#caps fic

///

Five years later, and Alex isn’t young anymore. His bones don’t ache, not yet, but he knows they will. But the Las Vegas heat is dry and far away from the humid heat of Washington and a whole world away from Russia, and Alex has decided that today, he is young.

“Zhenya!” he declares, throwing his arm around him when he finds him near the bar. His friendship with Zhenya is not, perhaps, the most steady thing in his life, but today he is a little drunk and he has decided to be happy. “What are you drinking?” 

Zhenya toasts him with his drink. Alex tries not to look at the ring on his finger, but it’s not easy. “I’m drinking less than you, I think.” 

“Yes, that is a problem,” Alex agrees, and then turns to the man next to Zhenya, who’s watching them not so patiently to be done talking in Russian. “Crosby!” 

“Ovechkin,” Sidney nods. The ring on his finger is harder to look at, for any number of reasons. But he’s smiling, and clearly looser than usual. Alex would be too, if he’d cleaned up like Sidney had today. 

“Congratulations,” Alex tells him, because that’s what you do. He’s not sure he means it. But he says it. 

Sidney grins. It’s a looser grin than Alex has ever seen, because Sidney is never relaxed–he’s either on the ice, which is it’s own thing, or he’s off it and he’s so worried about being the face of the league or whatever he’s worried about that he’s uptight. Alex doesn’t get it; he understands the cameras, but it’s easy enough to ignore them. Zhenya claims that when Sid’s on his own, with just the team, he’s different, but Alex has never seen it. Maybe this is a bit of it. It looks good on him. 

“Thanks,” he says. “You had a good season.” 

“Not good enough.”

“Never is,” Sidney agrees. He leans back against the bar. It makes his shoulders look massive. Alex is bigger than him on basically every metric, but Sidney has never seemed like it mattered to him. Definitely not on the ice, and not here, as he eyes Alex. “Want a drink?” 

“All drinks are free.” 

“Want two?” 

Alex laughs. Zhenya chuckles and shoves at Sidney. Sidney just grins, and gets the drinks.

Alex goes with the flow, and somehow the flow ends up in Zhenya’s hotel room. Sidney had claimed one bed when they’d come in, and he’s the smallest person in the room–or the shortest, at least–but somehow he gets a full bed, and Alex and Zhenya are sprawled on the other, their feet hanging off the side. Alex feels like he should object, but he’s drunk and they’re still passing a bottle of whiskey between them and he can’t look away from the ring on Sidney’s finger, where it’s resting spread on Sidney’s thigh. 

“What does it feel like?” he asks, interrupting Sidney and Zhenya’s talk about their teammates’ weddings. 

“Hm?” Zhenya asks, but Sidney lifts his head, meets Alex’s eyes, and even as Alex clarifies he doesn’t think he has to. 

“Winning. Lifting it.” He chuckles. “Want to know how I’m going to feel, next year.” 

“How you know we’ll feel again,” Zhenya retorts in Russian, and Alex shoves at him. Sidney rolls his eyes, even though Alex is like, 98% certain he didn’t understand them. He looks like a slightly amused father, as Zhenya pushes back at Alex. Like he’s above all this. So boring. It makes Alex want to yell and shake him and check him into the boards until he breaks, just to see if he can. 

“Maybe don’t break the bed?” Sidney says, mild, but with the hint of command that has Zhenya, and Alex despite himself, settling back down. “That’s not something I particularly want being written abuot us.” 

“No? No wild parties for Sidney Crosby?” Alex retorts. “Hockey orgies are best orgies.” 

"Not my kind of headline,” Sidney replies. Then adds, cocking his head. “And how do you even know the English for ‘orgies’?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Alex retorts, waggling his eyebrows and leering. Zhenya elbows him again. Sidney laughs, loud and always surprising, so unlike the perfect Sidney Crosby. He look different when he’s smiling like that. 

Alex shakes his head. “How does it feel?” he asks again. 

“Like best sex. Better.” Zhenya groans in a way that makes Alex mildly uncomfortable. “Like I could fly. Like…” he trails off, dreamy. 

“You need to get laid,” Alex tells him in Russian. 

Zhenya smirks. “The ring helps with that too,” he retorts, and Alex really doesn’t have a choice but to push him off the bed. Zhenya grabs his wrist and he goes over too with a thump, like they’re boys again. Like everything is still easy and simple. 

Sidney’s still lying on the bed when we’re done, watching them with a slightly bemused, considering look. He was probably never like this, Alex thinks. He remembers Sidney as a boy, remembers the pictures of him, all buttoned up and serious. Even then, Alex had wanted to break that.  

“Whiskey, Sid?” Zhenya whines, and Sidney lifts up the bottle–empty. Zhenya makes a sound like someone killed his cat. “Sid!” he whines. 

“If you hadn’t been roughhousing, you could have been drinking,” Sidney replies, all prim except for the giggles sneaking out at the corners. Zhenya scowls at him, and drags himself to his feet. 

“Fine. I get more,” he announces, and slams his way out of the room. 

Sidney watches him go, his brows furrowed. “He’s going to get into trouble,” he decides, sighing. He doesn’t move. 

“Zhenya can take care of himself,” Alex tells him. He’s not entirely sure of that, but he is also pretty drunk and doesn’t feel like moving, so he figures it’ll be okay. 

He drags himself up, but somehow he’s managed to tumblr closer to Sidney’s bed, so he pulls himself onto that instead. Sidney doesn’t really move, but the bed’s big enough for two. “So,” he asks. “What does it feel like?” 

Sidney looks at the ring. “Winning was the best feeling in the world.” 

Alex’s English might not be entirely fluent, but he knows tenses. “Was?”

Sidney lifts his eyes. In the soft hotel light, they shine like gold. “It gets heavy,” he says, and he’s looking at Alex like he expects him to understand. 

Alex dreams about winning. He dreams about the cup, about the gold. He is still so young. “Think you strong enough to handle a ring,” he tells Sidney, who shakes his head. He looks–disappointed. Like Alex disappointed him. 

Alex doesn’t care what Sidney Crosby thinks of him. But– “And is good, right? Like Zhenya says. Gets you laid.” 

Sidney hums, and tilts his head again. “It could,” he agrees, slowly. Alex watches, suddenly wary. People underestimate Sidney Crosby at their peril. He shifts, sitting up. His shirt’s all rucked up from where he was lying on the bed, and it’s tight across his shoulders and somehow also showing a hint of his hipbone. He’s started to put on his summer muscle. 

“Ovie,” Sidney says suddenly. He’s closer. Alex refuses to blush. He won’t be made to blush by Sidney. 

Except then–Sidney’s leaned in and his lips are on Alex’s and Alex freezes. His lips are chapped but just as plush and full as they’ve always looked. As Alex has wondered if they are. 

Then he collects himself, and shoves at Sidney, hard. “What you doing!” he demands, and glances at the door. It’s still closed. Sidney’s fallen back. He looks–disappointed, again, but his back is up and he has the look that he gets when he’s going to start whining at a ref. 

“I thought–maybe.” 

“No!” Alex snaps. He resists the urge to wipe at his mouth. To touch his lips. “No, I’m hockey player, I’m not–” 

“Okay. You aren’t.” Sidney shrugs. "Sorry.” 

“Sorry!” Alex repeats. he’s getting loud. “Sidney, is so–what if I punch you? Not sure I won’t! What if I–” 

Sidney straightens. “You couldn’t, though. If you say anything, and I deny it, it’s just you being shitty. Nothing people say to me on the ice is going to be different than it is now.” He fixes Alex with that look, the look that makes him remember that Sidney Crosby is boring and overrated and very very good. 

“You do this a lot? Kiss hockey players?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“And it works?” 

“Sometimes.” Sidney doesn’t look away. “You haven’t heard anything, have you?”

“No.” Alex shakes his head again. He’s too drunk for this. He hates this. He’s not stupid, but his mind doesn’t work like this, all twisty and planning. Nicke’s the playmaker, not him. “But you’re…Sidney Crosby.”

Sidney raises his eyebrows. His fingers drum over the ring. His eyes are gold and his lips are pink and his hair is curling just a bit over his forehead and Alex has seen him across faceoff dots and next to him on a camera and sitting on that bench, when he thought everything would be easy. “And you’re Alexander Ovechkin,” he replies, and Alex’s chest puffs out reflexively. Damn right he is. “That’s almost as good.” 

“Is better,” Alex retorts, and grabs the nearest pillow to hit Sidney with. Sidney laughs suddenly, surprised, and when Zhenya comes back they’re settled back down. There’s no evidence that Sidney ever kissed him. that Sidney ever suggested–that he would. 

///

Almost ten years after that, and the phone is ringing, ringing. Alex paces the alley behind the bar as he waits. The bass from inside pounds through his bones, and and he can feel the heat and sweat of it even the summer Moscow air. Outside, though, it’s bearable. He thumbs at the band of the ring on his finger, and waits. 

Finally, “Hello?” Sid answers. 

“Sid!” Alex cries. Maybe too happily. Maybe too much. He doesn’t know anymore. He is less drunk than he should be. “You come to Europe, not come to Russia? Not see best country?” 

“I’ve been to Russia before,” Sid points out, sounding amused and a little exasperated, which is about where Alex goes for with Sid. 

“That doesn’t count,” Alex argues. He doesn’t like to think about the last time Sid was in Russia. 

“That’s what Geno said too. Then he said if I came to Russia when he wasn’t there, he was going to mutiny.” 

Alex snorts. The days Evgeni Malkin mutinies from Sidney Crosby is the day pigs fly. “Fine then. You leave Pens, come play for us. You be so good, third line center.” 

“Third line?” That really gets him offended. Alex grins at the bricks. 

“Kuzy and Backy always my favorites,” he informs Sid, who makes a deeply unimpressed noise. 

“This is why I’m not coming to Russia.” 

“I can take Zhenya.” 

Another scoff. This one Alex scowls at. He can definitely take Zhenya. “I–” 

“Why are you calling?” Sidney interrupts. “It’s late for you.” 

Alex lets out a long breath, and tilts his head back against the brick. It is late. Alex is not as drunk as he wanted to be. There are so many people in the club, and they’re oohing at his ring and asking–

“Does it get lighter?” he asks. Apropos of nothing, like why he’s calling Sidney Crosby halfway across the earth about a conversation they had nearly a decade ago. 

Sid’s breath is loud, over the phone. “No,” he says, and he sounds kind. Not even condescending. Just–acknowledging something they both know. They both have always known, even if Alex tried to pretend there was an end date to this, that winning would make it stop. “Or at least, nothing I’ve done has gotten it to stop. Maybe we should be asking Mario.” 

“It’s–I was so happy, when I lift it.” Alex isn’t sure he’s ever been so happy. The Cup, and then passing it to Nicke and Nicke’s half-astonished grin, and then the rest of the boys, and then the week of celebration, and Alex had felt like floating away, like nothing could touch him ever again. 

“And then.”

“And then,” Alex seconds. Cameras and interviews and fans and everyone, and when’s the next one coming and do you think you can do it again and what next? "And everyone else—they still so…” 

“They don’t have to carry it,” Sid finishes. Alex doesn’t have to see him to know what Sidney Crosby looks like, settling into captain mode. 

“Yes,” Alex confirms. This, he thinks, is why he called. Because Sid’s always had to carry it too. Since they were just boys, and the cameras told them that it was up to the two of them to save hockey. “They never stop asking.” 

“Try being up for a threepeat,” Sid replies with a sigh, and Alex–god, despite himself, he dreams. Another cup. Three. Finally getting to throw it in Sid’s face, that he’d done something he couldn’t. Being able to throw it in everyone’s face, that yes it took eleven years but he did it. 

“I will,” he says instead of that, and gets a chuckle. 

A door bangs open. “Sasha!” come the call. “Come inside! What are you doing out here?” 

“I’ll be right in,” Alex tells him. 

“You have to go?”

“Have you finally learned Russian?”

“I know what being summoned into a party sounds like in any language.” Sid pauses, then adds, “Especially Russian.” 

Alex tsks. “Zhenya put up with so much from you.” 

“Do you want me to tell you about me and Backstrom’s chat thread?” 

“You bad liar!” Alex yells, but makes a note to text Nicke later. He’s pretty sure that Backy and Sid aren’t friends. Mostly. But just in case. 

Sid chuckles, and for a second, Alex thinks–of being back in that hotel room, of Sid’s lips. It’s been ten years, and Sid’s never mentioned it. Alex’s never mentioned it. He doesn’t think about it, except for sometimes when there’s a picture of Sid with a man, talking and laughing and he wonders if they’re just that bit too close. Except for when his gaze wanders and he yanks it back. Except for the times he’s facing Sid across a scrum and Sid’s eyes are bright and fierce and focused. Except for that last game, when their helmets had hit and Sid stared at him like he was trying not to cry and like he could see into Alex’s soul, and then he’d just nodded, and Alex knew what he meant. 

But Sid must still be doing it. Must still be quietly, carefully, picking up men. Boring, bland Sidney Crosby, the lamest face of the league. The man who’s never not done what the league asked. Who Alex has lived his professional life compared to, the wild card against Crosby’s steadiness. 

“Think they ever stop?” Alex asks, and hears Sid’s sigh, half a world away. 

“No,” he says. “They’ll never stop asking,” he says. Then he pauses. Takes another breath. “But only about what they know.” 

Sid, and his little rebellions. The little things that aren’t anyone else’s. I don’t hate you, he’d said, back when they were young. Alex hadn’t realized that had been a line in the sand. 

“And what they don’t know?” he asks. Pushes. There are so many people inside the club who want things from him. Who want him to be someone. And one man in…wherever he is, who gets it. 

“That’s mine.” 

Alex looks at the brick. Looks at his hand, and the ring around it. “And if I want to know?” he demands. 

4) Tom doesn’t say, because MIke is panicking more than a little, but he remembers all of it. He remembers, and he’s not sure he regrets it. Mike’s his best friend, but Mike is more too, and he likes the weight of that on his finger and in writing. So when Mike says, “well, we have to get it annulled,” Tom says, “Do we?” 

It’s not their first fight by any means, but it is one of the bitterest, and it ends with Mike storming out and Tom spinning a ring in the bedroom. No one could take Mike away, he’d said last night; he hadn’t thought about Mike taking himself away.  

5) Mike sends the annulment papers a few days later. He doesn’t hear back from Tom. 

Not, that is, until he’s watching a Caps game and he sees Tom take a hit, a bad one; sees him go down and not get up. He’s on bye week or something (logistics whatever), and he’s on a plane in hours. At the hospital in a few more. “I’m sorry, only family is allowed in,” The nurse says, and Mike considers for a second what the blowback will be and whether Tom will kill him himself, but Tom needs to be okay to do that. “I’m his husband,” Mike says, and the nurse lets him in. 

6) Tom wakes in a hospital bed, which always sucks, and he hurts all over. But there’s a pressure on his side, and when he opens his eyes, he sees why–he knows the body slumped over against the bed, the dark hair and solid shoulders and everything in Tom’s body feels better at the sight–and then Mike lifts his head, and smiles, and Tom–he might not be smart, but he’s not enough of an idiot not to realize what he feels when it’s flooding though him like this. “What are you doing here?” he asks, and Mike just shrugs. “Where else would I be?” he asks. His hand’s on the bed. He’s wearing the ring. Tom’s stomach flips. 

7) Mike takes Tom home, and he helps him around while he’s got time off, and it’s so like back when they were roommates except it’s not, because they’re older and wiser and there are two rings and some annulment papers between them. Except Tom also knows, now, that he definitely also did this because he’s in love with Mike and maybe he wanted to make sure of Mike, because he was possessive as a friend and now it burns in him, and that knowledge makes Tom guilty. But it also makes Tom determined to woo Mike, because sure, Mike might want to get divorced now, but Tom can make him see the upside of this. So: sneak dating! Tom takes Mike around town. Tom takes Mike out to fancy dinners. Tom keeps talking about how great security is until Mike throws a pillow at him and tells him to shut up, he gets that Tom’s got a massive NHL salary he doesn’t have to keep lording it over Mike. The problem is, of course, that none of it is different enough from what they’ve always done to make Mike notice. 

8) Mike, meanwhile, is also having a weird crisis because being back and living something that’s ~like his old life is bringing up all sorts of emotions, and Tom is acting weird on top of that, and sometimes Mike looks at the ring that’s still sitting on the bedside table of the guest room and thinks of that vague memory of Tom’s voice, now no one can take you away again. He doesn’t want to go away. He wants Tom. He’s always wanted this, since they were barely more than kids, But they live a county apart and in different worlds, and Mike’s not a part of this one anymore. He can’t ask Tom for a place in it. 

9) By week finishes and Mike goes back home and Tom still doesn’t sign the papers, and Mike doesn’t ask about them. Somehow the nurse is still keeping their secret, so that’s not an issue. Everything almost goes back to how it is before–except Tom won’t let that happen. He can’t play yet anyway; he shows up on Mike’s doorstep and leads with, 

“What if something happens to you? What would you do then?” 

“What the fuck, Tom?” Mike asks, letting him in the door. Tom takes off his shoes and comes in. He’s seen Mike’s apartment before. he doesn’t like it, mainly because it feels so foreign to him. 

“If you got hurt–if we’re married, you get all my benefits and shit, and you could be supported–”

“Seriously? Be supported? I have savings, and I’m not useless without hockey?” Mike folds his arms across his chest. Bad sign. “And what, you wouldn’t lend me money if I was broke? Some friend you are.” 

“Okay, what if something happened to me?” Tom tries. “Don’t you want to be able to get into my hospital room again? Or, like–if something really bad happened, then I’d like you to be able to–”

“Shit, Tom, don’t say that!” Mike raps on wood, and Tom does too, but he stands by it. “Why are you so into this marriage idea? We’re already bros for life.” 

“Yeah, but–I want–” And Mike’s just standing there, waiting, like he’s always waited for Tom, and Tom crosses the room and kisses him. Mike goes stiff for a second, then he melts. “That,” Tom says, lips a breath away from Mike’s. “I want that.” 

9) “So you can’t get this annulled now,” Tom says smugly, as Mike traces patterns on his bare chest and Tom stares at him like if he blinked Mike would disappear. “Isn’t that the rule?”

“We could still get a divorce.” 

“Isn’t that harder?” 

“Yeah. Guess we can’t do that.” Mike grins. 

“Nope,” Tom agrees, and catches Mike’s hand. His thumb rubs over Mike’s ring finger, where his ring would sit. “You’re stuck with me now.” 

Ovi stays quiet in the locker room. Nicke watches. It’s been a year, and he knows what Ovi looks like, when he’s simmering. 

But not here, he thinks. Not when they’re all shell-shocked. Nicke watches Ovi because watching him simmer is better than thinking of what just happened. Fucking round one. Fucking–everything. 

Nicke changes with quick, deliberate motions. It’s easier to pay attention to each thing he’s doing, than to the big picture. Like it’s easier to watch Ovi, watch him as he rips off his pads and shoves them into his locker. Then Nicke goes to the shower, and when he comes out, Ovi’s gone. 

Nicke should get dressed, go home, lick his wounds, and think about when he’s going to go home. 

Instead, he gets dressed, and goes to find Ovi. 

He’s not hard to find. Nicke knows Ovi, by now. He’s sitting in the lounge again, the lights off so he’s cast in shadows as he paces. 

Nicke stands in the doorway, watches. It’s cathartic, somehow. Watching Ovi pace. Watching him rage, like Nicke just–can’t. It’s not how he works. It’s in him, that anger, that frustration, but it’ll come out in bits and pieces in the next weeks, not with the explosive force of–

“Fuck!” Ovi yells, and it echoes in the room. 

“Agreed,” Nicke says, and Ovi spins. He doesn’t look ashamed of his outburst, but he does look at Nicke with something like wariness. 

“Not the time, Backy,” he warns, and doesn’t get closer. 

“Time for what?” Nicke asks. He comes into the room. If Ovi needs to rage, Nicke can be the person he rages to. He knows Ovi doesn’t mean it. 

Ovi shakes his head, huffs out a breath. “Going to–yell, and get angry. Don’t want to, at you.” 

Nicke raises his eyebrows. “Why not?” He deserves it as much as the rest of them. 

Ovi’s mouth opens, then closes, and he shakes his head again. “Is just–no.”

“Okay,” Nicke says. Now is not the time to wonder what goes on in Ovi’s head. That way lies madness. He doesn’t leave. Ovi looks at him like he expects him to, but Nicke–Ovi is still simmering, and Nicke just–he doesn’t like, it again. 

If he says something, the anger in Nicke must lash out. There’s nothing to say, anyway. He just–wants Ovi to know. That he gets it. That he’s there too. 

Ovi is very still as he walks over to him. Nicke goes up on his toes, kisses Ovi’s forehead. “Next year,” he says. 

Ovi snorts. “Next year,” he says, a promise or a curse. 

Nicke nods, and falls back down to his feet. Ovi is still looking at him, like he’s expecting more, but–Nicke’s done what he has in him. He doesn’t have more, he doesn’t think. 

“Don’t break anything,” he warns, and turns to go. Behind him, he thinks he hears Ovi laugh, rough and pained. 

Ovi is small again, when the media is gone. He’d been big until then, but now–Nicke had waited, little else to do, as everyone else got dressed and left. But Nicke–he doesn’t want Ovi to leave alone. Not this year. 

“Wait for me?” Ovi asks, when he sees him. 

Nicke shrugs. “Not looking forward to packing,” he says. “

“Could drink until you forget.”

“I could,” Nicke agrees. “Are you going to?” 

Ovi shrugs, a big, careless motion, and slumps back in his stall. He’s not a man made for slumping. Nicke hates it as viscerally now as he did two years ago. 

“Might as well,” Ovi says, glaring at the wall. “Nothing else to do. Can’t be captain any other way, might as well–” 

“Shut up,” Nicke cuts him off. Ovi shuts up, and looks at him again. It’s still that–he looks at Nicke like–Nicke can’t put it into words even in his own head, much less put into words what it makes him feel. 

But he knows this–Ovi is his captain. Ovi led them to the President’s Trophy. He can’t let Ovi think he’s any less than he is. 

Ovi’s sitting with his legs spread wide, like he always does; Nicke steps between his knees. Ovi blinks up at him, so many emotions, as always, on his face. 

Nicke leans down, and kisses his forehead. Ovi’s indrawn breath fills the room. 

“Next year,” Nicke says. They’ll do it for Ovi, next year–to prove that he’s their captain. 

Ovi’s lips twist, wry and harsh. “Next year,” he says. 

Then he lets his head fall back. “Now go home, Backy. Nothing for you to do here.” 

Nicke sits down in his stall. “I’ll wait,” he says instead. Ovi says something low and soft to himself in Russian, and gets up to finish getting ready. 

“Next year,” Nicke says. Ovi’s skin was warm under his lips.

“Next year,” Ovi agrees.

“Next year,” Nicke says. 

“Next year.” 

“Next year.” 

“Next year.”

“Next year.” 

“Next year.” 

“Next year.” 

“Next year.” 

“Don’t, Nicke,” Alex says. Nicke sits down on the bus seat next to him anyway. 

The rest of the bus is quiet, as the team licks their wounds. Nicke glares out the window a little bit. He wants out of Pittsburgh. It’s a terrible city. 

“Are you telling me to go away?” 

“Yes.” Nicke waits. Alex crosses his arms. “Go sit with one of your rookies,” he goes on. “Leave me alone.” 

“Why?” Nicke asks. Alex is many things, but he rarely likes to be left alone. Nicke’s usually the one who wants to be left alone, who has to tell Alex when it’s all getting too much and he needs to escape and Alex needs to cover for him. Not the other way around. 

“I can’t…” Alex shakes his head. “Fucking Pittsburgh.” 

“Fucking Pittsburgh,” Nicke agrees. It’s not an answer. “Do you want me to go?” he asks. He knows Alex. He knows the answer. 

Alex’s shoulders go down, just a bit. “No,” he admits. “Never want you to go, Backy.” He waggles his eyebrows. It’s weak, and Nicke rolls his eyes, and Alex leans back in his seat. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Nicke knows who wins silences, between them. Sure enough, 

“What if we don’t do it?” Alex asks the window. “What if we never get there?” 

Nicke has wondered that too. He doesn’t let himself often, but it’s something he knows might happen. Even the best team has bad luck. The hockey gods are fickle. Nicke thinks he would survive, retiring knowing he had played a good game, with no Cup. It wouldn’t be happy, but he would survive. Nicke would survive most things. 

Alex, he thinks, doesn’t think like that. Alex doesn’t think about survival like Nicke does. 

“We will,” Nicke says. 

Alex smiles, just a little–a odd sort of smile, almost sad. Not an Alex Ovechkin sort of smile. “You always say,” he says, and looks at Nicke, like he had almost ten years ago. 

“Because we will,” Nicke tells him. “You and me. Together.” He’s maybe not as sure of that as he wants to be. But he can say it like he believe it. If he makes Alex believe it, maybe it will be true. 

He leans over in the seat. Alex ducks his head a little, so Nicke can reach his forehead. 

Nicke keeps their faces close, just for a second. Alex’s eyes are closed, but Nicke keeps his open. “Next year,” he says, quiet, into the space between them. 

Alex’s eyes open, and that defeat has faded, if not disappeared. Instead, there’s just the way he looks at Nicke. “Next year,” he says. His hand twitches on his thigh, like he thinks about moving it but doesn’t. 

“Next year,” Nicke says. Next year they’ll at least get the fucking Pens. 

Alex looks at him from so close, like he knows what Nicke’s thinking. “Next year,” he agrees. His eyes are very blue, somehow. Their thighs are almost touching. Nicke’s face is red. 

Nicke steps back, before he can think about that. Alex watches him, his brows furrowed, more emotions than Nicke knows how to read on his face. 

The locker room is an explosion of beer and music and cheers and chaos, and Nicke feels it in him too, in every crevasse of him, like it’s almost too much. Like everything is too much, because they–because mere moments before he’d lifted the Cup, because Alex had grabbed him and handed him the Cup and they’d made their lap and the Cup is right there, now. Nicke could touch it, if he wanted to. 

Everyone is. It’s all–so much, and Nicke ducks away, just for a moment, into the hallway. He tilts his head back against the cool concrete. Breathes. Feels it in his veins. 

“Nicke!” Alex booms, and Nicke looks up. Alex is not quite drunk yet, but he’s not not drunk, and Nicke can see his joy radiating out of him, like it has since that goal went in. “Nicke, what you doing here? Beer is inside! Cup is inside!” 

Nicke smiles, despite himself. “Just taking a second,” he says. Alex nods, and strides over. 

“You always need second to figure how to feel good,” he says, shaking his head with a fond smile. “How to feel, at all.” 

Nicke shrugs. It’s not like he can deny it. “I’ll go back in a second. Once it sinks in.” 

“I help. Backy,” Alex says, grinning, and he’s so big, like he’s filling up the hall and the rink and the world. “We win.”

Nicke grins back. Feels Alex’s joy echo in him. “We did.” 

Alex is still looking at him, and he steps closer. “Still,” he says. “End of playoffs.” 

“I guess?” 

Alex rolls his eyes. “You know what you do, end of playoffs.” 

They don’t talk about it. They’ve never talked about it, their little ritual. It’s not a thing that needs to be talked about. Especially not after last year, and how it had felt–different. 

“Ovi–” 

“You do every year,” Alex says, and he steps close, huge and inexorable. “Can’t stop now.” 

“You don’t need it now.” 

“Nicke,” Alex groans, and as a practice Nicke doesn’t do anything Alex complains about, but right now–right now he thinks he would give anyone on his team the moon, if he could. 

“Okay,” he says, and takes a step closer, leans up–

And Alex lifts his head deliberately, so instead of catching his forehead Nicke gets his lips. 

Nicke’s breath freezes in him. Nicke’s everything freezes in him. But Alex–Alex’s hand is wraps around his neck, and he’s kissing him, keeping him close, and– 

“Nicke?” Alex asks, drawing back. Joy and fear and excitement war in his gaze. 

It looks right. It feels right. Nicke might not be good with feelings, but he knows when something’s slotting into place. When–of course, it’s Alex. Eleven years, a third of Nicke’s life, and of course it’s him. 

Nicke is full of that–of the certainty and the Cup inside the locker room and Alex right here with him, like always. So full, and he can’t–he doesn’t have words. 

He grabs Alex’s face, tilts it down so he can kiss his forehead, then up again, for his lips. 

When he pulls back from that, Alex is beaming, alight. It looks right.

“Next year,” Nicke says, a promise and an answer. 

No one else gets this moment. Not all the suitors downstairs, vying for the chance to break the curse on the castle; not all of Nicke’s people, who respect but are always wary of their ice prince. All of those people think Nicke is only the ice of his eyes and his touch, who speak longingly of the day the curse is broken and the ice falls away. All those people know nothing, Sasha thinks, fiercely as he had since he first came to the castle looking for work, thinking that a cursed land would have more use than most for a mercenary, and found the storied ice prince laughing as he sparred with a knight, his face lit up with a smile. All those people know nothing of ice. 

“Nicke,” Sasha says again. “Why now?” 

Nicke sighs, and lifts his head from his letter. He’s not happy about this either, Sasha can tell, though it’s hidden beneath his even stare. 

“What else am I supposed to do? They’re starving,” he says, and gestures out the window, at the snow-covered fields. “We’ve traded for all we can, and the stores have held out, but I haven’t been eighteen for years and everything’s running low.” 

“Found a way for ten years.” 

“But can I for ten years more?” Nicke asks. He leans back in his chair, slumping a little. Sasha’s fingers twitch with the urge to rub at those tight shoulders, but Nicke doesn’t like people touching him. Sasha has yet to discover if it’s a personal preference, or if it came on with the curse and a self-consciousness about the chill of his skin. “And anyway. The suitors won’t wait. We had three fights break out today alone. And some of them are threatening to make me choose.” 

“Who?” Sasha demands, his hand dropping to the sword at his waist and thunder in his voice. “I–” 

Nicke’s eyebrow goes up, cutting Sasha off. “It doesn’t matter. The point is that’ll start happening more and more until a war really does break out. We can’t have that. So I have to choose now.” 

“Choosing won’t make it true love,” Sash points out. His hand is still on his sword. He’ll fight all of the suitors downstairs, all these lords and ladies who think if they wait long enough they’ll make Nicke love them and their kiss will break the curse. “You shouldn’t choose. Not until it will work.” Not for a long time, Sasha thinks fiercely. Not until there’s someone who can make Nicke smile. 

“Maybe it will. No one says I have to be in love before I choose.” Nicke shrugs. “That’s what people say, right? You’ll fall in love with your spouse by sheer proximity.” 

Sasha’s breath hisses out. “That’s not a way to start a marriage,” he tells Nicke, whose lips quirk. For a cursed prince whose only way to break the curse is to fall in true love, Nicke’s remarkably unromantic. “They definitely won’t have incentive to warm you up.” He waggles his eyebrows. 

Nicke snorts, and rolls his eyes. He tips his head back. “I don’t need warmth,” he says to the ceiling. “It’s been ten years.” He slants his head to look at Sasha. “Haven’t you heard, anyway? There’s nothing but ice in me by now. My bed will be a cold one, for whoever comes to it.” 

Sasha snorts this time. Nicke makes a face like an offended cat. “What?” he demands. 

Sasha has seen Nicke sparring with his knights. He’s seen Nicke with small children, with dogs. He’s seen Nicke when one of the suitors challenged his authority, and Sasha had learned how cold ice could burn. He’s seen the warmth in Nicke’s smile and how fast he is to jump to his friends defense. 

“Your bed won’t be cold,” he tells Nicke. “Or, not–metaphorically.” 

Nicke sighs. “You’re the only one who thinks that. I’ve heard the suitors. They’re not optimistic.” He shrugs, unconcerned. 

Sasha is concerned. Whoever Nicke takes to his bed should be–should want to be there. Should know how to look past the physical chill and go to the fires at the heart of him. Should know that picking past the ice is so, so worth it, for the warmth and the sly humor and the loyal heart. 

“I just don’t know how to choose someone without starting a war,” Nicke says with a sigh, and– 

“Choose me.” 

Nicke straightens, and his eyebrows go up. “What?” 

“Choose me,” Sasha says again. It had come from nowhere, but he’s warming to the idea now. Probably because it hadn’t come from nowhere, but from the secrets beating inside him he’d never voiced. “If you have to choose, and don’t want to choose a suitor, then–choose me.” 

Nicke blinks again. “You? You aren’t a lord.” 

“No,” Sasha agrees. “But then they not lose, not really. And–” he swallows. “I understand. How curse works. We friends. If someone comes, and you fall in love–” Sasha will probably do something drastic and violent to that person– “I step aside, all good for you, curse breaks. And I not bother you like suitors do, all talk talk talk.” 

Sasha can see the thoughts ticking behind Nicke’s eyes, flipping through plans, how this would work. “You’d do that?” Nicke asks. He’s leaning forward now. Intrigued. Nicke really doesn’t want to marry one of them. “Why?” 

“Maybe I’m not want to move if you can’t pay anymore,” Sasha jokes. Nicke’s eyes are sharp on him; he knows he’s lying. Sasha doesn’t know how much. “Come on, Nicke. You know we best together. Have to choose someone. Should be me. Best choice.” 

Nicke sighs. “Come here,” he says, and Sasha goes, as always. Nicke stands up to meet him. He’s a few inches shorter than Sasha; Sasha is somehow both always aware of that and often forgets. 

It’s cold, this close to Nicke–noticeably colder, especially in this already chilly room. Sasha’s used to it, and he knows Nicke’s testing him anyway. “Yes?” he asks.

Nicke tilts his head back. Whatever he sees in Sasha’s face, it must satisfy him, because then he’s pushing forward, and his lips brush against Sasha’s, cold as ice. 

For a second, Sasha hopes–but they don’t warm at the touch of Sasha’s lips, and a spit second later, Nicke’s back on his heels, something thoughtful in his gaze. “Yes.” Nicke nods. “Okay. Let’s do this.”  

“It be good,” Sasha says. “Promise. I be best husband. Bring you flowers and lots of ridiculous squires for you to yell at.”