like swallowing Nate's come was the best thing that had happened to him all day. Maybe all year.
"Ahh—oh, fuck—" Nate's cock pulsed one final time and Sid milked it with a gentle suck that made Nate's entire body jolt. Then Sid pulled off, slow and deliberate, tongue dragging along the underside as he went, cleaning him, savoring it. The head slipped past his lips with a final slick pop and Sid sat back on his heels, breathing hard.
His face was a masterpiece of debauchery. Swollen lips, flushed cheeks, tear tracks drying on his skin, a smear of come at the corner of his mouth that he caught with his thumb and licked clean while maintaining direct eye contact.
Nate stared at him. His lungs wouldn't work properly.
"Holy shit," Nate whispered.
Sid's mouth curved. That same quiet smile from the locker room, the one that always made Nate feel like the only person in whatever room they shared, except now it was ruined—gorgeous and filthy, lips red and abused and glistening.
"Feel better?" Sid asked, voice scraped to gravel.
Nate let out a breathless laugh. "I can't feel my legs."
Something flickered in Sid's expression—amusement shifting to heat, dark and deliberate. He rose from his knees, using the edge of the mattress for leverage, and stood in front of Nate. This close, Nate could see the hard line of Sid's cock straining against the front of his jeans, the denim tented obscenely, and realization hit him like a slap.
Sid was hard. Had been hard the entire time, on his knees, throat full of Nate's cock.
"Sid—" Nate started, reaching for him.
Sid caught his wrist. Held it. Then he stepped back and pulled his shirt over his head in one fluid motion.
Nate forgot how to breathe again.
Thirty-eight years old and Sidney Crosby's body was still a work of art. Broader than when Nate had first met him, thicker through the chest and shoulders, the muscle carrying weight that spoke of decades of conditioning. Dark hair trailed from his navel down into the waistband of his jeans. A map of scars marked his torso—surgical lines on his wrist, a puckered divot on his hip from a blocked shot, the silvery ladder of stitches along his ribs that Nate had never seen before. Each one a story. Each one proof that this body had been through war and survived.
Sid unbuckled his belt. The metallic clink was deafening in the quiet room.
Jeans next, shoved down along with his briefs, and Sid's cock sprang free—shorter than Nate's but thick, flushed a deep, angry red, the head slick with precome. He kicked the clothes aside, and met Nate's gaze.
Then he climbed onto the bed.
Not beside Nate. Past him. Sid moved to the center of the mattress on his hands and knees, the muscles of his back shifting under golden skin, and then he lowered himself—slowly, deliberately—until his chest was pressed to the sheets. Shoulders down, spine curved, ass up. He turned his head, pressing his cheek to the mattress, and looked back at Nate.
The position was obscene. Sid's thighs were spread, his back arched, his ass raised in the air like an offering—round, muscular, perfect—and the way he was looking at Nate over his shoulder, eyes dark and mouth parted, was the most erotic thing Nate had ever witnessed.
"Well?" Sid said. His voice was quiet. Almost shy, except nothing about this position was shy. "You gonna stare all night?"
Nate's cock, which had barely begun to soften, twitched hard and started filling again. Thirty years old and blessed with a recovery time that bordered on superhuman—thank God, because turning down what was being offered to him might have actually killed him.
He stripped his hoodie off, kicked free of the sweats tangled around his ankles, and moved up the bed on his knees behind Sid. His hands found Sid's hips—broad, solid, the bone prominent beneath the muscle—and the contact made Sid exhale through his teeth, a sharp hiss that went straight to Nate's thickening shaft.
"You want me to fuck you," Nate said. Not a question. Confirming.
Sid pushed back against his hands, grinding his ass toward Nate's groin. "What do you think?"
Nate gripped harder, thumbs pressing into the dimples at the base of Sid's spine. The skin there was soft, feverish. "I think you've been thinking about this as long as I have."
"Longer," Sid admitted, and the confession cracked something open between them—the last wall, the last pretense. "Bag. Front pocket."
It took Nate a moment to process. His bag. Right. He lunged off the bed, nearly tripping, and rummaged through his duffel with shaking hands until he found the travel kit—condom, lube, the essentials of an optimist. When he turned back, Sid hadn't moved. Still face-down, ass up, the muscles of his glutes and thighs taut with anticipation.
Nate climbed back behind him and uncapped the lube. The click was loud. He drizzled it over his fingers—too much, he was nervous, slick pooling in his palm—and pressed his clean hand to the small of Sid's back.
"Tell me if—"
"Nate." Sid's voice was strained but firm. "I'm not made of glass. Stop treating me like I am."
Nate swallowed. Then he pressed one slick finger against Sid's hole and pushed inside.
Sid groaned into the mattress, a low, guttural "hhnngh" that reverberated through the bed frame. He was tight—incredibly, impossibly tight—and hot inside, the muscles clenching around Nate's finger in rhythmic pulses. Nate worked him slowly, knuckle by knuckle, watching the way Sid's hands fisted in the sheets.
"More," Sid gasped. "I can take more."
Nate added a second finger and Sid arched, the curve of his spine deepening as he pressed back into the stretch. The sound he made was filthy—a whimpered, choked-off moan that cracked in the middle—and his hole twitched and clenched around both digits, drawing them deeper.
"Fuck, Sid, you're so tight." Nate scissored his fingers, stretching, feeling the heat and resistance give way to something softer, more yielding. He crooked his fingers, searching, and—
"Oh—right there—fuck, right there, don't stop—"
Sid's whole body shuddered, forehead dropping to the mattress, and Nate watched, transfixed, as the most composed man in professional hockey came utterly undone beneath his hands. He rubbed that spot again—firm, deliberate—and Sid keened, a high, desperate sound that Nate hadn't known Sid's voice could produce.
"Yeah?" Nate added a third finger, stretching him wider, and Sid's back bowed, his cock dripping a steady stream of precome onto the sheets below him. "That feel good, Captain?"
The title slipped out without thought, but the effect was electric. Sid moaned—loudly—and clenched hard around Nate's fingers, his entire body trembling.
"Oh, you liked that." Nate twisted his wrist, pressing all three fingers against Sid's prostate, watching the way Sid's thighs shook. "You like being called Captain while you're face-down begging for my cock?"
"Nate—" Sid's voice was barely functional. "Please—"
"Please what?"
Sid turned his head, cheek mashed against the pillow, and the look he gave Nate over his shoulder was feral. Pupils swallowing the hazel, mouth bitten red, a flush crawling down his neck and across his chest. "Please fuck me. I need—I need you inside me. Stop teasing and fuck me."
Nate pulled his fingers free and Sid whimpered at the loss, his hole clenching around nothing, slick and open and ready. Nate rolled the condom on with hands that shook only slightly, slicked himself up—his cock was fully hard again, aching, the head swollen and dark—and positioned himself behind Sid.
The head of his cock pressed against Sid's entrance. Both of them held their breath.
Nate pushed in.
The first inch was tight enough to make his vision blur. Sid was molten inside, his body resisting and then yielding in a slow, devastating slide, and the groan that ripped out of both of them simultaneously filled the room like a shared confession.
"Ohhh—oh, God—" Sid's fingers clawed at the sheets, bunching them, tearing them loose from the corners of the mattress. "You're—fuck—you're so big, Nate—"
"Tell me—tell me if it's too much—"
"Don't you dare stop."
Nate sank deeper. Inch by inch, slow and relentless, until his hips were flush against Sid's ass, fully seated, buried to the root. The sensation was so intense his brain blanked—nothing but heat and pressure and the tight, fluttering clench of Sid's body around every inch of him.
He stayed still for a moment, both of them panting, adjusting. His hands were gripping Sid's hips hard enough to bruise and he couldn't bring himself to loosen them.
Then Sid rocked back against him, grinding, and said, "Move."
Nate pulled back and thrust in.
Sid cried out—a raw, broken "AH" that bounced off the walls—and Nate did it again. And again. Found a rhythm that was slow and deep at first, each stroke pulling almost all the way out before driving back in, the slap of skin against skin marking time like a metronome. Sid took every thrust with his face pressed to the mattress, mouth open, making sounds that were barely human—moans and whimpers and broken fragments of Nate's name.
"So good for me," Nate breathed, shifting his angle, hiking one of Sid's hips higher. The change made Sid jerk violently, a strangled scream caught in his throat. Direct hit. "So fucking perfect, Sid—God—you take my cock so well—"
"Harder." Sid's voice was wrecked beyond recognition, hoarse from the earlier throat-fucking and raw with need. "Harder, Nate, I can take it, give me everything—"
Nate braced one hand on the mattress beside Sid's shoulder, the other gripping his hip, and let himself go.
The pace shifted from careful to punishing. His hips snapped forward with the power of a professional athlete—the same explosive force that made him one of the fastest skaters in hockey—each thrust driving Sid forward on the mattress, the headboard starting to knock against the wall in a steady, damning rhythm. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
"Ah—ah—AH—" Sid's moans climbed in pitch with every stroke, his fingers white-knuckled in the sheets, the muscles of his back glazed with sweat. His cock hung heavy and untouched between his legs, bouncing with the force of each thrust, leaking steadily. "Nate—oh fuck—right there—don't stop—"
"Not gonna stop." Nate leaned over him, chest pressed to Sid's back, mouth against his ear. The new angle drove him impossibly deeper and Sid wailed, the sound muffled by the pillow. "Gonna make you come on my cock, Captain. You earned it—fuck—youearned it—"
"Please—" Sid was shaking, every muscle taut and trembling, riding the edge. "Touch me—Nate, please, I need—"
Nate reached beneath him and wrapped his hand around Sid's cock. It was soaked with precome, slippery and swollen, and the moment Nate's fist closed around it Sid convulsed.
"Come for me," Nate growled against his neck, hips still driving forward in that brutal, devastating rhythm. "Come for me, Sid."
Sid shattered.
His whole body seized, spine locking rigid, and he came with a ragged shout that broke into a sob halfway through—AAHHNNN—cock pulsing hard in Nate's fist, spilling hot and thick over his fingers and onto the sheets below. His ass clenched down around Nate like a vise, tight rhythmic contractions that pulled and squeezed and milked, and the sensation dragged Nate over the edge right behind him.
The second orgasm was blinding. Nate buried himself to the hilt and came with Sid's name on his lips, forehead pressed between Sid's shoulder blades, feeling every pulse echoed and amplified by the tight grip of Sid's body. Pleasure whited out his vision, his hearing, his sense of anything beyond Sid—the heat of him, the smell of his sweat, the shaking of his limbs, the way he kept clenching and unclenching around Nate's cock as aftershocks rolled through both of them.
They stayed like that for a long time. Breathing. Trembling. Connected.
Eventually Nate pulled out—gently, carefully—and Sid hissed at the loss, collapsing flat onto the mattress in the mess of his own making. Nate disposed of the condom, grabbed a towel from the bathroom on legs that felt like they belonged to someone else, and cleaned them both up with clumsy, reverent hands.
When he climbed back into the bed, Sid rolled toward him. In the low light, his face was soft, unguarded, the lines of exhaustion and responsibility smoothed away. He looked younger. He looked like the Sid that Nate remembered from those summer mornings in Cole Harbour—laughing on the ice, stick-handling through pylons, pausing to fix a fourteen-year-old kid's grip.
"Hey," Sid said quietly.
"Hey."
Sid reached up, brushed Nate's damp hair back from his forehead. "Stop thinking about that goal."
Nate laughed—a real laugh, startled and warm, bubbling up from somewhere he'd thought was empty. "Kind of hard to think about anything right now."
Sid's mouth twitched. He pulled Nate down, and Nate went—collapsed against him, face buried in the crook of Sid's neck, one arm slung across his chest. Sid's heartbeat was slowing under his ear, steady and strong.
"For what it's worth," Sid murmured into his hair, fingers tracing lazy patterns on Nate's shoulder, "you didn't let me down. You never have."
Nate pressed his lips to the hollow of Sid's throat and held on tight.