Work Text:
“Hey, you want anything?” Sid says as he stands, stretching his arms over his head.
Matt forgoes answering to watch Sid stretch entirely without shame. He’s beautiful, Matt’s got no qualms admitting it, all muscle, his shoulders starting to fill back out after a rough end to the season and his skin starting to tan from all the time they’ve been spending out here on the beach in California when they aren’t training. It’s the best part of the summer, getting to spend so much time with Sid. Sometimes Matt thinks about biting Sid’s delts.
Matt should maybe think less about that and more about whatever it is Sid just said.
“What?” he interjects, and grins when Sid rolls his eyes and huffs out an annoyed breath.
“I’m going back up to the house to get more water, and I asked if you wanted anything,” Sid repeats.
“Oh. No, I’m okay, I think. I’m just gonna enjoy being lazy.” Matt stretches his own arms over his head, enjoying the sun warming his skin and the towel he’s laying on. “Hey, speaking of water, though, can you make sure Paisley’s bowl is full? I can’t remember if I filled it this morning.”
“Yeah, for sure.” Sid grins, nudging Matt’s shoulder with his foot. “I’m gonna laugh at you if you fall asleep and get sunburnt again, though.”
“Whatever, I’ll just make you get the aloe on the parts I can’t reach,” Matt calls after him. He had last time, after all.
Nate makes gagging noises from Matt’s other side, and Matt doesn’t even bother looking away from Sid’s retreating form (his ass, okay, Matt is watching his ass and he’ll readily admit it – to himself, anyway) to reach over and whack the kid with the back of his hand. Rookie needs to learn to respect his elders so he can set a good example next season.
(Hah. As if.)
Sid isn’t gone long, lowering himself to his stomach on his own towel when he returns. He’s got some book on World War II and two bottles of water, one of which he passes to Matt without even glancing away from the book.
Matt grins up at the sky, so blue today it looks like it might break, and cracks the bottle open to take a long drink.
:::
“You’re so predictable, though,” Matt says, rolling his eyes as he examines all of the flavors in the freezer case. “Peanut butter fudge ripple, every time we come down here. Live a little, Sidney. It’s not gonna kill you.”
He doesn’t have to look away from the ice cream to know that Sid is making that irritated, wet-cat face at him as he responds, “There is nothing wrong with knowing what I want and getting it.”
“Of course not,” Matt says easily, gesturing to get the nearest worker’s attention. “That’s why you’re where you’re at in your career. But this is ice cream. Hey, can I try a little of the lavender white chocolate, please?” He gives the teenage girl his most winning smile, because his mother raised him to be polite to everyone but especially to food service workers that ‘have probably dealt with about a hundred rude people before you, Matthew’.
“Of course,” she says, scooping out a little on one of those tiny spoons that are apparently made just for this purpose, which Matt doesn’t get, but whatever. He takes it, tastes the ice cream, and grimaces.
“Yeah, not that one. It’ll be another minute or so, I’m sorry.”
“That’s fine, take your time!” she says cheerily. Matt’s pretty sure her good mood has less to do with his manners and more to do with the fact that he and Sid come in here all the time when they're in Halifax and tip pretty well, but he’ll take it.
“I know what I want,” Sid tells her, pointedly not looking at Matt. “Just a cone with the peanut butter fudge ripple.”
She grins – Matt looks closer, her nametag says Sandi, he should remember that for next time – and nods at Sid. “I thought about going ahead and making that for you when you came in but I didn’t want to be presumptuous.”
Matt can’t stifle his snort in time, and gets his foot stepped on accidentally-on-purpose.
He finally decides on the blood orange sorbet with Nerds candy sprinkled on top, and they head out to walk around for a bit as they eat. It’s become kind of a tradition this summer, ice cream trips. Andy’s working their asses off, and he has them eating really well otherwise, so since they both have incurable sweet tooths they sneak off about once a week or so and get ice cream.
It’s nice. Not just the ice cream, but having a thing with Sid, something outside of training that’s theirs. He doesn’t mind sharing Sid with Nate or anything, it’s not that, he just – okay, part of him does mind, but not in a mean way.
He just likes having Sid to himself. What’s wrong with that?
“You’re being quiet,” Sid comments, reaching over with his spoon (god, he’s so weird, who the hell eats ice cream out of their cone with a spoon) to steal a bite of Matt’s sorbet.
“See, you always do this,” Matt deflects, nudging Sid in the side with his elbow. “You get the same thing every time, and then you steal mine.”
“I took one spoonful, that’s barely even touching yours.”
“Whatever, Crosby,” Matt says, rolling his eyes and grinning behind his own cone as they turn around and head back in the direction of the car.
:::
Matt’s shooting off a quick text to thank his neighbor’s twelve year old daughter for taking care of his dog while he was in Vail (he knows well and good that she’s gonna show all her friends she has a text from Matt Duchene, but it’s adorable and he really does appreciate her helping with Paisley, so what are a few texts here and there from tween girls who really like his team and steal his phone number from their friend?) as he and Paisley come in the front door from their jog, and he nearly trips over his own feet because he’s clearly not meant for this kind of multi-tasking. He nearly trips again when he turns the corner into his living room and sees Sid napping in his giant chair-and-a-half.
He rubs absently at the aching spot right under his collarbone as he watches Sid for a moment, very aware of how much he likes seeing Sid in his space and how much he shouldn’t like it as much as he does. Then he shakes it off, removing Paisley’s leash and tossing it on the end table before he goes in search of a blanket to throw over Sid.
When he gets back to the living room, though, Sid’s awake, half-sitting and rubbing at his eyes.
“Sorry about that,” he says, his smile soft and sleepy, and god, Matt wants. He’s tried so hard not to the past couple of years, but he does, and this, Sid looking so comfortable in his home, this isn’t helping.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says instead of leaning down and kissing that smile the way he’s really, really tempted to do. He drops the blanket on Sid’s head. “Finish your nap if you want, I’m gonna go shower and see what I’ve got in the fridge to whip something up for dinner.”
Mostly he’s gonna get out of there before he acts on something that he really shouldn’t. The season’s gonna start soon, he can make it another few days until Sid heads home and then they won’t see each other until December and he’ll be fine.
Oh, gross, he’s not gonna see Sid until December.
He’s so busy frowning at his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice Sid hauling himself out of the chair to stand in front of him until he’s already there.
“Whoa, hey, sorry. Spacing out here. I’m gonna go do that – shower thing,” Matt stammers, and Sid frowns, which makes Matt immediately regret whatever he’s done to put that frown there. He wants the sleepy, dopey smile back.
“Are you okay?” Sid asks slowly. Matt nods, trying to be convincing.
“Yep. Great. Totally fine.” Yeah, that doesn’t even sound convincing to his own ears. He blows out a breath, dragging a hand back through his sweat-damp hair. “No. I’m being weird, I’m sorry.” He looks down at his feet, grimacing slightly at his gross socks, before glancing back up at Sid, which, okay, was a mistake because his face seems closer now. And he looks all concerned, and concerned Sid is really endearing and Matt can only handle so much.
“So here’s the thing,” Matt says, clapping his hands together once. “You’re really hot, and it’s a problem.”
Matt’s not sure he’s ever seen Sid look this flustered. (It’s really cute.)
“Yeah.” Matt nods. “All that blinking you’re doing right now? That’s usually me when you take off your shirt. And it’s been totally cool all summer except that now you’re in my house, and you’re sleeping in my chair, and there’s nothing wrong with that, I really like you in my house, but when you add that to everything else this summer, the beach and all the ice cream trips, because I don’t know if they felt like dates to you, Sid, but they did to me and I’m pretty sure they seemed like dates to Sandi the ice cream girl too, and – mmph.”
So. Sid’s kissing him. That’s a thing. And he smells even better than Matt’s noticed before, and that’s a really dumb, sappy thing to notice and he doesn’t even care because Sid’s kissing him and maybe this means Matt could totally bite his delts. Not right now, obviously. He’s got better things to do with his mouth.
He curls his hand into the neck of Sid’s t-shirt and doesn’t question it.
Well, for a few minutes anyway.
“Wait, are you serious? Are you sure? Dude, this is awesome, we should’ve been doing this all summer.”
Sid pulls back and his smile is both fond and completely exasperated. “Matt. I’ve been trying to do this all summer.”
“Oh. Right.” Matt blinks a little stupidly. “Carry on, then, don’t let me stop you.”
:::
It’s close enough to Christmas that Sid’s got his decorations up, and the living room is so dimly lit and cozy that Matt is nearly asleep on Sid’s stupidly comfortable couch (even though he should really be heading back to the hotel, they’re leaving early in the morning), a west-coast game playing at low volume, when a realization hits him. He drops his feet to the floor, sitting upright and staring accusingly across the room to where Sid is on a loveseat, reading some history book that would probably put Matt right back to sleep.
“Sidney.”
Sid’s brow furrows and he looks up, seemingly a bit taken aback at both the tone and the look on Matt’s face. “Yes?”
“The Cup Final game in LA was a date,” Matt says, pointing at him – for what reason, he doesn’t know, it’s not like it’s going to accomplish anything. Matt’s not even sure what he’s trying to accomplish. He’s already got the guy. “You called the cab, you got the tickets, we wore date clothes.”
“Matt, that was two years ago,” Sid says slowly.
“That’s exactly my point! And anyway, you’re not denying it.”
Sid just shrugs, his lopsided smile a bit sheepish, and Matt’s answering grin is immediate. Then Sid blinks, closing his book and focusing his attention entirely on Matt.
“What do you mean, date clothes?”