Archive of Our Own

When Zhenya is eight, he goes to a summer hockey program in Stockholm. It’s expensive, but it’s an opportunity, and everyone comes together to raise money to send him and some of the other boys from the hockey school. Zhenya is the youngest.

He doesn’t want to go. He also doesn’t want to admit that he’s scared.

“Sanja will be there,” his mother tells him. “He’ll make sure you’re okay.”

His mother knows that Zhenya would follow Sanja anywhere.

And Zhenya does. He follows Sanja onto the plane and goes all the way to Sweden where he follows Sanja off the plane again. There are ten boys total from Russia, three from the Traktor Chelyabinsk school. Sanja is the oldest of all of them at sixteen, followed closely by another Alex at fifteen. There’s another Evgeny, too, but Zhenya is still the youngest.

He follows Sanja into a van with the rest of the boys. They’re driven through a strange city, staring out the windows as Stockholm passes by them. The program is held at a university, and they’ll spend the next month living in the dormitory, two to a room. The roommates are randomly assigned, they’re told.

They will not be assigned their Russian teammates as roommates, they’re told.

Zhenya grabs hold of Sanja’s wrist in a panic.

“It’s to help learn English,” Sanja says. “Like immersion. If you want to play in the NHL, you have to learn English, Zhenya.”

“But - “ Zhenya starts.

“It’s just the way of things,” Sanja says. Zhenya wants to kick him in the ankle, but he doesn’t want to hurt Sanja.

There’s a wild chatter of languages everywhere Zhenya turns. Some of it he recognizes as English, but some of it he doesn’t. Swedish, he thinks, Swedish and Finnish and Danish and every other European language he can’t think of. He nearly falls when someone crashes into him.

The other boy says something he doesn’t understand. It could be ‘excuse me,’or ‘sorry,’ or ‘fuck you.’ He also gives what Zhenya thinks is an apologetic shrug, so he crosses ‘fuck you’ off the list of things that the boy may have said. Zhenya watches as he picks up the hockey bag he dropped when he collided with Zhenya. He yells something in a language that Zhenya doesn’t recognize, and moves pretty quickly for a kid carrying a bag bigger than his whole body.

He shares a dorm room with another boy, and their Russian chaperone explains that the boys are separated out into groups, mostly by age, but some by skill. Zhenya’s roommate is, then, a couple of years older than Zhenya, because Zhenya’s skill places him outside the younger group. Zhenya would feel pleased about it, except he watches the other boy speak careful, careful English to the chaperone and just feels lost and out of place.

“He can help you with the English for things,” the chaperone tells him. “If you need help with anything, you can ask any of the chaperones.”

Zhenya knows he won’t ask.

The boy’s name is Marcus, and he’s ten, and he’s from Sweden, but not near Stockholm. It takes them ages to work this out, sat on the floor with their bags ignored in favor of learning how to communicate with each other. Marcus learns English in school, is what Zhenya thinks he’s been told, and was at the hockey program the summer before, and maybe the summer before that.

It’s hard, the first few days, getting used to a new routine in a new place where he doesn’t speak much of the language. He’s getting better with the English words for hockey terms, sticks and pucks and pieces of equipment and drills the coaches put them through. He hasn’t had the opportunity to use the Swedish swear words Marcus teaches him in a whisper and a giggle after lights-out, but he will.

Keeping in touch once camp is over is hard, because Zhenya doesn’t have a computer, but they do, sending letters back and forth across borders. They even manage to get paired as roommates again the next summer, and the next.

Marcus comes to his last summer of the program fresh from the NHL draft in America, a newly minted Washington Capital. He keeps his draft snapback on constantly, so much so that Zhenya starts to tease him about sleeping in it. Marcus kicks him and takes it off, putting it on Zhenya instead. Zhenya adjusts it and grins at him.

The next time they see each other is at World Juniors. It’s Zhenya’s first time and Marcus’s last, and Marcus is captain of his team. It’s their last chance to hang out together, because Marcus will be going to the States to his team’s development camp in the summer instead of back to the program. Zhenya still has two years before he even gets drafted.

They play each other once, in the preliminaries. Sweden beats Russia, and Marcus has an assist. They don’t see each other much after that, spending most of their time with their own teams. Russia ends up getting bounced in the quarterfinals when they lose to Switzerland in overtime.

Everyone is packing up the next day and Zhenya sneaks away to the USA-Sweden Semifinal. He’s a little bit late, but he gets there in time to see most of it. He gets there in time to see enough.

It’s an accident. It’s a series of bad events, and he sees Marcus catch a rut and go down, crashing hard into the boards head-first. He stays there, and he doesn’t move. And there’s nothing Zhenya can do but sit and watch as trainers dressed in blue and yellow come off the bench, as a stretcher is brought onto the ice.

Zhenya has enough English now that he’s able to go and explain that he wants to know what’s going on. They try to turn him away, because what business does a Russian kid have being there? He only gets lucky because one of the other Swedish boys recognizes him and takes him in, trying his best to explain very carefully that Marcus is very hurt, hasn’t woken up.

By the time Zhenya boards the plane back to Russia, Marcus still hasn’t woken up. His family has come in from Sweden, and his older brother promises that he’ll let Zhenya know what happens.

The e-mail, when it comes, is brief. He’s awake, the text says with no preamble, no hello. They’re saying he won’t play hockey again.

That’s not fair. Marcus is nineteen, he’s already been drafted to an NHL team. He’s supposed to be going to his first development camp over the summer. He’s going to go and play in the AHL and maybe also the NHL. He’s on the same team as Sanja, for fuck’s sake.

Zhenya stumbles into the bathroom to throw up.

He doesn’t like the feeling of being helpless, and he doesn’t like the idea of his best friend having everything he’s worked hard for - everything both of them have worked for - taken away from him like this in a fluke. Zhenya was going to go to the draft and they were gonna play against each other and it was going to be amazing.

And now it’s not.

Zhenya doesn’t want to accept that.

He’s walking home late from the rink one evening, days later, and stopped at a corner to wait for cars to pass before he can cross the street to his apartment building. He stares up at the street lights, at the starless, moonless sky.

Anything, he thinks. If this could go back, if things could be different. If Marcus would be okay, would be able to play hockey. He loves Marcus, he thinks. He wants him to be happy.

He crosses the street, and as he’s walking toward his apartment, realizes that someone has fallen into step with him. The stranger’s face is hidden from him, wearing a long, dark coat.

“Evgeny Evgenyvich,” the stranger says.

“Huh?” Zhenya asks, confused. He stops to look up into the black space where a face should be.

“What would you give,” the stranger asks.

“For what?” Zhenya asks. He considers continuing walking, but he can’t. He considers running, but he can’t do that either. He thinks these things, but his body won’t do them.

“For what you want,” the stranger says to him.

“I don’t understand,” Zhenya says.

“Anything,” the stranger says. “You think you would give anything for someone else’s happiness. People find that that isn’t real.”

“I would,” Zhenya says stubbornly. “We were going to play in the NHL together.”

“But what would you give,” the stranger says. “What would you give up? Will you give up your own skill?”

“No,” Zhenya says. “The whole point is we play together.”

“Difficult boy,” the stranger says. “You’ll get what you want. And I’ll have my payment.”

“He plays hockey. He’s happy. Both of us play,” Zhenya says, stubborn. “We get to be happy.”

“You may find that the things that you want are not always the things that make you happy,” the stranger tells him.

Suddenly Zhenya is standing in front of his apartment building, alone. He doesn’t remember walking there. He doesn’t remember the stranger leaving. He remembers the ghost of a smile in the darkness as he goes to bed.

He wakes up disoriented. It’s not his bedroom, but a hotel room. It’s a familiar hotel room, and it takes him a moment to place where it’s from. It’s the hotel room from World Juniors. Vova’s asleep face down in the bed next to his. Canada. World Juniors.

Before Marcus got hurt.

He slips out of bed and gets dressed before Vova even wakes up and heads downstairs to breakfast. He wants to say something, do something, to keep Marcus from being in the game, but he can’t. And he’ll just have to sit there and see him be injured all over again, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

He has dry toast and a Coke for breakfast even though it’s definitely not diet-approved and goes to the rink. It’s early enough he can slip in and hide somewhere to watch the Swedes at morning skate. The game isn’t until much later.

It doesn’t happen.

Zhenya’s holding his breath, remembering the exact moment it happens. But the moment never comes. Instead, at the beginning of the third period, before the timestamp Marcus fell, the one forever burned into Zhenya’s mind, Marcus actually gets thrown out after elbowing another player.

Zhenya doesn’t know whether he should laugh or cry. Marcus isn’t injured, he can still play hockey. He’s out the rest of the game, and suspended for the Bronze medal match, but he can still play.

He doesn’t understand why Zhenya is hugging him and crying later, and try as he might, Zhenya can’t make the words come out. Any time he tries to explain, his tongue feels swollen, stuck to the roof of his mouth, stuck behind his teeth. He can’t tell Marcus what happened, what he did, what he knows.

“I love you,” Zhenya whispers to him, and Marcus pauses in the middle of being pissed off about hockey, about being suspended for what he knows was an accident and what Zhenya knows was a change of fate, and stares at Zhenya.

“What?” Marcus whispers to him, blinking, wide eyed. They’re hockey players. He’s nineteen, and Zhenya’s seventeen and Russian besides. But Zhenya means it. He knows his own feelings. But even as he says it, there’s something inside him that feels weird. Hollow.

“I mean it,” Zhenya says. He kisses Marcus, soft, tentative. Scared, the first time he’s ever kissed a boy or wanted to. It’s just like kissing anyone else.

He doesn’t feel the fluttery twist in his stomach that used to be there when he thought about it. When he thought about going to the NHL and being drafted and maybe playing with Marcus and maybe even one day playing on the same team, playing together.

Zhenya suddenly knows what the stranger took from him for payment.

It’s not a surprise when Zhenya gets drafted to the same team as Marcus. Marcus has been playing there since 2010, and he’s the third person to call Zhenya after Zhenya’s name is called.

“Will you come to play in America this season?” Marcus asks him.

“I don’t know,” Zhenya says, because he truly doesn’t. Marcus hasn’t even played a game in the US yet. Neither of them know anything about what’s going to happen.

Zhenya doesn’t come to the Capitals that year, or the year after that, and the year after that is a lockout, which at least brings them closer together in that Marcus is playing in Sweden.

“Are you ever going to come and play in the NHL?” Marcus asks him.

“One day,” Zhenya says, even though the truth is that he doesn’t know anymore. This wasn’t the deal he made. It’s not supposed to be this way. He didn’t sacrifice his skill, and they’re supposed to be playing together.

It finally happens in 2014, when Traktor’s season is done. Zhenya doesn’t tell Marcus that he’s coming to play with the Capitals. He just walks into the locker room one morning.

There’s a beat between him walking in, a lull where he’s been introduced, and then he receives two very excited armfuls of Swede. He staggers backward as Marcus hugs him, and someone is laughing - Zhenya’s not sure who, and it doesn’t matter.

“You asshole,” Marcus tells him. “You should have told me.”

Zhenya grins at him. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Marcus puts his whole hand in Zhenya’s face and pushes him away, going back to his stall to dress.

When practice is over, Zhenya goes with Marcus to his house instead of going back to his hotel room down the street from the practice rink. He even turns down dinner with Sasha, telling him, “I see you all the time,” which is comparatively true. He and Sasha play in international tournaments together, but Zhenya has literally not seen Marcus in person in years.

They split a pizza and drink beer sitting in Marcus’s bed, even though absolutely none of it is diet approved. They’re celebrating. Zhenya doesn’t finish his beer and Marcus doesn’t eat his pizza crusts, and they end up slumped against each other at the head of the bed, Marcus’s head on Zhenya’s shoulder, the pizza box between their knees, the room lit by the west coast game on mute.

“Why did it take you so fucking long?” Marcus asks. He’s been so quiet for so long that Zhenya wasn’t sure he hadn’t fallen asleep.

“I don’t know,” Zhenya says. “It just had to be the right time.”

He can’t tell Marcus the truth, because he can’t make the words come out. Because he sold something to get Marcus here, to keep Marcus playing hockey. He gave up his heart for this, the part of him that was in love with Marcus when he was seventeen. He gave it up for Marcus to be healthy and for them to be playing together, and happy.

They haven’t been playing together. Zhenya has been okay, but he doesn’t know if he’d say he’s been happy. He doesn’t ask Marcus, because he can’t explain why, and when he thinks about it, his tongue goes heavy and thick in his mouth.

“I’m glad that you’re here,” Marcus says.

Zhenya reaches up and ruffles Marcus’s hair until he starts squirming to get away and accidentally puts his foot in the pizza box.

They don’t even make the playoffs that season, and when Zhenya leaves to go to the World Championships, he knows Marcus isn’t going. He’ll see him again in the fall, when they come back for the next season.

He spends the summer thinking about it. The way it felt right to finally be sharing the same space with Marcus again, listening to the steady sound of his breathing, even though they’re long past the twin beds in the dorms at the hockey school and the king size bed in Marcus’s bedroom in DC is way nicer.

They’ve never talked about the time Zhenya kissed him at World Juniors. Zhenya’s not even sure that he should bring it up. Marcus hadn’t said anything then, or since, no matter how much they’ve talked. They spent the whole time Zhenya was in DC sharing Marcus’s bed and it never came up.

“You should stay with me,” Marcus tells him, when they’re talking about their plans for going back to Washington for training camp. “Instead of getting your own place.”

“Are you asking me to move in with you?” Zhenya asks him.

“Yes?” Marcus says.

“You haven’t even taken me on a date, and you’re asking me to move in,” Zhenya teases, trying to keep his voice light.

“Do you want me to take you on a date?” Marcus asks. His voice is not teasing.

“Do you want to?” Zhenya asks. He asks it hesitantly, a little scared.

“Can we talk about it when you get to DC?” Marcus asks.

“Yeah,” Zhenya says.

Zhenya starts worrying about it again then. When he was seventeen, he was in love with Marcus. Five years older, he knows that that was true. He remembers the butterflies he felt in his stomach when he thought about Marcus then, and the way they went away after he met the stranger.

He wonders if he would still feel that way. He wonders if the intervening four years between his draft and coming to Washington and sitting in the bed next to Marcus would have changed anything. There’s a part of him that wants to hedge his bets on the feelings he used to feel. He doesn’t know if it’s fair to Marcus to do that.

Zhenya wants to make the move based on what he wants to feel, the way it used to feel. It’s just that he doesn’t feel, no matter how badly he wants to, and when he even dares to think about telling Marcus, it feels like his throat starts swelling up.

When he gets to DC three days after Marcus, Marcus has cleaned out the guest room in his house of all the junk he’s been storing in there for the last four years. It is, Zhenya thinks, meant to be his room. They’re supposed to talk about it, for Zhenya to move in, if Marcus really wants to date him.

But Marcus wants him to stay anyway, regardless of anything else.

It takes them a while to get around to talking about it, between Zhenya moving in and captain’s practices and kicking jet lag. Zhenya comes downstairs one evening after a nap to find Marcus in the kitchen making dinner. He weaves his way around where Marcus is working to grab a glass and fill it with water before sitting down at the breakfast bar.

“Are you still jet lagged?” Marcus asks him. Zhenya leans forward across the bar so that he can see better what Marcus is making. He’s not really sure what it is.

“I’m okay,” Zhenya says. “Better. I’ll be normal eventually.”

Marcus laughs at that. “Are you hungry, then? I can’t fix jet lag, but I can fix hunger.”

“Maybe,” Zhenya says. “What are you making?”

“Food,” Marcus says, looking up at him and raising an eyebrow. Zhenya laughs at him.

They don’t talk about anything serious while Marcus is cooking, but Zhenya feels like it’s hanging between them. He thinks of all the things he wants to say that he knows he can’t, and he thinks of a lot of things he could say but doesn’t know if he can. Instead, they finish dinner and Zhenya ends up doing the dishes.

It’s a chance to put off the inevitable, but Marcus cleans while he works so there’s not much for Zhenya to do other than rinse the plates and put them in the dishwasher. He grabs two beers from the fridge, even though he knows he won’t drink most of his, and goes into the living room to find Marcus.

“Thanks,” Marcus says, taking the offered beer as Zhenya sits down on the opposite end of the couch.

“So,” Zhenya says, taking a sip of the beer. It doesn’t even taste good, but it’s something to do with his hands and his mouth because he’s putting off saying what he actually needs to say. “You asked me to move in here.”

“Yes,” Marcus says. He’s curled up on the couch, the blanket there already pulled over his feet. His feet are always cold. Zhenya remembers that from when they were kids, crammed into a twin bed whispering after lights out when they were supposed to be sleeping.

“And I said that you hadn’t even taken me on a date,” Zhenya continues, and once he says that, it’s easy to get all of it out. “And I was joking, I think, but then you asked me if I wanted you to, and I thought - yeah, maybe, if you wanted to take me, if you wanted that to be a thing, and you said we’d talk about it when we got to DC.”

“And now we’re in DC,” Marcus says. His beer is in one hand and his head is leaned against the back of the couch. He looks comfortable and soft, and Zhenya feels nothing. And the stupid thing is that he knows he should.

“I kissed you when I was seventeen and I meant it,” Zhenya says.

“That was four years ago,” Marcus says. “More than that. And you’ve never said a single thing about it since then.”

“No,” Zhenya says. “But neither have you.”

“I - “ Marcus starts. He sighs out a breath, then takes a drink of his beer. He’s two years older, he’d just caused himself to miss his team’s bronze medal match as his team’s captain. Marcus doesn’t know that it could have been so much worse. Marcus doesn’t know that he could have ended up not playing hockey at all. “I thought about it after.”

“And?” Zhenya asks.

“I don’t know,” Marcus says. He looks down at the beer in his hands instead of at Zhenya. “There’s a lot of… things. There’s hockey, there’s Russia, there’s -”

“If there wasn’t,” Zhenya says.

“If there wasn’t,” Marcus says, and he looks up at Zhenya then. “If there wasn’t all of that in the way, then yeah.”

“What if it doesn’t matter because I’ve been in love with you since I was ten,” Zhenya says. Before he understood that that was what he felt, how he felt. Before he lost the ability to even feel that way. He wants that feeling back, and he wants it with Marcus.

“I didn’t think about it,” Marcus tells him. “Until you kissed me at Juniors. I never thought about having feelings or considered that - the way I thought about you, or felt about you, was … wasn’t just us being friends. Then I knew, after, but you didn’t say anything and I didn’t want to say anything because you’ve got so much more to lose than I do and - “

“Marcus,” Zhenya says.

“What?” Marcus asks.

“I’m sitting here telling you I love you,” Zhenya says. “I’m not worried about losing.”

Marcus takes a deep breath. Zhenya would swear he can hear the shaking in the exhale. “I’m worried about you losing.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a worrier,” Zhenya says, and Marcus extends one foot from under the blanket to kick him. He leans forward to put his beer down on the coffee table, then shifts his position until he’s lying across the couch with his head in Zhenya’s lap. Zhenya’s hand immediately comes to rest in his hair.

“I guess you don’t have to sleep in the guest room anymore,” Marcus says, his voice quiet as Zhenya’s fingers run through his hair.

“Hey, you still haven’t bought me dinner,” Zhenya says. “I’m not the kind of guy who puts out on the first date.”

Marcus snorts. “I made you dinner. That’s better,” he says.

“That’s probably true,” Zhenya says.

It’s not until later, when they’re staggering up off the couch to go to bed, that Zhenya makes the move. It’s not that much different than when they were at World Juniors, only Marcus’s beard feels different against his face when Zhenya leans in to kiss him. It’s just as tentative, maybe a little less scared than before.

This time, Marcus has the chance to react before Zhenya pulls away, to lean into him and part his lips, to rest a hand against Zhenya’s hip. They climb into bed together and Zhenya falls asleep next to Marcus for the first time since the spring, stretched out on his back staring at the ceiling, listening to Marcus’s slow, steady breathing next to him where he’s sprawled out on his stomach, face turned away from Zhenya.

This was all Zhenya wanted when he was seventeen. Just for the boy that he liked to kiss him back, to feel the same way he did.

And he can’t feel anything.

Being in a relationship seems easy. They’ve lived together before, and Zhenya knows that he’s never going to remember to put his dirty clothes in the hamper but Marcus is always going to leave his wet towels on the floor, and that’s how things are, some times. Zhenya pretty much only drinks coffee at the rink, and Marcus has some weird fancy coffee machine that burns Zhenya if he even looks at it crossways.

They fight, sometimes, but not a lot. Zhenya’s instincts are to get snippy when he’s in a bad mood, or when he’s upset, but Marcus doesn’t like to argue and has a long fuse besides. It’s easy for them to work through whatever’s wrong before Marcus ever really gets truly pissed off.

To the team it’s an open secret. Zhenya’s sure they know, because he and Marcus have never gone to great lengths to hide what they’re doing. They’re not holding hands in public or making out in the locker room. They don’t call each other by pet names any more than they used to do. It’s out there for people to notice, if they want, or for people to ignore. They don’t talk about it.

Sasha says something to Zhenya, just once, offhand. “It won’t be good, if people find out.” Zhenya knows that it’s the truth, but he doesn’t care. He can’t feel love anymore, but he knows that he’s happy.

“I’ll deal with it then,” Zhenya tells him, and he tries not to think about what it could mean.

They don’t win the Cup that year, and that’s okay. Neither of them go on to play at Worlds that year, and instead Zhenya follows Marcus home to Sweden. They don’t win the year after that, either, and Zhenya goes off to Worlds while Marcus spends half the summer worrying at him about whether or not he’s going to be re-signed or if he’s going to go to another team and play hockey without Zhenya.

Zhenya knows that Marcus will re-sign. He knows, but he can’t say it, and all his reassurances stick in his mouth. They’re supposed to play hockey together. They’re supposed to be happy.

Marcus re-signs, and they have the best team in the league, and this is the year. They’re going to win the Cup.

Only, they don’t. They go out in the second round.

To the Penguins.

Again.

Zhenya sits on the lounge on their back deck, wrapped up in his sweatshirt, scrolling through his phone. He’s already got the invite to Worlds. He doesn’t know if he wants to go. It would be good, he thinks, maybe to prove that he can still play hockey after the last disastrous round before he needs to re-sign his own contract over the summer.

He’s sitting on the deck because he couldn’t sleep and he didn’t want to stay in bed and toss and turn and keep Marcus awake. He hears the back door slide open and realizes that Marcus is awake anyway.

He comes outside with the afghan from the couch wrapped around his shoulders over his thin t-shirt and sweatpants. It’s old and Zhenya thinks it’s ugly, and Marcus swears that his brother and sister have equally ugly ones made by his grandmother. He’s holding it shut in front of him with his good hand, the index finger on the other hand splinted and taped to his ring finger, broken punching a Penguin in the first game of the second round.

He comes over and curls up on the lounge next to Zhenya, and Zhenya automatically wraps an arm around him to pull him closer. Marcus yawns and tilts his head, pressing a kiss to Zhenya’s jaw.

“I didn’t wake you when I got up, did I?” Zhenya asks.

“No,” Marcus says. “I just couldn’t stay asleep.”

“We’ll get ‘em next year,” Zhenya says. It’s a hollow thing to say, and both of them know that he doesn’t really mean it. There’s no way for him to know.

“Sure,” Marcus says.

They sit there in silence, and Zhenya puts his phone down in favor of tangling his fingers with Marcus’s good hand and rubbing his thumb across the back. He dozes off with his head leaned over against Marcus’s, and the next time he opens his eyes the sun is coming up.

“Hey,” Zhenya says, voice soft. “Come to bed.”

“Okay,” Marcus says, and doesn’t move.

“We just slept outside,” Zhenya tells him. Marcus laughs sleepily.

“Oh well,” Marcus says. He sits up, then stretches, his back cracking audibly.

“That sounds healthy,” Zhenya says.

“Not a great position to sleep in,” Marcus says, twisting and making his body pop more.

“You’re an old man,” Zhenya says.

“Yup,” Marcus says. “And my feet are cold, and I’m going to sleep in my bed. Order breakfast.”

“Mmm,” Zhenya says, and tips his face up, grabbing the front of Marcus’s t-shirt and pulling him down to kiss him. “You want the usual?”

“Yeah,” Marcus says. “But get delivery at ten or something. Come to bed.”

“Okay,” Zhenya says, and follows Marcus into the house.

Zhenya is only awake when Marcus is traded because he’s just finished signing his own paperwork. The news breaks before his agent has even left his house, and Zhenya has to pretend like nothing’s wrong. But something is definitely wrong.

This wasn’t the agreement. They were supposed to be playing hockey together. They were supposed to be happy together playing hockey, and the stranger took away Zhenya’s ability to love Marcus to give them that. He took away their ability to win the Cup - and that of everyone else on the team - to give them that.

This wasn’t what Zhenya agreed to.

It’s raining when he shows up on Marcus’s doorstep in Sweden, and Marcus looks at him, all downturned mouth and dark circles under his eyes. He leans forward into Zhenya’s arms without saying a single word.

They stand there for what feels like forever, with Zhenya dripping water onto the carpet of the hallway of Marcus’s apartment building. Zhenya knows it’s really only seconds, before Marcus finally pulls away and moves back into the apartment. Zhenya follows him, closing the door and locking it behind them.

He’s been to Marcus’s apartment in Landskrona a few times. It’s the same as it has been in the past, maybe a little more messy, strewn with equipment and clothing Marcus is sorting through. He’s already gotten a big box of stuff from the Devils. Zhenya saw it on Instagram.

Zhenya leaves his bag near the door and steers Marcus through the apartment to the bedroom, kicking his shoes off and stripping out of his wet clothes. Marcus just watches him, arms crossed, chewing on his lower lip. Zhenya’s wet through to his underwear, though, so he strips naked, and Marcus just shakes his head.

“Come on,” he says. “I don’t - “

“Literally every piece of clothing on my body is wet,” Zhenya says, cutting him off. He goes to the dresser and tugs a pair of sweatpants out of one of the drawers to pull them on. “I should check to see if the stuff in my bag is wet too,” he says, but he doesn’t leave the bedroom. He can see the places on Marcus’s shirt where the fabric is wet now, too.

Now that he has sweatpants on, he stops in front of Marcus. “Hey,” he says again, because Marcus hasn’t moved or said anything to him. “This isn’t what either of us wanted, but we’re gonna deal with it.”

Marcus sighs, and Zhenya slides his fingers under the edge of Marcus’s t-shirt and lifts. Marcus sighs and uncrosses his arms, only to push Zhenya’s hands away.

“I got your shirt wet, come on,” Zhenya says. “At least sulk in a dry shirt.”

Marcus takes a deep breath and holds it, closing his eyes. Zhenya waits. Marcus exhales and then strips out of his t-shirt and tosses it onto the floor. He doesn’t bother putting on another t-shirt, just climbs up onto the bed to sit down. He crosses his legs and leans his elbows against his knees, looking at Zhenya.

“What do you want me to do?” Zhenya asks him.

“Nothing,” Marcus says. “There’s nothing you can do, is there? And I feel like I’m pissed off at you, but it doesn’t have anything to do with you, and I’m just. Pissed off.”

“You can be pissed off,” Zhenya says. “You’re allowed to be pissed off, or upset, and you can even be those things at me, if you want to.”

“I don’t want to be pissed off or upset at you,” Marcus says. “Because it’s not your fault.”

Zhenya thinks, ‘what if it is?’ but he can’t say it. Instead, he climbs up on the bed to sit behind Marcus and runs his hands over Marcus’s bare shoulders, digging his fingers into the muscle until he forces Marcus to loosen up.

“Stop trying to make me not upset,” Marcus says, still irritable. He unfolds his legs and leans back against Zhenya. Zhenya wraps his arms around Marcus and rests his chin on top of Marcus’s head. “I’m here to be upset.”

“I’m here to make you feel better,” Zhenya says. “Although I don’t think I care for cranky Marcus who won’t let me get him out of his wet clothes and who won’t look at me naked.”

“Fuck off,” Marcus says. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

Zhenya taps his fingers against Marcus’s bare stomach. “Let’s take a nap,” he says. “I just got here, and I want to be with you.”

“I’ll take you out for dinner later,” Marcus says. “If it’s stopped raining.”

The Caps season gets off to a dismal start, which feels even shittier for Zhenya because he has to wallow in his team being on and off garbage while Marcus’s is at the top of the standings. A whole different team that Marcus plays on now. One that is not the Capitals, where Zhenya plays.

At least they’re both still on the East Coast, and they play each other four times a season because they’re in the same division. They try to find bright sides wherever they can, and neither of them really considers it a waste of four hours to drive to see the other when the opportunity arises.

Zhenya’s at home after his own Western Canada road swing and the Devils at the Canucks is the late game. He puts it on, even though he knows he needs to be up in the morning for skate, but it doesn’t matter. He wouldn’t normally even turn hockey on when there’s basketball he could be watching instead, but off hand, he knows Marcus is playing.

Which means he sees Marcus catch a rut and go down and slam into the end boards.

Suddenly he’s seventeen again, sitting in the arena in Saskatchewan, watching as the training staff loads Marcus onto a stretcher and takes him out. It’s been almost eight years, and he still remembers it like it was yesterday.

Even though it never happened.

Marcus goes down, and he stays down, Zhenya sits in the middle of the bed in his house in Washington, which he used to share with Marcus, and all he can do is watch. At least this time, the trainers get Marcus on his feet, even if they’re helping him skate. At least this time, he’s awake.

Zhenya remembers the e-mail he got from Martin, days after he’d left Saskatchewan and gone back to Russia. He remembers the way it felt, inside him, the knowledge that this boy that he loved so much was now not going to be able to do the one thing that brought them together in the first place.

He barely makes it into the bathroom before he throws up.

Marcus is, in the end, fine. For a definition of fine, where he has a concussion but Zhenya knows that things could definitely be worse. He’s seen Marcus’s career end before. He knows that it could always be worse. By the time they get to the break in the schedule where Zhenya’s off to Jersey to spend a few days with Marcus, he’s back on his feet and normal most days.

He’s got his hands under Zhenya’s shirt within seconds of Zhenya walking through the door, which makes Zhenya laugh, because that’s not really the kind of person Marcus is. “I’m just so fucking bored,” Marcus tells him, rolling his eyes as he pins Zhenya to the mattress, and Zhenya laughs into his mouth.

A fluke of scheduling gives them New Year’s Eve together, and Marcus doesn’t want to, but he goes with Zhenya to the party anyway. Zhenya understand his hesitation, because it makes things less of an open secret, even if they play it like well, Marcus is in town, and he wants to hang out with friends. He does spend half the afternoon with Burky, so it’s not that weird.

They sneak out onto the back porch at Sasha’s while everyone else is inside, counting down to midnight. Sasha’s cut the music and they can hear everyone’s voices as they count down. It’s too cold to be outside long, but Marcus’s arms wrapped around him make it feel a little bit better. Marcus’s teeth are going to chatter if they’re out there long.

“Happy New Year,” he says, grinning. Marcus just smiles back at him and leans in for the kiss. He slips cold fingers under the edge of Marcus’s sweater, and they kiss until Marcus starts to shiver under his hands.

“Let’s go back inside,” Marcus says. “Make excuses and go home.”

“Okay,” Zhenya says.

Marcus is gone well before noon the next morning, back to Newark for practice and a flight out. Zhenya lays in bed for a long time after he’s gone, unable to go back to sleep and knowing he has to get up and get ready to head to Carolina, but for the first time in a long time, he feels lonely.

Zhenya’s just gotten home from dinner out with Dima, kicked off his shoes in the hall and turned on the television just to have noise while he winds down to go to bed. The Devils are playing, he knows, because Marcus has been dead silent for the last five or so hours, so he switches over to that channel.

The Devils are on a losing streak, which he knows has Marcus frustrated, but the Bruins are only up by one goal, so that doesn’t mean the game is out of reach.

It’s hard to understand what’s happening when he sees Marcus drop to the ice. He’s seen Marcus get hit a lot of times. And it doesn’t seem that bad - not as bad as when he crashed into the boards in Vancouver, for sure - because Marcus gets up and he skates off and goes down the tunnel. There’s only a few seconds left, so Zhenya turns the TV back off and goes up to bed.

He texts Marcus, but if it’s a concussion he knows Marcus won’t see it. There’s a flood of texts into the group chat, of other people who have seen the play on either tv or social media, who are incensed on Marcus’s behalf. Zhenya just has to text him and hope that it’s not.

Then he looks at flights, and trains, and decides that if nothing else, he’ll head for Newark. He books a train for the morning and tries to sleep, but he’s still awake when the phone rings well after midnight.

Marcus sounds tired. “Someone read me your text,” he says. “And we landed in Newark, and Jesper’s come back to my place to babysit me and wake me up every little while.”

Zhenya can hear someone say something in the background. Swedish, the time period Marcus is supposed to be woken up.

“So it’s another concussion,” Zhenya says.

“Yeah,” Marcus says.

They’re both quiet, and Zhenya listens to Marcus breathing like it’s the only thing he wants to hear, and the soft catch there like Marcus is trying not to cry. He’d never let himself, especially not with the rookie there.

“I’ll be up in the morning,” Zhenya finally says.

“Okay,” Marcus says. “You don’t have to, though.”

“I miss you,” Zhenya says. “And you’re hurt and I want to be with you.”

He’s been saying things like this for years. There’s a slow, dawning realization that this time he’s not just saying it. This time he actually means it. He misses Marcus, like there’s a hollow place underneath his heart that could only be possibly filled by folding Marcus up into his arms.

He loves Marcus so much, and for the first time since he was seventeen, it’s real.

“I love you,” he whispers. And he’s not just saying it. For the first time, he knows it, he’s saying it because he can actually feel it.

“You too,” Marcus says, because Jesper’s still in the room. “I’m going to sleep now.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Zhenya says, and hangs up.

He rolls over and buries his face into his pillow and sobs.

It’s still dark when he gets to Newark, the sky just barely beginning to lighten. His Uber gets stuck at a light a couple of blocks from Marcus’s apartment and he knows he needs to walk the rest of the way.

“This is good,” Zhenya tells the driver. “I can walk from here. Thank you.”

He doesn’t wait for the driver to say anything, just grabs his backpack and slides out of the back seat. He starts walking across the street and up the next block without looking back. He gave up being able to win a Cup for Marcus to be able to play hockey. He gave up being able to love Marcus for Marcus to play hockey. And the stranger didn’t hold up his end of the bargain.

He’s standing at the corner of the next block, waiting to cross, when he feels it. It’s familiar, like he can’t move, couldn’t run or walk even if he wanted to. And there’s the stranger, standing there, facing him, face hidden in shadow.

“Evgeny Evgenyvich,” the stranger says to him.

“You didn’t keep your end of the bargain,” Zhenya says. “We were supposed to play together, and we were supposed to be happy, and we’re not.”

“And you kept yours?” the stranger says.

“I never won a Cup. You took that from me. I couldn’t love him. I couldn’t love him and I wanted to so much, so fucking much, and you took that too,” Zhenya says. “We should have won a cup together, and now he can’t even be on the phone with me because he’s got his second concussion in one season.”

“And you say I didn’t fulfill my end of the bargain,” the stranger says.

“I know you didn’t,” Zhenya says. “I know you didn’t because I know how I feel. I remember how it felt when I was seventeen, and I know how it feels now. Because you don’t have me anymore, because you failed.”

The stranger makes a noise that isn’t a laugh, but isn’t quite a normal noise of frustration. “Fine,” the stranger says. “I’ll take it all back.”

“You won’t,” Zhenya says. “You gave us this and then you started taking things away again. He’s going to keep playing hockey. I’m going to win a Cup. And you’re going to go away. Because you gave but you got greedy and started taking back your promise. So you don’t have power over me anymore.”

The sun is coming up over the buildings, and Zhenya is standing in front of Marcus’s building. He blinks, and takes a deep breath, then keys himself in and heads upstairs. He has a key, and sneaks past Marcus’s rookie, asleep on the couch, wrapped up in the stupid blanket that Zhenya remembers Marcus wrapped up in the night they last played together. It makes Zhenya stop and stare for a moment, before he can move on.

He puts his backpack down on the floor just inside Marcus’s bedroom and closes the door behind him as quiet as he can, kicking his shoes off and slipping out of his jacket. He climbs into bed as quietly as he can, sliding under the sheets to wrap his arms around Marcus where Marcus is stretched out on his stomach with his face turned away from the center of the bed.

Marcus wakes up and rolls over, curling into Zhenya and tucking his head underneath Zhenya’s chin. His feet are cold when he presses them to Zhenya’s calves. He brings his hand up to scratch his fingernails through Zhenya’s buzzed off hair.

“How’s your head?” Zhenya asks, his voice quiet. Marcus just sighs in response rather than saying anything. Zhenya knows that Marcus’s fingers scratching at Zhenya’s hair absently is just self-soothing. He’s done it for years, when he’s been upset and not wanted to talk about it. It makes Zhenya’s head feel a little bit numb after a while.

“Did you tell the rookie about me,” Zhenya whispers to him, nuzzling his nose down into Marcus’s hair. It smells like locker room soap and not his normal shampoo. “Or is he in for a surprise when he comes to wake you up the next time?”

He feels Marcus smile against his chest. “I told him,” Marcus says. It seems like a big step, but Zhenya doesn’t know what Marcus said. That a friend was coming? Did Marcus tell the kid that Zhenya was his boyfriend? It’s not like the kid isn’t going to know who Zhenya is, they’ve played against each other three times already this season.

Zhenya wants to tell Marcus everything, right then, but he knows that there’s no way Marcus wants to listen to him talk that much, or have a conversation with him right now, the way he must be feeling. But they’ll talk about it. Zhenya will tell him, when there’s more time.

He closes his eyes and lets Marcus rub at his hair until Marcus falls back asleep, his fingers still against the back of Zhenya’s head. Somehow, Zhenya manages to fall asleep, because the softest knock on the bedroom door startles him awake.

“I have to go,” the rookie says, popping his head into the bedroom, blonde hair flopping loose into his face. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s okay,” Zhenya says. He feels Marcus move, but can’t quite see what he’s doing, but he hears Bratt laugh anyway.

“I’ll come by with lunch or dinner or whatever later,” Bratt says. Zhenya rolls out of the bed and goes to the door, so he can keep his voice quieter.

“I have a flight out later,” he says to the kid, keeping his voice low. “I don’t know if I'll be here when you get back or not, but thank you.”

Bratt looks away from him, and fidgets, and then looks back. “He’s really upset,” Bratt finally says, barely more than a whisper. “He’s afraid he’s not going to get to play again this season, or at all.”

“He’s going to get to play,” Zhenya says. “I know he is.”

“Yeah, but I think. I think he’s scared anyway. He’s never been out for this much time before, between the last concussion, and this one. He - “ Bratt looks away again, shifting from foot to foot. “Look, he doesn’t know I know how upset he is. He doesn’t like to let people know he’s upset.”

“I’m familiar,” Zhenya says, with the slightest laugh.

“He doesn’t know I know,” Bratt says. “That I heard him.”

“Crying,” Zhenya says, realizing what the kid’s trying to tell him. Bratt shrugs, helpless. “I won’t say anything. I’m sure it didn’t make his head feel any better, but he needed to get it out.”

“I don’t blame him,” Bratt says. “I’d be so mad if I were missing time again after I’d already missed so much.”

“Me too,” Zhenya says, because it’s the truth, and because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Anyway, I have to go,” Bratt says.

“I’ll see you if I’m still here,” Zhenya says. “If not, your whole team has to make sure to take extra good care of him for me.”

Bratt smiles at him, and nods, then heads down the hall. Zhenya slips back into the bedroom and climbs back into the bed. In the light peeking under the curtains, he can see Marcus has his eyes closed, but he’s not sure Marcus has gone back to sleep.

“Is he worrying,” Marcus asks.

“Yes,” Zhenya says, keeping his voice low. “You know people like you and worry about you, right?”

“You like me,” Marcus says, stretching out on his back and resting his arms over his eyes. “Can you make sure the curtains are all the way shut? The light hurts.”

“Babe,” Zhenya says, and then rolls off the bed, going over and fussing with the curtains. They’re closed, but he twitches them around hoping that they’ll cover a little bit more of the light coming in. “You should have gotten those blackout curtains, you know? The ones we talked about when you first moved in? Like we have back in DC.”

“I didn’t know I was going to get two fucking concussions when I bought these curtains,” Marcus says. Zhenya sighs and walks back over to the bed, and climbs back beneath the covers, pulling Marcus into his arms.

Marcus turns into him easily, looping his arms over Zhenya’s ribs. In turn, Zhenya pushes Marcus’s hair off his forehead, running his fingers down to stop at the back of Marcus’s neck. He uses his thumbs to rub slow circles on the back of Marcus’s neck.

“Don’t stop doing that,” Marcus says, pressing his forehead down against Zhenya’s chest.

“Do you want me to order breakfast?” Zhenya whispers to him.

“I don’t feel like eating,” Marcus says.

“But you need to eat,” Zhenya says. “Or drink something. “I could order us smoothies from that place. Do you think you could drink one?”

“I don’t know,” Marcus says. There’s a bit of a whine to it, and Zhenya doesn’t want to push it.

They get through the rest of the morning. Zhenya has breakfast, and Marcus drinks a smoothie that has a bunch of protein powder in it and mostly complains that his head hurts so badly it makes him want to throw up, which he thankfully doesn’t do.

He’s asleep when Zhenya slips out to catch his flight to Florida.

The last game of the season is in DC.

Marcus doesn’t play, but at least he’s there. He doesn’t have a flight back until the next morning and hangs around, chatting with guys he’s known and played with for years, and then he goes home with Zhenya at the end of the night, dressed in their suits like they’re still playing on the same team.

There’s still beer in the fridge, and Marcus cracks one open while they change out of their game day suits. It’s been so long since they’ve just had time to chill together that they end up sitting on the couch in their underwear watching Netflix, Zhenya stretched out with his head resting on Marcus’s thigh.

“Can I tell you something?” Zhenya says. The credits for the shitty movie they picked to watch are rolling, and Zhenya’s not actually sure Marcus is awake anymore.

“Always,” Marcus says.

“When we were both at World Juniors, and you threw that elbow, that wasn’t what originally happened,” Zhenya says. He’s looking up at Marcus, watching Marcus’s face. Marcus is frowning.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Marcus says.

“No, listen,” Zhenya says, and twists around and sits up so that he’s looking at Marcus. “You fell. Like in Vancouver.”

Marcus looks at him, skeptical. “This is not one of your better jokes,” he says after a moment.

“I’m not joking,” Zhenya says. He reaches out and takes hold of both of Marcus’s hands, lifts them up and holds them over his heart. “I swear to you.”

“Okay,” Marcus says.

“In the game against the US, you fell,” Zhenya says. “I was watching. You caught a rut and you fell. And you went into the boards and you didn’t get up. And they brought out a stretcher and they took you off, and you didn’t wake up before I had to leave and go back to Russia. Your brother told me later that you weren’t ever going to play again.”

“I don’t like this,” Marcus says, and starts to pull his hands away.

“But I’m serious,” Zhenya says. “And I met this stranger and we made a deal and then instead of you falling you elbowed that guy and got thrown out instead.”

“Evgeny,” Marcus says, and gets up off the couch. “I said stop. If there’s some punchline you’re trying to get to, just stop.”

Zhenya gets up, reaches out and takes hold of Marcus’s hand. “I can’t make you believe me. I was seventeen and I loved you so, so much. And I couldn’t feel any of it for so many years because I gave it up for you to be able to be hockey. I’m never going to win a Cup, because I gave that up for you to be able to play hockey.”

“If that’s real, why did you wait eight years to tell me?” Marcus asks. He pulls away from Zhenya again and crosses his arms over his chest. Zhenya knows he’s upset, and probably more upset that they’re having this fight while in their underwear. Zhenya should have sprung this on Marcus when he was in his full suit still, so he could feel less exposed about it.

“Because I couldn’t tell you,” Zhenya explains. “I physically couldn’t. I wanted to. Every day I wanted to tell you and my throat would close up and my tongue would stick in my mouth.”

“Evgeny,” Marcus repeats. It’s been so long since Marcus has used his given name and not the diminutive that it’s harsh to hear in Zhenya’s ears. “Please stop.”

“It’s why I couldn’t come to America. And it’s why we never won a Cup. And - and you know how when a window shatters, sometimes all the tiny pieces stay in place even though it’s all broken.” Zhenya doesn’t reach out again, but he wants to. He wants to badly, but he can’t stand the idea of being rejected again.

“You falling in Vancouver was like that. And then in Boston… When you got hurt again it all fell out of place. And I got out of the car on the way to your apartment and I saw him again, and I knew that he hadn’t held up his part of the bargain. You weren’t happy, you weren’t playing hockey. We weren’t playing hockey together.”

“You know this sounds crazy, right?” Marcus says.

“But it’s true,” Zhenya says. “And all of this - all of us - is because I loved you when I was seventeen and I couldn’t give up wanting to be able to feel that again.”

“I loved you,” Marcus says.

“It’s not that I didn’t love you,” Zhenya says. “I know I did. I would’ve given anything. To play hockey with you, to be here with you. And then when everything started falling away…”

“And now you can tell me,” Marcus says. He un-crosses his arms and runs his hands over his hair. “What if you didn’t love me? This whole time, and you were just saying it.”

“I did,” Zhenya says. “I do. I knew when the spell - the curse, whatever - broke because I missed you so badly it ached. Because I could feel that. And I knew that all those times I promised myself that even if the feeling wasn’t there, I knew that I loved you.”

“I want you to know this sounds insane,” Marcus says. “And I’m not sure that I really believe all of this. But I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Zhenya says. He finally reaches out and puts his hand on Marcus’s arm again, tugging gently. This time, Marcus unfolds and comes to him, lets Zhenya wrap him in his arms. “And I’d rather have you here and never win a cup, and never be able to feel a single emotion, because you’re worth more than that.”

“I want you to be able to love me,” Marcus says.

“I do,” Zhenya says. “I can. I can now.”

Zhenya’s not sure that Marcus totally believes him, and Zhenya’s pretty sure that it’s fair for him not to. Zhenya probably wouldn’t believe it if the situation were reversed and Marcus had told him this wild story about making deals with strangers so that he’d be able to play hockey. At least this time Marcus reaches his arms up and wraps them around Zhenya’s shoulders, leaning into him. Zhenya kisses him softly.

“I’m gonna win a Cup now,” Marcus tells him.

“Not if I do it first,” Zhenya says.

Zhenya does it first.

He stumbles in the door with his bag from Vegas reeking of alcohol and sweat and running on absolutely no sleep. Marcus comes out of the kitchen when he hears the front door open, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand and a mouthful of food.

Zhenya laughs at him, and he yells Zhenya’s name around whatever he’s eating and flings himself into Zhenya’s arms, and it’s the stupidest thing that’s ever happened to either of them as a tomato splatters onto the foyer floor. Marcus is kissing Zhenya all over his face and it’s all Zhenya can do to stay on his feet.

“I’m so tired,” Zhenya says, leaning heavy into Marcus’s arms.

“Do you want a sandwich?” Marcus asks, as though he suddenly realizes he’s still holding half of his in his hand. “Are you hungry?”

Zhenya just starts laughing again and buries his face into Marcus’s shoulder. Then he lifts his head up and takes what’s left of Marcus’s sandwich and stuffs it in his mouth.

“Hey,” Marcus says. “That was mine.”

Zhenya is chewing and swallowing and can’t answer him, but he grins as best he can.

The Devils aren’t going to make the playoffs. There’s just no way, and Marcus is being scratched because he’s pretty much a sure thing to be traded. He spends half his time on the phone bitching to Zhenya about it. Zhenya, who’s season has run hot and cold, who’s had a concussion.

On the day of the trade deadline, Zhenya’s phone rings. It’s about ten minutes after, when everything’s in, everyone’s been informed, everything’s been approved.

“The Boston fucking Bruins,” Marcus yells into the phone so loudly the sound is distorted. Zhenya knows. With Brad Marchand, who ended Marcus’s season the year before.

“Did he call you yet?” Zhenya asks, because he knows that Marchand is going to, after Marcus couldn’t keep his mouth shut at the end of last season. It’s awkward. It’s weird. “Will you tell him thank you from me for breaking the curse?”

“I am absolutely not telling him that,” Marcus says, his voice coming back down to some semblance of a normal level, but not quite normal. “Because then I’m the guy who talked shit about him, the gay guy, and the crazy guy all at once.”

“I love you but I don’t like it when you call me crazy,” Zhenya says.

“Okay, but you know,” Marcus says, and his voice is starting to get distorted again. Zhenya thinks there’s no way Marcus’s neighbors can’t hear him absolutely losing it. For the last hour. Non-stop.

“Yeah, but I did it because I love you,” Zhenya says. He’s sitting cross legged in the middle of their bed in DC, picking at a loose thread on their duvet cover.

He hears Marcus sigh, a hard exhale of sheer frustration. “Anyway, I have a flight to Boston this evening and - fuck, someone’s calling.”

“Oooh, is it Brad?” Zhenya says.

“Fuck, I hope not,” Marcus says.

“Well, go have fun with your new teammates and call me later and gossip about everything they say to you,” Zhenya says. “Especially Brad.”

“I hate you so much,” Marcus says, and Zhenya laughs as the phone beeps and disconnects.

There’s pretty much nothing but clothes in Marcus’s Boston apartment, but the food delivery is killer. Zhenya goes sightseeing, takes himself to the movies. But mostly, he’s bored.

When Marcus is home, he’s mostly exhausted and doesn’t want to do anything but lounge around. Maybe if Zhenya had come to Boston immediately after the Caps were eliminated, Marcus might have had the energy to do anything but sleep, but now, in the Final, he doesn’t.

He sleeps like the dead, stretched out on his stomach and his face turned away while Zhenya watches tv, the minutes counting down until Game Seven. They’re going to walk away tonight and either Marcus will be a Stanley Cup Champion, like Zhenya, or he won’t.

Zhenya’s going. He won’t go down on the ice, if the Bruins win, but he’s going to be there in the building. He wears jeans and a Bruins snapback that he appropriates from Marcus and sits in the seats where no one even bats an eye at him. He’s never just sat and watched a hockey game that was this important from the seats. He gets into it.

By the end of the second, the Bruins are up by a goal. By the end of the third, the game is tied and they’re going to overtime, and Zhenya has to laugh. Because of course, like these teams aren’t tired enough. Delay the party for another couple of hours.

It doesn’t take that long.

The Bruins score, and everyone’s screaming. The players flood onto the ice, even though Zhenya knows that the goal has to be confirmed by Toronto because it’s overtime, the Bruins don’t seem to care. He doesn’t blame them. The crowd doesn’t care either. The strangers he’s spent the last four hours with are screaming and hugging and high-fiving him, and he’s screaming and hugging and high-fiving them back.

It takes Zhenya forever to get out of the stands, and even longer to get down to the basement. By that time, all of the families have filtered onto the ice, everyone’s taking pictures. Zhenya had dinner with Marcus’s parents and siblings before they all came to the game, but they can go on the ice and Zhenya can’t.

Zhenya’s still waiting when players start to filter down the hallway, sitting on a folding table and kicking his legs back and forth while he waits. He’s still got the snapback on, locker room issue, Marcus’s 90 visible above his ear. Some of the guys recognize him and give him a high five. Some don’t.

Marcus comes down, still in his skates and Zhenya hops down off the table. Marcus towers over him with his skates still on and Zhenya just in sneakers, and he has to tilt his face up and go on tiptoe to kiss Marcus. People flow around them down the hallway, family to leave, players to the locker room to start the celebration in earnest. Someone smacks Zhenya on the back - Marcus’s brother, he thinks.

“You won,” Zhenya says, grinning up at him. Marcus is sweaty and his beard is mostly on his neck and he’s at his most horrible. Zhenya loves him so much he feels like he could explode.

“We couldn’t win a Cup together,” Marcus says, and he’s got his hands on both sides of Zhenya’s face and they smell fucking terrible and it’s probably in the top five of best things that have ever happened to him, after winning the Cup himself and the first time he kissed Marcus at World Juniors and the first time they kissed for real.

“But we both have one now,” Zhenya says, grinning at him.

“Yup,” Marcus says, and kisses him again. Zhenya twists his fingers into Marcus’s too long hair. It’s fucking disgusting. “I gotta go. I’ll see you later.”

“You’re gonna be so fucking drunk,” Zhenya says, and kisses him again.

“Yeah,” Marcus says, and they’re kissing again instead of Marcus leaving.

“Come the fuck on, Romeo,” someone yells, and physically grabs Marcus by the back of his jersey to pull him away.

Zhenya’s been asleep for a couple of hours when Marcus comes stumbling into the bedroom. If Zhenya hadn’t won the Cup himself the season before, he’d say that he’d never seen a man so drunk. He doesn’t take any of his clothes or even his shoes off before he climbs into the bed and drapes himself fully across Zhenya.

“Marc,” Zhenya says, half asleep and squashed under far too many pounds of drunk hockey player. “No shoes in the bed.”

“Oh shit,” Marcus says, and struggles to kick them off. Zhenya sits up and watches him squirm around, until he gets his shoes off and then has to lie there, breathing hard. “Fuck.”

“How drunk are you right now?” Zhenya asks him right now.

“So drunk,” Marcus says. He sits up and struggles out of his shirt, then struggles out of his pants. It takes him far longer than it normally would, and Zhenya has to muffle giggles the whole time.

Eventually, Marcus flops over on top of Zhenya again and kisses him. Zhenya twists his fingers into Marcus’s hair again, still too long, but this time soft and clean. His hands don’t smell like hockey gloves anymore, and his mouth tastes like alcohol.

Zhenya wishes he’d won the Cup this year, and that they’d done it together, but he thinks it’s okay that they didn’t. At least now they both have their names on it.

“Now what do you want to do?”

The Cup has been packed away, and the party’s still going. Marcus has a drink in one hand and his arm wrapped around Zhenya’s waist, pulling him in close. They’ve snuck away from the party, just to spend a little time alone together, since they’ve spent most of the day separated by the presence of cameras.

They’re both a little drunk. “Well, we won a Cup,” Zhenya says.

“Two Cups, technically,” Marcus says. They’re sitting outside, Marcus perched on a low wall. Zhenya steps between his knees, resting his arms around Marcus’s shoulders.

“One apiece,” Zhenya says. “And I love you. What do you want to do?”

“Win another Cup,” Marcus says.

“Greedy,” Zhenya says.

“No,” Marcus says. “Come back to DC, have a healthy season, win a Cup with you.”

“That sounds like a dream,” Zhenya says.

“A guy can dream,” Marcus says, and pulls Zhenya in closer to him with his legs.

Zhenya just grins at him and leans in for a kiss.