Chapter Text
Matthew Tkachuk was, as always, insufferable. He was skating around, chirping the entire time with his mouthguard half hanging out of his mouth. Leon wondered for the nth time if it would be worth it to get a minor penalty to just shut Tkachuk up for a bit. He decided against it again because Connor McJesus would make that face that said I'm not mad, just disappointed.
Honestly, Leon deserved a medal for his self control. He hopped on the ice for his shift with the game tied at two halfway into the third period. Leon would be damned if the game went into overtime and he had to listen to Tkachuk talk for even a second longer. He skated hard after the puck and delivered a satisfying check to Tkachuk. Tkachuk stumbled and Leon finished the check into the boards, feeling Tkachuk’s back pressed against his chest. Tkachuk grunted at the contact, shoved Leon off after a few seconds, and skated off. Leon would realize later that Tkachuk did not go after the puck and that he was quiet for the rest of the game. Hindsight and all that.
Leon stood under the hot water long after the last teammate had finished up and left. He had an indefinable itch under his skin. He scrubbed until he was red but the feeling of something missing stayed stubbornly behind, clinging to his skin like a layer of invisible grime. He turned off the water with a bit more force than necessary. He need a drink or a pretty omega to fuck. Or both. Leon had scored the winning goal one minute before the end of the third period. Which normally had him feeling like a fucking god. But for lack of a better term, he was feeling outright pissy. The coach knew it and had sent Kailer to talk to the reporters instead.
Leon toweled off and dressed quickly in the empty locker room, pulling his hoodie over his head and tugging a pair of shorts on. He shoved his phone, wallet, and keys in the front pocket of his hoodie and started down the familiar hallway leading to the parking garage. The overhead lights were dimmed already since the last staffer probably left thirty minutes ago. The intensity of the unsettled feeling grew as he approached the parking garage until it became nearly unbearable. Fuck, what was going on with him today? He turned around abruptly and walked back towards the locker rooms as though he was being pulled there by a power stronger than him.
Leon looked up and stared at the door in front of him. The visitor’s locker room. Before he even thought to question what was happening, Leon pushed inside.
If Leon could go back in time, he would have gone home, gone to the bar, fuck, anything else but gone inside that locker room. He wished he had paid more attention to his high school sex education lectures when they explained alpha and omega dynamics, heats and ruts, and warning signs. Maybe then, he would have known better.
But here he was, in the now, and more turned on than he ever thought was possible. The scent in the air was so thick, he could swim through it. Mine, he thought. There was someone on the floor, leaning against the bench with his head down, panting heavily. His shorts were pulled halfway down his slightly parted thighs, one hand pumping up and down his flushed cock desperately. The collar of his wrinkled T-shirt was stretched out, like he had been tugging on it for some time now out of frustration and need. Mine, mine, mine. Leon did not remember walking towards him, did not remember kneeling down in front of the omega. He looked up at him then and Leon felt as though he was drowning.
Matthew Tkachuk. The one player that manages to get under Leon’s skin every time they’re on the ice. The biggest pest, who had absolutely no substance or talent. Tkachuk, who always smelled like nothing before. But right now, he was intoxicating and Leon had to touch him.
He reached out and pushed Tkachuk’s curls back from where they stuck to his forehead with sweat. Bright, blue eyes pleaded with him. To touch him, to fill him, to make him his. A small part of Leon wondered: to stop? Leon hoped not; he did not have it in him to walk away now.
“Please.” Tkachuk whispered, between his harsh, gasping breaths, so soft that Leon almost missed it. It’s the fear in Tkachuk’s eyes that gives Leon control for just a moment, enough to be horrified at what he knows will happen.
“I’m sorry.” Leon said, before closing the space between them.