"I thought I got away with it," Sid heard as he blinked himself awake.
"No," he mumbled. The sound of his own voice pounded through his head. He couldn't feel either of his hands, but he could feel every neuron weakly firing in his brain. It hurt. "Y'got up."
"You're normally a heavier sleeper," Steve said, and Sid forced his eyes open.
Steve's hotel room—a white box, not even a single painting or photograph on the walls—was still better than the horrible athlete dorms. Steve was over by the ancient-looking desk, pulling a long-sleeved shirt over his head.
Sid tried to say his name, but a disappointed groan came out instead. He reached out a hand, trying to communicate the words he couldn't get his lips to form.
Steve noticed, because he always noticed things about Sid. He was so watchful that it often made Sid feel stupid in comparison, like Steve was walking circles around him as Sid finally caught up to the joke or message or whatever Steve and his clever eyes were telling him.
Steve made Sid feel dumb, and Sid liked it. He liked having Steve tucked in his pocket, ready to tell Sid what the coded language in a conversation really meant, or how he was going to worm his way out of an interview, or how he was going to corner Sid in a dark hallway and get on his knees and put his hot mouth on Sid's balls.
Steve sat on the edge of the bed. Sid noticed, mournfully, that Steve had already slipped on a dark pair of pants. He reached out to card a hand through Sid's disgusting hair, his fingertips catching on the tangled curls. Sid flopped his arm in Steve's direction. The back of his palm connected with Steve's thigh. Sid wanted to see if the bruise he'd left there was still dark and perfect.
"I have a flight to catch," Steve said quietly. "I told you I need to get back to Tampa."
Sid groaned.
Steve mercifully lingered there, massaging Sid's scalp, his short fingernails scraping against the tender skin. Sid closed his eyes and relaxed under the touch, savoring it and the way it made his hangover dissipate into the warm, tired feeling in his bones.
He was still sweaty and sore. His cock was tacky against the sheets, dried lube and cum smeared all over him. He'd talked Steve out of the condoms. As far as Sid was concerned, they'd never use condoms again. Sid wanted to peel Steve's tight pants off and go hunting for the evidence. He wanted to lick it out of Steve's tight little—
"I think this is my last time."
"What?" Sid said after a moment. His tongue felt too big for his mouth. "Going to Tampa?"
"No. GMing for Canada."
Sid's eyes slid open to focus on Steve's face. His glasses were perched on the end of his nose. He looked hot, like a teacher out of one of Sid's dreams.
"Why? We won."
"We did," Steve said. His hand slid from Sid's hair down to cup his face. "Twice. I did what I came here to do. But it was a lot of fucking work."
Sid knew. He'd seen it all from Pittsburgh—how stressed Steve had been, how little time Steve had for anything other than hockey as he was torn between his obligations to Tampa and to Canada—and had been helpless to do anything about it. He'd put his own head down and gotten to work on the Penguins, but he'd missed Steve's phone calls, conversations that used to be nightly that had then become weekly. Neither of them had been able to travel to see each other. Sid had gotten stupid and filmed himself jerking off for Steve, and Steve had been so pissed at his carelessness they hadn't talked for nearly a whole month.
"You worked really hard," Sid croaked. It felt silly to say, but he meant it.
"And here I was, thinking I retired from hockey," Steve said with a wry tilt to his mouth. He thumbed at Sid's lips, though he didn't push any further when Sid opened his mouth in invitation.
"You did good, sweetheart," Steve whispered.
Heat bubbled beneath Sid's skin. He could feel his cheek warming against Steve's palm.
"Wasn't as good as I could have been," he said, because it was true.
"You won. That's what matters," Steve said. Then, his expression twisting with a bit of mean humor, he continued. "You only get one jaw-dropping overtime winner to earn gold. You ticked that off your wishlist already."
"Maybe I wanted another one."
"There's that captainly mentality," Steve laughed as he leaned down to kiss him.
"You did good," he continued as they kissed. He didn't care about Sid's stale, alcohol-stained breath. "You captained well, Sid. You won the Gold. You did everything I asked you to."
"I wanna do more," Sid said, and he fumbled at Steve's hips, searching for a good hold, wanting to pull him down and get that goddamn shirt off of him.
"Later," Steve said as he pulled away.
"Steve," Sid whined, and he followed Steve up.
"You need to get back to the dorms," Steve told him with a raised eyebrow. "And I need to get to the airport."
"Let me come see you," Sid begged.
"Not for a week," Steve countered. "I need to settle back in. I have a team to deal with, and I've been ignoring them."
He looked at Sid even more pointedly, like Sid didn't understand the implication that he too should be paying attention to his own team.
"A week," Sid bulldozed through Steve's bullshit. "Then I'm flying down. And I'm taking you out to dinner."
"Dinner," Steve said, like he was only considering it.
"Steve."
Steve leaned in again, taller than Sid as he stood next to the bed where Sid was sitting.
"A week," he said softly. His breath smelled like his toothpaste. "Then we can pick up where we left off. Alright?"
"Alright," Sid agreed. He kissed Steve's goodbye from his tongue.
It takes twenty minutes for Sid to come out of the bedroom.
It's fine, he resolves to himself. He slept in. There's no way for Steve to realize that—
"Took you long enough," Steve murmurs from the doorway out onto the balcony, little cup of coffee nuzzled up against his lips. "Your breakfast is cold."
"Oh," Sid says. "Sorry."
He looks around for the food; he hadn't heard anyone arrive, hadn't heard any clanging of dishes in the kitchen. He'd never really seen Steve cook, now that he thinks about it, and...
There's a smattering of fresh fruit on the table. Sid frowns at it. He looks up at Steve, who's smiling impishly at him.
"It was cold to start with," Steve finally confesses, finishing off his coffee with a sound of relish.
Sid eats a banana to avoid needing to say anything. It backfires, because it leads to Steve eyeing him up and down. Sid can take this in stride. Sid can suck dick. Sid can get Steve back into the bedroom and he can—
"You're worried," Steve says.
"No I'm not," Sid says.
"Please," Steve mutters, reaching for the complicated-looking coffee machine that Sid's skirted around with a wide berth. "Was doing this a bad idea, Sid? It seemed fun when I suggested the idea. An Italian getaway, a few weeks alone."
He pauses, his hand on the shiny chrome dial of the coffee machine. Then he whips around, crossing his arms in front of him. This is the GM that Sid sees on the big screen when they play in Tampa.
"Are you starting to second guess things?"
"No," Sid says hoarsely. "No, I'm not."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Yeah," Sid eeks out. Steve's face is disbelieving.
Colby's voice comes into Sid's head at that moment: Unclench, Creature.
"I'm kind of tense," Sid says.
"No kidding," Steve mutters, eyeing the stiff lines of his body. "Will you listen if I tell you to lighten up?"
"I want to lighten up," Sid says immediately. It's all he wants. When he started in the league, he'd felt like he'd had to grow up very quickly, more than he already had. At 23, he feels older than ever. Steve is the only one who makes him feel young and dumb at every turn. Sid likes it. He doesn't know how to let himself like it.
"Live a little," Steve tells him with a smile. "We'll rent a boat today. You can fuck me on it. We'll eat grapes."
"Yeah," Sid says. "Okay."
And that, inexplicably, as things so often are, makes Steve smile, and Sid's grateful.
“Now are you sure you’re okay with being there alone?”
Sid resisted rolling his eyes for the fourth or fifth time. “I’m not going to be alone, Nathalie, that’s the whole point.”
also, remember when in fandom Sid's character used to be defined by his love of reese's peanut butter cups (the sweet tooth has been Confirmed so, valid...) but I remember reading that steve interview years ago and being like "he's got mini reese's cups on his desk....they really are soulmates"
