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Wyatt was born with the wispy bands around his wrists. Not unusual, unheard of, but rare enough that his parents had kept him in long sleeves until he was old enough for the braces that covered the wispy, ever changing markings.
Mostly, Wyatt doesn’t think about it. Kids will ask and Wyatt will unhook the leather and show them the weird, milky swirls dancing over his delicate bones.
“What do you think it’ll end up being?”
“Who do you think they belong to?”
Wyatt doesn’t know. He sort of doesn’t care, except it's not that, entirely. It’s just, if he thinks about it too long, too hard, if he considers that there is some human out there, in this wide and wonderful world, meant for him, he gets… itchy. Like, he’s born, and someone wakes up with new marks on their wrist and somehow, Wyatt is supposed to fulfill… what? Their dreams? Their hopes? Some mystical role of completion? And what if whoever it was, older than Wyatt based on the swirls in his bands, what if they already had a whole life? A whole existence that they now had to find space for him in? Tuck him into their routines, teach him their rituals?
If Wyatt thinks about it, really stops to ponder his fate, he stops being able to breathe and his skin gets tacky and his heart skiphopjumps all over like a nightmare.
So he doesn’t. Think about it.
He shows them off when people ask and keeps them covered when they don't and tries to act like being part of the like, 1% of the entire world population unfortunate enough to be stuck dealing with this doesn't make him want to rip his own skin off and eat his own heart.
Or like, whatever.
Eventually, it stops being a thing because Wyatt spends all of his time in tarps and suits and gloves. Aside from showering and like well, sleeping, he doesn't worry about people seeing his wrist.
And, since it like, never solidified, never turned into whatever mystical like, symbol or color or texture would forever link him to some other stranger…
Maybe it’s a fluke. Like, yeah, he was born with them, but they weren’t really meant for him. And that’s fine. He’s actually like, super cool and at peace with it.
He grows, and the bands stay inconsistent, formless whispers of a promise he never wants met and it’s all like, super chill.
-
“But like, not even dreams?”
Wyatt scowls at Will. “It’s just- it’s not like the movies okay? I mean, this person might have like, met a tragic fate or something already.”
”No, dude. Like, no way because,” Will pauses long enough to cram too much burrito in his mouth and then just powers through it. “My friend’s grandpa, like. He had bands too but his person actually did like, ‘meet a tragic fate’.”
And Wyatt has to laugh, at the like, Film Noir narration voice Will pulls.
“Hush,” Will says, rice and bean and beef flying between his grin, “but the bands like, they,” he swallows with a huge gulp. “He said it was like they were tissue paper or something. Sunburnt skin, that kinda just peeled and flaked off. Was super devastating for him but I guess it worked out ‘cause like, J’s dad is one of 11.”
And then, Will is off on a tangent of what it would be like to grow up with an entire soccer team of siblings and how it might actually be awesome and and and-
Just like that, the conversation has moved on from the stupid fucking bands but now it’s all Wyatt can think of.
Because one percent of the population have bands that mean something but like, thirty three percent of the population creates media about it. About all these things and sensations and what it's like and how to know if your bands match and.
And Wyatt hasn’t ever thought about it, until Will.
But.
He thinks about how sometimes he gets these phantom sensations. Not feelings, exactly, but like.
”Like, okay,” he tells Will three days later, a little high off too many wings and too little sleep and not nearly enough dead zombies. “I think whoever has the bands for me is like, very sexually experienced.”
Will coughs, like, super hard and spits red bull all over the tv and Wyatt winces. They’re gonna have to clean that up sooner than later.
”You can feel them having sex?” Will demands. “What’s it like? Are they good at it? Wait, are you like, them or their partners? Are they like- Wyatt. Is it a girl? Is that why you’re not stoked to meet them? ‘Cause it’s a girl and when they have sex it’s like, gay for you?”
Wyatt slaps Will, “There are so many problems with everything you just spit out!” But he’s laughing and so is Will and Wyatt can’t stop himself from curling into his side and burying his head in his chest.
“It’s definitely a guy,” he whispers as the screen flashes red then greys out, their deaths ticking shamefully.
Will pats him on the head. “How big is his dick? Is it bigger than yours?”
And just like that, Wyatt is out to like, at least one person, and it’s no big deal and also, “Fuck you I’m never telling you that ever.”
“Tell me about the sensations then?”
Wyatt sees it for the life line it is. “Sometimes it’s simple. Like, a hand across my neck that gives me goose pimples. Or like, tingling in my lips. I think he like, really likes his hair being pulled or something.”
He doesn’t tell Will about the other sensations. The weirdness of feeling like his cock is buried deep in something tight and warm and nothing like his hand. Or how he’ll wake up and his throat is sore in the best way.
Wyatt’s only ever kissed Will, because they were drunk and honestly, some guys just need to be horrified by watching two dudes suck tonsils. But it didn’t mean anything. Didn’t make him feel anything. Didn’t make him want to try it out with other people.
Not like waking up to the phantom sensation of teeth on his lower lip and the warm slickness of spit even though his lips are dry chapped and peeling.
But it’s enough to tell Will these things, to have someone who knows why sometimes Wyatt is sitting in the cafeteria and gets all flushed and twitchy. Why sometimes he wakes up gasping and moaning.
Will never judges, throws the first punch at everyone who does and that's that. Life moves forward and shit.
-
Will gets drafted and Wyatt is so, so, so excited for him.
“Like, like dude!”
”Dude!” Will grips him by the shoulders, shakes him and then pulls him in for the bone crushing sort of hug that always settles Wyatt, makes him feel like he belongs to his skin.
Will pulls back, hands still on his shoulders. “It’s ridiculous that you came out here, you know?”
Wyatt snorts. “You’d have done the same, for me.”
Will shakes his head and scrapes his knuckles over Wyatt’s scalp and that's that. They celebrate and Wyatt really is happy and he tells him like twenty times after a few too many tequila shots neither of them should be doing.
Later, crashed across Will’s bed, curled into the strange, familiar heat of him Wyatt whispers, “This is going to change everything, you know.”
Will, half asleep and used to Wyatt snuffles into his hair. “In the best way ever, pal. In the best way ever.”
-
Will doesn’t come when Wyatt gets drafted. It makes sense, for a lot of reasons. But it kinda still sucks, not getting to do more than facetime and cheer. Wyatt’s exhausted, curled into his bed with the too bright screen light in his eyes.
”Sorry it’s so late,” Wyatt whispers. “You know how Mom likes to talk.”
Will yawns, “All good pal. Hey, you think you’ll find them? On the team?”
And Wyatt snorts. “Dude. Gave up on that a long time ago.”
Will laughs, bright and cheery and too loud for the late hour. “What, last week? You make it sound like you're like, 50 my guy.”
Wyatt laughs too, because he knows. But it’s still- “Nah, dude. I’m like, not worried about that at all. Bigger, better things, right?”
Will groans, “Please be still. You’re making me seasick.”
Wyatt stops nodding his head, and he chews his lips and studies Will’s face and blurts, “You would be here, if you could, right?”
It’s quiet for a long time, and Wyatt shifts so the phone can’t see the way he’s twitching and spasming and bobbling. It’s quiet for so long that he picks the phone back up and Will is on screen but he looks…
”You could’ve come,” Wyatt realizes. “You could’ve been here.”
It shouldn’t hurt. They’re like, friends. Friendly. Wyatt doesn’t have like, a lot of those, but.
“Sorry it’s so late,” he says and hangs up. He goes to sleep feeling something akin to dread, but somewhere along the way it shifts to a curing heat. Somewhere, phantom fingers work something inside of him and he wakes up, sated and satisfied and less upset about Will than he expected.
Will text him a few times, but Wyatt deletes them without reading them.
-
Thomas Harley stares at Wyatt’s wrists like he’s never even heard of the bands before. It’s like, really fucking annoying and unsettling.
But Wyatt hasn’t really had a lot of time to deal with like. Anything between training camps and moving and paperwork and like.
Just.
Everything.
But Thomas Harley won’t fucking stop staring, eyes bright and playfull and Wyatt stalks over to him, towel hanging loose about his waist and holds out his wrists. Strong, calloused fingers curl over the marks, twisting and turning Wyatt’s arms like he can parse out some secret Wyatt hasn't been able to his whole life and then he drops them.
“Guy, you’re the second set of bands I’ve ever seen and you’re both on this team,” and he looks so excited that it takes Wyatt way too long to process those words.
Wyatt twitches back and has to grab his towel quickly. “What?”
Because something like, one percent of the global, world wide population has bands. And like, that’s still like, eighty million people or whatever which is like, a lot. It is. It’s wild.
But Wyatt has met maybe six other people with bands in his life and that’s mostly like, support group type shit. He’s still not convinced about Will’s friend’s granddad. So the odds that he’s not the only one with bands, that there’s someone else on this planet, in this locker room?
“Ha,” he deadpans.
Tom frowns eyebrows pulling in tight. “I’m serious. Like, didn’t they tell you? About-“
Wyatt rolls his eyes and shuffles back to get dressed. “I didn’t exactly like, tell them about the bands.”
Tom lets out a noise that's half disbelieve, half scoff, and all endearing and shit. He follows Wyatt to his own stall, (his, own, stall) and stands there dripping and naked and entirely too comfortable with his dick inches from Wyatt’s face. ”But like, they should know. What if it like, you know, affects you?”
Wyatt glares at him, “What do you even mean?”
Tom squats down and it’s obnoxious enough that they’re getting looks, but Tom seems entirely unaffected. “Like, okay, guy. I read about this one pair who like, something uhm,” he cocks his head to the side the way a dog might, when they see something new. “Well she had like, a heart condition and sometimes he’d pass out from her like, arrhythmia? Is that the word? Like, I mean what if your person has like, mad fainting disease and we’re on a power play and you just like.” Tom flops backwards, sprawled out on the disgusting locker room floor. His entire dick is just like, there, soft against his thigh and Wyatt tosses his own towel over it.
“Dude, that shits all made up for the movies. It’s just like. Not like that,” Wyatt bounces around, looking for someone to rescue him from this conversation but everyone except Seguin is carefully avoiding looking at Tom who is still flopped on the floor, naked except for Wyatt’s towel.
Tom makes a wounded noise, leaning up on his elbows to stare at Wyatt. “It’s not?”
”Dude, my guy, pal,” Wyatt takes a big, deep breath, yanking a long sleeve shirt on. “One percent of the population. The chances of actually meeting someone are like, astronomical right? So like, maybe the bands were magic back when there were only 100 people but it doesn’t like. It wouldn’t- couldn’t work like that.”
Tom looks like he doesn’t believe him. Like maybe he knows that Wyatt woke up this very morning, come sticky and hot in his boxers at second hand sensations. But Wyatt stands by his statements anyway, because he’s not like. Gonna make this A Thing. He’s not gonna be that guy on the team or whatever, even if the other guy on the team is.
”One percent,” Tom agrees. “And yet there are two of you on this team.”
”Fuck off,” Wyatt sighs. “Get dressed, please. You’re making everyone uncomfortable.”
”Not me,” Seguin says, strolling by as naked as Tom and without the courtesy of Wyatt’s towel.
Wyatt watches as Tom stares after him, eyes going weird and soft and crinkly at the corners.
“Oh,” Wyatt says suddenly. “You like, could just talk to him.”
”He’s with Jamie,” Tom hisses, but he doesn’t stop staring, longing. Lusting too.
“Pretty sure that’s casual,” Wyatt mumbles because he’s like, definitely accidentally walked in on both Jamie and Seggy with other people.
Tom just shakes his head, flops back onto the floor and languishes.
“What’s casual?”
Tom and Wyatt both jerk, but only Wyatt lets out a noise that sounds vaguely like something getting caught in a rat trap. Wyatt jerks his head up, away from Tom, to stare at Roope Hintz. He’s like.
Intimidating.
Beautiful.
Glaring at Wyatt like he’s producing offensive odors. Or like, his existence is inconveniencing somehow.
“Becuase this is serious,” Roope continues. “This is hockey.”
And the conversation is so nonsensical, so out of left field that Wyatt eeps out some kind of affirmative while Tom stares at Roope like he’s the sunrise after 40 long nights.
Roope glares at him and Wyatt’s about to start babbling when Roope runs a hand through his hair and Wyatt sees the same, milky, swirl bands over his less delicate wrists.
Tom tracks this too and he grins at Wyatt like this is some super big thing. Like he’s expecting fireworks and confetti to drop from the ceiling and Roope to sweep Wyatt off his feet and like. Whatever. That’s just. That’s.
Roope catches him staring and then he gives Wyatt a dark look. “It’s not a thing. Won’t affect my play.”
”I know?” Wyatt manages to ground out. “Like, that’s not-“
But Roope is already stomping off, scowling over his shoulder as he mumbles in Finnish to Miro and Esa and then they’re all staring at Wyatt and Tom and Wyatt is like, so so sure he’s somehow stepped in something.
“Fuck.”
”Guy,” Tom says, watching the gaggle of blonds stare back, “couldn’t’ve said it better myself.”
-
There’s no hard science on what “the moment” is like for people with bands. Wyatt wasn’t kidding when he said he didn’t think most banded people ever actually met their matching set.
So. There’s not some magic moment that Wyatt’s aware of that will tell him when he’s met his person. Like, he knows, on some level, the bands will settle into something permanent. Like jewelry or a tattoo or something, but he’s not aware if it means something is like, gonna change in him. Is he going to get some full body tingle or will the world change and he suddenly realizes all his senses are muted or like. Whatever.
The point is, Wyatt has no idea how to know when he’s met his match and he doesn’t care enough to follow Tom down this weird rabbit hole he’s on. Wyatt just wants to shoot things.
“Guy! Look, okay so in,” he squints at the name of the town and then shakes his head. “Anyway they bumped hands in the grocery store and it was like full body electricity. And here,” he points to a beach off the coast of Africa. “They were like magnets, drawn to each other across the beach and it was her last day and his first but they just knew!”
”It’s on the internet, so like,” Wyatt shifts on his seat, fingers flying over the buttons and joysticks of his controller as a zombie crawls out of nowhere. “It must be true.”
Tom scowls at him.
“Do you bother Roope this much about his?” Wyatt scowls.
Tom gasps, “Do I look like I have a death wish?”
”Valid,” Wyatt sighs. The screen blacks out and Wyatt tosses his controller down and tilts his head towards Tom. “Okay, but have you asked him about his, like, at all?”
Tom, pleased to have Wyatt’s full attention and interest in this topic turns towards him, heat seeking missile towards like, a volcano. “He got them when he was around 7 and no one knew what they were at first so he went to a bunch of doctors.”
”How the hell do you know all this?” Wyatt hisses out, voice like the steam from a kettle.
Tom blinks at him, brows furrowed and says, “It’s like, public knowledge. I mean, kinda. It was in an interview from his Liiga days.”
”Stalker?” Wyatt chirps at him. “You get that, like, that’s stalker-ish.”
Tom waves a hand, dismissively, “I know all the things about all of the team. If it’s out there, I found it.”
”Why?” Wyatt eeps out. “Like, that’s, why?”
But then something ice cold washes over Wyatt and he twists, tugs at Tom’s shirt. “How much do you know about me?”
Tom shoots him a sideways glance. “Not much, guy. You’re like, shockingly not online.”
And good. Good, thats, “Cool,” Wyatt says.
Tom squints at him, then reaches up and scratches at his nose. “You got some big secret? Some secret kid out there or like, a criminal record?”
”Ew,” Wyatt says. “No kids and no crime. But ah, no. It’s just. It’s…”
The thing is, “I just. If someone out there really is gonna like, know me better than I know myself, or whatever. Someday. I just,” Wyatt picks at a loose thread on his sweats, pulling at it until it begins to unravel, creating a small hole he’ll regret tomorrow.
“I get that,” Tom says anyway. Even though Wyatt knows that wasn’t even close to a complete thought.
“Google embargo on the Wyjo,” Tom adds. He laughs at his own dumb rhyme then picks up the control. They play in silence for a while, the sun sinking so low it starts to rise once more. Tom’s half passed out, fingers pressing buttons on reflex when he mumbles out, “Roope says he’s never felt a single thing from his bands. Thinks his match doesn’t want him. Or like, died or something.”
And Wyatt has no idea if it’s true or not, but he tells Tom, “Nah, they’re out there. The bands woulda like, flaked off otherwise.”
He’s practically asleep, Tom tangled on top of him and he thinks he hears Tom say, “Cool. I’ll tell Miro and he can tell Roope.”
That night, Wyatt dreams of someone cradling him close, long lines of a warm body and he thinks maybe he’s crying, and that’s why there are fingers in his hair. But then he wakes up, and it’s just Tom, flopped half onto the floor and snoring. His own face is wet though, when he shuffles into the bathroom but he doesn’t really feel bad. It’s like, he can still feel the heat and weight of strong, familiar arms cradling him. It’s honestly so comforting he forgets to be weirded out by it.
-
Things settle, as much as they can when your entire career is roadies and time zone hopping and bruises on bruises on bruises.
But Wyatt is like, he’s doing well. Or, okay but. He’s having fun and playing better than he ever has and like.
The team is great. Pavs and Jamie coddle him sometimes. But Tom pushes him to have fun and Seggy kinda just pushes him around. And like, the Fins mostly seem to hate Wyatt for reasons he can’t understand but that’s off ice.
On ice, it’s like.
It’s magic. Passes connect and the ice is like, smooth, and.
Sure. They’re losing and winning in equal measures but it’s good. It’s like, it’s so good.
So of course it all goes wrong. Because like, that’s life, right? Wyatt isn’t even sure what causes it to happen. The game is literally nothing special. A stupid matinee after back to back passes and Wyatt’s not even playing, thanks to a weird twinge in his knee.
He’s literally just sitting on the bench, head bopping around tracking the puck, half listening to Seggy wax poetic about Harley’s ass too Harley. And then it’s like. Like. It’s not electricity, it’s not fireworks, it's not magnets.
It’s an itch, persistent and awful and burning and when he rips off his gloves and yanks up his sleeves he gasps. The abstract, milky, swirling bands he’s always lived with are different. Tighter, somehow, a brilliant green overlaid with some pearly looking substance that glitters in the too-bright lights of the stadium.
Roope passes by in that moment, focused on the puck. Then someone slams him into the boards, close enough for everyone on the bench to hear him cry out and his sleeves shift and Wyatt can see the same pearly green tight across the pale skin.
Roope looks up, finds his eyes. It’s like, just a minute. Probably not even that, probably just seconds.
But it feels so fucking long. Wyatt cannot breath, cannot move, cannot get his heart to stop jack-rabbiting out of his chest and his wrists to stop aching like he’s shoved them into an ant bed or some shit.
And then there are refs and whistles and entire teams crowding into Roope’s space and the moment is broken and Wyatt is able to press both hands over his chest to keep his traitorous fucking heart from exploding out and all over the ice.
Pretty much everyone in the stadium is focused on Roope, Wyatt included. But then, when the bubble bursts and he can look away, Tom is staring at him.
”Guy,” he says softly.
Wyatt just shakes his head, feels like his skull is too loose on his skeleton, is going to topple off at any moment and start rolling around on the ice. “Later,” he agrees quietly. “Later.”
-
Only, later doesn’t come because somehow, someway, they pull off a win in the fucking middle of the day, in the middle of bumfuck, nowhere town, Winnipeg.
“Guy!” Tom is naked, in his stall, again. “We’re going out!”
Wyatt laughs, shaking his head, “Where? It’s like,” he waves a vague hand trying to encompass the weird time of day and the empty town. “There might be like, and Olive Garden. If we’re lucky.”
Seggy shows up, slapping Tom on the ass and grinning, “Breadsticks on me.”
”They’re free?” Wyatt scoffs, high and breathy and excited. “Also, nothing on that menu is going to be on the meal plan.”
Tom squats down, so he can be more level with Wyatt’s eye line. “Guy. Buddy. Pal. We are going to celebrate winning after too many losses and having like, a full 24 hours of free time and also-“
”Meal plans are suggestions,” Seggy finishes, hands on his hips as he leers down.
Wyatt scowls at him. “I’ve seen you order, Seggy. You’re stricter than I am.”
He shrugs, “I take suggestions very well.”
Everyone laughs at that, and Wyatt throws his hands up. “Fine. Fine! But I’m eating a whole basket of breadsticks by myself.”
Because it’s Winnipeg, and because he’s Wyatt, the only outfit he really has is a cream sweater that’s maybe clean and dark jeans. It works well enough and he wets his hair and shapes it into something vaguely tamed.
He’s about to text Tom, tell him to meet him in the lobby, when it feels like there’s a hand around his cock.
Like, a real, physical, warm hand, right at the base, squeezing just right.
And like, Wyatt’s been dealing with the weird, phantom sex stuff pretty much since, well.
Well, he guess since Roope started like, having sex. Or whatever.
But this is different. This is- Wyatt can practically see the hand stroking slow and tight down his cock.
And then.
He can see the hand. When he looks in the mirror, it’s not him. “Oh fuck,” Wyatt squeaks out, horrified as he watches Miro curl himself over Roope’s back. Warm lips are on his neck, sharp teeth scraping along his pulse and fuck.
Miro’s hand, warm and slick with lube or spit or something, working Roope’s cock with practiced ease. Miro’s mouth moves, and Wyatt thinks he’s saying something but he can’t really hear it over the blood rushing in his ears.
Wyatt should close his eyes. He should like, find a way to yeet himself out of this situation, but he can’t.
For one, he- Roope- they’re both too close to the end to think straight and two, he’s not even sure how he ended up in this situation.
But then Miro does something wicked with his hand, wrists twisting like Wyatt’s seen him do his stick and Roope is cumming, head thrown back on Miro’s shoulders and eyes screwed shut and mouth open.
Wyatt, Roope, both, pant, eyes locked in the mirror and Wyatt can see it, the moment Roope realizes what just happened. He closes his eyes and it doesn’t cut the connection, exactly, because Wyatt can feel the way he turns into Miro but then the connection severs and Wyatt is standing over his own sink. He’s flushed, sweaty, a large damp patch in the front of his jeans.
Wyatt texts Tom, begs off claiming a migraine and turns the shower as hot as it will go, like he can scrub everything that just happened from his brain through his epidermis.
-
The thing is.
Wyatt cannot get Roope’s o-face out of his brain. Like. He hadn’t really, totally, seen it, exactly. But.
It’s like, seared into his brain. And it’s making things-
“Complicated,” Tom nods, all sage like.
“How did you ever convince me to tell you about it,” Wyatt whined, head tilting precariously on his spine.
”Tequila,” Tom says happily.
“Awkward,” Wyatt corrects instead of dealing with that. “Like, it’s bad enough I was,” he drops his voice to a whisper, “there. It’s really sucky that Roope knows I was there.”
”Hey,” Tom says, suddenly serious. “Hey, guy. You think Miro knows?”
Wyatt whips his head around so fast he thinks something pops the wrong way. But like, “I never even considered that.”
Like Roope knows what he and Tom are talking about, he turns towards them, icy eyes cold and sharp as they bored into Wyatt. Miro says something, and Roope answers without turning away. It makes Miro glance towards them and there’s a flush that curdles across his cheeks.
“Fuck, guy, think he knows,” Tom says. He doesn’t sound at all devastated about it, or even horrified. If anything, there’s a tinge of intrigue in his voice that makes Wyatt feel twitchy.
“No,” Wyatt groans, the noise scraping out of his throat like marbles caught in a garbage disposal.
Tom claps him on the shoulder, “Welp, it’s not like it can get worse.”
It can.
It can get so, so much worse.
-
“Tom,” Wyatt whines when he sees the scratches down his back. “Tom, we’re going to get yelled at. Again!”
”Guy,” Tom laughs. “No one thinks you’re leaving these marks on me.”
He’s wrong. Everyone does. And it's like, kinda Wyatt’s fault but mostly it’s Roope’s. Because ever since The Miro Incident, Roope has been on a mission to ruin Wyatt’s sleep and life and like. Libido.
“I told you they were taking pictures,” Wyatt scrapes out. The images of him and Tom in the aisle of a seedy Walmart in Florida comparing lube brands are still making the rounds even though everyone has clarified that it just wasn’t what it looks like.
Tom shrugs, unbothered as usual by the fact that they’re going to get another “I know you’re athletic, young, and relatively good looking but for the love of God keep the sex off your skin or find a way to cover it” talk.
Wyatt is about to complain some more, but then Seggy walks in and the bite mark on his left pec looks livid but Tom looks pleased and Wyatt?
Wyatt hates his life.
He stuffs himself into his pads and tries to keep his head down while he tapes his stick and cycles through different breathing patterns. He’s so busy counting in four beats and holding for seven that he chokes on the exhale when he realizes Roope is like.
Right. There.
“It doesn’t go both ways?” Roope bites out each word, like it is physically painful for him.
“Ah?” Wyatt manages to squeak out.
”The,” Roope glances around then waves his hands vaguely between their crotches. “It goes both ways, no?”
”Yes?” Wyatt asks. “I ah, what?”
Roope growls at him. Like, something deep in his chest curls up his throat and out from between his teeth. He scratches at the band on his wrist, stark against his tattoos, and mutters something Wyatt doesn’t understand but thinks sounds melodic and pretty anyway. “How do you turn it off? Teach me.”
”I can’t,” Wyatt speaks, finally. “I ah, don’t know how. I just uhm,” and like, fuck. It’s a million degrees here.
Roope squints at him, full narrowing of the eyes and scrunching of the brows and pursed lips and then he gets it. And. Worse, he laughs. Loudly.
Wyatt feels like he’s probably as red as the Goal lines. “Sorry we aren’t all like, comfortable with like,” and then Wyatt chokes on the final word.
“Miro,” Roope calls, then throws a flurry of words Wyatt doesn’t know at him. Surprisingly, it’s Esa who answers, and then Miro comes over and he’s staring down at Wyatt too.
”Kinda rude to talk about me when I can’t understand it,” Wyatt manages to squeak out.
“Vouyerism?” Esa finally says in English. He trips over every single vowel, looks entirely perplexed by the word, but he’s still smiling brightly at the three of them
When it’s clear no one is going to explain to Esa why they wanted that word, he shrugs and wanders away.
“I didn’t ask for it either,” Wyatt finally manages staring at his socked feet as he scuffs them across the floor. “I’m like, not trying to spy.”
Miro whistles low and slow, and Wyatt looks up to find Roope staring at him like he’d been slapped.
Roope mutters a word that Wyatt is kinda sure means bitch and storms off and Miro winces. He gives Wyatt a shrug and follows after his friend, bending his head low as they whisper together.
Jamie wanders by then, eyes glued to Tom and Seggy like he’s already regretting all of his choices. “What’s that about?”
”I have no idea?” Wyatt manages to squeak out.
Jamie frowns at him. “Fix it, please, because I cannot deal with everything.”
Wyatt nods, waiting for his head to skiphopbounce across the floor.
-
Wyatt has a plan to fix whatever weird thing is between him and Roope by like, avoiding everything.
Roope, on the other hand, is making it his personal mission to ruin Wyatt’s life. They’re literally on a plane right now. Like, a team plane, headed for Vancouver. And Wyatt was sleeping. Pretty well too, all things considered. But.
He wakes with a start, gagging on nothing. Then his eyes adjust and he’s definitely gagging on something. Something long and thick and when Wyatt opens his eyes, he’s staring up Esa Lindel’s nose through really, really nice eye lashes. The pressure in his throat lessens and Wyatt adjusts to the fact that Roope is holding onto Esa’s hips as Esa fucks into his mouth.
All in all, it’s… not unpleasant. Wyatt thinks it’s because clearly Roope knows what he’s doing, what he likes. Even though Roope is on his knees, he’s clearly in charge. When Esa tangles a hand in Roope’s long hair, Wyatt feels the tingles along his own scalp. He hums.
Roope hums.
He hums, and Esa makes some kind of grunting noise and then he’s tapping Roope’s cheek and Wyatt is thrown out of the moment and finds himself back in his own seat. He’s gasping, sweaty, and there’s a weirdly pleasant ache in his throat that’s already fading too fast.
Tom shifts beside him, mumbling something and nuzzling against Wyatt’s neck. It’s grounding, makes his heart chill out for a second while he adjusts the stupid blanket in his lap.
Wyatt hears movement, and then Esa walks past him, eyes focused on his phone. Roope comes by shortly after and he pauses above Wyatt, stands there until Wyatt glances up.
His grin is feral and predatory and he squats down so he can whisper, dick-breath hot in Wyatt’s ear, “Did you enjoy the show?”
Wyatt lets out an embarrassingly high pitched noise that's like, squeak adjacent. “Why are you like this?” He hisses out.
Roope just shrugs and shuffles towards his own seat. That’s when Wyatt notices he’s like.
He’s still hard in his pants. Roope glances back, adjusts himself, and throws another cocky grin at Wyatt before he finally settles in beside Miro, already ducking his head low to to whisper conspiratorially.
-
Wyatt, through Roope, gets fucked into a mattress by Miro after a terrible loss. He plays the next game on wobbly legs, brain replaying both the sensation of having Miro’s dick in his ass and the weird, breathy moans Roope had let out that were like. Too fucking beautiful for words.
Wyatt figures out pretty quickly that Miro, at least, knows what’s happening. Mostly because he yanks Roope by the hair hard enough to bring tears to Wyatt’s eyes, and mutters out hirii. He says some other stuff and even though Wyatt doesn’t really know the language, he gets what he’s saying.
“Come to play little mouse?”
Wyatt whines, and like. It’s definitely him. It’s not Roope. But it comes out of Roope’s mouth and Wyatt is just riding this weird wave of being fucked, fast and rough and kinda perfect, in his own bed, alone. He gets so, so close, Miro driving his cock into Roope and running his hands up his back. Wyatt can feel Roope’s orgasm building, and he’s so, so close, his hand reaching for his cock when he’s shoved out of Roope’s being.
It feels almost physical, slamming him into his sheets and leaving him gasping and whining, tears in his eyes as he realizes what just happened.
He’s not even ashamed of the gasping cries, body a live wire of tension and need with no release.
He’s finally stopped crying when someone knocks on his door sometime later and Wyatt shuffles to open it, body trembling. Roope is there, one arm braced against the door frame above his head.
“Do you like it?” Roope purrs at him.
“Fuck you,” Wyatt says. His voice comes out all cracked marble, like it does sometimes after Roope blows someone. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Roope shrugs, eyes bouncing over Wyatt’s face curiously. “You can do this too. You know this.” He taps the bands on his wrists and it makes Wyatt shiver, feels like Roope reached into his chest and touched his like. Soul, or whatever.
Wyatt doesn’t answer and Roope frowns. He taps a finger under Wyatt’s chin and tilts it up. “You can, can’t you? You know how too, yes?”
Wyatt pulls back from his touch, that strange, itchy warmth cascading over his cheeks. “Go away, Roope.” He knows he’s butchering his name, bends the vowels all wrong on purpose.
Roope shrugs. He taps three fingers to Wyatt’s band and leaves.
-
“Hey,” Wyatt mumbles to Tom, even as he tracks Roope across the ice. He winces when the puck skips off the tape the wrong way, can see the frustration in the lines of Roope’s shoulders.
“Yeah, guy?” Tom says, tracking Miro through the tangle of bodies.
“Hey so uhm,” Wyatt glances around but no one is really looking at them. “You think I’m still a virgin if all the sex I’ve had has technically been Roope’s?”
Tom blinks. He finally pulls his eyes away from the game, which sucks because it’s their shift soon, to blink at Wyatt again. Wyatt swears his ears are like, perked up. “Guy. I cannot have this conversation with you at this moment.”
Which, like, “Fair,” Wyatt grumbles.
Then he’s slipping over the boards and into the fray.
He kind of forgets about the conversation with Tom, in the midst of a game that stays too close the entire time. When they ultimately lose, a nasty backhand shot in the final seconds that no goalie could ever hope to block, Wyatt just wants to curl up in his bed and sleep for a week.
Tom grabs him though, post media and showers and before Wyatt can escape.
“Bar,” Tom says in a voice that brooks no argument.
Wyatt glances around, expecting someone else to be there but Jamie is tugging Seggy down the hall, one hand firm on the back of his neck in a way that looks both grounding and chastising. Tom stares after them for a moment, something really kicked in his expression before he shakes it off.
“Just us?” Wyatt rasps out, too tired for more.
Tom nods, “Kinda wanna see how far away those magic powers work. But also, we gotta like, talk, guy. About,” he waves his hand in the world's vaguest gesture.
”You sure you’re not avoiding the fact that Seggy’s going home with Jamie?” Wyatt snipes. He regrets it like, as soon as he says it, but it’s already out there.
Tom glares at him, “Fuck you, Guy. I’m actually on your side.”
”Sorry,” Wyatt mumbles.
The bar they go to is within walking distance, which is like, kinda sucky because its really fucking humid out. There’s a rare heat wave blasting through the town and by the time they arrive they’re both sweaty, shirts sticking to their skin. Wyatt’s like, so so sure his hair is frizzing out something horrible.
Tom manages to get them both in with a cursory flash of an ID that has to be fake, but Wyatt’s not that worried about it. He settles into a booth near the back while Tom gets them two of the cheapest beers on tap.
“Okay, so,” Tom says, sliding one over to him.
“We could get in really serious trouble for this,” Wyatt interrupts. He takes a large gulp of the beer anyway.
“Shut up, we won’t,” Tom snaps. He glances over his shoulders, but no one is really watching them. “Just don’t be stupid.”
Wyatt takes another sip, eyes skipping through the room as he waits for Tom to get back on track. It doesn’t take long.
”You’ve done stuff, right?” Tom blurts out.
“I kissed a guy once, on a dare,” Wyatt says. Tom waits, and waits some more, and then whistles.
“You’re a virgin,” he laughs. “Like, a real, true blushing virgin!”
Wyatt kicks him in the shin, hard. “Shut up. Some of us were like, really, really focused on hockey!”
Tom snorts, this horrible, honking noise. “We made it to the NHL. We’re all focused on hockey. But some of us are capable of multitasking.”
Wyatt rolls his eyes, “You’re literally pining because of your multitasking abilities.”
Tom kicks him back, and then they’re both like lost in their own thoughts for a moment.
“I could help you,” Tom finally says.
“How?” Wyatt scrunches his face up in confusion.
Tom sighs. He reaches across the table and grabs both of Wyatt’s hands, his thumbs pressing into the bands. Wyatt is a little surprised he doesn’t get that zinging feeling he gets when Roope does it but. “It would be totally as bros, but if you’re worried about skill or whatever, I could, you know.” Tom is flushed so red he almost blends in with the stupid lights in the bar.
Wyatt frowns. By the time he understands what Tom is actually offering, the world is spinning off its axis and Wyatt feels like he’s a visitor in his own body. Like, the bar is still there, stupid rough hewn tables and dumb red glow making it all look older than it is.
His mouth is moving. He can feel it moving. But he’s not saying anything. Tom’s face is going paler by the second, so pale it’s a white glow in the dark landscape. He rips his hands out of Wyatt’s but Wyatt’s hands grip his forearms.
Distantly, Wyatt knows he’s leaving marks in Tom’s arms and his own knuckles are going to hurt later.
As quickly as it had happened, Wyatt feels thrust back into his own body, the noise of the bar crashing into his ears. The table is sticky under his palms and Tom is staring at him like he’s seen his own death in vivid technicolor.
“I take my offer back,” Tom says as soon as he realizes that Wyatt’s like, back in control of himself.
”I wasn’t going to accept it anyway,” Wyatt grumbles out. “Why are you rescinding the offer?”
Tom just shakes his head. He downs the rest of his beer. “Let’s go, curfew.”
Wyatt makes a big show of glancing at his phone because they’ve been here all of thirty minutes. But Tom is shaking, and Wyatt can still see the crescent moons on his forearms.
“Okay,” he sighs. It’s somehow not the weirdest thing that's ever happened to him. Not even the weirdest night of this season. But, “I mean, you dragged me out, but okay.”
Tom pays their tab and they leave and nothing is said the entire walk back but it's like, okay or whatever. Wyatt still isn’t really sure what the stance on second hand sex is in relation to his virginal status but.
-
The season continues in a blur of bad losses and barely earned wins. Wyatt plays a good game, manages a clean goal and some wicked assists. He tries to not to let it get to him that Tom has started pulling away, but he can’t help the curl of jealousy every time Tom gets to settle in next to Miro or makes Seggy laugh so hard he snorts BioSteel out of his nose.
There’s also the issue of Roope.
Because like, Roope fucks.
A lot.
And at first it’s awkward because Roope works his way through Miro and Esa and Seggy. Wyatt gets secondhand pleasure. He gets fucked into mattresses and walls. Seggy eats out Roope and draws these noises that are so high Wyatt’s not sure they’re real.
Roope sucks dick like it’s his second job, and Wyatt’s never actually touched a dick that wasn’t his own, but he’s pretty sure he could take one all the way to the base, on muscle memory alone.
But Roope also kicks Wyatt out of his head right before he cums, every time. It leaves Wyatt in this weird limbo, desperate for an orgasm that wasn’t even his in the first place and it’s like, “It’s really fucking annoying.”
Tom glances at him with a shrug. “Is it better or worse if I tell you they all know what Roope’s doing.”
The breath Wyatt releases sounds like compressed air evacuating a helium tank and several heads turn their way. “It’s worse, it’s like, so so much worse. Why? Why is he doing that?”
Tom shrugs, “Ask him, guy.”
And like, “No. I can't."
Because for all that they’re like, magic on ice, Wyatt hasn’t really talked to Roope off it. In fact, he kind of avoids him, as much as possible. “It’s so wrong,” Wyatt sighs. “I know what he sounds like in bed, but I think he hates me. So it’s like, crossing so many boundaries. It’s like, violating or something.”
Tom snorts, “Bud, I don’t think he minds you joining in.”
Wyatt scowls, annoyed, because like, obviously Roope doesn’t or he wouldn’t fuck around so much knowing Wyatt can like. Visit. Or whatever.
“It fucking sucks,” Wyatt says. It comes out like such a petulant whine he’s embarrassed. “I hate these stupid bands.”
He doesn’t mean to say it quite as loud as he does, but he realizes, belatedly, that he kinda halfway yells it. The locker room gets quiet, and Wyatt looks up, eyes bouncing around to everyone until he sees Roope in the doorway, face carefully bland. Wyatt tries to catch his eyes, but Roope looks right past him.
”Fuck,” Tom whispers beside him.
“Uh huh,” Wyatt says back.
-
Thankfully, their season ends shortly after that. It sucks. But.
At least Wyatt is like, free.
Like, he’ll go pack up his shit and fly out tomorrow and spend a lot of time in his childhood room eating his mom’s cooking and it’ll be nice.
Only. The night before his flight, Roope pulls his shit again and it’s like, different this time.
“You’re sure he’s not there,” Tom is asking.
Roope ignores the question, sucking a mark into Tom’s neck and Wyatt can practically taste the earthy body wash and the salt on his skin. Tom shoves at their shoulders, “Roope,” Tom snaps.
It grates on Wyatt’s ears, must grate even worse on Roope’s because Tom butchers it the same way everyone else does, but somehow like, worse, for the weirdly sincere tone he uses.
“Roope, I’m not gonna be another like, whatever. Pawn in your weird and fucked up courtship,” Tom is breathless, panting, and Wyatt can feel the wiry skins across his abdomen under Roope’s palm.
He’s yeeted, kind of violently, before that hand slips lower and it leaves him with a migraine.
Wyatt’s not sure if he’s mad at Tom for hooking up with Roope or made at Roope for trying to use Tom that way or like. Mad at himself for even caring. For being in this stupid, fucking up situation to begin with. It doesn’t really matter who it’s aimed at though, because Wyatt’s rage burns out as quickly as it had sparked and he falls asleep, with tears on his cheeks, his stupid, cursed bands cupped in his own palms.
-
The first few weeks at home are awesome. His mom hugs him close when she picks him up and Quinn and Austin mostly don’t mock his game.
“I’m just-“
Wyatt flicks a pea at Quinn and nails him square between the eyes and they’re all laughing.
Then, all of their phones go off at once and it startles them enough that they all reach for it.
Wyatt’s mom speaks first, “Oh, honey. You never said.”
Wyatt can’t speak around the lump in his throat as he stares at the article.
Dallas Stars: Is their tentative success skill, or fate?
And he knows. He can tell by the picture that Roope probably has no idea this is happening. He’s probably on a beach somewhere or like, asleep in Finland with no idea that someone, somehow has managed to not only get pictures of both of their bands, but to somehow like. He’s not even sure.
Roope has never really worried about his bands being exposed. He fields questions about them, ignores them outright with pushier reporters, but he’s never seemed to care one way or the other if people knew.
But Wyatt? Wyatt was always careful. Like, there was nothing he could do in the showers, really. But, Wyatt zooms in on the picture, trying to figure out when someone could’ve caught him like that, sleeves pulled up and those stupid fucking green pearly bracelets on display.
It doesn’t matter. Not really. Because like, “It’s not like that,” Wyatt whispers to his family. “Me and Roope-“ he shakes his head.
His mom comes and hugs him from behind and he can hear his dad already making calls, already tracking down the reporter but like. None of it matters.
“It shouldn’t change anything,” Wyatt tells his family. He’s not crying. He’s not, even if his throat is like, kinda scratchy and his eyes are kinda watery. “We aren’t even like that or anything.”
It’s like, like Wyatt can hear his whole family’s heart breaking. And then he breaks.
At some point, he becomes aware of Roope trying to bulldoze his way into Wyatt’s consciousness and he still hasn’t figured out how all of this works. Which, like, he’s realizing is on him, for not even trying, but he does not. He figures out a way to shutter his like, soul or whatever. Kick Roope out and lock the metaphorical door.
It just sucks, later, when Roope is fucking some faceless twink in the club, that Wyatt can’t quite figure out how to pull himself out. He keeps waiting for Roope to do it, expecting Roope to blow him out before the big finale like he always does.
Instead, he witnesses Roope like, fail. Roope ends up stumbling away from the twink. Ends up at the sink, staring at his own reflection. He says something but it’s loud, even in the bathroom and Wyatt still only knows like, two words in Roope’s mother tongue.
“Go the fuck away,” Wyatt says out loud, and he knows Roope hears it when he’s gentle forced back into the silence of his own mind. Wyatt keeps his phone on silent the whole summer long, and he doesn’t quite scrounge up guilt for ghosting his team.
-
Wyatt gets back to the AAC earlier than he wanted to but later than management had argued for.
Roope is already there, along with some new rookie. Wyatt watches them dick around on the ice, snowing each other and laughing. For a moment, he lets the jealousy curdle in his gut, even tries to push it at Roope for a moment because that could’ve been them.
Roope stutters on his blades for a moment, head twisting towards Wyatt. He looks like he wants to wave, or come over, but then the new guy, Maverick Bourque says something and Roope is distracted.
Wyatt turns from the ice and heads towards the conference room. Towards a meeting with men in suits who are going to ask him invasive questions he’ll only half listen too.
“It didn’t affect us last year, it won’t affect us this year,” Wyatt repeats over and over.
He says it so many times at some point he’s not even sure if that’s the question they’re asking anymore.
They finally let him go and on his way out, Wyatt slams into the new guy, Maverick.
“Call me Borqy!” He says, hand extended and eyes bright and earnest.
Wyatt squints at him, then takes his hand with a slow smile. “Wyatt. Welcome.”
Borqy flushes and his hand lingers and Wyatt thinks, this year is going to be different.
-
It’s different, and it’s not.
Tom shuffles up to him, and he looks like he’s waiting for Wyatt to like, hit him or something, but.
Wyatt sticks his hand out for Tom to dap him up and he pulls him into a hug and they’re cool. They’re chill.
“Thanks for not making me watch,” Wyatt whispers in his ear.
“Duh, guy. I’ve got you,” Tom says.
Wyatt doesn’t ask if he followed through with Roope and Tom doesn’t tell him but it doesn’t matter. They dick around on their ice until they get yelled at and it’s cool. It’s fine.
Everything is like, chill.
Except.
Roope keeps trying to push into Wyatt's psyche, and it’s disconcerting. Throws him off balance. Makes the bands on his arm itch like fire and makes his head kinda hurt.
They’re playing against the Flames and it’s going fine or whatever, except.
“Dude, chill,” Tom slaps a hand down on Wyatt’s thigh, where he’s bouncing the whole bench. “It’s gonna be okay.”
Wyatt mumbles something out, pressing his fingers to his inner eye. Roope skates by and Wyatt’s not sure what compels him to but he reaches out and taps against the bands peeking through his sleeve and Roope stumbles.
He turns, eyes wide as he stares at Wyatt and like.
It’s only a second. Too fast to even catch them on the jumbotron, but it feels like a minute. Like a year. Like a fucking life time and then Roope is off, skating after the puck like Wyatt hadn’t bothered him at all.
Tom glances at him, and so does Miro when he slams into the bench.
”Sorry,” Wyatt tells them both, even though he doesn’t know why he’s apologizing at all.
Miro just pats him on the knee and that’s that. Everything is fine again.
-
Except, it’s not fine again. Because Tom is still Wyatt’s friend and Seggy and Jamie are still whatever the hell they are and Miro and Esa and Roope are this unbreakable wall of big and beautiful and foreign.
And now there’s Borqy who follows Roope like he hung the stars, whose like, so authentic and exuberant that Wyatt can’t help but fall into his orbit.
And.
There’s also Roope, who is still a real fucker, blowing Miro in the bathroom of the jet and fucking Esa in the showers.
He doesn’t really seem to do much with Borqy, aside from flirt with him. But every time they’re not on the ice, Roope is shoving into Wyatt’s existence and forcing Wyatt to live vicariously through him.
Wyatt tries to keep his walls up, pushes against Roope’s presence in his mind until he feels crazy with it.
“Guy,” Tom tells him one evening. They’re sitting outside of a Chipotle, burrito bowls. mostly empty as they watch the sun set. “This isn’t working.”
”What?” Wyatt startles, head spinning towards Tom. “What are you ah, talking about? We’re on a winning streak?”
And it’s true. They’re like, on fire. Maybe not quite the top of their game yet, maybe a year or two away, but they’re doing well.
”You’re,” Tom waves a hand at Wyatt. “You’re like, too skinny. And tired. Whatever is going on between you and Roope, its like, it’s fucking with everyone.”
Wyatt blinks at him. He bounces his leg and lets his eyes jump around the space and then he says, “You mean it’s like, fucking with your ability to fuck Miro?”
Tom rears back, frowning, “Hey. No.”
”Cause Miro straight up told Roope, or like, me, maybe,” Wyatt begins but Tom slaps a hand over his mouth.
“No. Shut up. Shut the fuck up,” and Tom’s like, genuinely angry now. A dog with it’s hackles raised, teeth bared. “I don’t want to know what the fuck goes on between Roope and Miro and you. You said you didn’t like the exhibitionist aspect and I respected that. I’m asking you to respect it back, for me.”
And Wyatt deflates, nods. “Sorry. Sorry. Just,” he scrapes a nail over a rough patch of whatever, like, vinyl on the table. “If it helps, Miro’s pretty much out of the rotation.”
And Tom deflates a little, kicks at Wyatt’s ankles gently.
They’re chill again, just like that.
Wyatt thinks back to Miro, pushing at Roope’s face and telling him, “I’m not doing this anymore Roope. I’m not throwing something away for your games.”
-
Three things happen the night they fly to Denver.
The Stars lose to the Avs even though Roope and Wyatt each manage a decent goal. It sucks, enough to make them all feel like shit.
Wyatt watches everyone trudge into the visitors locker room, heads hung low and he thinks, at least no one is scoring anymore tonight.
Except like, he’s wrong. He’s so, so wrong. Because just as Wyatt is drifting off to sleep, Maverick Bourque is whining in his ear.
Wyatt rockets up so hard in bed he half expects Roope to topple off Borqy but Roope barely even reacts. He keeps rocking his hips down, and Wyatt realizes that they’re just like, it’s just-
Roope has his big hand around both of their cocks and he’s setting the pace, nipping and sucking at the thing skin over Borqy’s collarbone and Wyatt hates him. He hates him so much.
Because like, is Borqy even aware? Does he know that Roope is just doing this to fuck with Wyatt because he’s like, cruel? Wyatt keeps waiting for Roope to expel him, like he always does.
But Roope doesn’t, he mouths at Borqy’s skin and he jerks them off and when he comes, he stares at a reflection above Borqy’s bed and Wyatt watches him come, feels the hot, sticky release of both of them over Roope’s palm.
Roope keeps staring, until Wyatt is the one to find a way to break the connection, to yank himself out of Roope’s mind.
He pants, fury and shame and something kinda like heartbreak coiling in his gut. Which.
He’s barely ever even liked Roope. Admired him, sure, but Roope’s never done anything but mock him and tease him so why should this cut? Why does Wyatt care that Roope chose Borqy?
He does. He cares so much that he pulls on a pair of jeans and a grey henley and he walks to the bar that Tom had sent him earlier.
Most of his team is gone but it doesn’t matter. Wyatt’s not looking to hang out. He’s looking to get drunk and like.
”Wanna fuck?”
Wyatt spins on his stool, squinting one eye as he tries to decide if he's, like, drunk or something. “Me?”
Nate MacKinnon leers down at him and shrugs. “Don’t see anyone else around.”
Which is like, absolute bullshit. Wyatt proves this by swinging his head back and forth, eyeing all of the men and women crowding the space around them.
Nate laughs, and Wyatt kinda likes the jangly, keys against wood sound of it.
He tips the beer he’d been nursing back, swallows every last drop, and lets Nate fucking MacKinnon get them an uber.
-
Wyatt is, technically, still pretty much a virgin.
He doubts MacKinnon knows this, because it turns out, Wyatt’s pretty good at stealing Roope’s moves off the ice. He nips at Nate’s lip in the car, licks into his mouth and runs his hands over the firm muscles of his abdomen.
”Fuck, kid,” Nate hums into his jaw. “At least let us get inside, eh?”
Wyatt lets himself be tugged out of the sedan and into a home he resolutely does not study. He keeps his eyes on Nate’s face, trying to decide if he’s attractive or if Wyatt’s just tipsy enough not to care.
He can feel Roope, on the fringes of his consciousness, and ultimately, it doesn’t matter.
Because Wyatt slides down Nate’s body and undoes his pants. And he knows how Roope sucks dick, knows how he likes his sucked. Wyatt’s tipsy enough that when he looks up through his lashes, he can pretend that Nate’s hair is bleached blond and his eyes are less summer blue and more ice blue.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Nate grunts when Wyatt doesn’t hesitate. Just sinks down and takes him as far down his throat as he can physically manage.
Which, given that this is like, Wyatt’s first real dick, is pretty far and pretty impressive. He hums, pleased with himself, and doesn’t stop to think about how fucked up it is to let Roope in, to take Roope along for this ride.
-
Wyatt wakes up in Nate MacKinnon’s bed, sore and sticky and full of something acrid.
He twists his head, and Nate’s still asleep, so that’s not what woke him up. The moon still shines through the window, blinds forgotten. Wyatt waits, and then he hears someone knocking and this isn’t his house.
He shouldn’t be here.
But he knows.
So he goes to the door and opens it and isn’t at all surprised when Roope’s fist collides with his nose.
“Fuck,” Wyatt groans.
“Oops,” Roope says. “I did not think it would be you who answered the door.”
Wyatt laughs at that. He can’t stop himself. It comes up from some dusty place inside of him and spills out in a gritty, squealing sound and it spills over until it doesn’t really resemble laughter anymore. “You really drove out here to punch Nate MacKinnon in the face.”
Roope shrugs, sheepishly, shaking out his hands.
“You’re a fucking piece of work,” Wyatt sighs. But he steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him. “Did you uber?”
”No, I walked,” Roope deadpans. He leads Wyatt towards a dark suburban and they climb into the back seat. They don’t talk.
Wyatt, because he’s kind of still holding his face together and Roope because… well, who even knows, really. They get back to the hotel and as they’re entering, Roope reaches for Wyatt, for those stupid, cursed fucking bands that shine pearly and green on both their wrist.
It’s just a second. Just the briefest brush of warm, calloused fingers but it feels like a lifetime. An eternity. It’s like, he can feel Roope’s finger pads over his wrist and he can feel his own skin under that pressure and he can feel all the swirling things Roope doesn’t have the English to say, but none of it matters.
“None of it matters,” He tells Roope.
Roope lets him go like Wyatt burned him.
Maybe he did.
They go their separate ways and in the morning, when everyone asks what happened to his face, Wyatt lies. “It was dark and I tripped over my shoes. Not even sure what I hit.”
Obviously no one believes him.
But no one challenges him either.
-
Whatever magic they had for their brief winning streak dissipates somewhere around the time they lose in Denver and Wyatt decides its a grand idea to fuck the opposition. The Stars limp through the rest of the season, eking out a win here and there and it’s the worst kind of slow season death.
Because it’s not like anyone is playing bad. Or that the injuries, numerous as they are, are not enough to explain the way the Stars burn out. Individually, they’re all kinda rocking, actually.
But there’s some rotten undercurrent of like, tension coursing through them. Some magnetic pulse that vibrates at the core of their team and everyone knows it’s all because of Roope and Wyatt.
Tangentially, Miro and Borqy and Tom, maybe, but at the core? It’s the two fucking banded players who can’t really sort their shit out.
At least, that's what the head line reads when Wyatt’s plane lands at YYZ and his phone has service again.
Bands of Fate to Blame for Stars’ Burnout?
It’s like, a dumb as fuck headline. Makes negative sense and isn’t even attention grabbing but somehow it still cuts Wyatt to the core. He shuts down his phone as soon as he figures out where to meet his brothers and he acts like he hasn’t seen it when they pull him into a too-tight hug.
He keeps his phone on do not disturb for pretty much all of summer, pretending he’s like, entirely normal. That he’s just a college kid on a summer break and the stupid bands on his arms are a bad tattoo he’ll get removed in his thirties.
He resolutely ignores the pinging at the edges of his consciousness, and Roope doesn’t push too hard.
For once, he really almost does feel entirely normal.
-
Somewhere towards the middle of July, Wyatt wakes up disoriented. He’s in his own bed, he thinks, but he’s not him. Not like, exactly. Wyatt’s chest constricts like he’s been crying but when he touches his face he realizes it’s dry.
Roope, he realizes.
Wyatt fishes around for his phone and turns off do not disturb. His phone pings for a solid five minutes before he can get to Roope’s name.
He hovers his thumb for a while, and then he presses call.
The phone rings and rings, and then goes to voicemail. Wyatt hangs up. Shoots off a text and rolls over.
He falls asleep surprisingly easy, all things considered, and when he wakes up he feels somehow lighter. He checks his phone and Wyatt grins when he sees the thumbs up emoji from Roope, answering his u gud?
That’s how their truce goes. Roope may or may not hook up, but he keeps it out of Wyatt’s brain.
Wyatt dicks around with his brothers, trains some, and texts Roope every time he wakes up in his own bed, feeling like he’s someone else. It’s not always like, depressing, when he wakes up.
Sometimes it’s just restless energy. Or like, Wyatt’ll wake up to the taste of mint and tobacco and he’ll flick Roope off via emoji.
It’s growing on you
Wyatt leaves him on read for three days.
He’s not wrong though.
The weird half truce they have going carries all the way through the end of their break and Wyatt tries not to let his trepidation show. His mom hugs him at the airport.
“Give him a chance, yeah?” She whispers in his ear.
Wyatt doesn’t answer her. He breathes a little easier and somewhere in the back of his mind Roope relaxes some, and Wyatt pockets that.
-
Wyatt is one of the first to arrive, and he takes time to circle the rink, enjoying the crisp, cold air, fake as it is. He feels it, when Roope arrives. Some weird jiggling thing in the back of his consciousness that kinda makes his skin itch.
Tingle, actually.
Wyatt can’t really remember the last time his bands itched. Wyatt takes another slow loop, coming to an easy stop in front of the tunnel, where Roope is balanced against his stick.
Roope stares at him for a long moment, and then he sticks his hand out.
“Hello,” he says casually, voice lilting and soft, “I’m Roope.”
Wyatt furrows his brows at him, but he takes the hand and shakes it. “Wyatt,” he says slowly.
Roope lets the hold linger, maybe for a second, maybe for an hour and then he drops it, a grin playing at the edges of his lips, even as his eyes bore into Wyatt’s with a heady seriousness.
”I saw you, when you first arrived,” Roope says softly. “Saw your bands.”
Wyatt stiffens, all of the twitchy, nervous energy normally bouncing off of him stuffed into the jack-rabbiting of his heart. He presses a palm over it, trying to keep it inside of him, watches as Roope lays his palm over the back of Wyatt’s hand.
And Wyatt remembers Roope, standing above his stall while Tom laid flat and naked under his towel. He remembers the weird, nonsensical conversation, and how offended Roope had seemed.
“You didn’t seem ready,” Roope answers an unspoken question. Before they can continue, Tom’s laugh bounces down the tunnel.
Roope sighs, staring ahead. “I liked your friend better when he wanted Seguin.”
Wyatt laughed, marbles in a disposal, and shakes his head. “Miro’s better for him. Seggy is too chaotic, to exuberant. Miro anchors him.”
Roope tilts his head consideringly.
Then Tom comes into view, Miro close behind and there’s no more time to talk.
-
There’s something beautiful, about the way the team is clicking. In practice, in games.
It’s not totally translating to wins across the boards or anything. But they do score more goals than previously, do make some pretty plays.
Wyatt even scores a clean hat trick, and it's like, pure instinct to find Roope in the cells, let him pull him in close.
The bands tingle a lot more these days, and when Roope is on the ice, looks like he’s floundering, Wyatt will brush his fingers over the pearly green and it’s like he can feel Roope relaxing.
Sometimes it’s Wyatt floundering on the ice. Skin crawling and heart pingponging and then there’s a feather light brush across his bands and something in him settles. It’s nice.
Tom slams onto the bench, bumping into Wyatt roughly. “Guy,” he says around his mouth guard. “You guys work things out, finally?”
Wyatt squeaks at him, elbowing him hard until he pushes at Wyatt and then Jamie is glaring at them both. “I don’t know,” Wyatt admits. “It’s better, at least.”
Tom nods, chews his mouth guard some more and yells as their guys skate by. “Miro says he didn’t go out much at all this summer.”
Wyatt glares at him, “I ah, appreciate you trying to help, but don’t. There’s certain things that just,” Wyatt shakes his head. “If Roope wanted me to know, he’d tell me, okay?”
Tom raises a placating hand and then shrugs. “Not sure he knows he’s allowed to, with how effectively you’ve shut him out.”
And like, they’re playing really really well so this is, objectively, a terrible fucking time for this conversation.
“I don’t control it as well as he does,” Wyatt admits. “He’s choosing this as much as I am.”
Tom gives him that look, again, head cocked and eyes all squinty. He looks like he’s going to say something but then Miro drops down beside him, one hand heavy across Tom’s shoulders and they have this whole conversation with just their eyes.
And like, a lot of Tom’s other facial features, but.
“Roope and I are banded but you two have the telepathy,” Wyatt snorts.
-
The problem with things going well is that, at some point, balance has to be restored.
It just kinda fucking sucks that it happens in Denver.
Wyatt isn’t on the ice when it happens, but he watches Nate fucking MacKinnon cross check Roope, watches Roope go down.
He waits for him to get back up, waits for someone else to see what he sees. He touches the bands on his wrists, each hand twisting around it and Roope finally manages to get up. But something’s like, really, really not okay. When Wyatt knocks at that weird, mental door, Roope tries to keep him out.
But Wyatt can feel the pain even through the barrier and he turns towards Tom, “It’s bad.”
Tom nods back, watching as Roope gets led down the tunnel. “You know how bad?”
Wyatt shakes his head. Shuts down any thoughts of it so they can finish the game. They win, brutal and vicious and when Wyatt passes MacKinnon in the hand shake line, he doesn’t reach out.
MacKinnon raises a brow, leans in close and whispers, “No repeat performances I guess.”
Wyatt’s pretty sure he’d like, get banned from hockey for life if he tries to fight him right now. He skates past him, digging his nails into the bands on his wrists and waiting for any kind of after-image sensation coming from Roope.
-
Roope is out for the next four games and it’s absolutely the worst experience of Wyatt’s life.
Which.
Like, part of it is just skill. Roope is good. Worked hard to get his spot and maybe he’s not like, the glue that Miro is, or the like, tension reliever that Tom and Seggy are, but he’s a quiet kind of vital.
Borqy plops into the seat next to Wyatt, knocking his knee against his. He mumbles something in French Québécois and Wyatt leans closer. Borqy repeats himself.
”You play better when Hine is here,” Borqy repeats.
“I’m playing fine,” Wyatt huffs.
“Yes,” Borqy agrees. “Fine. But you’re distracted.”
Borqy shifts, touches his own wrists and Wyatt glances, half expecting some kind of marking there. Borqy shakes his head, “Not me. But I get it. Roope will be back.”
“And then what?” Wyatt lets out. He doesn’t mean too, but it squeaks right on past the clench of his teeth.
Borqy grins, bright and believing and confident. “You guys will figure it out,” he says, like it's easy.
Somehow, Wyatt believes him.
-
Somehow, when they get back to Texas, they have like, back to back days off, with an optional skate in the middle.
Wyatt is half tempted to sleep through the entirety of the first day, but then he gets this niggling in his gut that propels him out of bed and into the shower. He can’t shake the weirdness of the sensation, so he follows it out of his house and down to the rink. Roope is there, dressed down, skating in slow, lazy circles.
Sometimes, Wyatt feels like he knows Roope inside and out.
Sometimes, Roope pulls a move on the ice, something graceful and swooping and Wyatt realizes that it’s been like, 2 and a half seasons and despite this stupid fucking band bond, he hasn’t really gotten to know Roope at all.
Roope does some kind of like, gliding spin and ends up in front of Wyatt, one brow cocked. “I didn’t mean to,” he says immediately.
Wyatt shakes his head, “Yeah, no. I ah, think it was me, this time. I was worried.”
He doesn’t mean to let it out, but it just kind of squeaks past his lips and he flushes, ducking his head down and trying to keep it on his neck.
“About me?” Roope crowds into Wyatt’s space, eyes intense.
“Ah?” Wyatt bleeps.
“We’re you worried about me?” Roope demands.
“The team,” Wyatt manages. Roope steps off the ice, backs Wyatt into the wall. “Worried about the team,” Wyatt says, clearing his throat. It still ends up screeching like metal on metal.
“I was worried about me too,” Roope tells him. Then he grins at Wyatt, smug and confident and Wyatt chokes on a laugh, Roope crowds so far into his space that Wyatt ends up leaning back into him. Roope catches him by the wrist, fingers warm against those stupid fucking bands, but for once, Wyatt’s really not concerned about them at all.
“We’re better with you,” Wyatt finally admits, annoyed. “Like, you’re really just one cog in our machine, but,” he kicks Roope’s ankle lightly, knows he can't feel it through the boot anyway. “Whatever. It’s just better.”
Roope rolls his eyes and Wyatt kinda gets the feel it's because of his idiom. “It is okay to admit you miss me.”
”Fuck you,” Wyatt tries to say it confidently, but it kind of comes out high and breathy.
And then it kind of doesn’t matter at all how it came out, because Roope kisses him. And it's like. So much fucking better than the second hand shit Wyatt was getting before. Because now, he can feel the rough scrape of Roope’s lips and the sharp tickle of his goatee. He feels the slight tremor in Roope’s hands, the strange hesitation in Roope’s heartbeat.
And like, when it was before, when he was stuck getting everything second hand, it’d been overwhelming. He’d never even dreamed to consider the way it would taste to lick the remnants of the chew from Roope’s teeth and how it's like, never going to be his favorite flavor, but it’s also not the worst thing he’s ever experienced.
“Oh,” Wyatt hums when Roope finally lets him breathe again. “Wow.”
Roope laughs at him, but it’s different this time. Softer. More wonder filled. The moment could last a second. Just one, measly little second. But it’s so terribly fucking long and full of so muc h promise and its like.
”It’s kind of like that moment, just before the puck drops,” Wyatt whispers to Roope, as if Roope has been tracking his weird internal monologue. Maybe he has been.
“Shut up, hirii. You think too much. Just enjoy the moment.”
Wyatt snorts but he leans into the kiss anyway and it’s even better this time.
-
In the end, they still lose more games than they win, but the season doesn’t die out quite as dismally as before. But Wyatt kinda finds that as disappointing as it is, he’s not all that disappointed.
“Don’t tell the others that,” Roope snorts beside him.
Wyatt pokes him in the side, relishing in the way Roope shivers. They’re not headed to Toronto. Or to Nokia.
The beach they’re headed to is somewhere in the Maldives, a place neither of them had visited. They’ll see their families later, and worry about all of that after two weeks of just… them.
“Is it weird that we’re like, going on vacation together before we sort things out?” Wyatt asks once the plane is in the air.
Roope glances at him dismissively, then goes back to whatever fucking bubble game he has on his phone. “We do everything out of order. This is no different.”
Wyatt laughs, because it's just. It’s such a stupid answer. But it fits, too.
“Tom asked how big your dick was once,” Wyatt blurts instead of something sensical. Something like, appropriate.”
And Roope winces, and Wyatt winces because, “Right.”
”We didn’t,” Roope tells him. “He’s surprisingly loyal. Like retriever.”
And Wyatt can’t help but picture the way he cocks his head and squints one eye and he nods. “Yeah, but a good one.”
Roope grins and taps his finger over the band, tracing the shimmering pearl reflection across the green and it’s just a second.
Just one, single second, but it feels like it last forever and ever and Wyatt kind of really never wants it to end, at all.
Just before he falls asleep, Wyatt has a thought. “Hey, if one of us passes out, do you think the other will?”
Roope snorts. “Did your finger break when mine did? No? I think you listen to Tom too much. Be quiet. Enjoy where we are at and don’t worry about the rest.”
Wyatt does, sinking down to tuck his face into the crook of Roope’s neck, confident that Roope has him. That it’ll all work out. Someway, somehow.