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Jonathan Huberdeau wakes up sweating. No, it wasn’t a nightmare, and he doesn’t think he’s sick, his bed is just unusually hot for some reason. It’s making him sluggish, slow in his thinking, and - but this doesn’t feel like his bed. The sheets are too rough, the pillows too hard.
So he’s in someone else’s bed, which explains the heat, and so much heat probably means a man rather than a woman. But who?
--
Dim lighting. The smell of spilled tequila. A seemingly random mix of music. The team, sitting at their usual corner table.
Huby, not a rookie for years now, stuck in the rookie seat in the middle of the booth, surrounded by teammates.
--
Could he have gotten out? No, even if he could, it wouldn’t have been worth the chirping.
A teammate, then, but he can’t think which. Jonny sighs, debates opening his eyes to the harsh glare of the Florida morning. Someone mumbles faintly in a language Jonny doesn’t understand until the last word, a curse. Russian.
Max, maybe? Jonny is pretty sure Max is at least a little heteroflexible.
--
Bad techno. Max grinding with a tiny brunette. Someone elbowing Huby in the side, laughing.
--
Not Max, then. Jonny still doesn’t want to open his eyes; he steels himself and does anyway.
He shuts them again almost immediately, because fuck.
--
September 2013:
Half a season under his belt, a Calder heavy on his shelf, and a huge Finnish kid walks into the room. He sits quietly, taping his stick carefully, speaking sparingly, only when spoken to. Huby almost loses interest in him, doesn’t want the heavy task of bringing him out of his shell.
Then they’re on the ice, and at that first practice he quietly and carefully makes them all look like absolute fucking idiots. Hockey, Huby thinks, speaks louder than words.
--
January 2015:
Huby finally gets time on his wing and finds that talking really is unnecessary - their styles are well-suited, even if they are both a little too prone to passing sometimes. It’s easy to start making time to spend with him off-ice.
It’s harder not to think about anything more.
--
April 2016:
The playoffs are over far too soon, and only Eks looks more broken than Huby’s centre.
Huby hugs him, not caring who sees or what they might think, listens to his breath catching in his chest, the soft thumping of his heart slowing with the adrenaline crash. Huby’s own heart thuds painfully, the lump in his throat not solely because of the loss.
--
Jonny opens his eyes again, hoping against hope that he’d been dreaming, but no, he’s clearly looking at the broad shoulders of Sasha Barkov, wondering what could have possessed him to fuck up so badly.
Sasha’s haircut is fresh; there’s a slight nick in the straight line of it, along the back of his neck, and Jonny wants to rub his thumb over it. The implications make him shiver.
What had he said or done last night to end up here? What will Sasha think now, sober and awake and in full control of himself?
Jonny’s not naked, the soft cotton of his boxer-briefs snug against his hips, but he feels exposed. He makes himself breathe evenly, thinking hard.
--
Bricks and Yands to his left, talking baseball; Barky to his right, visible over someone’s head. Huby smiling. Barky smiling back, tiredly, saying he’s leaving, offering Huby a ride.
A hand tightening on Huby’s wrist.
--
An arm wraps around Jonny’s waist. Someone plasters himself along Jonny’s back, breath hot against his neck, and it takes everything he has not to flinch or freeze with the shock.
--
February 2017:
Huby comes off IR at last. A few weeks later, some Swiss kid gets called up.
Huby’s not prepared for him to walk into the room and be everything they didn’t know they were missing - a smile on his face that never dims, a positive attitude that should be annoying, but isn’t.
Huby likes him, easily and uncomplicatedly, just hopes they can keep the smile on his face and doesn’t trouble himself when he figures out why.
--
November 2017:
He gets sent down, and everything feels off. It comes to a head in the Toronto game, where Barky turns to Huby after they fail to score again. “I thought that you would go to the net,” Barky says, looking apologetic, and Huby loves him and hates him, the wrongness in the team crawling through his nerves.
“Sorry, no,” he says, a bit too short, forcing a smile.
“No?” asks Barky. “Sorry,” he says, and doesn’t smile, but he gets about as close as he ever does. In that moment, Huby feels almost normal.
One more game, and he gets called back up, right to the top, to their right wing. They rattle off two wins like that, back-to-back on the road, and he’s the one who scores the game-winner in the latter, ninety seconds left and both of them on the ice.
Even Barky can’t keep from smiling at that.
--
The body behind Jonny is short and relatively slight, as hockey players go, and he knows without looking that it can only be Denis Malgin.
His chest is warm as it rises and falls against Jonny’s back, and Jonny wants to hold his hand, the one currently resting just below his ribcage. His feelings for Denis have always been so simple; to feel them mixing with the difficulty of his feelings for Sasha is an odd sensation, even if it’s not entirely unwelcome.
Still, he has to wonder what this will mean for them - but the future, right now, feels distant and unimportant as compared to the past, because how on earth did this happen?
--
Malgy’s fingers around Huby’s wrist tightening just a little too far. Huby’s bruise - the product of an uncalled slash - aching just a little unpleasantly. Huby wincing, feeling Malgy’s fingers loosen.
Malgy saying, “Sorry,” turning to Barky, asking, “Can I come too?”
Barky regarding him, quietly and carefully, like he doesn’t know any other way to be, and nodding.
--
February 2018:
Huby scores the game-winner against Detroit, and Malgy is right there, tackling him to the ice, screaming in three different languages, lips centimetres away. It takes everything Huby has not to meet them.
(“He tried to kiss me,” Huby tells the team writer, so close to the truth but so far away.)
--
Outside the bar, streetlights burning orange, Malgy taking his wrist again, gently, brushing his lips across the bruise. “Did it hurt?”
Huby freezing, Barky taking a sharp breath behind him, all of them motionless.
“It’s just a bruise.”
Malgy tilting his head, smiling, eyes bright, fingers still encircling Huby’s wrist. “No, when you fell from heaven.”
Silence growing between them. Barky spitting something low in Russian, turning away. Huby grabbing his hand and Malgy’s. Malgy speaking more Russian, gleeful annoyance in his voice.
Barky nodding, once, the hint of a smile growing on his face.
--
Now Jonny is here, awake between them in the bed they’d been too tired to do anything but sleep in, and he wants.
Denis stirs behind him again, lips finding the top of Jonny’s spine, rolling his hips against Jonny’s ass, and Jonny can’t care about the future now, doesn’t think he ever will, like this.
He covers Denis’ hand with his own, strokes the side of it with his thumb when Denis freezes. He presses back against him, just enough; Denis kisses the back of his neck and keeps going, rocking softly against Jonny, murmuring in English, Russian, Swiss German, all jumbled up together. He tries to move his hand to Jonny’s cock, but Jonny holds it where it is, not wanting to wake up Sasha with too much noise or movement.
This makes Denis pout, and the Russian returns, slightly louder.
“Shut up, Denya,” says Sasha, utterly still, voice a little muffled.
“Make me, Sashechka,” Denis says, and Sasha, grumbling a little, turns to face them. His surprise when he sees Jonny is almost hilarious, but it fades quickly, and he reaches out to put his hand on Jonny’s, still covering Denis’.
“Still wish you were asleep?” Jonny jokes. Denis snorts behind him.
“I dreamed I would wake up to this,” Sasha breathes, and then they’re kissing.
Jonny feels like he’s melting, surrounded by the heat of their bodies, Sasha’s mouth warm on his, Denis’ breath hot against his spine, muffling words into Jonny’s back. “Shut up, Denya,” Sasha breaks off to say again. Jonny feels Denis’ lips curve up into a smile.
“Make me,” he repeats, and then Sasha’s weight is halfway on Jonny, draped over him to reach Denis’ eager mouth, dick poking Jonny gently in the stomach. He moves his hips a little, experimentally, grinding his own cock against Sasha’s thigh, his ass against Denis’ almost-forgotten dick, and he likes it so much that he keeps going until Denis curses into Sasha’s mouth. Sasha snorts, unimpressed, and Jonny grins as he levers himself up, resting his weight on his elbow rather than Jonny.
Now that he can lay flat, he does, turning his head towards Denis for the first time this morning. He’s smiling, lips chapped, bitten, well-kissed, and Jonny leans in to find out what that smile tastes like.
It’s hot, burning like the sun outside with finally-requited desire, barely tempered by someone - Sasha - pulling the covers off them, mattress shifting under his weight as he rejoins them. Jonny can’t see what Sasha’s doing, too engrossed in Denis, who lets out an interesting squeak when Jonny starts to tease one of his nipples, but there’s a wash of cool air over his cock and then a warm mouth and it suddenly becomes a little difficult to think. “Ah, calisse,” he groans, and Denis frowns.
“No fair,” he says. “Why do I have to wait?”
“Denya,” Sasha starts, patiently, jerking Jonny off as his mouth is otherwise occupied. Jonny doesn’t need to hear the speech, knows exactly what to do to solve the problem.
He trails his hand down Denis’ bare stomach until he reaches his dick, teasing the head of it lightly with his thumb until Denis sighs, “Please.” It’s hard for Jonny to focus with Sasha’s mouth on him, quiet, careful, competent, but Denis is young and was already worked up before they began, and it doesn’t take much in the way of technique to have him gasping, muffling small sounds against Jonny’s lips.
Jonny is doing the same, ability to hold himself together faltering under Sasha’s total focus. So it’s a surprise when Denis comes - “Ah, das ist so huere-” - and Jonny has a moment of realisation: this is real and happening and none of them are questioning it. It grounds him so hard in the moment that he barely has time to warn Sasha before he comes, too.
Jonny opens his eyes to see Sasha swipe the back of his hand across his lips, Denis guiding him up the bed to kiss the taste of Jonny out of his mouth, and at that Jonny has to stop being boneless and slide out from under them, to where Sasha’s dick is hard and waiting. He kisses it first, impulsively, as though he’s never done this before, then breathes in deep and takes as much of it into his mouth as he can. He hears Sasha inhale sharply through his nose, hears Denis kissing him, loud and sloppy, can almost hear the litany of ‘vittu’ unsaid in the tensing of his muscles as Jonny bobs his head along the length of him, quickly as he can.
Denis’ hand brushes the back of his neck, and Jonny hollows his cheeks with a soft hum, and Sasha comes, quietly and without warning.
Jonny can’t remember ever feeling so satisfied.
--
They miss morning skate - but ah, well, it’s optional, after all.
--
Jonathan Huberdeau wakes up, sweating, from his pregame nap, Sasha and Denis surrounding him with their warmth, and, smiling, goes back to sleep.
