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The shootout loss stung like rubbing alcohol in a paper cut—sharp, disproportionate, infuriating in its familiarity. Three times now. Three shootout losses against Dallas this season. Same opponent, same format, same gut-punch ending where Nate watched from the bench as the puck found twine on the wrong end and the Stars celebrated like they'd invented hockey. His stick had hit the boards hard enough to crack the blade, and the sound had echoed through the tunnel as he walked off the ice with his jaw wired shut.
The locker room was subdued. Guys stripping pads in silence, the occasional murmured word between stalls, the trainers moving efficiently between bodies. Nate sat in his stall with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor, running the third period through his head frame by frame. They'd been tied 1-1 going into the final five minutes. Going into OT. And then the shootout—
He didn't want to think about the shootout.
"Hey." Cale dropped onto the bench beside him, freshly showered, hair dripping onto his shoulders. He had his phone in his hand, screen angled toward Nate. "Did you see? Sid's back tonight. They activated him from IR."
Nate's head came up.
"What?"
"Yeah, he played against Carolina. Didn't you know?"
Nate grabbed his own phone from the shelf above his stall. The screen lit up to a cascade of notifications he'd ignored during the game—messages, social media alerts, news updates. He opened Twitter first and there it was, pinned at the top of the Penguins' official account:
Forward Sidney Crosby has been activated from Injured Reserve.
Posted four hours ago. While Nate was warming up for Dallas, Sid had been suiting up in Raleigh.
Nate stared at the tweet for a long beat, something warm and electric spreading through his chest, displacing the bitter residue of the shootout loss. Sid hadn't told him. The man had been on the phone with him last night—falling asleep mid-sentence, murmuring filthy promises into the pillow—and hadn't said a word.
He scrolled.
His feed was a wall of Sid. Every hockey account, every fan page, every beat reporter—all of them erupting over the return. Sid's first goal back: a backhand off assists from Karlsson and Rakell, slipped past Andersen’s glove in the second period. The clips were everywhere, replaying from every angle, and Nate watched one loop three times, his eyes tracking the way Sid received the pass in stride, deked right, and roofed the backhand with that effortless wrist snap that made it look like the puck weighed nothing. The celly was restrained—a fist pump and a grin—but the bench had gone berserk behind him, guys banging their sticks and yelling, and even through the grainy phone footage Nate could see the light in Sid's eyes. Pure, undiluted joy. Back where he belonged.
Then Nate's eyebrow rose.
Because underneath the goal clips, his entire feed had pivoted to something else entirely: Sid in the penalty box. First game back from IR and the man had managed to collect a roughing minor before the second intermission.
Nate tapped on the first clip.
The footage showed the tail end of a board battle—Sid and Svechnikov tangled up along the half-wall, jostling for position, Svechnikov's stick hooked through Sid's arm. Standard stuff. Except when they separated off the boards, Sid—casual as anything, like he was brushing lint off his shoulder—threw a short, compact punch that connected cleanly with the side of Svechnikov's face. Just a quick pop. Almost conversational. Hey, get off my stick. Here's a fist for your trouble.
Svechnikov retaliated with a slash that caught Sid across the shin—right on the leg that had kept him out for weeks—and Nate's jaw tightened involuntarily, a protective surge flooding through him. But Sid barely flinched. Skated away with his stick raised, looking over his shoulder with a grin that could only be described as delighted, while the referees sorted out the aftermath.
Two minutes for roughing on Sid. Two for holding the stick on Svechnikov, plus an additional two for unsportsmanlike after Svech screamed at the referee about the call. The clip of Svechnikov gesturing wildly at the official while being escorted to the box had already been turned into approximately forty different memes.
But the best part—the part that made Nate's mouth curve into a helpless, fond grin—was the penalty box footage.
Sid, seated behind the glass, looking entirely unrepentant. Hair disheveled, a red mark blooming on his knuckles, that shit-eating smirk plastered across his face. And beside the box, separated by glass and a ledge, a Hurricanes fan in a red jersey. The two of them were... chirping each other. Casually. Conversationally. Both smirking, both clearly enjoying the exchange, Sid occasionally gesturing with his hands—what can you do?—while the fan pointed at the scoreboard. Like two guys at a bar arguing about the check.
This man. Back from a months-long injury and already collecting penalty minutes and making friends in the sin bin. Nate shook his head, scrolling through the replies:
crosby’s first game back: goal AND a roughing call. the king has returned
he punched svech like he was swatting a fly. casual violence king
the penalty box chirping with the canes fan is SENDING me
87 really said "i didn't come back from injury to be polite"
The Pens had lost, though—overtime, 5-6 Hurricanes. Nate filed that away with a complicated mix of sympathy and competitive satisfaction.
"Looks like we're going to have the real deal on the 25th," Cale said from beside him, having watched Nate scroll through his phone with transparent amusement. "You ready for that?"
Nate locked his phone and stood, reaching for his towel. "Shower. Now. Stop talking."
Cale's laugh followed him across the locker room.
The drive home was quiet but different from last night's silence—lighter, the weight of the shootout loss already being displaced by something brighter humming under his ribs. He typed out a text at the first red light:
you didn't tell me you were playing tonight
He watched the message send, then added: saw the svechnikov clip. very mature, captain
No reply came. Sid was probably still doing media—postgame interviews, the scrum, the endless cycle of cameras and microphones and the same questions rephrased six different ways. Nate pocketed his phone and drove.
Home. Shoes off. Bag dropped by the door, in the same spot Sid's overnight bag had occupied yesterday morning. The house was quiet again, but the silence felt different now—temporary. Five days until the 25th. Five days until Sid was on the other side of a faceoff dot, live and in person, competing against him for the first time since the injury. The anticipation was a living thing inside Nate's chest, coiling tighter with each passing hour.
He showered, the hot water loosening the knots in his shoulders from the game. Dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. Started dinner on autopilot—salmon, sweet potatoes, a handful of spinach because his nutritionist would somehow know if he skipped it. Mikko had texted earlier suggesting dinner at some new place downtown, but Nate had passed. He just wanted to be home tonight. Wanted to eat in his own kitchen and decompress in his own space and maybe—probably—definitely fall asleep on another video call with Sid.
He checked his messages while the salmon sizzled. Nothing from Sid yet. He went back to scrolling, refreshing his feed out of restless habit. Clips from the Avs-Dallas game surfaced between the Sid content—fans lamenting the shootout loss with the specific gallows humor of a fanbase that had watched it happen three times running.
we can beat anyone in the league except dallas in a shootout. it's a curse. someone call a priest
avs and dallas shootouts should be classified as a form of psychological warfare
at this point just go straight to OT and flip a coin. same outcome, less suffering
Nate exhaled through his nose and scrolled past. He didn't need the internet to remind him. He refreshed again. And again. His feed had reached that point—the deep scroll, the algorithmic wasteland—where the hockey content thinned out and random posts started filtering in. A recipe for protein pancakes. Someone's golden retriever wearing a tiny backpack. A tweet about mercury being in retrograde, whatever that meant.
Then his thumb stopped.
Two photos, side by side. One of him, one of Sid. Both from recent interviews—Nate's from yesterday's postgame, Sid's from tonight's. And in both photos, each of them was wearing a cap that could only be described as... seasoned. Not old. Moldy. Legitimate, years-old, structurally compromised hats that looked like they'd been retrieved from the bottom of a gym bag that hadn't been opened since 2019. Nate's was an Avs cap with a brim that curved at an angle God never intended. Sid's was a Penguins cap with a sweat stain that had developed its own ecosystem.
Nate's mouth twitched upward. He tapped on the tweet.
The caption: They are so interesting to me
The replies were already spiraling:
Must be something in the water in Nova Scotia. The water of humbleness
the love is stored in the crusty hat
Nate copies his mentor, and we approve ✊
who wants to get matching mold hats with me 🥰
these caps are deadass radioactive im cryinggggg
two of the best players on the planet. wearing hats that should be in a hazmat facility
Nate huffed a laugh. He'd honestly just grabbed whatever was closest when the media handler waved him toward his stall—the cap had been sitting on the shelf, brim bent to his preference, and he'd pulled it on without a second thought. The fact that Sid had worn a matching disaster of a hat in his morning skate interview the very next day was either cosmic coincidence or deliberate provocation.
With Sid, the line between those two things was perpetually blurred. And either way—coincidence or calculated—something warm settled behind Nate's sternum. Maybe the universe had its own sense of humor about the two of them.
He snorted, thunked his head back against the kitchen cabinet, grinning at the ceiling like an idiot, when his phone vibrated against the counter.
Just got back to the hotel. I'm beat
Nate looked at the message. Considered texting back. Considered it for approximately one and a half seconds before abandoning the pretense and pressing the video call button.
The screen flickered, buffered for a heart-stopping moment, and then resolved into Sid's face.
He was still in his suit—dark blue, with a dark blue necktie loosened at the collar, the top button undone. Nate had seen a photo of it earlier on the Pens' Instagram, Sid rolling his suitcase through the arena looking like he'd stepped out of a menswear campaign instead of a hockey game. The man looked devastatingly good even through the mediocre quality of a hotel Wi-Fi video call. His hair was still damp from the postgame shower, curling slightly at his temples, and his eyes were bright despite the fatigue visible in the set of his shoulders.
Nate watched him settle into the hotel couch, the phone propped against something—a water bottle, maybe—and the frame widened enough to show the spread laid out in front of Sid. A room service tray. Grilled chicken, some kind of grain bowl, a side salad. And there—tucked behind the salad plate with the strategic positioning of a man who had something to hide—a brownie. A thick, fudgy, clearly-from-the-hotel-bakery brownie. And next to it, a small container that looked suspiciously like a crème brûlée.
Nate's gaze landed on the brownie. Lingered there. His mouth tugged sideways, warmth flooding his chest. He said nothing.
On screen, Sid followed his eyeline and stiffened almost imperceptibly. His hand drifted casually toward the salad plate, shifting it to block the dessert from view. Subtle. Practiced. The man had clearly done this before.
This man was thirty-eight years old and smuggling brownies past a video call like a kid hiding candy under his pillow.
"Hi," Nate said, his voice coming out softer than he intended. Fond. Helplessly fond.
"Hi." Sid smiled at him, tired and genuine, and started eating. Fork in one hand, phone adjusted with the other.
"You didn't tell me you were playing tonight."
Sid's smirk surfaced between bites—cheeky, wholly unrepentant, the same expression he'd worn in the penalty box. "Honestly? We weren't sure until this morning. Muse pulled me aside before the optional skate and said the medical staff cleared me overnight. The whole thing came together in like three hours."
"And you couldn't text me in those three hours?"
"I was a little busy getting activated from injured reserve and scoring a goal and punching Andrei Svechnikov in the face, Nathan."
"Right. Busy day."
"Very."
So it was real. The 25th wasn't going to be Sid in a press box anymore—it was going to be Sid on the ice. Across from him. Competing. That electric anticipation Nate had been carrying for days intensified, crackling through his nerve endings. The thought of finally going head-to-head with this man again after weeks of watching him spectate from above, unable to play, stuck in suits while his team skated without him—
Nate's jaw tightened with the force of wanting it. Five days.
"How'd the knee feel?" he asked, watching Sid eat.
"Good. Really good, actually. First shift was a little—you know how it is. Legs feel like they belong to someone else for the first two minutes. But by the second period, everything clicked." Sid paused, his fork hovering. "The goal helped."
"I saw it. Backhand was filthy."
Sid's face lit up—genuine, boyish pleasure breaking through the composed exterior. "Yeah? You watched it?"
"About eight times."
"Only eight?"
"Don't fish."
Sid grinned and took another bite. Nate watched him eat with a focus that might have been creepy if directed at anyone else. But this was Sid—his Sid—and watching him do mundane things like chew and swallow and dab his mouth with a napkin triggered something tender and almost painfully domestic in Nate's chest.
"Saw the Svechnikov thing too," Nate said. "Very diplomatic."
"He was holding my stick."
"So you punched him."
"Lightly."
"In the face."
"The side of his face. Important distinction." Sid pointed his fork at the camera for emphasis. "Besides, he slashed my leg after. Which wasn't even called, by the way. So really, I showed restraint."
"You showed restraint by punching first."
"Exactly. Preemptive restraint. Very mature." Sid's grin was incandescent. "The fan in the box was great, though. We had a whole conversation about barbecue. He recommended a place in Raleigh."
"Of course he did."
They settled into the rhythm of it—the easy, overlapping flow of two people whose conversations had no clear beginning or end, just a continuous thread picked up and set down and picked up again across days and distances. Sid told him about the game in fuller detail—the adjustments Carolina had made after the second period, the defensive breakdowns that had cost them in overtime, Rakell’s assist on Sid's goal and the bear hug he'd received on the bench that had nearly cracked a rib. Nate told him about Dallas, about the shootout curse, about the specific frustration of watching the same script play out for the third time against the same opponent.
"You'll get them next time," Sid said, and it wasn't a platitude—his eyes were serious, his voice carrying the weight of someone who had lived through more losing streaks and heartbreaks and comebacks than almost anyone in the sport's history. "The shootout is its own beast. It barely reflects the actual game."
"I know."
"You played well tonight. I checked the stats during intermission."
"You checked my stats during your own game?"
Sid shrugged, entirely unbothered. "Second intermission is boring."
Something stupid and warm bloomed in Nate's chest. He watched Sid take another bite, watched him chew, watched those golden eyes drift sideways toward—
The brownie.
Sid's gaze slid to the dessert he'd half-hidden behind the salad plate with all the subtlety of a dog eyeing a steak. His fork slowed. His chewing became contemplative. Nate could practically see the internal negotiation happening in real time, the war between discipline and desire playing out across Sid's expressive face.
"Go ahead," Nate said, smirking.
Sid's eyes snapped back to the camera. "What?"
"The brownie. And the crème brûlée you think I can't see behind the chicken."
Busted. Color flooded Sid's cheeks—a gorgeous, guilty pink—and a pout formed on his lips so quickly it had to be involuntary. His shoulders squared defensively. "I wasn't—that's not—they just came with the room service. I didn't order them specifically."
"Uh huh."
"They're complimentary."
"Right."
"It would be rude not to eat them."
"Where'd you even get that brownie, Sid? I thought Frankie put you on the no-sugar list after the Olympic camp."
The flush deepened. The pout intensified. Sid looked like a man who had been personally wronged by the concept of nutritional accountability. "Frankie doesn't control room service. Frankie controls team meals.There's a jurisdictional difference."
"A jurisdictional difference."
"Yes."
"Between your team nutritionist and a hotel brownie."
"I'm a grown man, Nathan."
"A grown man who hid a crème brûlée behind a piece of chicken."
Sid stared at him through the screen, mouth pressed into a thin line, clearly wrestling between dignity and dessert. Dessert won. His hand shot out, grabbed the brownie, and took an enormous bite—practically half of it in one go, cheeks puffing, his expression shifting from defensive to blissful in the span of a single chew.
Nate watched him and felt something crack open in his chest. The sheer absurdity of it—the greatest hockey player alive, fresh off his comeback, sitting in a hotel room in Raleigh in a designer suit, stuffing an illicit brownie into his mouth like a chipmunk hoarding acorns. The crème brûlée followed seconds later, Sid cracking the caramelized top with his spoon and scooping a generous portion with an expression of pure, transcendent satisfaction.
He ate like nobody was watching. Like the brownie was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Like each bite of crème brûlée was a religious experience. And Nate couldn't stop the grin spreading across his face if his life depended on it—wide and dopey and so saturated with affection it probably showed in his eyes, his posture, the tilt of his head.
"There's cream on the side of your mouth," Nate said.
If he'd been there—if there hadn't been two thousand miles of geography between them—he would have leaned across and licked it off himself. The thought sent a pulse of heat through his stomach, and he filed it away for the 25th.
Sid's tongue darted out, sweeping across the corner of his lips, chasing the smear of cream with single-minded focus, and Nate's gaze tracked the movement helplessly. The pink tip of Sid's tongue against flushed skin. Lingering. Then retreating.
God, this man.
"What are you eating?" Sid asked, settling back into the couch with the boneless satisfaction of a man who had conquered his dessert. His eyes found the camera—bright and curious and expectant, those gold-flecked irises catching the lamplight, looking at Nate with open, guileless attention. Like the man genuinely had no idea what that gaze did to him.
Nate glanced down at his own plate, suddenly self-conscious despite himself. "Salmon. Sweet potatoes. Spinach."
Sid's nose scrunched—that little wrinkle across the bridge that Nate found unreasonably endearing—but he didn't comment. Didn't say a word about the meal, didn't make a face about the portions or the protein-to-carb ratio or any of the hundred things that Nate's brain sometimes spiraled about when someone watched him eat. Sid simply nodded, expression warm and neutral, and moved on.
He always did that. Always navigated around the sharp edges Nate carried about food with such careful, deliberate grace that it barely registered as effort. Coming from a man whose default state involved inhaling brownies and crème brûlée with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever at a picnic, the restraint Sid exercised around Nate's meals was its own quiet act of devotion. Every time they were together, Sid adjusted—ordered meals that wouldn't trigger comparison, didn't eat sweets in front of him unless Nate brought it up first, never once made him feel watched or judged or measured. The fact that this cost Sid something, given his legendary sweet tooth, made it mean even more than the gesture itself.
"Sounds good," Sid said simply, and started talking about the second-period adjustments Carolina had made to their neutral-zone trap, and just like that, the moment passed—easy and seamless and safe.
Nate ate while Sid talked, watching his face through the screen as his animation gradually dimmed. Sid was describing the power play setup Muse had run in the third period, his hands moving to illustrate positioning, but his blinks were getting longer, his sentences losing their crisp edges. Sleepy Sid. Arriving right on schedule—the man always crashed hard after games, the adrenaline withdrawal hitting him like a wall within two hours of the final buzzer. He'd shifted from the couch to the bed at some point, propped against the headboard, and now he was listing sideways, shoulder pressing into the pillows.
"What time is it there?" Nate asked.
Sid glanced at the nightstand clock, squinting. "Almost midnight."
"Go shower. You need to rest."
The pout returned—smaller this time, drowsier, more reflex than protest. "M'fine. I'm telling you about the umbrella formation on the—"
"Sid."
"—power play, and the way the half-wall—"
"Baby."
Sid's mouth twitched. He held Nate's gaze through the screen for a long, stubborn moment—an expression Nate recognized from thousands of faceoffs and press conferences and arguments about whose turn it was to pick the movie—before relenting with an exaggerated sigh.
"Fine." He hauled himself upright with the exaggerated effort of a man being asked to summit Everest. "Don't hang up."
"Wasn't planning on it."
Sid disappeared from the frame, taking the warmth of the screen with him. Nate heard the distant sounds of movement—a door closing, pipes groaning to life, the muffled rush of water. He finished his own dinner in the interim, scraping the plate clean, rinsing it in the sink, wiping down the counter with the mechanical precision of a man whose pregame and postgame routines extended to every corner of his life. Tidied the kitchen. Put away the leftovers. Drank a full glass of water standing at the island, staring at the dark window above the sink where his own reflection stared back—tired eyes, damp hair from his earlier shower, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw.
Five days.
He carried his phone to the bedroom, plugged it in, propped it against the lamp on the nightstand, and stretched out on the mattress. The sheets were cool against his bare arms. He could still hear the shower running through Sid's phone speaker—a white-noise hum that was oddly comforting, filling the silence of the empty house with proof that someone existed on the other end.
Nate lay on his side, watching the empty hotel room on his screen. The rumpled bed where Sid had been sitting. The room service tray on the side table, the brownie wrapper and crème brûlée dish now conspicuously empty. The edge of Sid's suitcase, open on the luggage rack, clothes folded with military precision inside.
The shower cut off. More sounds—a towel, footsteps, the brief hum of an electric toothbrush. Then the bathroom door opened and Sid reappeared, padding into frame, and Nate's breath did something embarrassing.
He was wearing Nate's shirt again. A different one this time—a faded grey Avs long-sleeve, soft from a hundred washes, the sleeves too long on Sid so they covered his hands, the collar stretched wide enough to expose the jut of his left collarbone. His hair was damp and unstyled, falling across his forehead in dark, messy waves. His face was scrubbed clean, pink from the steam, and he looked—
He looked like he belonged in Nate's bedroom. Like he'd just stepped out of Nate's shower and was about to climb into Nate's bed, which was essentially what was happening, just with two thousand miles of inconvenient geography inserted between them.
Sid bent toward the phone, peering into the camera, checking if Nate was still there. His face filled the frame—close enough that Nate could see the individual droplets of water clinging to his hairline, the faint laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, the exact shade of gold that ringed his irises.
"Hi, Mr. Stalker." Sid's voice was light, teasing, slightly raspy from the steam. "Have fun watching the brownie situation?"
Nate chuckled, low and warm, shifting on his own pillow to mirror Sid's position as Sid settled onto the hotel bed, pulling the covers up. They lay facing each other through their respective screens—two men in two beds in two cities, separated by distance and united by the strange, fierce intimacy of watching someone get comfortable enough to sleep.
"Hi, beautiful," Nate murmured.
He watched the word land. Watched the flush rise in Sid's freshly scrubbed cheeks—slower this time, gentler, a soft wash of color that spread across the bridge of his nose and down to his jaw. Sid ducked his chin slightly, the way he always did when praise caught him off-guard, and tried to mask it by adjusting his pillow, but Nate caught it. Always caught it. The way Sid's lashes dipped, the way his throat moved on a swallow, the way the corners of his mouth twitched against a smile he didn't want to show. The effect was unmistakable—settling over Sid's features like afternoon light, warming everything it touched.
"Stop," Sid said, but he was smiling. Eyes soft.
"Stop what?"
"Looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
Sid huffed, pressing his face sideways into the pillow to hide his grin. Nate grinned back, openly, unashamedly. He'd never get tired of this—the way the most decorated player alive went shy and flustered over a single word from Nate. Praise was Sid's kryptonite. On the ice, he deflected it like a pro—credit to the team, credit to the system, credit to everyone except himself. In bed, or in the quiet aftermath, or in the low-lit intimacy of a late-night phone call, it slipped past his defenses like a perfectly threaded pass and left him flushed and wide-eyed every time.
They talked. About small things, meandering things—the hotel room's weirdly high ceilings, the specific brand of tea Sid had found in the minibar that he claimed was identical to one his mom used to buy in Cole Harbour. About Tanger's ongoing feud with the team's travel coordinator over seating assignments on the charter. About the stray cat that had apparently taken up residence outside the Penguins' practice facility and that Geno had been secretly feeding for weeks and had named Boris.
"He's going to adopt that cat," Nate said.
"He's absolutely going to adopt that cat. He's already bought it a collar."
"Of course he has."
Through it all, Nate watched. Watched Sid's expressions shift and change like weather—animated when he told a story, thoughtful when he listened, soft and unguarded in the pauses between words. Watched him tuck his nose into the collar of Nate's shirt periodically—that unconscious habit, seeking out the scent, finding comfort in it. Watched the way his eyes crinkled when he laughed and went wide and serious when he was making a point and half-lidded and tender when he looked directly at the camera and saw Nate looking back.
This. This specific version of Sidney Crosby—freshly showered, wrapped in a stolen shirt, talking about stray cats and hotel tea with his hair falling in his eyes—existed only for Nate. The cameras got the captain. The media got the diplomat. The teammates got the leader. But this—the giggles, the brownie smuggling, the shy blush when Nate called him beautiful—this was Nate's alone. And the possessiveness that stirred in his chest wasn't sharp or jealous but something deeper, fiercer, more permanent. A bone-deep certainty that he would protect this softness with everything he had.
"Hey," Nate said, during a natural lull. "Did you see the hat thing?"
Sid's expression shifted—a beat of perfect blankness, then the slow emergence of a smile he was clearly trying to suppress. His lips pressed together. His eyes brightened with barely contained mischief. "What hat thing?"
"Don't play dumb. The crusty caps. It's all over Twitter."
The dam broke. Sid laughed—full-bodied, helpless, his head tipping back against the pillow, his nose scrunching, the sound tumbling out of him rich and unrestrained and so purely joyful that Nate felt it reverberate through his own ribcage like a bass note.
"I saw your interview," Sid managed between gasps, wiping the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand. "Yesterday. With that hat. Nate, it looked like it had been through a war."
"It's broken in."
"It's decomposing."
"So you wore yours on purpose."
Sid dissolved again, shoulders shaking, his face scrunching up with the specific delight of a prank successfully executed. "I grabbed it right after morning skate. Tanger saw me put it on and asked if I was making some kind of statement." He paused, catching his breath, eyes dancing. "I told him it was a fashion choice."
"You're unbelievable."
"The tweets are incredible. Did you see the one about the radioactive caps?"
"I saw all of them."
"The matching mold hats one—" Sid broke again, curling toward the pillow, giggling with the full-body commitment of a man experiencing peak amusement. His cheeks were flushed pink from laughing, his hair falling across his forehead in damp disarray, the sleeves of Nate's shirt pulled over his hands as he pressed them against his mouth to muffle the sound.
Nate just watched him. Didn't try to be subtle about it. Watched Sidney Crosby giggle himself breathless over a Twitter meme about their matching disgusting hats, watched the tears of laughter gather at the corners of those golden eyes, watched the way his whole face transformed when he let go like this—younger, brighter, free of every burden the sport had placed on his shoulders over two decades.
This man. This unpredictable, cheeky, brownie-stealing menace who punched opponents in the face during his first game back from injury and wore moldy hats on national television specifically to mess with Nate and then laughed about it until he couldn't breathe.
Sid finally settled, hiccupping slightly, cheeks still flushed, grinning so wide his eyes were practically crescents. "Sorry. That was—I've been waiting all night to see if you'd notice."
"You waited until I brought it up."
"More fun that way."
Nate shook his head, his own smile so wide it ached. "You're a menace."
"Your menace," Sid corrected, and his voice had gone soft again, the giggles fading into something warm and settled and intimate.
They lay there for a while in comfortable silence, just looking at each other through their screens. The hotel room had dimmed—Sid must have turned off the main light at some point, leaving only the soft glow of the bedside lamp, which painted his face in warm gold and deep shadow. His breathing had evened out, the post-laughter flush slowly fading from his cheeks, and his eyes were getting heavy again—that telltale, incremental drooping that preceded unconsciousness.
"You're falling asleep again," Nate said quietly.
"M'not." Sid's voice had gone cotton-soft, blurring at the consonants. His lashes fluttered—a slow, weighted blink that took longer to complete each time. "I'm just... resting my eyes."
"You've been resting your eyes for three minutes."
"I'm a very thorough rester."
Nate huffed a laugh, tender and exasperated. "Baby. Sleep. You have travel tomorrow."
"Don't wanna," Sid mumbled, and the words came out so petulant, so childishly stubborn, that Nate's heart performed a maneuver that probably violated several laws of cardiology. "Wanna keep talking to you."
"I'll be here in the morning."
"Not the same."
Sid burrowed deeper into the pillow, pulling Nate's shirt up over his chin so only his eyes were visible above the grey fabric—half-lidded, drowsy, golden, watching Nate through the screen with a focus that was slowly dissolving at the edges. He looked like something out of a painting. Something Nate wanted to climb inside the phone and wrap himself around.
"Close your eyes," Nate murmured. His thumb found the screen again, tracing the line of Sid's brow through the glass. Down his temple. Along his cheekbone. A featherlight circuit that Sid seemed to feel despite the impossibility, his lashes fluttering at each pass, his breathing slowing further.
"Nate..."
"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
Sid's eyes opened one more time—barely, just a sliver of gold beneath dark lashes—and found the camera. Whatever he saw in Nate's face made his expression go impossibly tender, a look so open and undefended that it felt like a physical gift, something handed over with both palms and complete trust.
Then his eyes closed. His breathing deepened. His body went lax against the white sheets, shoulders dropping, the tension of the game and the travel and the comeback finally unspooling from his frame. One hand rested near his face, fingers loosely curled, the too-long sleeve of Nate's shirt bunched around his knuckles. His lips parted slightly on each exhale. Peaceful. Still.
Nate didn't hang up.
He lay on his side in his own bed in his own house in Denver and watched Sidney Crosby sleep in a hotel room in Raleigh through a phone screen propped against a lamp. Traced the shape of him with his eyes, with his thumb on the glass—the curve of his cheek, the slope of his nose, the dark sweep of lashes, the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Memorizing, even though he already knew every line by heart. Even though he'd watched this man sleep a hundred times and each time felt like the first.
He thought about the 25th. About seeing this face across a faceoff dot, those eyes sharp and competitive and alive with the fire that made Sidney Crosby the most dangerous player in the world. About the bet. About Sid's voice last night, whispering into the dark, wanna ride you until you can't remember your own name.
He thought about crusty hats and smuggled brownies and the way Sid giggled when he was truly, purely happy.
The room was dark. The phone screen cast a faint, bluish glow across the pillow. On it, Sid slept—still and beautiful and his, his, his.
Nate's eyes grew heavy. He fought it for a while—didn't want to stop watching, didn't want to let go of even this digital, pixelated proximity—but sleep pulled at him with insistent hands, dragging him down inch by inch. His thumb stilled on the screen. His breathing synced with Sid's, slow and deep and steady.
He fell asleep with the call still connected, the phone screen glowing softly between them like a nightlight spanning two thousand miles.
Morning arrived with the particular cruelty of early winter sunlight—sharp, angled, finding the gap in Nate's curtains with surgical precision and landing directly across his closed eyes. He groaned, rolled over, and groped blindly for his phone.
The screen was dark. The call had ended.
He blinked, squinting, and checked the time. 8:14 AM. Below the clock, a notification: one message from Sid, sent forty-three minutes ago.
You fell asleep without a blanket again. I could see you shivering at 3am before the call dropped. Nathan. You're going to catch pneumonia and I'm going to have to explain to Bednar why his franchise player is in the hospital because he refuses to sleep under covers like a normal human being.
Nate smiled. The kind of smile that started slow and spread until it occupied his entire face, warm and helpless and aching with affection. He could hear Sid's voice so clearly behind the words—the exasperated, mothering tone, half-scolding and half-worried, the one that surfaced whenever Nate did something Sid considered reckless. Which included, apparently, falling asleep on top of the covers without a blanket. Again.
He typed back, still grinning: yes captain. i'll sleep under the covers tonight. scout's honor
Then, before Sid could respond with whatever lecture he was undoubtedly composing about Nate's sleeping habits and thermoregulation:
text me when you land in Pittsburgh. i want to know you got home safe
He stared at the message for a moment after sending it, something quiet and enormous settling behind his sternum. Then he locked his phone, pulled the blanket over himself—pointedly, deliberately, as if Sid could somehow see—and lay there for a while, warm and still, listening to the silence of his house and counting the days.
Four more.