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It’s not that he’s the first omega to play hockey, that is in no way true, the NHL has multiple omegas in it right now. It’s just that he’s the only one on the Canadian junior team and his hormones haven’t settled yet. Like most people he presented at sixteen—as an omega though, to everyone but his parent’s surprise. His mom had always said he cared more about things than the other boys; it’s why she thinks he’s so good at hockey.
He’s getting ready for the final game in the two thousand and four Hockey World Juniors hosted in Helsinki, Finland against Team Russia—there’s a buzz in his chest that he can’t explain. Maybe it’s the adrenaline or maybe the excitement of knowing exactly just how much this game matters, whatever it is he needs to channel it on the ice. He’s seen the tapes, he knows all about the players on the other teams and their playing styles. For example: Evgeni Malkin—one of the alphas a year older than him that he’ll be playing tonight. He knows what awaits them on the ice, he knows the kind of alphas and betas that fill the Russian roster. He knows how they see him, he knows how they don’t think they should be playing against an omega like him. If North America is judgemental of male omegas he can only imagine what a place like Russia is like.
_/ \_
The game is going well to start. They are up by two after the first period even with all the fight the Russians are giving them. He’s making his way past Team Russia’s forwards when out of nowhere he gets body slammed right into the boards by someone much taller than he is. The control he once had over the puck is gone and so is his ability to focus on where he’s at. His senses are overwhelmingly filled with something so all encompassing, it feels like every nerve in his body has been struck by lightning and set crackling with electricity. He can’t tell if he loves it or hates it and he never wants it to end.
And just like that it’s gone.
Fleeting and momentarily all-consuming, there’s now a hole in his chest that wasn’t there before and he has no idea how to fill it back up. It takes him too long to realize that it was Malkin—the kid from the other team whose tapes he’s sat and watched for hours trying to figure out his schtick—that’s the boy who’s the cause for all of this internal turmoil he’s now on the receiving end of.
He takes longer than he should to recover from his smack into the boards. He sits out the rest of the three minutes left of the second period and gets a quick concussion check that he passes with flying colors. By the time the third and final period is about to start Team Canada is in the lead two to one and he’s back out on the ice. The Russian players start talking to each other more now and it transcends the language barrier with how obvious they are about how they are talking about him.
He must be giving off a scent. With the amount of noses that are sniffing in his direction, he notices that afterwards they all seem to shake their heads as if to clear their senses. The clock on their game is rapidly diminishing and he can feel the heat and the sweat from all his hard work getting soaked up by his under layers. He’s itching to score another goal to cement their win, but his limbs feel heavy and his head has started to feel like it’s filled with cotton. He does his best to lock into the situation at hand and help bring Canada home the gold, but he’s feeling more and more sluggish with each shift on the ice.
He can tell his teammates have started to notice his change in pace, he hates that he’s living up to the fragile and weak omega stereotypes. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him—everything just feels so… fuzzy? Fuzzy feels like a good word for it, it’s good at describing how his heart feels, how it sounds beating in his ears, how he can feel the blood pulsing through his veins. It’s not so good at describing how sweaty he feels. He can feel the beads of sweat rolling down his forehead and trailing down along his spine.
It’s hard to focus on the game with what just might be fire under his skin and not in the way he normally finds it feeling when the energy of the game is fueling him. That’s an energy he can control, energy that he can focus and find peace with—this—this energy is controlling him instead and he can’t figure out how he feels about it.
_/ \_
He’s not sure how present he was for the end of the game, he knows he went out for another few shifts on the ice. He knows he managed to get another goal and another assist, he knows they won. He knows at some point they left the bench and he got out of his hockey gear. He doesn’t know how though, maybe he moved through the familiar motions of it all or maybe one of his teammates helped him.
Someone is crouching in front of him now, it’s not one of his teammates from the wisps of gray hair he can make out with his blurry vision. “Hey kid, are you with me?” the familiar voice of his coach, Mario Durocher, fills his ears. He barely has enough sense left to give a pathetic nod of his head, a sorry excuse for movement that he’s sure is quite possibly the least convincing action he’s ever made.
“Ok Sidney, we’re gonna get you out of here, it’s all going to be ok. We are going to get you back to the hotel and you’re just going to ride this out. Marc-André and Max get over here, you two are gonna help Sidney here get back to the hotel. Josh, grab his things, why don’t you.” He doesn’t know how much time passes between his coach saying this and his fellow teammates coming over and helping him up. He’s still not sure fully what’s happening. Maybe it’s his heat, but heats are supposed to be horny and he’s very far from horny right now so it can’t possibly be that.
_/ \_
He can’t remember anything of the bus ride back to the hotel where all the players have been put up. Slipping in and out of consciousness with every bump in the road they hit—he’s bouncing between Marc-André and the window, his head on the goalie’s shoulder. He feels an arm wrap around his shoulder and a cold sensation on his neck as it pulls him closer—it settles something inside of him, if only a miniscule amount—just enough to allow him to slip into a short sleep.
_/ \_
Max sits across the aisle on the bus and sends him a look before asking him, “do you think he knew he was going into heat?”
”No, I don’t think so, he seems too confused by it all?” he responds, he looks down at Sidney who is passed out on his shoulder shaking with the clear and classic symptoms of heat. Even the two betas can smell him though their muted ability of picking up alpha and omega pheromones. Sidney smells of sweat first and foremost—a mix between his increased body temperature from his sudden onset heat and the full game of hockey they just played—but he also smells aggressively of lavender and eucalyptus.
He moves the ice pack in his hand a little, shifting it around against the younger boy's neck in an attempt to keep his hand from cramping. The cold compress, from the first aid kit that Mario totes around with him at all time, is their poor attempt to keep his temperature from spiking out of control and to keep him as lucid as possible before they get back to the hotel.
The plan is to lock Sidney in his room and let him ride it out on his own, he’s too young biologically to be able to mate and he’s not bonded so the trainers and coaching staff agree that it won’t be dangerous to leave him alone until it’s over. He doesn't love that idea, Sidney doesn’t really seem to know what’s going on and locking him away alone might only stress him out and make things worse for him.
There are a good two rows of seats between them and the rest of the beta guys on the team—they have them acting as a buffer with the alphas all of the way in the back. It’s clear that it’s to give the illusion of separating the omega in heat from the young and amped up alphas but it’s doing nothing with how the whole bus reeks of Sidney’s calming aroma, a scent so strong it tastes nearly toxic on his tongue.
The bus comes to a stop outside the front of their hotel, he shakes Sidney’s shoulders to wake him up while trying to avoid removing the icepack from his neck. He gets a good arm under the younger boy’s and with Max’s help, they haul the barely lucid teenager off the bus and towards the elevator.
_/ \_
Everything around him is spinning.
It is as if the world has decided he is the axis that everything on Earth needs to rotate around. He recognizes the strong Québécois accented voice next to his ear—not that he can decipher what Marc-André is saying—he’s too focused on trying to keep getting one foot in front of the other. He can tell they are at the hotel and in an instant it’s like all the wires holding him up have snapped and the floor feels like it’s getting closer. Out of nowhere he feels himself get jerked higher up and the two boys holding him up press in closer.
They pull him out of the elevator and down the hallway to the room he’s been sharing with Marc-André, the two boys unlock the door and fling it open and the comforting scent of his own things hits him square in the face. For a moment it’s as if the walls weren’t moving and all he has to worry about is the one thousand degree heat he feels coursing through his veins. They keep carrying him until they get him to the full sized bed that he’s been sleeping in while they’ve been here—he’s never been in a bed so comfortable before in his life.
He lays on the bed for a moment but it’s not long before his instinctual need to nest for comfort kicks in. He’s shuffling around taking anything and everything he can for his nest, even going as far as to strip his teammates bed. He’s shoving his face in the other boy’s duvet trying to fill the gaping hole inside him but nothing he tries is able to fill it back up. There was a moment in time earlier today that momentarily made him feel complete, he’s chasing that now.
_/ \_
He doesn’t know how much time has passed, the longer he lays here in his bed the worse it gets. He felt better at first, he had made himself a nest and the floral notes of carnations that lightly stuck to the betas sheets from his time sleeping there could only do so much. He’s face down into the goalie’s pillow with a hand down his pants and he’s getting nowhere. It’s rapidly dawning on him through the haze that he must be in heat, he’s never had one like this before. It’s come so suddenly without warning, and he’s never been so desperate in his life. He’s not even horny, everyone always talks about how horny they get with heat and yet here is wrapped in a beta’s sheets and fully soft. He’s not even leaking slick like he’s supposed to.
He’s trapped in his nest, unable to move from the spot he’s found himself from the sheer feeling of weight in his limbs that make him feel like he’s been chained to his hotel bed. He finds himself slipping in and out of the all encompassing darkness of consciousness again.
_/ \_
His eyes fly open and the itch under his skin feels akin to something trying to escape from within. He’s fumbling around with the sheets trying to release himself from his own self inflicted entanglement. In all his tossing and turning just as he finally frees his legs he manages to roll out of his nest and over the side of the bed onto the floor.
The thunk he makes as he hits the floor hurts his over-sensitive ears more than it hurts the hip that he lands on. He grabs Marc-André’s duvet and wraps it around his shoulders, keeping it held over his nose and mouth so that way he can have a constant influx of the older beta’s soft and sweet floral scent.
He spends an egregiously long time fighting with the door handle—he doesn’t even know why he’s leaving his nest or where he plans on going. His instincts are pulling on him along and he’s in no place to fight them.
It’s like he’s a zombie moving through jell-o, dragging his feet and his teammates duvet with him down the hall. He makes his way to the stairwell, sweat dripping down his neck and he feels hotter with every passing second he’s out of his nest. The stairs going up look like a feat akin to Everest and he’s not sure if he’ll be able to make it up to where he wants to go. But, as if controlled by a motor his legs start trudging up each step one by one; his vision has gone dark on the edges and all he can focus on now is the climb and trying not to pass out.
He doesn’t know why he stops on the floor he does, there’s just a feeling in his bones and the pure exhaustion of having made it up what feels like a million stairs. He exits the stairwell and tumbles into the hallway, feet tripping over the blanket wrapped around him. He hears noise coming from the sitting area closer to the middle of the long hallway and he stumbles closer. The voices are getting louder and his vision is swimming—they are speaking a language he can’t understand—maybe it’s Czech?
Right as he reaches the edge of the living room type space he feels his legs—that were already shaking to begin with—give out from under him. He’s in a heap on the floor before he even really knows what’s happening. There’s shouting and someone is shaking him by the shoulders and he’s really fighting to keep his eyes open, but he’s so hot and he’s so tired and he’s only gonna close his eyes for a minute.
_/ \_
He’s losing Durak to Alexander, not that he’d ever willingly admit that, but he is. They lost to Team Canada early today and have just been trying to commiserate their feelings together as a team ever since. It's late into the night and about half their team has decided to turn in but he just can’t sleep. He’s felt off ever since he slammed into Sidney—Team Canada’s only omega player—on the ice.
He’s still in disbelief that Team Canada would let an omega in pre-heat, let alone one rapidly approaching a full fledged heat, on the ice. Sidney’s lavender and eucalyptus smell had flooded his senses when the two of them had collided and now he finds himself searching for it with every breath in. If he thinks about it too hard now he can almost convince himself that he can smell it, convince himself it’s getting stronger too.
He’s rapidly pulled from his thoughts of the younger Canadian boy when Alexander chirps at him, “hey lover boy, you’re smelling like fish again, stop thinking about him.”
“I don’t smell like fish, I’m a calm ocean breeze,” he retorts back, sending a pointed look in Ovechkin’s direction.
“Sure calm is definitely the word I would use to describe you.” He wants to fire back with something witty but his brain feels filled with dandelion fluff, and it’s like everything inside has turned to mush.
There’s a loud thud followed by a groan from the far side of the open space and the two boys whip their heads around to try to get a look at what made the noise. It’s clearly a person wrapped in a duvet of one of the hotel beds, but who it is, he can’t tell. The rest of the team that is still in the living area rush over, and the two boys playing Durak in the corner are no exception.
“I can’t believe they would leave him in this state.” One of his teammates says.
“Hey Evgeni, isn’t this the Canadian you slammed into today?” Another speaks up.
Like a man possessed he pushes his way to the front and starts shaking the younger boy attempting to wake him up. His hands burn from where they hold the knocked out boy, but he doesn't even think for a moment about letting him go. He looks so peaceful with his eyes closed and muscles slack; nothing like the player from the tapes he's seen or the boy they met on the ice earlier. His thoughts have never been so clear before, but instead of hockey all he can focus on in the Canadian he’s pulled into his arms without realizing.
He doesn't realize his coach, Ishmatov, has approached the crowd until he speaks up, “Malkin, what is going on?” He opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Sidney is still unconscious in his lap and all of his senses are dialed up to one hundred and twenty percent. His coach crouches down next to him—a growl rips from his throat—it startles him so much that he pulls the brunet in tight. “Ok, everything is going to be alright, I’m not gonna take him from you,” his coach takes a step back. He lets out a breath he didn’t even realize he was holding.
_/ \_
Whoever is holding him should keep holding him forever. Their hands are cool to the touch and they smell like the ocean off the shores back home in Halifax. The hands and arms that wrap around his torso are huge, significantly bigger than his own if he had to guess. Everywhere he and the stranger meet skin to skin feels like a relief unlike any other.
The longer he stays held in what is clearly a man’s arms, the more he feels himself return to his wits. At first he notices that he is surrounded by what could only be the Russian language. The second thing he notices is the face of the man who has him pressed against his chest and has him tight within his arms.
Evgeni Malkin.
The sea breeze and ocean wind aroma is coming from the six foot five inch Russian forward that just earlier had been the cause of his distress on the ice.
He can’t say he's mad about it either, now that he's up close with the older he gets a good look at the alpha. He can’t stop staring at the Russian's plump lips, “хватит драться,” (stop fighting) the other boy looks down at him. Brown eyes meet brown eyes and it feels like all of the sudden things make sense—he’s not sure what makes sense now, but he just feels like they do.
_/ \_
“Evgeni, bring him to your room, it's clear he's attached to you,” Ishmatov tells him. He nods his head in what feels like slow motion. The longer they linger in the hall the more he feels himself lose touch with what’s happening around him.
He gathers the duvet that Sidney brought up with him—it doesn’t match Sidney in scent though, it must be someone else on the Canadian team. He lifts the sixteen year old hockey player bridal style as if he weighs nothing. They aren't supposed to fraternize with the other teams but this feels like an exception, Team Canada clearly hasn't been doing enough to help their own player and even worse he's in the throws of heat. He's personally only had a few ruts himself, but Sidney’s shaky, clammy body worries him. The boy is fiery hot to the touch and keeps chasing his hands as if he needs them to live.
Maybe he does? He's never seen an omega in heat before, especially not one that's as cute as Sidney is. Even if all his hair plastered to his forehead from all of the sweat that coats his body, he’s smaller than Evgeni and he looks even tinier wrapped up in the duvet.
He carries the Canadian to his bed before gently placing him in the center. He's trying to remember the word for nesting in English—he wants Sidney to know that he can make himself at home here in his bed. It takes him a minute or two before he manages to stutter out the word, “ne-nest.” This is all he has to say before Sidney dives straight into moving the things around on his bed.
Evgeni looks around the room for other things that he can give to Sidney to nest with when he spots it. Sitting in the corner on the top of his bag—his jersey—he rushes over, picking it up and bringing it over to the bed. On said bed, Sidney has used both the duvet he had brought with him and Evgeni's duvet to create the walls. He grabs the four pillows from the other bed in the room and dumps them on the bed to add them to the nest. The Canadian makes quick work out of moving them around so that the pillows create a pit in the center for him to rest.
The omega must be satisfied with his nest because he turns his head to look the Russian straight in the eyes before giving him the sweetest and more adorable doe eyes he has ever seen. He reaches his arms out and makes grabby hands in Evgeni’s direction signalling for him to join him in the nest. Clutching the jersey still he gingerly crawls over the walls, trying not to disturb the hard work that Sidney put in to build them their nest.
_/ \_
The scent of Evgeni’s room is intoxicating, he feels like he’s floating on a cloud. All the clarity that he once had when the alpha was holding him is gone and he feels like he’s right back where he started, maybe even worse. Something ignited in him after the Russian gave him the go ahead to start building a nest on his bed, he can’t believe he’s being allowed to build a nest on the alpha’s bed.
He’s so in the zone building his nest, surrounding himself with the alpha’s oceanic aroma while keeping his own beta goalie’s carnation scent close. He finds himself shoving his face directly into each item before searching for a place to put it among the other items. He’s nearly done lining the inside of the top border with Evgeni’s pillows when the older boy dumps four more pillows on the bed. He grabs the first one and gives it a cautious sniff—pine wood—and it smells fine. He’s wracking his brain going through his mental list of players on Team Russia and trying to remember what any of them smell like, but he can’t.
He gives up trying to place the scent and moves on to carefully placing the pillows near the bottom of his nest. His nest still doesn’t feel right though, like it’s missing something, missing someone.
Sidney tilts his head up toward the tall alpha boy with the freezing cold hands. They make eye contact and he tries to channel all of his feelings and neediness through his stare. He reaches his arms out and motions with his hands for Malkin to get closer. He wants the Russian in his arms and more importantly his nest.
He clearly gets the memo that the omega is trying to send because he climbs into the nest with all the grace and cautiousness that a six foot five inch seventeen year old hockey player can have. It's dorky and clunky and it's everything Sidney thinks is attractive in the throws of his heat clouded judgement. He'd probably still find it cute even if he wasn’t burning up in his own body.
With the older boy in his nest he takes the opportunity to draw him in closer. He sticks his nose in the crook of the alpha's neck and feels hands come to rest on his waist. He feels desperate for Evgeni to press himself further against his skin, the feeling of cold hands pressed into the meat of his waist, it’s heavenly. The Russian starts tugging the bottom head of his shirt upwards, coaxing his head and arms through their respective holes leaving him fully shirtless in the alpha’s presence. Evgeni starts manhandling his arms and head into a new shirt, one that encases him completely in the alpha’s scent.
Sidney can feel all the stress in his body melt away—he’s dressed in his alpha’s clothes, his alpha is in his nest, and his alpha can’t seem to take his hands away from his body. He doesn’t know why he thinks of Malkin as ‘his’ alpha, but it just seems so fitting to give him such a title. He’s the one taking care of him after all, holding him, keeping him safe.
_/ \_
Evgeni might combust on the spot, he’s looking at Sidney laying in the nest that he created on his bed, with his sheets and pillows, wearing his jersey, smelling of him. Everything about the sixteen year old omega is perfect—if only he spoke Russian and was someone he could bring home to meet his mama. He needs to learn more English, he’s committing himself to that now. He needs to be able to talk with the Canadian after all this is done and over with, some way or another, he will find a way.
There is something special about how drawn to the younger boy, he’s heard stories about people meeting their soulmate and bonding almost instantly but those have always just been stories. Plus, he and Sidney can barely communicate, and they are both under eighteen. It’s a well known fact that it isn’t possible to form a full bond with someone until both parties are of age, and when bites get involved.
Sidney is at most drooling and slobbering on his shoulder.
There is no way for the two of them to be bonded, let alone mated at such young ages. But, when he looks at the omega blinking up at him, with his name on his back and his big brown doe eyes staring, he can’t help but wish they could commit themselves to each other for the rest of all time.
Maybe Sidney’s heat is getting to him too.
_/ \_
The rest of the night is a blur, an awful mix of waves of heat and a lack of stable consciousness. He finds himself waking up in the bath with the Russian fretting over him twice, the water feels like it’s burning his skin and he can’t tell if it’s super hot or super cold. He assumes it’s the latter based on the slight lucidity that comes to him both times before Evgeni pulls him out and wraps him in a towel. He’s not mad at the way he’s being manhandled either—if it was anyone else he’d probably be throwing a fit—but the other boy is just being so gentle and careful with him and always takes him back to his nest.
It goes against everything he’s ever been taught about the Russians and their team; he wouldn’t have trusted anyone on Team Canada to do this, but for some unexplainable reason he knows he can trust Evgeni.
It’s about eleven in the morning when he feels like himself again, his heat isn’t over fully but he no longer feels the need to climb out of his bones. At some point throughout the night the Russian must have rid him of his clothes because he wakes up in his boxer briefs clinging to Evgeni’s almost fully naked body.
His heat might almost be over but he still doesn’t have it in him to detach himself from his opponent on the ice. It’s quiet in the hotel room, the generic gray curtains are drawn close with only a sliver of light shining through them. He tries to study the Russian boy’s face, he wants to commit it to memory. He wants to remember how peaceful he looks in his sleep, how his lips look slightly parted as he takes shallow breaths, how his hair splays out on the pillow below his head. Most of all he wants to remember the face of the first person he’s ever shared a heat with, the person who was so gentle with him who never bit or tried to mate with him to solve the problem.
Sidney has only ever had one other heat before and it was the one he presented with, he’s always heard stories of alpha’s forcing themselves onto omegas who can’t defend themselves in the throws of heat. He can tell by just the feeling between his legs that the other boy never even tried to do anything with him. He would have been able to feel it if Evgeni had tried to have sex with him, he’s too young to produce slick during his heats without being aroused, it would have been painful for him if the Russian had even tried.
A knock at the door brings him out of his thoughts. He grabs the older boy and roughly shakes him by his shoulders to wake him up. The knocking persists and Evgeni jumps out of the nest and throws on sweatpants and a t-shirt as he makes his way through the door. Sidney follows suit by getting dressed while staying in the nest on the Russian’s bed.
_/ \_
Evgeni opens the door and is met with the faces of both his coach and his teammate Alexander, “what do you want?”
It’s his coach that speaks first, “I want to check in on how you and the Canadian are doing, he was in quite a lot of distress last night with his heat and all that.” Ah, that makes sense. It really isn’t all that proper to leave a non-bonded and too young to mate alpha and omega pair together for a heat, it really only makes sense that his coach would want to check in on them in the morning.
“Sidney is fine now, his heat has pretty much run its course,” he answers truthfully. There really is no use in lying, Ishmatov would be able to tell almost immediately that was anyways.
His coach starts pushing his way forward into the room, “let us in, I want to check the two of you out to make sure everything is alright and Alexander here is going to be the boy’s translator.” Evgeni steps out of the way to let them in, and then closes the door behind them after they finish entering.
_/ \_
He recognizes the scent first before he recognizes the people. It’s the same pine wood scent that filled his nose when Evgeni handed him the second set of pillows; he’s finally able to put a name and face with the scent: Ovechkin.
He doesn’t really know why either Ovechkin or the Russian Team’s coach is in Evgeni’s room right now and his confusion must be easily read on his face because that’s when Ovechkin decides to speak up, “hello Sidney, we here to check if you ok.”
Oh.
Suddenly it makes sense why the two of them are here, Evgeni’s coach wants to see if everything is alright with him and Ovechkin is his translator. If he were in their shoes he'd probably also want to make sure that everything is fine—it’s not everyday that an omega on another team goes into a surprise heat and seeks out a player on your team.
He lets the older Russian man look him over, inspecting his scent glands on his wrists and neck. The coach has a concentrated look on his face and his brow furrows deeper with each new spot that sniffs and looks at. He steps back before calmly telling Ovechkin in Russian. Ovechkin thinks for a moment before opening his mouth to speak in his highly accented English, “he want to look at gland on legs.”
Sidney feels his face heat up again, blush spreading across his cheeks and makes eye contact with Evgeni. He doesn’t have to say anything for the older Russian boy to make his way over to the side of the bed and grasp his hand in his much larger one. He leans back and shimmies the sweatpants down over his hips and to his knees, leaving his underwear on and spreading his thighs slightly open to expose the glands that rest there. He squeezes the older boy’s hands as he feels the Russian coach poke and prod at the sensitive skin.
_/ \_
“Oh Zehnya, what have you done?”
He looks down in shame, he doesn’t even know what he should be ashamed of but he recognizes the tone of voice that Ishmatov is using with him. Sidney lets go of his hand to pull the Russian’s slightly too large sweatpants back up over his hips before reclasping their hands together.
“You’ve gone and made this so much harder than it had to be,” he still doesn’t understand what he did wrong. Sidney looks to be doing perfectly fine to him right now, “do you understand what bonding with an overseas omega is going to do to both of your careers before they even have a chance to start?”
Bonding? What is his coach talking about? There is no way for the two of them to be bonded right now, they are both too young and Sidney wasn’t even producing slick nor did he personally have an issue with his knot ever inflating. It’s impossible for them to have bonded, he tells his coach as much too.
“Oh Zehnya, there are other ways to bond, you know this.” He did not in fact know this.
“What do you mean, ‘there are other ways to bond’?”
He watches Ishmatov go through all five stages of grief in rapid succession through his expression, “Evgeni, you don’t need to have sex to bond with someone, especially at your age, you just need to have a strong emotional connection. You two seem to have a baby bond—you can tell by looking at his glands if you know what to look for.”
“A baby bond? I thought those weren’t real,” it’s the kind of thing they make romcoms about. Two teenagers whose love for each other is so strong that they bond before they hit maturity. It’s impossible for him and Sidney to have formed such a bond in only a night—that’s not how this works.
“Zehnya, they are very much real, and you very much have one with Sidney here.”
_/ \_
Sidney can’t tell what Evgeni and his coach are arguing about, Ovechkin stopped translating what they were saying to him a while ago. When there is a slight pause in the conversation he decides to speak up, “can someone please tell me what’s going on?” The three other heads in the room whip around to face him.
It’s Ovechkin who takes the lead in responding to him, “Sidney, you two bonded.”
Oh.
His world feels like it’s tilting on an axis and the only thing keeping him grounded is the fact that he’s still holding the older Russian boy’s hand. What do they mean he’s bonded? To Evgeni?
He feels a large hand on his shoulder—it could only be Evgeni’s—and he tilts his head up to look at the boy he’s supposedly bonded with. Being bonded with him doesn’t seem so bad, he’s nice and gentle, and Sidney could maybe learn Russian if he really tried. Ok, maybe if he really really tried, because he really tried to be good at French and it hasn’t worked out all that well.
Ovechkin speaks up again pulling the two of them away from each other, “you can not talk about bond,” he pauses to listen to what the Russian coach has to say, “if news find out about Russian and Canadian player bond that is bad news.” His English might be clunky but he gets the point across well, if the whole situation gets out then they will both be in for it. Neither of them will stand a chance in professional hockey if the world knows what happened in this hotel room
_/ \_
He only has so long with Evgeni before he has to go back to Team Canada’s floor; the two of them exchange addresses and a set of the other person’s clothes before Sidney is forced to wander his way back down.
The further and further the two of them get from each other the harder it is for him to not start crying. He’s only a year and a half away from the NHL draft; he should not be about to start crying at the thought of being separated from an alpha from an opposing country’s team that he only spent one night with.
He puts the clothes he was given from earlier in a plastic bag. Hopefully they will be able to keep their smell that way. He knows they only have a baby bond but it feels so much deeper than that for him, how will he hide this from his parents? Surely they would realize that something outside of hockey has changed for him while he was at the tournament. He doesn’t want his mom to know—she would be so disappointed if she found out the circumstances around how it happened in the first place. She would accuse Evgeni of taking advantage of him in such a vulnerable state, even if that isn’t what happened at all.
His team is packing up all of their things now that the tourney is over and he’s forced to sneak back into his room while the other boys freely go in and out of their rooms around him. He’s not the most successful in the end, Marc-André spots him just before he makes it to their door. “Hey Sidney, I didn’t see you leave, is your… uh… heat over yet?” His roommate is standing there awkwardly fidgeting with his hands.
He’s caught off-guard and manages to choke out a, “yeah, no, I think the main part is over now,” in response. Marc-André just gives him a nod and they both head into the room that they shared over the course of the tournament.
They make quick work packing their bags and before he knows it Sidney is back on a plane heading home for Canada.
_/ \_
When he gets home to Halifax his dad meets him at the airport to pick him up, he’s met with the warm embrace and the distinct scent of leather that has always made him feel safe. His family had flown out to watch the final game, but he finds out from his dad that his younger sister, Taylor, had been exhausted from the flight home and his mom elected to stay back home with her so she could sleep.
He gets her, he could also use some sleep right about now. His dad must sense this too because he leaves Sidney alone for the most part—letting him stare out the window as they drive away from the Canadian airport.
His mom greets him at the door, he tucks himself into her neck and takes a deep breath letting her comforting cinnamon aroma drain his body of any energy he had left. He won’t be home for long before he has to ship out for hockey again, he’ll take whatever time at home he can get at this point. “Your sister is upstairs, you should let her know you’ve made it back,” she tells him.
He drops his bags by the front door—keeping only his backpack on—and heads towards the stairs. After he says ‘hi’ to Taylor he knows, he’s going to go straight to his bed and crash till at least dinner time. His sister is dead to the world when he peaks his head into her room,he knocks softly on the wall and she groggily stares at him from her bed. “You’re back!” She exclaims with all the joy that a sleep deprived seven year old can muster.
Looking at her makes him sad—the look in her eyes—with how much she looks up to him, he’s failed her and she doesn’t even know it. He’s gone off and secretly bonded with an alpha from another country at sixteen, he hopes she never ends up anywhere near his position. He walks over to the side of her bed and leans over to give her a hug, he never wants to let her go, give her an opportunity to end up in his shoes.
He leaves her room to go down the hall back to his room, not that he stays in it frequently all that much anymore. He takes his backpack off his shoulders and digs to the bottom of it pulling out the plastic bag he packed just earlier. He carefully pulls out and places in his bedside table the neatly folded sheet of paper that holds the Russian boy’s address and the ‘English to Russian’ dictionary, which he bought at the airport before they left.
He can write his first letter to the boy tomorrow when he’s less tired. Right now all he wants to do is go to bed, a task that seems so easy at first until he finds himself tossing and turning unable to sleep. He does the only thing that makes sense to him in the moment to fix this issue and pulls the shirt that Evgeni sent him home with out of the bag, replacing his own shirt with the ocean breeze scented one almost immediately fixes the problem.
He’ll be falling asleep in the Russian’s clothing forever now if this is the effect it has on him.
_/ \_
They spend a year secretly writing to each other, Sidney’s Russian goes from non-existent to slightly functional reading and writing wise rapidly. Geno, as Sidney has learned he likes to be called, has learned a significantly more amount of English in comparison though. He’s not world class by any means but they can actually understand each other now, a major improvement from when they first met and bonded accidentally.
At some point Geno had asked for his number, now once a month they schedule calls together. Being able to hear the Russian’s voice calms something primal in him that he can’t explain. For his birthday the older boy had even sent him a present in the mail. It arrived three days late but that still means that Geno sent him it, all the way from Russia with the intention of it getting there on his birthday. It meant that he was thinking ahead, a great skill to have in a teammate or a person you’re bonded with.
They always have to set a timer when they call, they could talk hockey for hours and that’s a problem because it’s not like they are making very much playing hockey at this point. Geno might be playing for a Russian team but that doesn’t mean he makes frequent long international calls type of money.
Sidney definitely doesn’t have that kind of money himself.
He finds himself being chirped at by the guys on his team—they all keep claiming he has a girl back home that he won’t tell them about. They aren't fully wrong, he does have someone it just so happens that his someone is a six foot five inch Russian hockey player he bonded with after one night.
They ask him when he’s finally going to bring her around and he just responds with, “if I had an alpha, I wouldn't bring them here around you guys, that's for sure.” His words do nothing but egg them on and cause another round of chirps to come his way. It's ok though, Geno and him have a call scheduled for later and he has a letter to respond to.
_/ \_
It's about ten minutes till their scheduled call at twenty-three hours and he’s buzzing with excitement. He’s sitting on his bed in his bedroom back home in his parents' place; his parents know about Sidney—he felt wrong not telling him when one of his teammates, Alexander already knows. They started making these calls about three months into being separated, he hadn’t realized just how much the distance strain on their bond had affected him until he got to hear Sid’s voice for the first time come over the phone. The immediate rush of relief through his system had him justifying the fifty rubles per minute cost of the calls on his end. He was making Superleague money now, but he was still in his rookie year and there was only so much money to be made as a rookie.
They already had to keep their calls to under ten minutes so that Sidney doesn’t spend all of his allotted food allowance on his telephone bill. His omega could talk forever, his letters were pages long—his Russian might be bad, but he’s trying and it makes the older boy’s heart swell with pride.
He’s practicing a new English phrase that Alexander has taught him. It feels funny in his mouth, but he knows the reaction from the Canadian will make it all worth it. Their calls mostly consist of Sid telling him about his day, he doesn’t understand everything he’s saying, but his excitement is contagious. Then he always turns the conversation to the Russian and asks how he’s doing and how Metallurg is performing in the Superleague. Then Sid always asks him to teach him some Russian—there really is no reason for him to ever need to learn Russian—it’s not like he will ever play in the Superleague. He’s more likely to play in the NHL than Sidney is to play here with him in Russia.
He waits for Sidney to call him first, it’s only fifteen hours for him in Canada so it’s up to him to start the call.
Ring… ring… ring. His phone rings once before he drops it and hastily reaches down to pick it up from where it’s fallen off his bed.
_/ \_
The few moments before Geno picks up the phone are torturous. He knows that the older Russian boy has to be waiting by his phone; he’s never been late before.
“Uh, hello Sidney?” Instantaneously the tension drains from his shoulders and the stress of his day melts away, people were absolutely right when they said that any contact with your alpha is good contact.
“Привет Гено,” (Hello Geno) he replies quietly. His Russian isn’t very good but he’s been practicing every chance he gets—he often finds himself muttering the phrases Evgeni has taught him under his breath: at practice, when he’s walking around town, even when he’s in the shower. He’s always practicing, he wants to show the other boy that he really does care and that he really is trying.
“Uh, before we talk I want say something….” he trails off on the other end of the line.
“Sure, what is it Geno?” He feels his heart rate speed up a bit, usually in movies when someone says that to their partner it isn't something good. Maybe something leaked in Russia? Maybe Ovechkin decided to tell the media about how the two accidentally bonded in that hotel room?
The seconds tick by before the Russian speaks again, “Sidney, I love you.” It’s a little clunky and awkward, but he can tell he must have been practicing that for a while now. His heart is melting out of his chest and his brain has been turned into mush. He didn’t expect for this to be how their call went but any lasting thoughts about what his teammates have said in the locker room have long since gone out the window.
He’s so caught up in the feeling of knowing that even from the other side of the world he’s been chosen that he nearly forgets to respond. That doesn't stop the words, “I love you too,” from stumbling out of his mouth.
He’s never been so sure of a feeling in his life before—reaching under his pillow he pulls out the shirt that the alpha had sent him home with before they separated. He gives it a good sniff trying to breathe in whatever is left of his alpha’s ocean breeze scent, it’s faded and almost gone but if he really tries hard enough he can make out exactly where Geno had grabbed the t-shirt before rubbing it directly onto his scent glands. He wishes he could rub his face into those scent glands right now.
_/ \_
He had known his rut was bound to come soon, he had told his coaches that he would be out for a few days for it a few weeks in advance. It’s not like he’s had many ruts; he just turned eighteen after all, but his other three ruts after his presenting rut have all come on time.
This one is late.
His father had warned him that after baby bonding with Sid he might suffer some side effects that pertain to his cycle. He just didn’t think being a week late to his rut was one of those. It also meant that although he was always on edge waiting for it to arrive, it still shocked and surprised him when nine days after it was scheduled to arrive it hit him with the full force and intensity of a train with no way of stopping.
His mother had warned him that it would be painful—at the time he thought to himself that he’s a hockey player, he can handle pain. He was wrong.
This is pain like no other he’s felt before. Now that he’s come of age his biology is also forcing him to suffer through his first fully fledged rut while separated from his omega. He can’t stop thinking about the Canadian, it seems like every thought that makes its way through his brain relates back to him somehow.
He’s face down with his face shoved into a pile of clothes that Sid had sent to him for his birthday two weeks ago. The fresh scent of his baby bonded omega’s lavender and eucalyptus keeps him from going off the deep end. He already feels like a fool for how he can’t help himself from rutting into one of his pillows. His aching cock won’t stop leaking and he’s just so painfully hard.
He tries his hardest to get himself off but everytime he cums and his knot swells he’s reminded all over again about the one person his body craves but can’t have.
He must have been making too much noise in his sleep because his mother, the angel that she is, tells him he should just call his omega. He’s nervous and he knows it’s expensive, but at the moment all he can think about is just how wonderful it will be to hear the gruff maritime accent of his boy.
It takes him longer than normal to pick up the phone. He normally would do the math and count back eight hours to figure out if it’s an appropriate time to call, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And his desperate measure is calling his baby bonded omega boyfriend on the other side of the world when there is a high likelihood that he could be having dinner as Zehnya was rolling around in a puddle of his own cum.
When his Canadian boyfriend finally picks up his phone it’s immediately clear that he must be at a restaurant with at least part of his team. His English is harder to understand through the fog of his rut, but he’s also struggling to think of what he wants to say in English. Ideally he just wants Sid here with him, but that is simply just too unrealistic.
Sidney talks him to sleep while hiding inside a restaurant bathroom. His words seem to do the trick for resolving his rut too. By the time he wakes up in the morning his rut has passed though and he’s back to normal. He still has a day off before he has to go back to practice, standard to keep players from getting injured when they are at their most tired.
_/ \_
It’s bad, if he thought his surprise heat during the Juniors tournament in January was bad, this is ten times worse than that ever got. Sure, his alpha had to dump him in a cold bath a few times to keep him from overheating, but at least then he had his alpha.
Now, he’s in an eerily similar situation to January. He’s locked himself in his room and he feels that desperate calling to run until he can find his way into the Russian’s arms.
Just two days ago Geno had called him while he was getting dinner with the guys on the team, his bonded alpha going into rut should have been a sign that his heat was going to be arriving soon. He’s laying in his bed while wearing the jersey that the Russian had put on him in that hotel room the night they bonded—although the Russian took it back home with him when they parted he had covered it in his scent and sent it over to Sidney for his birthday. It was the best gift he could have received, just shy of Geno surprising him himself.
It brings him a sense of comfort being all wrapped up in his lovers' pheromones. It’s not his fault that his body chose an alpha so, so far away. Sure, he and Geno were only baby bonded, Sidney has just turned seventeen after all, their bond won’t be a fully fledged bond until around when Sidney turns eighteen. It’s easier to break a bond when it’s only a baby bond and not a full fledged bond—it had never crossed either of their minds to break it though.
He wishes he knew more omegas so he could ask them for advice on going through heat while baby bonded. He’s hot and sweaty and the jersey sticks to his skin—it’s the only thing he’s wearing besides his boxer briefs. His nest smells of his family, some of his team, and most importantly to him, Evgeni.
He’s less hot than he was in Finland, but the summer heat has caused him to crank the AC all the way up. The cramping and the pain is significantly worse, he’s in a constant state of curled in on himself trying to ride through the waves. His vocal cords are involuntarily letting out high pitched mewings and low groans for his alpha and for Geno. His face is wet with tears and he’s fumbling around his nest trying to find his phone.
When he finds it he quickly starts dialing the Russian’s number from heart—he’s too out of it to do the math on what time it is for him at the moment. The phone rings, and rings, and rings. The longer it rings the faster the tears fall.
On the last ring the phone on the other end picks up, he’s sobbing and hiccupping through his first words down the line. “Geno, everything hurts… I didn’t think it could be this bad, but I just want it to end.”
Geno is not the one on the other line though, “ох, дорогая,” (oh, sweetheart) a woman’s voice speaks. He recognizes the word from his phone calls with his boyfriend, he doesn’t recognize the voice though. “Евге́ний, твой омега плачет по телефону,” (Evgeni, your omega is crying on the phone) the voice is more muted than it was before—like the woman took the phone away from her ear—he recognizes his alpha’s name and he recognizes the word omega. The voice seems to be calling for his alpha, he hopes they are, he needs to hear the Russian’s voice.
“Sorry, mama pick up my phone,” Geno sounds tired but Sidney can’t bring himself to care. Not when he finally gets a little bit of comfort from having his boyfriend on the line.
_/ \_
It's his first heat since joining the NHL, his first real adult heat, and his first heat while living with the Lemieux's. The latter honestly feels more important than the first or the second in his mind. He's holed up in his room with one of Geno's socks shoved in his mouth as a gag to keep him quiet—otherwise he knows he'd be moaning for his Alpha too loudly. He still hasn't told anyone about his and the Russian’s bonding and the heat he’s having now is taking their baby bond to a full fledged bond.
It also means that he's undeniably wet with slick and horny. He’s produced slick before—just never in such copious amounts. It shocked him at first, it also shocked him when he told Nathalie his heat was coming up soon and when he came home from practice one day he found a knotting toy waiting for him on his bed.
Now, Sidney’s glad she did that.
It's magical. The feeling of fullness it provides and with Geno's scent filling his nostrils he can almost pretend his alpha is here with him.
He hates the feeling between his thighs, hates how he can't control his every move and has to let his instincts take control. He's so smooth on the ice yet he can't contain himself when left with only his own hormones. It feels shameful and he feels stupid for being mad that he can't call his alpha. Calling Geno would mean removing the gag and he can’t do that cause the Lemieux’s could hear and he can’t risk anyone at the Penguins knowing about his and Evgeni’s bonding.
It would end his career and at this point it has been so long since it happened—a year and a half ago—that even telling his parents seems scary. What would he even tell them? ‘Oh by the way mom and dad you remember when I went to Helsinki for hockey? Yeah I actually had a surprise heat and bonded with an alpha from another team. Oh, and another thing, he’s Russian.’ No, he can’t do that to his poor mother who's already given up so much so that he could even have a chance at being where he is right now.
He keeps himself from calling his Geno, they can call after it’s over and they have a full fledged bond.
_/ \_
It’s been a rough game against the Capitals, he and Ovechkin have been battling on the ice non-stop. The worst part is he keeps chirping at him about Geno. He’s made comments about how he must be so sad that his alpha was unable to play for the Penguins with him—which yes, he is sad about that . But the Russians are working on it. The chirps are so frequent that his teammates have started to notice he’s getting dogged on.
They are in the locker room during the second intermission when Max says something to him, “Ovechkin is really going after you man, you really must have done something to piss him off at Junior Worlds”
He knows he needs to play it cool here, play it off as something that isn’t worth thinking twice about. Make it out to be just a standard hockey rivalry thing, not a ‘I accidentally bonded with his teammate and kicked him out of his own room after beating them for the gold in the two thousand four Hockey World Juniors’ thing. “Must still be sore that we beat them,” he forces out, he’s still trying to catch his breath even though he hasn’t been on the ice for a few minutes.
Normally it doesn’t take him that long to get a grip on himself after getting off the ice and into the locker room—he chalks it up to the adrenaline of being chirped all night and having so much play time on the ice.
_/ \_
Something he doesn’t see though is the look Marc-André sends in Sidney’s direction while he’s trying to catch his breath. The slightly older man doesn’t say anything, just looks at him before making eye contact with Max who is sitting next to him.
They’ve both played with Sidney before, they both know how he is and isn’t on the ice. He’s a little strange sometimes—full of rituals and repetition—but he does it with well meaning intentions and no one can say he isn’t dedicated to the sport. It’s just odd to see him look so tired, he’s got these dark circles under his eyes that suggest he hasn’t been sleeping and his chest is heaving like he hasn’t done any endurance work in months.
All of this on top of the chirps that the Russian player from the Capitals has been sending the Canadians way is concerning. He knows that Sidney is at best going to brush him off if he says anything about it to him now though so the best he can is keep note of it for later.
_/ \_
His phone is ringing from a number he hasn’t talked to in a while, he doesn’t know what Ovechkin could want at this hour. He says as much to the man on the phone after he picks up.
“I just played your boy and he looks awful,” the Capitals player says in a deadpan voice over the line.
“What do you mean he looks awful? I called him yesterday and he said he was fine,” Sidney wasn’t completely fine and he could feel it in his gut. The tugging on bond and projecting of emotions that the omega had been sending through their connection only made the alpha feel bad. The Penguins haven’t been doing all that well recently, and he could feel it weighing on Sidney. It’s not like he can read the other man’s mind but he knows his boyfriend well enough at this point to know that he’s blaming himself for how the team is performing.
“You’re the one bonded to the sad little omega on the Penguins,” as much as he likes his friend he wishes he would stop making comments about his bondmate.
“Watch it, that’s still my omega that you’re talking about,” he warns the other man. It’s not like he can do anything from over in Russia but as soon as he gets out of his contract and can sign with the Penguins like he was supposed to he’ll give the man a piece of his mind.
_/ \_
He’s fine. He swears that he’s fine. Sure his back hurts—but he’s a professional hockey player in the NHL—that just means he needs another sports massage. Yes, his shoulders are tense and yes, his legs feel like they are dragging in his skates.
It’s fine. It has to be fine. He didn’t put in all this work to not be fine. It has to be the fact that he’s playing more games than ever and he’s always on the road and it just has to mean he’s tired. He hasn’t been sleeping well recently—which is fine—it’s got to be the fact that they are on a roadie and he hasn’t been able to sleep in the same bed, let alone his own bed in a week and a half. Sidney just wants to be back at Mario’s place and sleep the day away and so what if he wants to call his boyfriend for a little bit too.
He hasn’t been able to call Geno because he’s been on the road with the Penguins. Sharing a room with a teammate doesn’t really allow for a lot of alone time, especially enough time to call his alpha. Now that he's making NHL money he's not so worried about the price per minute of their long distance calls; still, he’s probably got one of the highest phone bills in the whole league with how often they are calling and for how long. But that doesn't mean he isn’t worried about people finding out that he’s bonded to the Russian alpha.
He’s been dragged out to a random bar in Toronto by the veteran members—they finally won a game after having a long losing streak. He’s been nursing the same beer in a corner booth the whole night while sitting with Flower, Kris, and Max. It’s not the worst bar they could have gone to, he just wishes he could be curled up in his room whispering down the line to his boyfriend.
His same stupid boyfriend who texted him, ‘Good goal!!! Sid best player!!!’ after the game. This means that Geno stayed up to watch the game that started at one in the morning and watched all the way through even though it was nearly three A.M. for him when it ended. It makes his cheeks flush just thinking about how much Geno cares, how much he does to show Sidney that he’s thinking about him from all the way over in Russia.
He had sent a text back to Geno, a small thank you message that ended with a little heart emoticon. He knows that he won’t hear back from him for the rest of the night—the Russian is a professional athlete after all, and he does need his sleep—but that doesn't stop Sidney from constantly checking his phone all night.
Normally this type of behavior would earn some chirps from his linemates. He does get a few jabs, just for the most part they leave him alone. Maybe they can tell that he doesn’t want to be here?
_/ \_
His mama won’t stop fretting over him.
He knows she’s only doing it out of love, but it’s becoming too much. She’s always telling him that he needs to take a break, feeding him more of her delicious food, telling him he needs to hurry up and fix his contract issues with the Penguins. She tells him that he needs to be more aggressive with it or she’ll march down to Dave King’s office herself and give him a piece of her mind.
He tells her he’s working on it—and he is. His lawyers are working hard on it, his team is just refusing to let him go.
She keeps pointing out the signs of bond withdrawal to him. He’s aware that his forced distance from Sid is making him a worse person to be around; he doesn’t need her to keep pointing out to him what he already knows.
Sidney hasn’t said anything to him about experiencing any symptoms though, as far as he’s aware he’s doing fine over in the United States. That’s good, he doesn’t want his omega to ever have to suffer, not like this.
The ache in his bones feels ancient, he can tell he’s skating slower, missing obvious shots. The distance is making him a worse player. It’s making him less desirable to the one thing that will bring them together.
_/ \_
He’s going through his game day routine, nothing is different than any other time he’s gone through it before. Therefore, nothing can explain the deep seated anxious feeling in his chest that feels like it’s squeezing all the air from his lungs. Every breath in feels like he never let the one before it out. He hasn’t been this anxious for a game since his first game outside of the pre-season.
Maybe it’s because Mario has announced he’ll be stepping down as captain and from the team soon? That has to be it, that would explain why the locker room has the same energy built up feeling as the seconds before a bomb is set to go off.
Everyone is moving around cautiously—clearly trying to pretend that they don’t sense or feel it too. He doesn’t think they are gonna play very well tonight if they can’t get their spirits up; he doesn’t think anyone has it in them to attempt to do that either.
_/ \_
They have a rough first period against the Minnesota Wild and an even worse second period. They really don’t have a chance at winning at this point. They are two minutes into the third and Brian Rolston just scored a fourth goal against them while they still have none.
He’s sitting on the bench after just having a shift on the ice where he took a small hit. He feels fine, there might be some bruising tomorrow, but only minorly. He leans forward putting his elbows on his knees and attempts to catch his breath.
Then something twists low in his stomach. The arena lights suddenly feel too bright, the sounds around him muffled, like someone stuffed his ears with cotton.
He blinks hard, trying to clear the fog creeping in at the edges of his vision. His hands feel clammy inside his gloves.
“You good?” someone asks from beside him, but he can’t quite make out who. The words sound far away.
He opens his mouth to answer, but the world tilts sharply. His stomach lurches, the ice and boards spinning together in a blur—then everything goes dark as he slumps forward off the bench.
_/ \_
Time feels like it’s moving in slow motion, one second he’s taking a drink of water looking over at the bench and the next he’s watching as Sidney collapses forward.
The shock makes the arena go silent, the bang his helmet makes as it hits the boards on his way down rings throughout like a pin dropping. Their head coach, Eddie Olczyk, is immediately at Sidney’s side, he sees him trying to wake Sidney up as he skates over towards the bench.
The medical team is already on the scene and he and his teammates have been given the specific instructions to vacate the area and head to the locker room to give them space to work.
No one knows what's going on, he’s listening to the other guys on the team talk about the hit he took earlier in the game and if they think that could have had some delayed effect.
He’s staring forward with his head angled down towards the ground from where he’s sitting in his stall till Max speaks up next to him, “do you think this has anything to do with how tired he’s looked lately?”
He turns his head to look at the other man and in a low and serious voice replies, “yeah, that’s exactly what I think.”
It would all make sense, Sidney has been looking worse and worse as the season has gone on. He looks tired all the time, and he’s been interacting with the other guys and him less and less. He doesn't know how the other guys on the team have been able to ignore the signs that Sidney has been sick. Unless… they never cared in the first place.
_/ \_
Beep… beep… beep.
He wakes up to the steady rhythm and low hushed voices. As he gains consciousness the beeping starts sounding more erratic—he’s yet to open his eyes—he really doesn’t want to. He’s comfortable, he’s tired, and he finally for the first time in months feels like he’s gotten a little bit of rest.
_/ \_
His eyelids feel heavy, there’s a steady hum in the background of voices talking in low, hushed tones. He can’t tell what they are saying no matter how hard he tries to listen in, his ears feel like they are filled to the brim with cotton, an impenetrable wall for the distinct sounds of the English language. He feels weirdly rested, lacking the majority of the tiredness that has been following him around and only growing since his least heat—his presentation heat.
He slowly opens his eyes, his vision is blurry at first, the way they do after a good night of sleep. As his vision clears though he recognizes the distinct makings of a hospital room—the dim lit space, the curtains half drawn, the chairs and table in the far corner where his teammates Flower and Tanger along with their captain, Mario, are sitting with their head coach Eddie Olczyk, the hospital bed that he’s currently laying in, and the stupid thin paper dress that he’s currently wearing along with the thin hospital blanket that tucked up to his chest.
He opens his mouth to speak and let them know that he’s awake but his throat is all dry and parched and the only sound he manages to make is a pitiful groan. His groan seems to do the trick though, the three men’s heads all whip around to look at him, his coach and Mario are almost immediately by his side.
It surprises him when Mario is the first to speak instead of his coach, “I’m so sorry that I let this happen, I failed you. I should have been paying more attention and not let an alpha rub himself off on you. And you’re so young too, you probably never even realized they did this.” He’s never seen Mario so pained, the look of regret and remorse etched into his features—and to make things worse he doesn’t even know what Mario could be talking about either.
“Huh?” He asks, as he squints up looking at the man who he’s looked up to for years. This question in itself seems to send a new wave of hurt through the man and his coach, like they both just heard life altering news. The men turn to look at each other and the concern that has bloomed in Sidney’s chest only seems to grow, “can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“Tabarnak,” the captain whispers under his breath, Mario gently picks up Sidney’s hand from where it lays in his lap on the blanket. He takes a seat on the edge of the hospital bed, he looks down at where the younger Canadian’s hand rests in his palms before looking up again. His face is set in a serious expression and he’s looking Sidney in the eyes—the rookie forward feels his heart beat steadily increase in the few seconds that linger before the other man starts speaking. He’s calm, cool, and barely collected when he starts delivering the words to the man lying in the bed, “Sid, I’m so, so sorry that I have to tell you this, but you are currently experiencing severe bond sickness and withdrawal. I know that this must be a lot for you to hear—and I know you didn’t go out and try to bond with someone. Hell, you probably didn’t even know you were bonded in the first place. I know it’s hard to hear that some alpha has taken advantage of you like this and we are gonna do everything we can to make this right ok. You understand?” He moves from holding Sidney’s hand to wrapping his arms around the younger man, pulling him into a hug.
He’s shocked at first, he’s not used to people coming up and hugging him outside of a celly on the ice after winning a game or a scoring goal, it takes him a moment to catch up with the situation and return the hug.
Mario’s words don’t fully sink into Sidney’s brain until after the older man finally pulls away—severe bond sickness and withdrawals. That could only mean one thing.
Geno.
Oh fuck, if this is what he’s going through what about his alpha? What if Geno isn’t ok and in the hospital and sick and Sidney can’t do anything about it because he’s in some random hospital in Minnesota of all fucking places.
His thoughts keep spiraling and he starts panicking looking around for his phone when it dawns on him… fuck he got taken here by the medical team his phone was in his stall back at the arena and probably all packed up and possibly halfway back to Pittsburgh. How is he going to call Geno now? How will he be able to make sure his boyfriend knows he’s ok?
“Hey kid, what are you looking for?” This time it’s his coach speaking.
“Uh, my phone… my mom’s probably worried about me,” the lie rolls off his tongue easier than it should.
Flower stands up and crosses the room, Sidney’s phone clutched in his hand, “we grabbed this from your stall, we figured you might want it.” They were right, Sidney does want it. In fact, Sidney wants it now, as in right now.
He waits for Flower to get closer before he snatches his phone from the goalie’s hand. He quickly flips open his phone and goes straight to his messages. He’s a man on a mission and that mission is to make sure that his alpha who is all the way in Russia knows that he is alright.
Sitting at the top of his messages is the text he’s looking for.
‘Please let me know you OK! <3’
Simple and basic, and his English is clunky and he can’t help but keep re-reading it. Without thinking he presses the buttons that start calling the older man—he doesn’t even stop to consider what time it could be for the other. He doesn’t need to though, the Russian picks up on the first ring.
They don’t say anything to start, just listen to the sound of each other’s breathing.
In the end it’s him who first breaks the silence, “G, I’m ok.” He hears the other man let out a breath that he clearly has been holding waiting for those words to come from Sidney.
“Oh Sidka, you worry me. I watch game, you fall off bench and then medical team come take you. Very scary for me Sidka, my omega need help and I’m not there,” he can feel the distress through their bond, although lightly. They aren’t fully mated yet which means their emotions have to be very strong to feel it at all. It makes him feel guilty, he worried his alpha and shut their bond off completely when he had passed out. Geno had probably been frantically searching for Sid somewhere in his mind and he not being able to find him for the first time in months must have almost certainly been terrifying.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you like that,” his voice cracking multiple times as he works through getting the sentence out
“No sorry Sid, all that matter is you good,” the dam breaks. Tears start leaking out of the corners of his eyes, they drip down his face like rain on a window. In less than twenty seconds he’s gone from nothing to full on sobbing; he’s hiccupping and gasping for air as the other men in the room’s faces turn to looks of full blown concern. He looks down at his lap, he doesn’t want to see what he knows will hurt him.
“I-I-I m-miss you, so so m-m-much, я скучаю по тебе,” (I miss you) he manages to say the last part in Russian, Geno had taught him over one of their early phone calls. For them it became another way of saying, ‘I love you,’ the longing feeling so deep rooted inside that at times it felt like too much for having only really spent a night together in person.
“Я тоже тебя люблю, I’m tell agent that he need to work harder. My omega need me. I’m be there as soon I can,” in the end Sidney is too out of it to hang up the call and the older Russian man has to be the one to do it. He waits and babbles on about anything and everything until Sidney can stop crying.
Slowly, a few seconds after the line has gone dead, he pulls his phone away from his ear and brings it to his lap. Turning it over and over in his hands, fidgeting, trying to delay the inevitable. Carefully he brings his head up to look at the other men in the room, his teammates, his captain, his coach, they seemingly all have a different reaction to what they just witnessed.
Then Mario starts yelling.
“What the fuck was that? More importantly who the fuck was that? I thought you were going to call your mother, that clearly wasn’t your mother. Also, was that Russian I heard? Are you fucking bonded to a Russian alpha? Are you really that fucking stupid? I thought better of you.” His yelling peters out at the end, turns straight into aggressive acusational and stern disappointment. It’s almost exactly what he expected from the father figure, but it still hurts.
Knowing this is enough to make him cry again for what he knows will definitely not be the last time.
_/ \_
Sid didn’t trust him. If there was any question of this before this there is none now. He let the kid sleep under his roof, treated him like a son, gave him suit jackets to wear because the poor kid doesn’t own any that fit him. They've literally been debating if they should give him the ‘A’ or not. Yet still, the kid doesn’t trust him.
It hurts more than he thought it would. This isn’t some small secret to keep either, this is big, the kid is bonded—has been bonded—to an alpha. He’s called G, spoken Russian too, who stayed on the phone with him until he stopped crying. They clearly know each other well and they have clearly been bonded for quite some time based on the level of extremeness that they’ve been informed Sidney’s bond sickness and withdrawals are at.
_/ \_
Between the tears that drip down his face and the external pressure from Mario and Eddie he gives up the fight. He knew the truth would come out sooner or later but he didn’t want it to be until after Geno had gotten his contract figured out and made his way to Pittsburgh on his own. “That was my alpha,” is all he says. As much as he’s going to have to come clean, they will have to drag every detail out of him individually. He’s stubborn at best and impossible at his worst, and he’s going to make this a painful conversation for everyone involved.
“Ok, but that still doesn’t answer our questions of who they are.” This time it’s his coach, Eddie, who’s the one to ask. He’s not as mean as Mario was, Sidney appreciates this.
“His name Geno,” he’s not exactly lying per say, he’s just not telling the full truth.
“Can you tell us more about Geno?” Eddie asks, his tone is that of a parent talking to their young child about their invisible friend, inquisitive and as if he’s trying really hard to not show how concerned he is about the situation.
“He’s from Russia.”
“Ok! See we’re getting somewhere now,” Eddie claps his hands together, “is Geno still in Russia?”
“Yeah, he’s trying to come here though.” It’s clear that this information is received well by the two significantly older men, who both look at him expectantly.
Mario jumps back into the conversation, “ok, what’s stopping him from being here now? Is it money, we can pay for his move, we can keep it on the down-low and no-one has to know…” he’s got this frantic look in his eye as he says it.
Sid cuts him off, “he’s a hockey player.” He shuts up instantly, the room goes almost completely silent, Mario’s eyes go wide.
It’s his coach who picks the conversation again, “does he play in the Superleague?"
“Yeah, he does,” he looks down at his hands again, and goes back to rolling his phone between his palms.
“What team does he play for?” He’s got this hopeful tone to his voice, and Sidney knows he’s going to both make and ruin his day in one foul swoop very soon.
“Metallurg.”
_/ \_
Mario looks at him, he knows what he’s going to ask for—the roster. He wants a list of every player on the Metallurg team and he wants that list stat. He’s got this crazy look in his eyes, like he’d do anything to or pay any amount of money to fix their current situation. He decides to speak before the other man can even open his mouth, “I’ll get their roster.”
He moves to step out of the room, he doesn’t necessarily want to leave Sidney alone with Mario but he doesn’t really have a choice. He needs to start the work of buying out a Superleague player’s contract and that starts with calling the front office and getting Metallurg’s roster. All he has is a first name to go off of, but there can only be so many Russian players with the name Geno on one team so that at least narrows it down.
_/ \_
Now that his coach has left the room he’s left with just his captain and other teammates. It doesn’t make sense why his other two teammates are there, maybe Flower gets a pass because he was his roommate the night he and Geno bonded, but it’s not like he knew that Sidney got bonded that night. He had been too busy sleeping on a roll out bed in another pair's room. Kris makes no sense why he’d be here? Sure he and Sidney are friends, but it’s not like Kris knows anything anyone else doesn’t . He’s on the same pages as everyone else.
“Uh, not that I don’t appreciate that you guys are here but uh… why are you here?” he asks.
It’s Flower who responds first, “we’re your friends.”
And it’s Kris who follows up with, “we also packed your bags, so you really should be thanking us.” This gets a little chuckle out of him. They haven’t been playing hockey together all that long, but with all the time they spend together on the road, at games, and during practice they’ve become a small group of fast friends.
“Oh, uh… thank you I guess,” he takes a breath, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Geno, he’s just important to me and I didn’t want anything to happen to him.”
“Sidney, what do you mean you didn’t want anything to happen to him?” Mario juts in.
“Oh, uh, he’s not had the easiest time getting out of his contract.”
“What team has he been talking with? This is important Sid, we need to make sure he can sign with us.” Mario’s voice becomes serious again.
“The Pens.” He whispers.
“Fuck!” Mario stands up abruptly and quickly leaves the room—the door slamming behind him as he exits.
_/ \_
He just hangs up the phone with the front office when Mario comes bursting into the hallway, “Sid’s alpha is Malkin.”
“Wait, are you talking about the kid that we’ve spent the last year and a half trying to get over from Russia?” He can’t decide if that is a good or a bad thing for them if he’s right. On one hand it would mean that they don’t have to fight another team to get him, but on the other Russia and Metallurg are being very difficult when it comes to letting them take the kid. Maybe they could use this to their advantage though, the bond sickness is so extreme for the omega that they can use that to bypass things and get him stateside stat.
“Yeah, I don’t know how long the two of them have been bonded but that’s the kids' bondmate.” He says with what might be a sense of disbelief in his voice.
“When the fuck would the two have even bonded? We haven’t been able to get him over from Russia since the two-thousand and four draft.”
_/ \_
Mario comes back into the room with his coach and they both sit down on his bedside again. His coach starts the conversation this time, “Sidney, I need you to be completely honest with me here ok?” He nods his head in agreement, he’s not really in a position to lie to them at this point anyway. “How long have you been bonded to Geno?”
“Two years in January,” he’s a little ashamed of it, he won’t lie. Not embarrassed of Geno, not embarrassed of his love for the other man, just embarrassed of how at sixteen his body thought that being slammed into the boards by his true mate was enough contact to send him into heat. Embarrassed by the fact he didn’t even realize he had gone into heat at the time. He feels his face heat up, flushing at the thought of reliving the whole experience.
The room is silent for a minute, one that might be in contention for what might just be the longest minute of his life. That is until piping up from the corner for the first time in a while Marc-André exclaims in all his Québécois glory, “wait Sid, we were at Junior Worlds together. When did you have time to bond with him?”
He doesn’t know how it’s possible but he feels his face heat up even further, “uh…”
He’s not even given enough time to answer before Flower cuts him off, “wait was it during your surprise heat? Did he take advantage of you while we were in Finland and you were in heat? Fuck, I’m going to kill that guy.”
The quick flip from disbelief to anger throws him off but as soon as it hits him what his teammate just said he juts in to set the story straight, “no, no, no, I went to him. Instincts and all that. We’re like true mates or something like that.”
Mario looks at him all skeptical, “Sidney you were sixteen, it sounds like you were in heat and weren’t in the right state of mind when you bonded with him.”
“No, I swear it’s all good. We love each other, he’s coming to the Pens, and he’s leaving his family and his country for me. I talk to his mama on the phone sometimes, she’s very nice, I’m trying to learn Russian for him—for them. You know, to show that I care?” His response is almost frantic in nature. The more he talks the less it seems like they believe him though, he doesn’t understand why they aren’t getting it. Geno is his boyfriend, and he’s literally leaving everything he knows behind so he can play hockey with Sid.
His father figure is shaking his head and lets out a sigh before continuing, “Sid it really sounds like he took advantage of you when you were just newly presented and confused. I don’t want you to feel like we’re attacking you, but you have to understand how this looks to us as outsiders.”
Ok, maybe he can admit it doesn’t look great from where the others in the room are seeing it, but they just don’t understand it. He has to make them understand somehow—that’s when it hits him. No matter what he needs to be with Geno in person to get better, once they see the two of them together the rest of them will have no choice but to see how much they love each other. He tells them as much, well not that last part. He keeps that much to himself.
_/ \_
It’s not till the dust settles a little bit, just enough to let everything sink in, before the two older men leave to go jump into action. To finally get his alpha to Pittsburgh after trying for so long. Now it’s just him and his two teammates: Flower and Kris, who has been silent this entire time sitting in a chair in the corner.
Said teammate takes this time to finally speak up, “not to be that person Sid but, we’re here because we care about you. We just want you to improve. You have your reasons for keeping this a secret and we respect that but know that you can talk to us about things. We are your friends.” He’s so nice about it, so kind, so trusting it kind of hurts something deep in Sidney knowing he’s worried them as much as he has.
“I was afraid they wouldn’t let me play hockey anymore,” he admits sheepishly, his gaze to his lap. “All I’ve ever wanted to do is play hockey, and the Russian coach had told us to keep it a secret because it would ruin our careers. And I just want to play hockey,” his voice is the smallest it’s ever been, timid and strange sounding out his own mouth.
“Oh,” is all Kris says in response.
The room is quiet for a moment, “wait Sid, if the Russian Juniors coach knows, Geno’s parents know, and I assume your parents also know, who else knows you’re bonded?” Marc-André says.
“Uh, my parents don’t uh…” he feels his face go hot again, “they don’t really know.”
“What!” Kris exclaims, both the other men in the room’s eyes go wide.
“I sorta never told them,” he rubs the back of his neck with his hand.
“Sid, you have to tell them.” Flower’s tone goes stern with him in a way it never has with him in the past.
“You mean to tell us that you’ve never told your own parents that you’re bonded?” Kris asks in disbelief.
“I didn’t want them to get mad at me.” He feels stupid even saying it out loud, but now it has been so long that he can’t even imagine telling them. It’s also scarier to tell them now that it has been two years, his dad is probably the scarier one to tell, Troy Crosby can be an intense man.
He feels like a cat who’s embarrassed that it caught a mouse and tried to hide the evidence from its owner. Except Geno isn’t a mouse, no, he’s a six foot three—though Sidney thinks he’s taller—Russian alpha.
“Oh Sidney, come here,” Flower pulls him into his arms letting Sidney collapse into him. He buries his nose into the older man’s neck, breathing in the smell of carnations. It's comforting and familiar and just what he needs now. His friend has always seemed good at this, knowing just what to say and when.
They stay there for a moment before he feels Kris’s hand on back, rubbing small calming circles between his shoulder blades. “Everything is going to be ok, management is going to get Geno over here and then you’ll be able to recover. You could invite your parents to a game and they can meet him there, that way we can be waiting in the locker room for you afterward. Does that sound good?” Kris relays his idea gently to him. How did he end up with such good teammates and friends?
_/ \_
Sid’s not doing well, Geno can tell from the ache that persists at the base of his spine and the throb behind his eyes that never seems to really go away no matter how much Grippostad he takes. The call from Sid was relieving though, hearing his omega’s voice was relieving after the distant and empty feeling that had plagued him since he watched the Canadian collapse.
He was unable to sleep, having stayed up for well over forty-eight hours waiting to feel something—some emotion—coming from his bond with Sid. Now, he’s unable to sleep because his agent is now working over time trying to figure out a way to release him from the Russian team’s grasp. Sid has been texting him throughout the night; he’s clearly trying to play it cool, but Zehnya can tell he’s fishing for updates.
There’s a problem with this though, because Zehnya doesn’t have any updates and Zehnya doesn’t even know what’s going on. He’s been tossing and turning in his bed, and his agents, J.P. Barry and Pat Brisson, are on the phone with his mama, who is in the kitchen, trying to work things out. He feels hot and feverish—he has for a while—his mama has told him it’s because of the distance, he doesn’t doubt that she’s right. He’s glad it’s winter, his window is cracked to let the cold Russian breeze in.
He feels his shirt sticking to his back although he’s over two months away from when his next rut should be. He’s tired, he’s so, so tired. But, everything he tries doesn’t seem to work—he’s just too uncomfortable.
His mind and body are both craving something he can’t have yet. He wishes Sidney’s sweatpants smell was stronger, but the area by the crotch of his pants smells the strongest so he surrenders himself to balling them up and burying his nose into the region.
It calms his nerves lightly but it’s still not enough to fully settle his system. He doesn’t want to bother Sid with his problems, his omega has enough on his plate as it is, but he really needs to sleep and he’s so frustrated that he thinks he might start crying soon.
Ding. His phone notifies him of a text, it has to be Sid. No one else would be texting him at three in the morning. ‘Are you ok?’ He skips responding and goes straight to calling the younger man.
He picks up immediately.
He also starts speaking as soon as he picks up the phone, “is everything ok G?” Of course his omega is immediately worried for him. Sidney is always worried about everything, and he’s always worried all the time. Maybe it’s because Zehnya isn’t there with him, the bond sickness and distance causing him all of his anxiety.
“Can’t sleep Sid. Need hear my omega’s voice,” he can hear his own exhaustion laced within his words.
“Oh…” his omega pauses his thoughts, “I’m glad you called G, I missed your voice,” he can hardly hear Sidney through the speaker on his phone, the Canadian having gone quiet.
“Keep talk Sidka,” he hopes Sidney catches on to what he’s trying to say, his English is rapidly escaping his brain with how tired he is.
“Huh?” his omega lets out a little gasp, “Oh…” Sid seems to catch on to what the Russian is asking of him. He starts talking about his most recent powerplay goal, the one he scored right before the hit he took in the second period, explaining how he and Kris had been working on it in practice for the past week. The non-stop babbling about hockey from his boyfriend along with the smell of his lover that’s been seeping into the Rimouski seems to calm just the right nerve in his system and he feels himself slowly drifting off into a much needed sleep.
_/ \_
His mama wakes him by gently shaking him—he has a deep rooted feeling he’ll never get to wake up like this again. He sits up in his bed groggily with his blanket curled up next to him, he must have kicked it off sometime during the night. She has this look in her eye like she wants to cry but she’s trying to keep it together for him. “Zehnya, you need to pack your bags, you’re going to get to be with Sidney very soon,” his mother looks mournful, looks like she’s sending him off to war and knows he won’t be returning.
All he can manage to ask is, “when am I leaving?”
She places her hand on his face, cupping his cheek, “tonight. You’re going to pack your bags now Zehnya. You’re going to go to practice and pretend nothing is wrong, this is important, no one can know you’re leaving, do you understand?” He nods his head yes in confirmation, “then you’re going to come back home and I’m going to make borscht, then at one in the morning you are going to get your bags and leave for Kostanay in Kazakhstan.” She hands him a sheet of paper, he looks at it and sees its directions to the airport, “there is a flight at eight to Astana and from there you will go to Helsinki and meet with Barry, he will take care of you.”
He’s looking into her eyes, searching for something that says that everything will be okay in the end. This is his dream of playing in the NHL and his wishes to be with Sidney all wrapped up in one. “Does papa know?” She shakes her head.
“He’ll be too worried. It’s just you, me, and Barry in on this, now get packing you have a big week ahead of you.” She pats his cheek one last time before getting up and leaving his room.
He looks around his room, trying to take it all in. Deciding what he needs to take with him is one of the hardest choices of his life—he might never be able to come home again after this, might never see the place he grew up in, and maybe never even see his parents again. He picks up his camera on his shelf and starts taking pictures of anything and everything. If this is the last piece of his hometown he gets, he’s going to cherish it.
The first thing he does is pick up the old picture book his mom has made for him—he’s always been sentimental—and wraps them in his favorite t-shirt to keep it safe. This might be the only way he can show Sidney what his mama, papa, and older brother Denis look like. This might be his only way of actually seeing their faces again.
It takes everything in him not to start crying as he packs away his most important things. He only gets two bags and a personal item to move across the world. He grabs the stuffed rabbit his babushka gave him when he was a baby off his bed and places it alongside his other precious items, he packs his backpack with clothes for the coming days. He mostly packs shirts and a few pairs of pants, he can buy more when he gets to Pittsburgh; he has another bag packed that will go in his hockey bag to keep the smell from spreading to his items, but he’s not gonna put it in his hockey bag just yet, that would give him away to anyone looking in his direction at the arena.
With his bags packed, he leaves his room shoving his digital camera into his pocket along with his hockey bag with him to meet the rest of his family in the main room. His mama is in the kitchen cooking what smells like blini and his papa sitting at the table reading the daily newspaper. He snaps a quick picture to remember this moment, one of the last with his family.
“Ah Zehnya! There you are, go sit with your papa at the table,” she says gesturing with a spoon in his father’s direction. He pulls out a chair and joins his papa, who carefully folds and puts down the newspaper.
“How’s Sidney doing?” his dad asks, taking a sip of his coffee.
“He’s tired…” his mama cups off his response by putting a large plate of blini and jam in the middle of the table. “He’s doing his best, I hope my agents can figure something out soon. I’d like to be with him sooner rather than later.” His dad nods his head in acknowledgement before digging into the food that has been prepared for them.
His mama sits down at the table with them, “your brother will be joining us for dinner tonight so don’t stay overtime at practice, ok?” Oh how he wishes he could leap across the table right now and hug her. He gets to see his brother one last time before leaving Russia for what might be forever. He has to school his features though, he can’t let his papa get too suspicious of what might be going on.
He takes his time eating at the table with them before grabbing his bag and getting ready to head off to the rink for what will be his last practice on Russian ice.
_/ \_
The rink smells like home, the same ice he spent his first nineteen years growing up with. He knows that he’s going to miss it the world over, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on that. He’s gotten to the rink almost exactly on time, if he had shown up early that would have been almost suspicious. He’s trying to do his best sticking to his daily habits but it’s difficult, he wants to just sit there and take it all in, take his photographs and not think about how this is his last time playing with any of his teammates.
It’s not that he’s particularly close with any and all of them, but it’s the principal behind it. It’s his main connection to the place he grew up and instead of being able to leave gracefully he has to sneak away in the middle of the night and hide away in another country to leave.
Practice goes about as smoothly as it always does, though he can feel the eyes of the coaching staff watching him like a hawk. He doesn’t love how it feels knowing that they know how bad he wants to leave. They are the reason he’s still here in the first place… and not by choice either.
He doesn’t stick around when it’s time to leave either, grabbing his things and packing his bag trying to leave as much room as possible so that it’s easier to shove his other bag inside of it later. He takes a few pictures of things as they are now with his camera before heading out and leaving. He might have not liked his time playing for them but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to remember it.
_/ \_
When he gets home he’s greeted by the delicious smell of his mothers cooking and his brother in the living area with his papa. “Ah, Zehnya you’re finally home,” his mama says as he walks in the door.
“Mama, he basically lives at the rink, what did you expect?” His brother chirps at him from the couch.
“Denis, stop being mean to your brother,” their mama tuts at his brother, “now you,” she points at him, “dinner will be ready in half an hour and I want to see you out of those clothes and not smelling like a hockey player.” She shoos him away from the kitchen and towards his room.
He drops his hockey bag in his room and quickly opens it up, shoving his other bag inside for his journey later in the night. He quickly showers and gets changed into a pair of black Adidas sweatpants and a gray sweatshirt, then he gathers his three bags into a pile in the corner of his room before heading back out.
“Perfect timing. The borscht is almost ready,” his mama tells him as she pulls him into a hug. He’s significantly taller than her, but he feels like a small kid in her arms.
He leans down and whispers in her ear, too quiet for anyone else to hear, “I’m going to miss you.” She pulls him in tighter before letting him go and giving him a pat on the back.
“Now go set the table, don’t think you can get out of it by buttering me up,” he lets out a groan but internally he’s thankful. He needs something to do to keep his mind busy from solely thinking about the one thing he's trying not to think about.
It's not like setting the table really takes all that much effort, it's more the idea of doing something with his hands that's the real draw of the action. He takes his time placing the spoons and bowls on the table, while he’s in the middle of placing the glasses and pitcher on the table his mama moves to set the borscht on the table.
As she sets it down she calls out to his papa and brother, “boys! Dinner’s ready!”
As his family sits around the table Denis asks him questions about Sidney—which he answers honestly—and his papa asks about if there is any progress on his ability to leave for Pittsburgh. He forces himself to choke out lies in response.
He shares how although Sidney is in the hospital, his condition has gotten worse—though less so than if he were at home. He stares down at his soup, as to not meet eyes with his father, when he says, “my emergency contract exit clause should be activated now. I’m just waiting on the American visa.”
His papa just nods and accepts his answer, he can tell he doesn’t fully trust what he’s said. But, Zehnya knew he was never going to, he’s never been known to be good at lying—especially to his father.
_/ \_
Dinner is over faster than he would have liked, and his family spends some time together in the living room before it’s time for Denis to head out and for the rest of them to head off for bed. He sits on his bed, taking a deep breath in and lets himself sit in the silence. Looking out his window he sees the darkness of his snowy city, the calmness that seems so untouched by all the stress and weight of everything that has occurred that has kept him here long past his wishes to stay.
He takes another picture.
He looks down at his watch, it’s now just a little past midnight. Twelve-twenty-six. He has just a little more time before he has to throw his things in the backseat and drive off. He does one last check around his room making sure he hasn’t forgotten anything important before shrugging on his coat and grabbing his keys and wallet off his bedside table.
He’s cautious as he quietly tiptoes out to the main room with his bags. He’s about to leave, hand on the doorknob and everything, but he just can’t shake the feeling that he should leave one last thing for his parents. Jotting down on his mother’s notepad in the kitchen he leaves his final note.
I love you.
It’s simple and basic and he’s afraid he’ll be here forever if he writes anymore. He takes one last look at the life he knows and walks out the door. He’s numb as he arrives at his car, throwing his bags in the back seat. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding once he gets on the R360 heading east, cracking open a Red Bull to stay awake as he settles in for the long drive ahead of him.
_/ \_
They finally let Sidney leave the hospital under the specific instructions that he’s not left alone and isn’t allowed to do any physical activity, which he thinks is dumb. He doesn’t want to rest, that allows him too much time to stir with his thoughts. Too much time where he’s spent worrying about Geno in Russia, who hasn’t texted him anything except for an, ‘I love you :),’ which was hours ago.
He refuses to admit that maybe it’s a good thing that he’s on all but bedrest with Nathalie taking care of him. Granted, his walk down their stairs is taking longer and longer each day, not that he’s really struggling but he’s just so damn exhausted. He’s only going up and down them once per day and every time he refuses her help, she hovers but he’s stubborn.
He spends most of his time on the couch wrapped in the Russian’s clothes, it still feels weird to him that he’s doing this where the Lemieux’s can see, but he’s more terrified of being alone in his room while he waits out for news of his alpha’s arrival. He knows that this is hitting him harder than his bondmate because omega hormone systems are more delicate or whatever but nonetheless he still feels a pathetic amount of uselessness at the moment.
_/ \_
He’s pulling up to the airport in Kostanay at seven in the morning, it’s cold and almost completely empty. He ends up at his gate sitting there waiting with only twelve other people, he sends a quick text off to Barry updating him on where he’s at in his journey. It’s a short flight, only an hour and a half long, it feels like he barely has enough time to open his book between take off and landing.
Stepping off the plane at the Astana airport, he breathes out a sigh of relief, he’s only got a few more steps to go before he’s finally free to be with Sidney in Pittsburgh. He has to take another flight, to Istanbul, which is about six and a half hours long before he gets to his final boarding gate of the day. The hour he spends waiting with his bags to board for his flight to Helsinki is the most nerve wracking of his life, even more so than the wait before he was drafted, he knows he won’t feel calm until the plane is in the air.
He sits in his seat, knee bouncing, and chewing on the inside of his bottom lip. It won’t be long before the plane takes off but the wait in itself is torturous, he knows he probably just looks like a nervous flyer. He has his headphones on, and tries to get as comfortable as he can for the last four-hour flight. He finished his book on the last flight and now he’s just stuck alone with his thoughts and his music.
The pilot comes over the loudspeaker and although Zehnya can’t really understand what he’s saying he’s been on enough flights to know that he must be informing them of their final descent into Helsinki. He looks out the window and watches as the place where this all started almost two full years ago slowly gets closer and closer. He’ll text Barry as soon as he lands, his agent will pick him up and then it’ll just be a waiting game as they camp out for his emergency US visa to come through.
He hasn’t met Barry in real life before, having only ever called him, he doesn’t know what the man he’s looking for even looks like. He had informed the man before he got on his final plane of his flight number from Turkey, expecting to meet him in the baggage claim zone. He walks briskly, keeping his eyes peeled, down the hallway to the carousels trying to maintain a calm and collected appearance. Inside though, he feels jittery with nerves and worried that at the last moment this will all come crashing down around him.
Zehnya is waiting for his bag when he hears a familiar voice say his name in a questioning tone beside him. “Barry?” He manages to sputter out.
Barry looks relieved at the sound of his name, “I was hoping it would be you. Not many six foot something guys with hockey bags are coming to Finland on flights from Turkey at this time of year.” Instead of responding Zehnya instead pulls the older man into a tight hug. It catches his agent off guard at first but he quickly gets the memo and hugs him back.
The journey to the hotel where they will be staying until his emergency visa comes feels microscopic in length in comparison to the rest of his trip. Barry talks the whole way there, explaining the final details of the situation and how he’ll be staying with Sergei Gonchar after they get the whole bond withdrawal situation figured out.
_/ \_
He hasn’t heard anything from Geno all day and he knows his own scent has gone sour because of it. The stench of rotting flowers permeates every inch of his bedroom . In the Lemieux’s, he knows that the Russian is very busy trying to get things in order so that he can get to Sidney. But most importantly get to Pittsburgh so that they can play hockey together.
Hockey is, and will always be, the most important thing to Sidney. And playing hockey with Geno—his alpha—for the first time is going to be the second most exciting day in his life, just after the one where he wins the cup. Because it’s not a matter of if for him, it’s a matter of when.
He rolls over in bed, getting lost in his worries about Geno, he doesn’t know how much time ends up passing before there's a knock at the door. “Hey Sid, you missed dinner so I brought you some food,” Nathalie is holding a plate of food in her hand, setting it down on his desk before moving to sit on the end of Sidney’s bed. She places her hand on his duvet where his shin lays underneath, her eyes scream of concern, “Sid, I want you to know that you can talk to me about anything. I want to be here for you.” He appreciates her concern, but he really just wants to be left alone while he waits for Geno’s arrival.
He flops over to face away from her, moving his shin away from where her hand rests. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he huffs.
“Kid, you’re worrying not only me but Mario, and the whole team too. I know you aren’t answering your texts because Mario told me Marc-André has been asking about you because he hasn’t heard anything back from you since you got back from the hospital. Sid, I’m just trying to help.” She sounds as exhausted as Sidney feels. He feels bad that he’s made all these people so worried, but he can’t really help that his brain is solely focused on one thing and one thing only, Zehnya.
_/ \_
Nathalie looks down at the pathetic sight of the eighteen year old professional hockey player she's taken into her home wrapped in a cocoon of his duvet. Sidney looks so, so small like this, he looks younger like this too. She thinks of what Mario has told her about what Sidney has revealed after his incident, she's been able to get him to divulge a little more information, mostly just some more details about how they've hidden it all this time.
She noticed that as his physical state deteriorated he also seemed to regress mentally along with it, not that she'd tell him that either. Nathalie had felt herself develop a maternal instinct for the young man as soon as he had entered her house and introduced himself to her; a nervous smile and shaky hands that he had kept fidgeting with for the whole first week. She sees the shy sixteen year old boy who had found himself bonded to an alpha, worried and anxious about what would happen if anyone else had found out.
He rolls over and gazes up at her with his sad wide brown eyes, he reminds her a little bit of a kicked puppy, his resting face one of that despair and distress. Nathalie can't help but coo as he sits up slightly and lets her rest her hand on his face.
She honestly doesn't expect him to say anything at all, just sit there with his face in her hand, letting her omega pheromones soothe him. But he surprises her when he whispers, “I haven’t heard from him all day.” She feels her expression of concern melt into one of sympathy and understanding.
“Oh, honey come here,” she moves her hand from his face to scruff the back of his neck and moves to pull him in. He goes willingly, turning limp in her arms as she holds him into her chest tight. Sidney starts sniffling and shaking in her arms but the wet spot on her right shoulder confirms to Nathalie that he's crying.
She rubs calming circles on his back as he falls into full body sobbing, “I j-j-just m-m-miss him,” he chokes out.
“And he… he hasn't t-talked to me all day and th-the last th-thi-thing he said to me was this m-morning b-b-before I woke up and he… he told m-me that he loves me.” Nathalie can hardly understand what he's saying through all his stuttering, but she understands well enough.
She feels for Sidney. He’s in a tough predicament with his hormones going haywire and all the pressure from the world because of hockey. “I’m sure he’ll text you back as soon as he can,” she says, trying to reassure him. “Maybe something came up that he has to take care of and he doesn’t have service.”
They stay like that for a while, Nathalie softly whispering soothing words into the young man’s ear. And Sidney, clinging to her like a joey to its koala mother, has his tears slowly dry up.
_/ \_
Not being able to text anyone while they wait in the limbo between freedom and the chains of his past is the worst part. He’s unable to reassure his family that he’s safe, that he made it to Halifax, and that he’s been cooped up in a room with Barry for four days.
He can feel through his and Sid’s bond the toll that it’s taking on his omega. He tries to send reassuring feelings through their connection but he’s not so sure that they are being received. Sidney has texted him numerous times; each message has pulled at his heartstrings further. Just yesterday he had decided to hand his phone over to Barry so that he wouldn’t give into his temptations.
“IT CAME THROUGH! ZEHNYA WE’VE GOT YOU A VISA!” The excited yell from his agent stuns him for a moment before the words sink in. Holy shit, he has a visa. A visa to the United States. A visa to where Sidney is. He’s dumbstuck, frozen from all the emotions coursing through his veins.
The two men rapidly pack their bags and head to the U.S. Embassy to pick up the visa before heading straight to the airport. Barry gets them two tickets on the first flight to Pittsburgh which just so happens to have a single layover in London.
Barry calls Pat while they wait for their first flight to board, updating him on the visa and flight information. Zehnya hopes that Pat updates Sidney in all of this, it’s not his fault that the Russian is avoiding leaving a trail as much as possible. He knows his Sid will understand though, he’s going through all of this so that he can play hockey in Pittsburgh.
Play hockey with Sid.
_/ \_
He was jittery the whole first half of the three and a half hour flight to Heathrow. It took Barry handing over his iPod and turning on the other man’s tunes to calm his nerves.
It’s almost immediately, after getting off their plane in London, that he drags his manager into the first book store he sees where he picks up a new book in Russian, one of four options they had, for his next fight. There’s no way in hell that he’s going to get on another plane, especially not one where the flight is over eight and some hours long, without a book in a language that he fully understands.
They end up having to stay the night in the airport; at six foot five there’s no such thing as sleeping comfortably anywhere that isn’t a bed, but he sleeps on the floor anyways. His agent has one last quick call with Pat, updating him on the status of their final leg of his week-long journey, before they board the plane heading for Pittsburgh.
_/ \_
Nathalie brings him breakfast in bed again, just like she has for the past few days now. It’s a reminder to Sid though, a sign of just how weak and tired he’s become. He feels so out of control all of the time, a true slave to his emotions with no real say in how he feels.
She enters his room with a cheery grin, like she has for all of the other days she’s done this for him, but this time it’s different. The corners of her mouth seem to reach higher on her face, her eyes filled with mirth in a way Sid hasn’t seen since before all of this started.
“Sidney, I have news!” She tells him excitedly. “Pat, your agent, called Mario today and said he got a call from Barry, Geno’s agent, saying that the two of them are on a flight to Pittsburgh as we speak.”
“What?” He asks softly.
“Sidney,” she says, placing her hands on his shoulders to steady him, “Geno is on his way to Pittsburgh. Mario and Sergei are going to take you to the airport today to pick him up.” Holy shit. He can’t believe the moment has finally come, after days of deafening radio silence from his alpha he finally has a reason.
Geno, his alpha, is coming home to him.
There’s just one problem, “can you help me get ready? I don’t think I’ll be able to do it alone.” He hears just how meek his own voice is and it’s so unlike him that it’s off putting.
She looks at him adoringly, “oh sweetie. Of course I will.”
_/ \_
He tires to get some sleep on the flight, but no matter how hard he tries he just can’t. He hasn’t finished his book, but it was just so uninteresting. He couldn't even make it through the third chapter. It was also the only option that London could offer im—he shouldn’t have expected much. But—he was desperate.
His nerves weren’t the only thing keeping him awake. He could feel, somewhere deep in his chest, that he was getting increasingly closer to his omega. He was able to sense with every passing hour their bond strengthening. He tries to send positive, comforting emotions in Sidney’s direction, he gets short bursts of energy in response. It gives him solace knowing Sid’s receiving his silent messages.
Pittsburgh comes into view, it’s small and distant, but it’s real. It’s a symbol of everything he’s ever wanted, a sign of him finally achieving the dream he’s had since he was a small boy. It’s the final stop—it’s where Sid is.
The rest of the passengers can’t deplane fast enough, he’s jittery from excitement and irritated by the lack of urgency everyone else seems to have. Barry does a good job of keeping him from combusting in the five extra minutes it takes for them to get off, leading the Russian through the airport with a familiarity of someone who knows the lay of the land like the back of his hand.
He takes him all the way to the baggage claim area. His nose perks up, senses going haywire. Through the cloud of the scents of all the other people bustling around he smells the floral scent that has become so intimate and personal to him over the past few years.
Unavoidable, unignorable, it consumes his thoughts. He needs to follow it, needs to soak in every molecule of it that he can. He needs to get to the source. Abandoning his agent, he beelines singlemindedly towards the origin of the lavender and eucalyptus. All of his senses are screaming, ‘find Sid, get to omega,’ he’d be wrong to ignore such instincts after all. He follows his nose, similar to how he did when they first created their baby bond all those years ago, it wasn’t wrong then, he can’t believe they would be wrong now.
Sid.
He’s there, sitting on a bench at the far end of the baggage claim area—not necessarily hidden but kept out of the way—leaning on the shoulder of Mario Lemieux. He perks up at the sight of the alpha, eyes widening. Sergei Gonchar stands beside the pair on the bench and waves him over silently.
He can’t control himself when he finally makes his way over to the group, sweeping Sidney into his arms immediately, shoving his nose straight into the younger man’s neck where his scent glands lie. This is the most concentrated version of his omega’s pheromones he’s gotten since the night they met properly—and he can’t get enough.
He murmurs affectionate words close to Sidney’s ear, trying to say everything he hasn’t been able to while being holed up in Helsinki. Little, “I love you”s, and apologies for the silence that he was forced to take part in. Many words weren’t said, but their meanings were conveyed. All the important feelings that were too big for words he had no way of knowing. Even if English was his first language he doesn’t think he’d be able to get across the significance of what this moment means to him.
Of what Sidney means to him.
He doesn’t know how long the two of them stand there embracing, but it’s long enough for Sidney to start slouching in his arms and beginning to rely on the older man to keep him upright. Slowly he releases his grip on the other helping him take a seat back on the bench, the two men never losing contact as their fingers intertwine.
He can’t stop staring at Sidney’s eyes, they’re memorizing to him, all wide and doe like. It’s impossible to look away from them as they stare deep into his soul. He hopes Sidney likes what he sees in front of him now, no longer blinded by the throws of that sudden heat from two years ago. He hopes the Canadian doesn’t have the same fears as him, he’s the prettiest omega Zehnya has ever laid his eyes on.
Small tears start building in the younger man’s eyes and before they truly start to fall Zehnya is quick to wipe them away. “I missed you,” Sidney exhales quietly, barely more audible than a whisper. His words are shaky at best but they hit Zehnya in the chest like a sucker punch.
His bondmate has been left in the dark for a week now with no contact from him after suffering for months from bond sickness because he could not be there with him. The guilt is crushing, did Sid even know he was coming? That his alpha was on his way for him? Sure, he had felt the omega’s sadness through their bond, but how aware of things had he been? His omega looks weak, something that scares Zehnya. How close was Sid to just fading away while the Russian really couldn’t do anything to stop it from happening no matter how hard he tried. No amount of scented shirts or phone calls would replace the physical touch, the actual presence of one's bonded partner.
_/ \_
Sidney couldn’t believe it. There he is, heading straight in their direction is Geno. His alpha, his bondmate, his teammate, his first everything. His nose tells him that he’s seaside, ocean breeze and all, but the rest of his senses feel dialed up to one-thousand. Locked in on one thing and one thing only.
His alpha.
Before he knows it he’s been lifted off the bench and his brain is impaled by the all consuming and overwhelming relief that washes over him. The Russian is a good six inches taller than him, the perfect height for Sidney to press his nose into his scent gland and breathe in his alpha’s intoxicating, yet healing, fumes. The world feels brighter instantly, he feels like he did a few days ago, before he had almost been fully bed bound but after he had come back from the hospital.
He’s not all better though. As much as he wants to stay wrapped in Geno’s arms forever, listening as he whispers sweetnesses and promises softly in his ear, his legs are giving out from under him. Unable to hold himself upright any longer he clings to his alpha, who keeps him standing.
He feels himself being lowered, back to the bench. The lack of nearly full contact as Geno pulls away ever so slightly does not go unnoticed by him. It feels like he’s missing something, like he was a puzzle that was almost complete then someone realized they messed up a piece somewhere along the way and had to take some pieces out. They never fully break contact though, his alpha makes sure to slide his hands down the omega’s arms before encasing Sidney’s much smaller hands in his much larger ones.
Their moment is broken by Geno’s agent walking over with both of their bags, “I see you two have gotten reacquainted quite nicely.” He feels his face heat up, blush spreading across his cheeks as he looks down towards his lap.
“Yes, now I go back with Sid,” the Russian’s voice is lower than it was the last time Sid had heard it in person, the graininess of their phone calls did not do it justice.
Sergi says something to Geno in Russian that Sid can’t follow, his Russian language abilities are basic at best and mostly conversational. His alpha responds with a head nod, before pulling Sidney carefully back to his feet. He wraps his arm around the younger man’s shoulders and lets Mario guide them to where their car is parked.
Mario climbs in the front seat and Geno’s agent takes the passenger seat. Sergei climbs into the back seat, sandwiching Sid between him and his alpha. Sidney can’t help the way he molds himself into the alpha’s side, it happens so naturally that he doesn’t even realize that he’s done such an act in the first place. He wants to stay encased in the alpha’s scent, wrapped up in a physical reminder of their bond, for all of eternity. He feels the Russian’s fingers play with his hair, twirling the strands that have grown too long near his temples. He can’t stop the purr that erupts from deep within him, it’s a primal reaction to the comfort that his alpha is finally able to subject him to. He’s still embarrassed by it, turning his face into Geno’s shoulder to hide the redness that has spread rapidly across his face.
_/ \_
By the time that they reach Mario’s home Sidney has fully managed to meld himself into Evgeni’s side. Not that he doesn’t want him there, it’s just a little difficult climbing out of the car with his omega clinging to him like a sea urchin. Mario helps him with his bags, carrying them inside and up the stairs. He tries to reassure the man that he can do it himself but seeing that his arms are full of one Sidney Crosby he doesn’t really know how he’d go about it anyways.
He introduces himself to Nathalie, who lets out of a little laugh seeing his five foot eleven predicament. She shows them to Sidney’s room, “you will be staying with Sergi after you both are recovered enough to be back on the ice. But for now, please make yourself at home. I’ll come get you two when it’s time for dinner. Don’t even worry about anything.”
He thanks her and she exits the room leaving the two of them alone for the first time since the night they formed their baby bond. Sidney hasn’t spoken since they got in the car back at the airport but now that the two of them are alone he finds his voice, “can we cuddle on my bed?” His request is quiet and so innocent in nature it makes the Russian fold immediately.
He lifts the omega up and places him in the middle of the bed before climbing in himself. He takes his time moving the younger’s duvet around wrapping the two of them up in a warm cocoon of blankets. As an alpha he doesn’t nest, not like omegas do, but them swaddled together is probably the closest he’s ever gotten.
Now that they are alone, chests pressed together, he allows himself to really let his instincts go wild. Sidney, who was already purring, starts mouthing at his scent glands, leaving a small trail of drool behind as he shifts between the different patches of scent that he can easily access while still keeping the Russian’s shirt on.
He’s so exhausted by his travels that it doesn’t take long for him to pass out with the comforting body and scent of his omega in his arms.
_/ \_
Nathalie wakes them up for dinner and the two of them journey downstairs, Sidney never lets go of the other man’s sleeve. Nathalie has made Pelmeni as part of her way of welcoming the Russian to the team and into her home, food has never tasted so good to the Canadian’s tastes buds.
They are halfway through dinner when Mario starts to speak, “so here is the deal. We’ve told the guys at practice that you are out because of a concussion. You two are gonna take as long as you need to get back into playing shape, and I mean that.” He sends a pointed look in Sidney’s direction. “Evgeni, the guys don’t know that you’re here yet, we’re going to wait for the two of you to get better before we tell them. Got it?” They both nod, “good.”
_/ \_
They spend the next three weeks in various states of wrapped up in each other. It never goes any further than slow gentle kisses and sweet caresses. They eat their meals with the Lemieux’s and slowly have spent more and more time outside of Sid’s room with the couple.
Sidney’s nervous though, his bi-yearly heat is coming up and he knows that Geno probably knows, but he still needs to say something. He wants to spend his heat with the Russian—and he has no reason not to; they’ve been dating for two years and have had phone sex multiple times, but something internally is stopping him from outright doing anything with the other man.
As an omega he already has that built in fear of getting pregnant, it would ruin his life.
Ruin his career.
He’s also just afraid of having sex to begin with. It doesn’t help that Geno has to be large, everything else about his alpha is massive, so by common reasoning that must mean his dick is massive too. Sidney has fingered himself before, used the knotting toy that Nathalie had given him, but that—different. Based on the tent in his alpha’s pants is probably a good two inches longer and substantially thicker than his toy. Would he even be able to fit Geno’s knot in him?
“Sidka, stop worry. You think to much,” his alpha whispers in his ear. Sidney couldn’t help that he was lying awake at two in the morning. He had too many things going on that he was worried about, his heat, his career, the idea of actually having sex.
“Sorry,” he just needs to get it over with, “it’s just that my heat is coming, and I’m kind of nervous.” Geno just pulls him into his chest tighter.
“I know Sidka. You smell like old flowers and my rut is soon.” Oh. He forgot about that, he and Geno are synced up, they have been synced up. “You forget we bond Sid?” he asks in a playful tone. He just scoots himself further into his alpha’s chest, it’s all the answer the other man needs anyways.
_/ \_
Zehnya is glad they are doing this before his rut hits its peak and he’ll be unable to control himself. Sidney is maybe a few hours ahead of him, his heat having triggered the Russian’s rut. He’s thankful they’ll both get to properly remember their first time together—their first time at all. Both of them having all their firsts together is romantic, also means the best they have to go off of is locker room stories and shitty porn.
He wouldn’t trade this moment for the world though, his omega is glistening with sweat from the start of his heat while braced between the larger man’s thighs.
His omega smelled like a field of lavender below him, the taste of eucalyptus erupted on his tongue every time he got a taste of the younger man’s scent glands. Trailing kisses up and down the Canadian’s body, leaving marks as he goes, claiming his rightful place in the omega’s life.
He makes his way to Sid’s stomach peppering kisses below his navel, moving to the crease of where his thigh meets his groin. He digs his nose into the curly dark hair, taking little bites out of the pale white thighs that remind him of clouds. Thick with muscle, they strain against his hands, which hold them open. He turns his head slightly allowing him to nose at the base of Sidney’s dick.
The whine Sidney lets out is euphoric in his ears. He wants to hear that sound forever, and he gets even more of it when he starts licking stripes up and down the length of it. After what Sidney claims is too much and not enough all at once, he takes the omega’s dick into his mouth and does his best attempt at a blowjob. He knows he’s not very good—probably not enough tongue and way too much teeth—but that doesn’t stop the arch that Sidney’s chest makes up towards the sky nor the noises that he has to muffle leaving Sidney’s mouth.
“Please, please, please, Geno I’m going to, I’m going to—,” he’s cut off by his own moan and his load shoots down the alpha’s throat. He’s still impossibly hard in Zehnya’s mouth, he is in heat after all, but Zehnya takes this time while the omega is relaxed to work his index finger into Sidney’s slick hole.
“Tell me when you ready.”
“I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready,” he chants. “ Geno, Geno I need more,” his omega sounds so desperate for it, and his dick flags up further than he thought was possible. He takes his dick in his fist to keep himself from knotting up before he can get himself in Sidney.
“You need my fat fucking fingers to fuck you?” He’s teasing Sid now.
“Yes! Please. Geno, I need it.” Oh that does it for him. It turns out chirping at Sidney is amazing foreplay… this is horrible information to find out considering their job.
“What you need from me?” He asks feigning innocence.
“You know what I want,” he sounds a bit like a petulant child. The Russian knows just the right buttons to push to rile the younger man up.
“No, you need say it. Say what you want.”
“Geno, I need your fingers.”
“What you want my fingers for?”
“Geno… I need your fat fucking fingers to fuck me.” He sounds almost ashamed asking for it, but it sparks something rabid in Zehnya. He sticks his middle finger into the younger's loose hole and starts rapidly stretching him. He adds his ring finger not too long after that, crimping his fingers just the right way to send Sidney over the edge again and keep him in a constant state of pleasure while he gets him ready for the alpha’s cock.
“I think you ready, Sid?”
“Please go slow,” the soft pleading words nearly break him. He knows Sidney has been scared for his first time—but he almost doesn't want to fuck him. Sidney seems to read his mind though, “please fuck me, please alpha.”
He pulls his fingers out and lines his dick up with the Canadians gaping and leaking slick hole. He takes his time pushing in, letting Sidney adjust as he goes. He knows Sidney isn’t in the most comfortable position right now, his legs pushed up by his ears so that they could face each other, but that doesn’t mean he wants to rush through this.
He heard that the soft velvety walls of someone’s omega was a life changing experience but now having knowledge of that feeling himself he can safely agree that he’ll spend his whole life chasing this high again. It’s almost unfortunate that he’s about to go into rut because he won’t be able to let this feeling truly sink in.
He’s pulling Sidney down, pressing his pelvis into Sidney's ass, making sure he’s fully balls deep into his omega and it’s wonderful. Sidney is still so tight around him and the pressure is like no other, he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t accidentally pop his knot now.
“You can move now Geno.”
“You sure Sidka?”
“Yeah, it’s just a lot.” Sid can sure say that again, he feels insane the way his head just feels full of pure—Sidney.
He starts slowly moving his hips at first, the little brush of friction on his cock nearly has him already ready to bust his load. The whimpering little groans he gets from the omega is all the encouragement he needs to move faster.
He knew that he wouldn’t be able to last long, but he still finished what some might consider embarrassingly quickly. Only four thrusts in and he was burying himself deep in Sidney as his knot expanded, locking them together. This in turn caused Sid to cum, tight walls convulsing and tightening around his knot and cock.
His omega looks beautiful when he cums. Head thrown back, dark curls matted with sweat to his forehead yet also splayed out on the pillow below. He seems to shrink into himself as all his muscles tighten with his release, his neck cinching in as his shoulders push up towards his ears. He looks like a kitten who’s been scruffed, and Zehnya finds this fact to be adorable.
His arms aren’t able to hold him up above Sidney very long, his orgasm draining his muscles of all their strength. He tries his best to lay himself down gently so as to not hurt his bondmate, but once he gives in a little there is little he can do to stop himself from just collapsing onto the younger. Sidney lets out a groan right in the alpha’s ear as the wind is knocked out of him.
“Can we maybe change positions? This is kinda uncomfortable for me.” It takes a second for his brain to register his second language. The fog of his orgasm and oncoming rut makes it really, really difficult for him to comprehend English right now. He does his best to roll them onto their sides, something that is made infinitely more difficult by his fully inflated knot that’s currently in Sidney.
Holy shit, his knot is in Sidney.
“Uh Geno?” Sidney sounds hesitant with his words. “Would you be willing to bite me? You know before my heat fully hits?”
There is no way he heard that right. Sidney asked him to mate him. “Sidka. I do not think I understand you. You ask me to mate?”
“Please. I want to remember it.” His brown doe eyes pleading with everything in him. There’s no way for the Russian to say no to eyes like those. He’d give Sidney the world if he asked without his wide baby deer eyes, and he’d easily give him the universe and more if he could.
“Only if you sure.”
“Please.”
And with that he leans in, opening his mouth against the omega’s scent gland on his neck, and mouths at it before biting down. An explosion of every possible feeling imaginable, and some he doesn’t even recognize encase his mind. His every sense screams of Sidney, so full and screaming with love. If this is how Sidney feels about him, he is not only the luckiest alpha alive, but the luckiest man alive too.
It takes him a second to register that his teeth are still in the younger’s neck. He slowly pulls them out and licks puncture marks. His saliva will help them heal faster and properly, it’s just another way of showing just how much he loves his omega. Just how perfect he thinks his omega is, by giving him such a perfect bite. Everything he does in a way is an act of love for his mate. Every kiss, every touch, every thought, is a love letter—a declaration—of just how far he’s willing to go for him. He left his country, his family, his team, and everything he’s really ever known to get to this moment here. And it was so, so worth it. He will never be able to doubt if it was worth it when this is his view, when this is what he gets to wake up to in the morning, and when this is who he gets to share his life with. He will probably never be able to return home but they will build a new one here, in fact they’ve already started.
_/ \_
The first dinner they had with the Lemieux's after they mated was embarrassing or at least that’s how Sidney felt. Sitting there at the dinner table in an oversized Penguin’s sweatshirt, the fabric of the hood hiding the bite on his neck. Reaching for some potatoes shifted the neckline just enough to reveal the healing scar on his collar bone and gave just enough of an opening for Nathalie to ask, “how did your mother take the news?”
“Huh?” He’s confused and caught off guard by the question.
She must have jumped to some conclusions from his reaction because her next words are, “oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn't have assumed. I know family can be hard sometimes, and I know as a male omega you don’t have it the easiest in a sport like hockey, but know that you always have a family with us. Mario and I will always support you, and I know the rest of the guys on the team are on your side. And if you ever need anything, me and the rest of the wives will always be there for you, no matter the hour. But, I think you should still tell your mother you’re mated first, it would probably be good for her to find out from you and not some random reporter the next time you get on the ice.”
Oh. It never even occurred to him that he should probably call his mom. He’s been so caught up with his heat and adjusting to having Geno basically in his head that it never even registered to him that he most definitely needs to call his mom.
“Oh, uh, thank you. Seriously thank you, but uh, it’s not like that. I just sorta, kinda forgot,” he says looking down at his plate. His face red as a Habs jersey from embarrassment.
“Well, the notion still stands.”
_/ \_
It’s Zehnya’s first time in the Penguin’s locker room, and it’s safe to say it’s overwhelming. He’s watched enough broadcasts that he knew what to expect, the NHL certainly has nicer locker rooms than the ones he experienced back in Russia, but it’s still a shock to him how well kept they are.
It’s a little nerve wracking because he knows the guys were told to expect him, but it’s also his first time properly meeting Sid’s friends. He’s always going on about Flower, one of the team’s goalies, and now he has to meet the man.
Sergi gets everyone in the room’s attention when he sees the two men enter the space. “Everyone listen up! This is Evgeni Malkin. Zehnya, these are Penguins.” There’s a quick chorus of greetings before everyone returns to get ready for practice. Sidney walks him over to his stall, placed across the room from the omega’s, and introduces him to two people Zehnya has heard a lot about.
Max Talbot and Kris Letang.
They seem a little wary at first, but seem to quickly get over it. Leaving space for him to add things into their conversation. He appreciates it, he was worried they were only gonna see him as an extension of Sidney. The alpha the team brought in to appease the star omega, but it’s almost as if they don’t even know the two of them are mated in the first place. Something he knows isn’t true based off of Sidney’s own phone calls while laying in bed cuddled up on the alpha’s chest.
It's nice to be back on the ice. To be treated like he's more than just a body on the ice used as a pawn in the game of Russia versus the world. Sidney sticks close to him the entire time, not that he has a problem with that, he likes knowing his omega wants to be around him.
_/\_
He knew it was coming eventually. His parents were going to have to meet his mate at some point but he doesn’t want to see the look in his mother's eye when he introduces them. He knows that he's objectively a bad son, he lied to his parents for over two straight years and he only came clean when his body decided it had had enough.
It was Nathalie's idea to invite his parents to come to one of their home games. It was so they could meet Geno on neutral ground, he would have all the safety the area provided. They had decided to meet after the game---Sidney didn't want his pregame ritual altered in any way, that could mess up his entire game and he didn’t want that. And it’s good they didn't meet up before the game because the Penguins played amazing hockey, miraculously. Somehow with him and Geno on the ice together it was like instant magic, they connected like no other pairing he’s had. It was so good.
They waited for the press to clear out, taking their time packing up. Mario had promised he'd stay behind in the locker room in case things went south, not that anyone expected them to. “Hey Sid, your parents are here,” the older man informs the pair. He takes a deep breath and locks eyes with his lover. There’s a buzz in his chest that he can feel his mate trying to soothe through their bond.
Leaving the locker room Sidney is quick to notice his parents talking to each other in the hallway. He can't hear what they are saying but when they notice the pair walking towards them their faces change from serious to wide grins. It's so fake it hurts, but he’s also hurt them so he guesses it’s an eye for an eye.
They're standing awkwardly far apart from his parents. The standoff is only worsened by the tense air buzzing between the two parties.
“Mom. Dad. This is Evgeni. Evgeni, these are my parents.” Sidney quickly rushes out.
It's his dad who takes initiative and sticks his hand out to greet the young alpha. Geno takes a moment to register the gesture but quickly returns it. “It's nice to finally meet you.” His mom says. He can't help but hear the little dig in her voice he knows that's directed at him.
“Hello, Sid talk lots about you.” His alpha replies, his accent thicker from nerves.
“Only good things I hope,” his father returns with a small chuckle. “Sidney here, never mentioned he managed to find an alpha who wanted to bond with him. And now that he's mated we'd really like to hear the story of how you swept our son off his feet. So, how about Sidney takes out all out for dinner as a bit of an ‘I'm sorry for not telling my parents I've been in a relationship for who knows how long,’ and you boys tell us everything.” He should have expected that, he didn't want to tell them any of it over the phone really and so this was ultimately the best option. He just doesn't like being put on the spot with things unless it's hockey related.
“Yeah, I uh… we, we can do that,” he manages to stutter out.
_/ \_
Telling his parents everything over dinner isn't as bad as he thought it would be. He tells them how he didn't know he was going into heat. How nice his alpha was during their bonding night. Geno tells them about how his mama picked up the phone once and how they've helped each other through their respective cycles. Sidney talks about his final straw moment and everything that happened in the hospital and about Nathalie taking care of him before the alpha was able to make it to America. His alpha shares about his attempts to get to Pittsburgh and the final escape plan that ended up working. Sidney explains why he hid it from them, why he hid it from everyone.
He didn’t expect that the last part would make his mother cry; he didn't think it was in her nature but maybe they all know less about each other than they thought they did. “I'm so sorry that you felt like you couldn't tell us. I will admit a lot of things went wrong for you to end up in this situation, but as long as you're happy we will support your choices.”
He doesn’t really know how to answer that. She's not saying she loves his choices but she also isn't saying she doesn't love him anymore. It's this purgatory of thoughts and emotions that he doesn't know how to navigate. He sort of just stares into the distance in shock more than anything, his eyes unfocused as his brain tries to comprehend it all.
Suddenly, he feels a hand on his shoulder. It pulls him out of it just a little but it's not enough. The hand moves to his neck, rubbing calming circles into it and that along with his alpha's calming words it's enough to pull him from dissociation. “—ney, it's all ok. Do not cry. Please do not cry. No one is mad at you. Your parents love you. I love you. Everything is good. Yes?” He didn't even realize at some point he had even begun to shed some tears but Geno quickly wipes them away.
He wants to kiss the alpha—his mate—so badly it hurts, but his parents sitting right in front of them stop these thoughts before they can be followed through on. The best he can give is a meek, “you still love me?”
“Oh honey,” his mom gets up from her seat and moves over to behind his chair. “I will never not love you.”
“Oh.” It's nice to know his life isn't over because of something that happened when he was sixteen.