card marked; ticket punched || h/eated r/ivalry 🏒 || t/roy x h/arris → [1/3]
→ hiiiiii! so i've been needing some medical-grade copium after the pens got booted out of the play-offs, so this is what i've been doing with my time. these two are both so dear to me and i'm having a real moment with them so i had to do it to 'em (make one of them — later, both of them — sick) <3 → part 1 of 3.
As was the case for pretty much every communications manager walking the earth, it was easy for Harris to feel like his work was never truly done. That there was always more, more, more he could be doing.
Still riding the high of the winning game they’d practically just jumped off the ice from, the general mood among the boys scattered throughout the plane was jubilant, if slightly muted by the exhaustion that came after a string of back to back away games.
Some were taking some time to themselves, headphones on and actively tuning the rest of the crowd out. Some were sleeping. Some were chatting animatedly amongst themselves – still keyed up with the buzz of post-game adrenaline. At the four seater table directly behind Harris, Wyatt had pulled Bood, Ilya – and Shane by extension – into an extremely high stakes poker tournament, playing with a mix of sour patch kids, peanut M&Ms, and mini salted pretzels as chips.
Harris couldn’t help but chuckle when he overheard Ilya reassure Shane that, don’t worry — he’d eat whatever Shane ended up winning.
Wyatt must’ve known that their captain needed a distraction, because Wyatt’s just a sweetheart like that.
It’d been a bittersweet victory for Ilya tonight, winning in Boston – his old barn – to a chorus of boo’s and a torrent of abuse thrown his way pretty much any time he so much as touched the puck, by the same notoriously passionate fans that used to scream themselves hoarse cheering him on. The fans that had been proud to have ‘Rozanov’ emblazoned on the back of so many of their jerseys. He’d shrugged it off and been cracking jokes all night, pretending it hadn’t affected him, but for those with eyes to see, it had evidently worn at him. On the bus from the arena to the airport, and for the first half of the flight, he’d been sullen and unnaturally reserved.
It was a high stakes game with ‘must win’ media narratives attached on both sides. For the Centaurs, a crucial two points on offer to bring them within striking distance of clinching a play-off spot after a difficult loss in Pittsburgh at the start of their road trip. For the Raiders, a crucial two points needed to simply stay in play-off contention at all.
The Cens’ 4-2 win ended up securing the Raiders’ elimination from the play-off race.
God, no wonder the guys are tired.
Hell, Harris was feeling tired enough himself just watching on, covering it online. It was all worth it in the end, though, as they were going home with four points out of a possible six and needed just two more overall to finally get the ‘X’. One more win. Preferably at home, in front of their own fans, at their next game on Saturday night.
Tuning out the chatter and activity around him, Harris refocused his attention on his laptop screen, balancing on the tray table in front of him, the raw, ‘behind the scenes’ video footage from across the multi-day trip freshly uploaded onto into his Premiere Pro workspace.
He’d started these sort of multi-day, mini travel vlog style clip compilations a while ago now, and the fans had grown to love them. Really, they ate up any chance to get to know the guys beyond the rink and get a peek behind the curtain – Harris knew how that felt, given that he’d been one of them, growing up. Not to blow his own, or any of the rest of his team’s trumpet, but secretly liked to think that using their social media channels to break down a bit of that barrier between players and fans, showcase these guys’ personalities, had helped contribute to the Centaurs’ growth as a franchise. One silly TikTok meme trend video and silly questionnaire at a time.
Honestly, the team had become like Harris’s second family. They’d accepted him unconditionally, no questions asked. And as someone who grew up loving hockey, someone who the sport helped through some really tough times, but was essentially told by the culture at large that being gay put him at odds with that world and made him unwelcome within it, he’d never expected to be able to have… this. That family atmosphere, the healthy locker room environment they’d cultivated, was a major USP and it was something Harris loved so much about the team and about doing this job. He wanted to capture that; make it part of their brand.
They had a much-needed day off tomorrow, and technically, he could probably push the editing to Tuesday, but who knew what else could be sitting on his desk, or in his inbox, that he’d also have to deal with by then? No, it was easier to just lock in, do it now, and schedule it to post so he could forget about it. No matter the jealousy he felt creeping in that all the other guys were able to kick back and relax; their jobs done.
Exactly, Harris. They did their jobs tonight and won. So stop whining, even inside your own head, about having to do yours and just get on with it.
God, dinner felt like it’d been years ago at this point. Maybe he was a little hangry.
If he was being honest with himself though, it had probably more to do with the fact that he’d been feeling a bit icky ever since they took off. They’d dimmed the cabin lights to allow people to sleep, so the glow of the laptop screen was starting to make his eyes ache. Combine that with the weariness from the general lack of sleep accumulated over the previous few days, the recycled air drying out his throat, and the cabin pressure messing with his sinuses, making them thick and sore, and he’d admit he was definitely not the happiest camper.
But that wasn’t anyone else’s fault, so he should probably just keep to himself and not make his, admittedly rare, moodiness anyone else’s problem. He just needed to get back on solid ground, curl up in his boyfriend’s (magnificently toned) arms, in their own bed, and get a good, long sleep.
He only got as far as reviewing the first video file from the massive collection he’d just dumped into the software, when he caught movement in his peripheral vision. Speak of the devil…
He turned to find Troy hanging over the vacant aisle seat beside him, drawn back to him from wherever he’d been off goofing around with some of the few other guys that remained awake. He’d scored the go-ahead goal that led to the win tonight, a nasty 90mph wrister that Boston’s goalie had wrongly anticipated he’d pass to the centre where Ilya was deceptively tapping for it. Harris could’ve burst with pride uploading Troy’s individual ‘goal’ gif. Tonight’s first star, it’d clearly left him a little too buzzed to sleep.
Harris removed an AirPod.
“Hey…” Troy trailed off, eyes lingering expectedly on the empty seat. “Can I sit, or do you want to be left alone while you’re working?” As if to sweeten the deal, he brought his hand round from where it’d been hanging behind him out of sight, producing a can of Coke Zero and a little bag of salted pretzels. “I’m not above bribery.”
Despite his mood, Harris couldn’t help but smile. Turns out that’s just kind of one of Troy’s love languages – bringing him stuff, namely his favourite beverages and snacks.
Harris would bet he was some kind of retriever in a past life. “Of course, go for it.”
Before Troy could even move to sit down though, after another painful swallow, Harris caught himself. “Actually, wait! Before you sit down, while you’re on your feet, would you mind grabbing me a tea from one of the stewardesses, please?”
Troy glanced towards the back of the plane where said stewardesses, looking amused but almost as tired as the team they were serving, were unfortunately stuck in a conversation with a couple of well-meaning, but ultimately immature, rookies who seemed like they were trying to charm them in some way. Okay, a rescue mission as well. His mouth twitched into a smile.
“Sure, what kind?”
“Preferably green if they have it, but if not, really anything will do so long as it’s hot. And wet.”
The innuendo somehow flew right over Troy’s head. “You’re cold?”
Harris shrugged. “It’s always a little chilly on airplanes, right?”
Troy appeared to accept that as a valid answer, nodding before he went to go and retrieve the tea. By the time he came back, the steaming little cardboard cup looking particularly tiny in his rather large hand, Harris had given in and pulled a little bottle of aspirin out of his bag, shaking two pills out into his hand to wash down with the Coke Zero.
“What’s hurting?” Troy asked, brow now furrowed as he slid into the aisle seat.
“Just my head a little bit.” Harris waved it off dismissively. “Too many late nights on the road.” It felt a little bit silly complaining about being exhausted to someone who tended to wrack up over 20 minutes of ice time a night, on top of the same travel schedule Harris was experiencing, only even more frequently.
The travelling didn’t usually bother Harris this much, though. And with that, a tiny, foreboding niggle of doubt embedded itself. Troy’s questions were only making him feel a little more nervous as well. Stacking the chilliness on top of the tiredness…
On top of the sore throat on top of the sinus issues…
Troy handed Harris off the tea, making himself comfortable, oblivious to his boyfriend’s held-off, but impending, doom spiral. He leaned slightly into Harris’s side as he returned to his work, one AirPod still out, and hooked his chin over Harris’s shoulder, watching the screen. Although Troy impeded the full range of motion in his left arm, he was a welcome weight; a welcome warmth. Flush with a sudden affection, and with his fingers still warm from holding the hot cup, Harris curled his fist and brought them up to stroke Troy’s cheek. He basically melted into his touch.
“What’cha doing?” Troy eventually asked, his voice soft and syrupy slow.
Harris switched the tabs quickly between his editing software, the Centaurs’ Twitter page, and their Instagram account. “Just editing my little behind the scenes ‘DITL’s and replying to some comments.”
Troy looked confused, and Harris let out a chuckle.
“‘DITLs’? Now you’re making up words just to confuse me.”
Harris barked out a laugh. “All this time and you still have no real idea what all I actually do day-to-day, huh?”
“For sure, yeah. You… come at us with a little mini mic and ask dumb questions,” Troy answered, his smile teasing.
Harris’s mouth dropped open, clearly indignant. “The questions your fans are clamouring for the answer to! Like ‘Did you make your bed this morning?’, ‘Is this princess treatment or bare minimum?’, and, my personal favourite, ‘Who on the team would be most likely to fall for a phishing scam?’”
Troy gave him a pointed look at that last one. Harris bit his lip to keep from laughing.
“I’m sorry, baby, but you’re just mad because most people chose you.”
“I fucking wouldn’t…” Troy grumbled, just like he had on the day Harris had gone around asking it, before mumbling, “...because I’d ask you first and you’d know.”
After that they settled into a comfortable rhythm – Harris working, Troy watching him work. Whatever the hot tea had managed to loosen up in Harris’s airways, worryingly, it had him alternating between clearing his throat and sniffling with an ever increasing frequency. Despite it being pretty much right in Troy’s ear, if he noticed or was bothered by it, he didn’t show it. Something about Troy watching over his shoulder in dazed, sleepy, silence, lulled by the low rumble of the engines, was only making Harris sleepier too, his eyelids getting noticeably heavier by the minute.
Finally admitting (temporary) defeat, Harris saved his progress and sat fully back, scrubbing the sleep from his eye.
“Ugh, I can’t wait to be back home in our own bed,” he said, partly through a yawn.
Troy tilted his head to look up at him, tired eyes shining with agreement. “Same. Still a little while to go yet, though. And we need to pick Chiron up on the way back.”
Normally, if they were away together for no more than a couple of days, they’d save hassle and money and just leave Chiron at Harris’s parents’ place. But when they were gone for longer, like this, they just didn’t want to impose on them or put them under any more strain with all the animals that were already running around. So they’d started putting Chiron in this fancy kennel – more ’doggie hotel’, really – type of place. Shane and Ilya take Anya there as well and had highly recommended it. Ilya had started to joke that she and Chiron were ‘cousins’ who were ‘going on vacation together’.
“Awww,” Harris cooed, picturing his fluffy little face and how excited he’ll be to see them again. “I’ve missed him so much.”
“Me too. The worst part of it is, though, is that he’s apparently having the time of his life. He won't want to come home with us.”
They’d been getting pretty frequent updates from the kennel staff, including pictures and videos of Chiron completing commands for yummy, nutritious treats, frolicking in wide open fields on one of at least two walks he got per day, and, adorably, making friends with the other dogs.
“Did you see the last load of stuff they sent over from today?” Harris gushed, already pulling his phone out.
They were very much an ‘opposites attract’ kind of couple when it came to the scale of how glued you could be to your phone – Harris was just about the easiest person in the world to reach at any given time. Troy? Not so much. Honestly, whether Troy had or hadn’t seen them, he just wanted to look at them again regardless.
“No! I saw the notification before the game earlier, but I was kind of locked in and didn’t want to take myself out of the moment.”
They huddled together over Harris’s phone screen as they poured over the assortment of pictures and videos, their gazes mutually adoring. As much as he loved Chiron and did just want to look at the pictures again, Harris would be lying if he said that he wasn’t also just simply enjoying being close to his boyfriend – suddenly feeling a little greedy about it. He just about resisted the urge to fully lay his head in the crook of Troy’s neck, to turn his face inward, away from the screen lights, close his eyes, and rest in the deep dip of Troy’s shoulderblade like he would do if they were at home.
“That’s totally his girlfriend,” Harris pointed out instead, gesturing towards the pretty, well-groomed springer spaniel that kept appearing in so many of the snaps, never too far from Chiron’s side. One of them was captioned “Chiron and Cora! Best buddies ❤️”
“Wow,” Troy mused, comically deadpan. “Our boy’s really straight, huh?”
Harris’s chuckle burst out of him in a rather undignified snort, the pain making him wince before he could fully catch himself. “Apparently so! Who would’ve thought? Sdnff. Where did we go wrong, babe?”
Troy ‘tsk’ed. “We didn’t raise him that way. And besides – he’s too young to have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Or an… an anything-friend.”
“He’s two and a half now! Nearly three.”
“Exactly. He’s still a baby.”
Harris shot him a look. “Very much a teenager in the canine world.”
Troy averted his gaze, but dipped his head a fraction closer, mumbling. “Well he’ll always be a baby to me. Our baby.”
Harris’s chest fluttered. Oh God, that’s so cute I have no idea what to do with it. He sighed, but it came out warm and affectionate. “Such a protective dad.”
Unfortunately, it appeared like that fluttering didn’t want to stay in his chest. The hot tea had dulled the ache in his throat, and eased some of the pressure in his head, but now, from that, a crawling itch suddenly wound all the way up into the back of his nose. Gasping, he pulled out of Troy’s personal space, turning away and burying his face into the crook of his arm.
“hhh’UH’AEHTSSCH’hue!” Even muffled, the sneeze was loud and abrasive, cutting through the low din of the chatter around them as it tore out. Ouch.
“Bless you!” Wyatt chimed, his kind face popping up from over the back of the seat. It must’ve caught Shane, Ilya, and Bood’s attention as well, who were looking on as they briefly lowered their cards.
To Harris’s surprise, he found he couldn’t properly respond, his breath seizing in his lungs as he geared up for another, hot on the heels of the first. “Th-hh? Thanks, su’hhh…sorry– hhuh’EHTCHH’hoo!”
Huh. He barely ever sneezed more than once at a time. Which… could mean nothing.
“Bless you, man,” Wyatt repeated, standing up and reaching over the seats to clap a warm – firm – hand to Harris’s shoulder on his way out into the aisle, heading off towards the bathroom.
Troy’s brow creased. “You okay?”
Harris reemerged from his elbow with a reflexive sniffle. He’d really rather pretend he didn’t notice how heavy it was. But the thing about growing up with a chronic health issue was that you sort of got to know how your body worked on a much more intimate basis than most other people. You learned to be observant; tended to know when something was up. All there was beyond that was either denial or acceptance.
God, one more sneeze like that and he’s definitely going to need a tissue. Then it’s essentially game over. Did he even have a tissue? Probably somewhere.
Shit. Oh no. This really isn’t the time for this.
“Yes!” he said quickly, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Yes, of course, silly. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Troy considered that for a second, but didn’t appear to know how to put what he was thinking into words; like the right ones were just out of reach somewhere. “I don’t know. You just seem kind of…”
Harris held his gaze as Troy’s eyes flitted about, studying him. Something in him battled to help Troy out; usually he would. Just a couple more beats and then…
Troy gave up, dismissing his own thought with a shrug. “I don’t know. Never mind. Ignore me, I’m probably just…”
Harris’s mouth twitched into a small, private smile.
“Tired?” he supplied for him this time.
Troy gave a slow nod, yawning as he slumped down a little further in his seat. “Yeah, that.” He leaned back into Harris’s space once more like a clingy house cat. Getting a proper look at him now, Harris could see the slightly hollow-looking exhaustion in the ice blue of his eyes, post-game adrenaline all but drained away.
“Here,” Harris said, bending over to lift his scarf – large, woolen and adorned with coloured stripes – from where he’d discarded it on top of his bag after boarding. For it technically being Spring, he’d thought he’d been stupid for bringing it in the first place, only to be vindicated by the relatively unseasonable cold snap Boston was experiencing that actually made it entirely worth bringing. He folded it up, then propped it between his shoulder and the curve of his neck, indicating for Troy to lay his head down.
“Go ahead,” Harris prompted, when Troy didn’t immediately take him up on it, despite how tempted he looked by the offer.
“Are you not going to have a nap too?”
Harris’s smile turned regretful, peering at his waiting laptop screen. “I’m so close to having at least the first part of the video done – we only have about an hour left ‘til we land and if I focus, I know I can finish it by then.”
Troy shot him a familiar look, vaguely disapproving, but ultimately accepting. He was well used to Harris’s workaholic ways by now. In lieu of adding anything more, Troy tilted his chin up and pressed a quick, featherlight kiss to the underside of Harris’s jaw before finally laying his head down on his makeshift pillow.
“Ew,” Ilya and Bood chirped simultaneously as they passed by, the two of them and Shane having abandoned the game entirely and began making their way to their actual seats. Bood with a wide, teasing smirk, and Ilya almost comically straight-faced.
“Not in a homophobic way, obviously!” Bood rushed to follow up, full of sudden ‘potential allyship fuck up’ fear. “Just, like, in a lovey dovey, ‘get a room’ kind of way, y’know?”
“I meant it homophobically,” Ilya cut in, much to Shane’s horror, earning himself a smack on the arm as Shane shoved him onwards.
“Ilya! Jesus, sorry about him.”
It was all Harris could do to prevent himself bursting out laughing. Okay, so they’ve got a tired, cranky captain who probably shouldn’t be bothered for the remainder of the flight. Got it.
Meanwhile, Troy simply flipped them the bird before settling back in and getting comfy against Harris’s shoulder again.
He was asleep before Harris even got to the captions.
