Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationships:

Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Minor or Background Relationship(s)

Characters:

Original Male Character(s), Hayden Pike, Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov

Additional Tags:

Explicit Sexual Content, Developing Relationship, Romantic Comedy, Good Friend Hayden Pike, Good Friend Jean-Jacques Boiziau | J. J. Dagenais, Post-Book 6: The Long Game (Game Changers), Humor, Sexual Humor, Heteronormativity, POV Original Character, Married Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov, Ilya Rozanov is a Menace, Shane Hollander Speaks Russian, Switching, Montreal Voyageurs | Montreal Metros Being Assholes (Game Changers), Dumb Hockey Boys, Getting Together, Smut, Miscommunication, Kind Of, Crack Treated Seriously, Vancouver, Fictional Hockey Team, First Time, First Time Bottoming, First Time Topping, references to the Vancouver Canucks, bringing gay sex hockey out to the canadian west coast for once, Fuck AI, No AI Used, Casey Marks (OC), Théo Routhier (OC)

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-05-27 Completed: 2026-06-05 Words: 28,046 Chapters: 4/4

Intricate Rituals

Summary

Casey kinda feels like he’s cracked the whole thing wide open here, if he’s being honest. The Centaurs had, after all, gotten drastically better in the last few years, and if he thinks about it, those changes had only seemed to happen once they’d had gay players on the roster. And they only seemed to get better the more they added. Maybe the league had been overlooking what was honestly a fairly well-proven strategy purely out of homophobia, and Casey was only seeing it now because he wasn’t one of those guys that got bothered by that.

“Actually, if it works so good, maybe we should try it,” Casey realizes.

This is where it officially goes too far.

---

After overhearing a particularly inspiring chirp from Rozanov, Casey Marks of the Vancouver Ravens gets a fantastic idea. If he can convince his linemate Routhier to go along with it, maybe they can finally turn their bottom-rung team into a real contender. And if Casey enjoys every second of it, that’s just because Routhier is objectively hot. Casey is definitely, totally, 100% straight. Totally.

Notes

Hi there! Last month I got a great idea for a fic that I just could not get out of my head, and I knew I had to make it real. This is my first time writing smut, and I think first time really doing any kind of ship fic? So this is very new to me, and I'll ask for a little grace given my inexperience. I just really wanted to write about the kind of hockey bro that would see Shane and Ilya and be superstitious enough to think gay sex would make them better at hockey, and then I also wanted to bring some of the love that's been shown to Ottawa and Montréal in this fandom and give the pacific division its own love. So I thought up these two dumbasses and just threw myself into writing about them.

This fic is already pre-written and complete at ~27k, I'll just be uploading the chapters every few days, but rest assured I am not typing up 7k chapters in a few days. Fuck AI for real for making that something suspicious. Thank you so much to my amazing irl friends for checking this over for Quebecois, Russian and hockey inaccuracies, as well as general editing notes, I couldn't have done it without you :DD

Characters to know:
Casey Marks (Marksy, Case) - RW, Albertan (POV character)
Théo Routhier (Roots, Rooter) - centre, Quebecois (pronounced TAY-o roo-chYAY)

Patrik Wahlström (Wally) - captain, LW, Swedish
Ján Pokorný (Korny) - goalie, Slovak
Cristian Águila (Aggy) - defenseman, Mexican-Canadian Manitoban

Chapter 1

So, the reason it starts is…kind of dumb, if Casey is being honest. Because for the amount that it spirals and kinda changes his life, it does not really seem like something that should be sparked by a petty desire to prove his shitty captain wrong. In fact in most circumstances, it would be ill-advised. But Casey is not spectacular at listening to the voice in his head that tells him when he is taking things astronomically too far, and as they are peeling into the visitor’s locker room of the Centaurs arena after a 5-0 loss, he overhears something that he thinks sounds, objectively, stupid.

It had been a brutal game. Of course, these days, going up against the Centaurs usually is, ever since the deadly combination of Hollander and Rozanov on a line together started tearing through the league like a well-oiled machine. It doesn’t help at all that Casey’s team, the Vancouver Ravens, has been the laughingstock of the Western Conference for longer than Casey has even been there, (though, in fairness, he was only really drafted here two years ago, so it hasn’t been that long.) That is to say, the Centaurs really wipe the floor with them, and it’s not close. This seems to get Wahlström, Casey’s captain, predictably frustrated, because he starts to get really aggressive as they’re starting the third. And not in the good, ambitious way that would actually help them. In the stupid, headstrong, shouting insults way that he always does when they are losing.

“Stick your dick in Hollander yet today?” Wahlström spits at Rozanov as they line up for the face-off, but it sounds pathetic, even as he says it. Casey feels embarrassed.

Rozanov smirks. “I did, yes. Keeps the hips loose, and our stamina is great, you know?”

“I don’t wanna hear it, bitch.” Really riveting and original stuff tonight.

“You and your guys should try it sometime, huh? Maybe will stop you from losing ten games in a row. Who knows? Maybe is why me and my Shane are each getting a hatty tonight.” As always, Rozanov is unflappable, nothing more than a tickled grin as he bends over his stick.

“Oh fuck off, cocksucker.”

The chirping is loud enough that Casey and his linemate Routhier can hear it from either side of center ice, even over the racket the crowd is making all around them. This means of course, that the ref also hears it, and while that would slide in plenty of barns, it doesn’t slide in the gayest arena in the MLH. Wahlström is forced to swap out with Routhier as the ref signals he’s lost his face-off privileges. Not long after, Wahlström is ejected from the game for a particularly violent check followed up with a much stronger slur that the refs manage to overhear. He’s obviously not happy about it, breaking his stick on the boards as he goes, which sucks because it means he’s going to be making it everyone else’s problem for the entire trip down to Toronto tomorrow. Personally, Casey thinks the guy should maybe shut up about how unfair his situation is when all he had to do was hold his tongue for a few minutes, but that’s just him.

When they finally make it back, Wahlström is there, already stripped of his gear and fuming, and Casey can’t help but groan internally.

“Who the fuck does he think he is?!” the captain starts in, already way more worked up than the situation warrants. The other guys shuffle in around him.

Casey tries to tune him out, sitting down to start undoing his skates, and turns to Routhier beside him instead, hoping to maybe catch his eye so they can suffer together. Routhier, a blond centre drafted the year before him, always seems to know when he’s trying to have one of these silent exchanges, most likely because of experience, and when their eyes meet, Roots is quick to roll his eyes and let Casey know that he, too, is fed up with their captain. Quietly, Casey grins.

“We still meeting up at that ramen place tonight?” he manages to mutter underneath the cacophony Wahlström is making. He’d discovered the tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant online just the night previous, and known Routhier would love to try it, if only to compare to all the delicious ramen they normally get in Vancouver.

Routhier nods back to confirm just as Wahlström calls out, “Y’know, those two could be the best in the league if they weren’t too busy fucking each other.”

And that’s just fucking asinine. Could be, like Hollander and Rozanov aren’t already good enough to be God’s gift to hockey. Casey can’t help but scoff to himself because it’s such a stupid stance to take. Could be? They are the best.

Around the locker room, pretty much everyone is avoiding eye contact with captain, presumably since they can also hear how dumb that sounds. That’s not the response Wahlström was looking for, apparently, because he gets up in the face of Webber, jabbing a pointed finger into his jersey like he’s making some salient point.

“Hey, listen to me. This would never happen on a respectable fucking team like ours, ok? Our guys are better than that,” Wahlström seethes.

“Shut the fuck up, Wally,” calls Pokorný, their goalie, and it’s just enough to undercut the tension in the room so everyone can move on with their day.

Casey tries to catch Routhier’s eye once more as the guys start packing up properly, but his shoulders are bunched up to his ears, and he’s in the middle of his very involved post-game routine, so Casey doesn’t interrupt. Him and Routhier are both superstitious as all hell, with long strings of rules they follow for every single game in order to ensure a victory, but Casey’s are mostly pre-game, and he knows Roots is having one of his moments he has sometimes, where he needs a bit of quiet. Which is fine, Casey knows not everyone can be one hundred percent all the time. He knows when to back off.

Finally, Wahlström gives up his tirade and stalks angrily out of the room, with all eyes on him as he goes out to the team bus. There’s a bit of relief seeing him leave, but ultimately the atmosphere has soured so far past the point where that would solve anything. God, Casey is so, so tired of their shitty, stupid captain. And it seems like everyone else is too.

“Wahlström is definitely getting traded before the season is up,” Casey remarks to Roots while they wait for their food in the restaurant later.

The place is a lot shittier than he’d anticipated. He hadn’t expected anything up to the standards of Jinya, of course, because they are ultimately in Ottawa, not Vancouver, but he’d sort of been hoping for something more than a wobbly table and tinny music trembling out of ancient speakers, which is what they have ended up with. But the menu selection is great, and Routhier hadn’t complained when they’d been shown to their tiny half booth by the window, so Casey figures he can overlook his gripes in favour of bitching with his linemate about dumb shit.

Routhier shakes his head. “I thought he had a no-move, no?”

“I mean, yeah,” Casey agrees, “But I mean, you saw that room right? Everyone hates his ass, and he clearly doesn’t even want to be here. I’d bet you real money that management is all over him with offers, or if they aren’t they will be after today.”

“I hope so.”

Roots is a man of few words, which Casey appreciates, because he likes to talk people’s ears off, and it’s easier to do when the person he’s talking to is happy to listen. When the waitress arrives with their food, two orders of black ramen, and they start to tuck in, he keeps chatting, going on about the game.

“I can’t believe he said that shit about Hollander and Rozanov. Like, what are you talking about, they could be best in the league, motherfucker they are the best. Like, what?”

“Yeah. Pretty stupid.”

Casey swirls his soup around thoughtfully, picking apart his half egg. “I bet you Rozanov’s right though, y’know? Like I bet it makes them better.”

Routhier freezes with his chopsticks in hand, and gives Casey a questioning look. “I’m not following.”

“You didn’t hear him? He was saying it like, kept their stamina up and stuff, it was like good for the hips.”

“Oh.” Routhier’s focus goes back to his ramen, studiously twirling the noodles around. “You mean like, sex?”

“Yeah, like sex.” Casey nods, before taking a big helping of noodles and making a loud slurping noise. Roots gives him a disapproving look, but Casey doesn’t care because it’s supposed to be polite or whatever. When he’s finished, he chimes in further.

“But not like just sex, y’know? Like obviously plenty of guys in the MLH are having sex. It’s gotta be a gay sex specific thing,” Casey says, “I mean hell, probably the next best guy after Hollander and Rozanov is Scott Hunter, and he’s doing the same thing they’re doing.”

“I think it’s a little different. They are teammates,” Routhier points out, shifting in his seat awkwardly.

Casey presses on anyways, because he can sense he’s onto something here. “Hey, maybe that’s what gives them the advantage over Hunter. Like that shit has obviously got to improve your on ice chemistry like nobody’s business, right? Honestly it’s probably better if it’s teammates, driving up their stats like crazy.”

Routhier doesn’t respond to that, preferring to take a sip of his broth and look out the window. Casey gets it; it’s sort of an uncomfortable topic, talking about gay guys in the league. Personally, it’s not something that Casey has ever been bothered by. To him, it doesn’t seem like his business, and it doesn’t really affect him in any way, so he’s not sure why it has everyone so up in arms. If Routhier doesn’t wanna talk about it, though, that’s fine with him. Casey’s happy to slurp his soup in peace.

Routhier surprises him though, speaking up without looking. “It doesn’t bother you at all?”

“What, gay guys?”

“Yeah.” Routhier takes another sip. “You don’t think it’s weird?”

Casey shakes his head with surety. “Nah man. If it works it works, y’know?”

“Mm. Yeah, I guess so.”

They lapse back into silence for a minute while they finish their food. Casey kinda feels like he’s cracked the whole thing wide open here, if he’s being honest. The Centaurs had, after all, gotten drastically better in the last few years, and if he thinks about it, those changes had only seemed to happen once they’d had gay players on the roster. And they only seemed to get better the more they added. Maybe the league had been overlooking what was honestly a fairly well-proven strategy purely out of homophobia, and Casey was only seeing it now because he wasn’t one of those guys that got bothered by that.

“Actually, if it works so good, maybe we should try it,” Casey realizes.

This is where it officially goes too far.

Routhier chokes on his food immediately, spluttering and coughing, wiping himself with a napkin until he can get it together. “Câlisse, (Holy shit,) Marks, don’t joke about that.”

“Wait, I’m not joking, I think it could totally work, right?” Casey feels like he’s not being unreasonable here. Their team has been sucking, the locker room chemistry falling apart, and they should honestly be trying for a rebuild. But just a few years ago that was Ottawa’s exact situation, and genuinely, Casey thinks he might have discovered how they’d done it. Maybe if a couple guys on the Ravens were willing to take one for the team, they could start turning things around for them. But who out of the team would actually go for it?

“You think we should have gay sex? You and me?” Routhier hisses as quietly as he can while still getting across his bewilderment. And…ah. Quickly looking back on the last few things he’s said, Casey can see exactly how Routhier came to that conclusion. He had definitely meant ‘we should try it’ as something ‘we the team’ should do. Obviously he hadn’t clarified that.

But even as he’s blankly staring at Routhier with what he’s sure is this awful deer-in-the-headlights look on his face, he’s…considering it, a little. It would be pretty practical. As two rookies, they get hotel rooms together all the time, so it would be easy to hide. And he trusts Routhier. The forward is probably his best friend on the team, and they spend all their free time together anyways, so no one would really be suspicious of them going over to each other’s places. If it ended up not working at all, Roots was probably the only guy Casey knew who wouldn’t make things weird afterward. So, although that definitely hadn’t been what he’d meant, now that he thinks about it, maybe Routhier actually is the perfect guy to ask.

“I mean…” Casey starts, deciding not to clarify the mixup, “...would that be something you’d even want to try?”

Routhier stares at Casey with a hard look, like he’s trying to discern something about him, scrutinizing Casey’s expression.

“I am trying to figure out if you’re making fun of me.”

“No!” Casey insists, immediately making placating gestures. “No, I would never do that, Roots, I swear to God, I promise I’m being totally real here.”

“Is this you trying to tell me you are gay?”

“What? No, dude, look, I justー” Casey breaks off, realizing suddenly that there are maybe a million different ways to misinterpret this, so he should probably clarify his intentions. He doesn’t want to give Routhier the wrong idea. “Being completely genuine, I swear. I’m straight, and I mean that. But I think it’s probably something worth trying, at least? Like maybe I’m totally wrong and it won’t work at all, and we just move on, I’m totally fine with that.”

So far he’s only getting a blank stare from Routhier, which is not encouraging.

“But if it had to be anyone, I think it makes sense if it’s you and me, right? At least just to try it out. We always share rooms, we know how to keep a secret, and we won’t hold it against each other. At least, I wouldn’t hold it against you, I guess I don’t reallyー uh, know, what exactly you’re thinking, about all this. But I trust you, Roots. Even if it’s weird, I promise I won’t make fun of you or anything. No consequences, I swear.”

Through it all Routhier just looks at him. Assessing, Casey guesses, whether he’s in his right mind. But behind his eyes, Casey thinks he can see a little flicker of consideration, the tiny spark that is maybe starting to take him seriously. It’s crazy, he knows, but he actually really hopes that Routhier goes for it. If it works, maybe they could start having some of that crazy on-ice chemistry that Rozanov and Hollander have. Casey thinks that might be something he’d really like to have with Routhier.

“You are serious about that? No consequences?” Roots is searching Casey’s face.

Casey injects as much sincerity into his voice as he can. “No consequences. If it doesn’t work, or we get weirded out and don’t like it, or we change our minds, whatever, we can totally stop. And I swear I won’t tell a soul.”

“And you…trust me?”

There’s a new look on Routhier’s face, but this one he’s far more familiar with. Casey can tell now that he’s nervous, which makes total sense. Obviously this kind of thing would make anyone uncomfortable, and it’s a huge ask to make of someone. But he hopes that Roots trusts him too, enough to try this out.

He nods aggressively in confirmation. “Yeah, bud. I’d trust you with anything.”

Anxiously, Routhier taps on the table, and breaks eye contact to look back out the window again. The sun has just finished setting outside, and it makes the Ottawa sky light up as the last of the light hits the clouds overhead. Casey adjusts his seat. The shitty music from before sounds even more pathetic now that the place has emptied out a bit. Casey tries not to pay attention, and focus on Routhier as he watches traffic go past outside.

Then— “So, you are thinking tonight? In the hotel?”

Casey’s eyes go wide. “Wait, so like…you want to?”

Cautiously, Routhier nods. He still isn’t looking at Casey, but he seems to have loosened up a bit, relaxed a little now that he’s sure he isn’t being made fun of.

“I think…yes. We can try it out.” At the words, his gaze finally flicks up to meet Casey’s before going back out the window again. “If that’s what you want.”

Stunned, Casey leans back in his seat. Blinks, processing that his convincing has actually worked, before leaning back in with a vengeance.

“Yes! Yeah, Iー tonight you said? I can do tonight! You’re thinking we should test it out ahead of the Toronto game, see if it works?”

Routhier nods, appearing more sure now. “Yes. We will need supplies first, though. We should stop by a Shoppers or something.”

“Right! Yes, okay, we should, um, do that!” Casey starts scrabbling for his jacket in the booth beside him, which seems to just slip out of his hands the more he grabs at it.

Clear, bubbling laughter interrupts him as Routhier watches Casey’s antics. “Calm down, Marks. We have to pay for our food first.” He reaches across the table to grab Casey by his shoulder to try and steady him.

“Oh! Yeah, of course, oh my god.”

A lot less time passes between them leaving the restaurant and making it to the hotel than Casey thinks feels appropriate for such a big thing. But it shouldn’t be a big thing, he keeps reminding himself. This is just, like, an experiment, to see if they can improve their game. He’s got to relax about it.

But it does feel like it’s all happening very fast when they are suddenly sitting in their hotel room, face to face, with condoms, lube, and towels spread out on the bed, and Casey still feels like they should be sitting in the ramen place, discussing things. Miraculously, they hadn’t bumped into anyone in the lobby on their way up; Casey briefly imagines a world where they’d run into Wahlström, who would know what they were doing somehow and tear into them, but he shoves the image out of his mind just as quickly because that is definitely not helping him relax. It’s best if none of their team finds out, actually. Casey can’t even imagine the kind of chaos this would do to their locker room if they did. He really has completely lucked out that Routhier is as cool with this as he is.

“So do you…know? How to do this?” Routhier asks, as they both stare at the surprisingly daunting pharmacy supplies. Neither of them can really dare to look at each other.

“Um. I guess it’s like, anal, right?” Casey guesses, jamming his hands even further into his pockets.

“Have you done anal?”

“No.”

“Okay, so we have no idea.” Routhier throws his hands up and turns away from the bed.

“Iーhold on.” Casey pulls out his phone and tries to find a more subtle way of typing ‘how to have gay sex.’

“Do we know who’s going toー I mean, who’s being fucked and who’s doing the fucking?” Routhier wonders out loud. He’s pacing restlessly.

“Give me a second man, I’m looking it up.”

“Great. We are going to be following a wikihow article for how to have sex. We are such virgins, Marks.”

“Shut the fuck up, man.” Casey snaps out, scrolling through his options. It is a wikihow article he’s pulled up, but now he’s not gonna tell Roots that, so he’ll just have to memorize it. “Besides, I’m not a virgin. I’ve had girlfriends before.”

“For this, you count as a virgin.”

Casey chooses to ignore that. “Okay, so, it looks like the first step is basically just like, cleaning everything out, I think. So we do have to pick right now, who’s going to like…y’know.”

Routhier raises his eyebrows. “Get fucked, you mean.”

“Yes, Routhier, get fucked.” God, he was so vulgar when they weren’t in public.

Routhier leans back against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. Clearly, they are both more nervous about this than they thought.

“Would you be opposed to deciding it via rock paper scissors?” Casey suggests. A withering glare gets shot his way.

“I feel like maybe we shouldn’t leave it up to a kid’s game. Maybe.”

“Okay, well we’ve got to be fair, right?” Casey digs around in his pockets for his wallet to grab a loose coin. “How about heads, I get fucked, tails, it’s you? That sound good?”

Truthfully, in all of their slapdash planning, Casey has not even considered which of these he would prefer. Maybe none, and they should forget this. But cautiously, Routhier nods, agreeing to Casey’s suggestion and asking to continue, so Casey takes the loonie he’s got and flips it up into the air, catching it and smacking it onto his other arm. When he pulls his hand back, the loon stares up at him, totally clueless as to what it’s deciding.

“Tails. It’s you, man.” Casey holds up his arm with the loonie still resting on it to prove the result.

Routhier looks at it for a moment, before nodding, accepting. “Okay. So, step one, cleaning it out?”

“Yeah, uh, hang on.” Casey scrambles for his phone. “I think you gotta do this in the shower. I’ll send you a link?”

“Don’t worry, I will look it up.” Routhier peels off of the wall, grabbing his water bottle, and heads for the bathroom before Casey can say anything else super awkwardly, leaving the hotel room in silence.

Honestly, Casey is glad for the moment to himself, because he really feels like he needs to stop panicking. This had all seemed really easy while it had been a hypothetical in his head, and the more real it gets, the more it feels like this insurmountable wall of things he doesn’t know how to name. He wants to do this, he knows. If it works, if it improves their game, it’ll be worth it. He just feels really, really nervous.

Maybe he just needs to like, get in the mood. Start thinking about sexy things. He hears the shower turn on, and his mind flits for a moment to Routhier in the locker room showers, where he’s seen him naked before. He wasn’t really looking then, though. Given that he’s about to have sex with the man, he tries to recall as much as he can. Flashes of his dick, never really a clear view. Again, Casey hadn’t been looking. He remembers thick thighs of course, like every hockey player should have, corded with muscle. Broad, pale shoulders, and forearms where his veins stand out clear as day, these are the things that Casey is able to draw to mind. The images are fleeting, hard to grasp things, but he does think it’s helping to settle him a bit. He feels more relaxed.

He tries to imagine what Routhier is doing in the shower right now. The article laid out the basics, so he tries to picture Routhier reaching underneath himself, and finds it isn’t as hard to visualize. It’s weirdly…hard to shake, actually. He slots in what he remembers of Routhier’s real body over the simplified graphic in the article, and the moment is sort of on loop in his mind. He doesn’t even notice when the shower stops, and Routhier steps out.

“Are you ready, Marks?” He says, and Casey’s gaze snaps up to meet his.

He’s wearing nothing but a towel now, and Casey’s eyes take everything in before he can even think about it. He’d remembered the broad shoulders correctly, but there’s a smattering of freckles on the tops of his forearms that he’s never noticed before. And since he’s facing him like this, Casey can see the tightness of his abs, the roundness of his pecs, something he’s never paid attention to when they glance furtively sideways at each other in the showers. Now though, looking at them head on, they look…good. Correct, somehow. Casey supposes he’s probably just jealous of them.

“Marks?” Routhier prompts, and Casey abruptly remembers that he had been asked a question.

“Yes! Uh, I mean, totally, I’m ready to go,” he confirms, jolting up and nodding enthusiastically. He sets his phone to the side, letting it clatter onto the side nightstand.

“Okay. You want to take your clothes off then?” Routhier unsticks from the doorframe, flicking off the lights to leave only the glow of the bedside lamps, and starts to wander closer to the bed.

“Yeah, Iー” Casey cuts himself off, and his face is in his hands before he can even say anything else. “Sorry, I’m just…really nervous, I think.”

His heart is racing, he realizes, and he tries to take a few breaths to get it under control. After a moment, he feels the weight of Routhier sitting on the bed next to him. There’s silence, and Casey thinks he’s probably working out something to say to get him out of his head. He’s always been really good at that. On the bench, Routhier knows exactly which words will cut through the noise to get through to Casey. On the edge of this bed, Casey finds he isn’t expecting anything different.

“We don’t have to do this, if you don’t want to,” Routhier says softly, a hand gently coming up to meet his shoulder. “No consequences, right? We can just go to bed and forget about it, move on. I don’t mind.”

“Youー” Casey fiddles with the collar of his shirt. “And you? You want to do this?”

Routhier is quiet, but his thumb swipes on Casey’s shoulder, contemplative.

“I do,” he says eventually, “I think we have an opportunity here. We can try this out. If we don’t like it, we stop. But I would like to try.”

Casey was right. It’s the perfect thing to say, because the reassurance draws him back. Routhier wants to be here. They can stop if they need to. But Casey does absolutely want to try. There’s a feeling building at the base of his spine, and maybe at his shoulder where Routhier is touching him, that nudges him forward, encouraging him to push a little harder, pursue what he wants. His hands drop from around his neck. He looks Routhier in the eye.

“Ok,” he breathes, “I’m ready.”

Routhier stares back at him, just looking. And then, the hand on his shoulder slides down, and grabs at the hem of his shirt.

“Ok?” he checks before going any further. Casey responds by following his hand there and pulling the shirt over his head.

“Ok.” He confirms.

Then, since he’s kind of been thinking about it since Routhier stepped out of the shower, he reaches forward and tenderly places a hand around Routhier’s left pec.

It’s tight, like he thought it would be, all taut, trained muscle. He trails his fingers over the warm skin. He’s immediately answered with a matching hand reaching up and grabbing at his own pec, and he wonders what Routhier is feeling. If he too is feeling like the world is maybe tunnelling in on the touch of skin underneath his hand. And maybe if he is liking the feeling as much as Casey is liking it.

Then Routhier is bringing his other hand up to grasp at Casey’s jaw, drawing him forward.

“I think, maybe, we should start with this.”

And lips press against his own.

This, he finds, he likes even more. Casey’s eyes flutter closed. He leans into the touch, chasing the weight and feel as Routhier moves against him. Quickly, he grabs at the back of Routhier’s head, hand sinking into the soft buzz of his hair, and uses the leverage to deepen the kiss, to press Routhier further into him as he opens his mouth. Routhier responds in kind, the hand on his jaw stretching back to span the width of his head as they explore each other’s mouths. Casey’s heart pounds in his chest. An electrifying warmth makes its way through his body, all trace of that nervous energy from just moments ago draining out of his system like it never existed, and Casey lets himself feel.

It’s intoxicating. All he can think about is how much more he wants, how much he want to press every inch of his body against Routhier’s, to feel as much of him as possible. As Routhier sucks on the end of Casey’s tongue, Casey lets his hands roam, wrapping his fingers around his neck, his shoulders, his chest, and trailing down his abs. He’s so lost in the absolutely overwhelming headiness of it that he’s actually startled for a moment when he brushes against the towel at Routhier’s waist, and he draws back for the first time since their lips met.

The sight of Routhier is…something. His lips are red, swollen. A flush has spread all across his pale skin, everywhere that Casey can see, and his pupils are blown wide, dark and potent. He’s panting. They’re both panting. Casey realizes they had barely come up for air in all of that. It’s…exhilarating. Casey finds he doesn’t want to look anywhere else.

“Good?” Routhier manages to breathe out into the space between them.

“Very good.” Casey nods, “Really good.”

Routhier smiles, and the brilliance of it feels almost too bright for the dark of the room they’re in.

He leans back in to kiss him again, and now Casey can feel Routhier doing his own exploring, feels a palm pressed against his nipple, fingers squeezing the muscle there. Lower and lower they go, until the fly of his pants is being undone, and his jeans are being pushed down. He rises just enough to fully slip them off, lips never fully leaving Routhier’s own. When he sinks back down, he’s rewarded by Routhier sinking his teeth into his bottom lip and pulling, which draws a moan out of him that surprises him. Encouraged, Casey feels Routhier’s fingers playing with the elastic of his boxers, and he realizes all at once how achingly hard he is. He lets his own hands wander down to where the towel at Routhier’s waist rests, hoping to see if he has inspired a similar reaction as Casey, and is not let down when he finds the rough material is tenting just below the hips. The touch elicits a gasp from Routhier, sucking the air out of Casey’s own mouth. Casey flicks his eyes open just to see the look on his face.

Routhier is a vision. His whole expression is bunched up in pleasure, so different from the shy, determined face Casey is used to seeing on the ice. Casey can’t look away. As he watches, he brushes his hand there again, just to see the view as Routhier throws his head back, mouth wide open and wanting.

“Marks,” he pants, and Casey thinks thats the most beautiful his name has ever sounded.

Suddenly the playful hands on his waistband become more insistent, pulling so Routhier can fit his hands past the elastic and drag his fingers through the short hair there before emphatically circling around the very base of his erection. Now, it is Casey’s turn to throw his head back as a shot of pleasure bursts through his whole body. He’s pretty sure he moans, but he’s so caught up in it that he can’t tell who is making what sounds. While he revels in it, Routhier’s lips come up to kiss just underneath his jaw, to suck the skin there, hard enough to bruise. He’ll have a hickey, but Casey finds he can’t bring himself to care. He’s too focused on the feeling of Routhier’s hand slowly dragging up the length of his cock under his boxers, tantalizing, almost teasing.

“Please, Rou,” he begs, which is crazy, because he doesn’t even know what he’s asking for, and he’s never called Routhier by ‘Rou’ before in his life. But it’s like his voice has a mind of his own, because when Routhier finally takes hold of him fully, Casey whines.

“Oh fuck,” Routhier gasps, and that’s all the warning he gets before suddenly, the man in front of him is standing from the bed and positioning himself to straddle Casey’s thighs. Casey takes the brief loss of contact as an opportunity to shuck his boxers off, not even surprised when they make a wet sound as they come off. He’s fully naked now. And as Routhier spreads his legs to wrap around Casey, the towel loses it’s grip and slips to the ground, so they see each other fully for the first time.

Casey really thought he would be more nervous when finally confronted with a completely naked Routhier. He thought it would be awkward, that they would both have to stumble through not enjoying this, just to see what might come of it. He thought he might have to avert his eyes and pretend so they could both quietly get off.

Casey stares now at Routhier, bare before him, and thinks the sight is breathtaking.

They gaze into each other’s eyes for a moment, each of them drinking it in. Routhier’s hands have come to wrap around either side of Casey’s head, caressing his cheeks with the edges of his thumbs. And like they belong there, Casey’s hands have naturally drifted to cup the curve of Routhier’s ass, supporting his position in Casey’s lap. Between the two of them, their dicks rest, practically leaning against each other as they sit fully erect.

“Okay,” Routhier hums, swiping his thumb across the top of Casey’s cheek, “I think it’s time for lube.”

Casey does not need to be told twice. He scrabbles behind him for the bottle they’d left lying on the covers, and manages to grab it without looking.

“Um. Is this enough?” He squirts an amount onto his fingers that feels generous.

“Fuck if I know.” Routhier shrugs. “But we’ll start with that and add more if we need to.”

Casey nods, and slowly brings his hand back towards Routhier’s ass. It takes a little bit of fumbling to find where he’s going, but eventually his fingers brush against Routhier’s entrance, and he presses the first one inside, slowly and curiously.

Immediately, Routhier gasps, and his face scrunches up, but Casey can’t tell if it’s in pleasure or not. He stops, waiting to hear what Routhier needs. His hole is warm, tightly pressed around Casey’s knuckle, but the lube had certainly been a bit colder when he’d applied it, so it could be that. After a moment though, Routhier’s face goes slack, and simultaneously, his asshole relaxes minutely around Casey’s finger. A rush of intoxication floods through Casey at the realization, knowing that he is literally inside him, feeling what he feels with his body.

“I’m okay. Keep going,” Routhier instructs. Casey is happy to comply.

Slowly, gently, he pushes further in. Then he draws out and pumps back in again, agonizingly slow. Gradually, the movement becomes easier and easier, until Casey is reasonably sure he can add a second finger. At first, Routhier is perfectly still in his lap while this happens, adjusting to the feeling. By the time Casey is spreading his two fingers apart and preparing for a third, the man is rocking up and down on his fingers each time he moves. As Casey slips the third one in, Routhier is moaning at each movement, and his hands have curled around their two dicks in front of them, slowly pumping them together in a rhythm that matches Casey’s fingers.

“Marks, please,” he gasps around a whine. His lips come down to meet Casey’s for a moment, wetly and greedily, before popping back off to loudly moan into Casey’s shoulder.

“What do you need?” Casey asks, distracted by the feeling of the hand on his cock, and the sounds Routhier is making, the slick slaps of the lube and the thready, needy noise out of his mouth.

Routhier shudders as Casey curls his fingers. “Your dick, Marks. I need you toー oh god, fuck.”

There’s something deep inside Routhier that Casey is touching now, and he thinks it must be the prostate, because it is absolutely undoing the man in front of him. Casey prods at it a few times experimentally, and is rewarded with a sharp gasp each time.

“Marks, now.”

At that, Casey slips his fingers fully out to find a condom and the bottle of lube again, ignoring the whine Routhier makes at the loss. With a clumsy hand, he manages to stretch one on and slather his dick with lube, making sure to really coat it to be safe. Blood pumps through every one of his veins with a fire unlike anything he’s felt before. He can’t believe hes doing this. He grabs Routhier’s ass with both hands again, and draws him up so he is positioned above his waiting cock.

“Ready?” He checks as he carefully lines up at the entrance.

“Tabarnak (Fuck), Marks, put it in already.”

So, Casey pushes inside.

The stretch is unreal. Casey can feel all of Routhier’s walls closing around him, tight and tense. Despite their pace a second ago, this is much slower, as Routhier adjusts, stretches, learns to take him, slowly sinking down onto it as Casey rises. It’s tighter than Casey has felt before. The pressure is insane, the feeling of Routhier’s body enveloping him, touching every inch of skin there is to touch on Casey’s cock. And then, Routhier has sunk down to the hilt, and Casey is completely seated inside of him.

For a moment, they just sit there drinking in the deliciousness of being taken so completely. The hotness in Casey’s blood sings, elated.

Then, Routhier hums, “Move,” and Casey can feel the vibration from inside him.

“Oh fuck,” he hisses out, as he pulls back an inch before pressing back in, and every nerve in his body screams in joy.

Slowly, he begins to move. With Routhier on top the way he is, there isn’t a lot of room to go, until Routhier starts leaning forward to put weight on his knees, drawing his ass up and back down, sinking onto Casey’s cock over and over again. Casey rises to meet him, slamming his cock so completely inside every time that it’s dizzying. He can feel it inside as he hits into it, the prostate, and each time he touches it, it’s punctuated with a guttural moan from Routhier, gasping and crying out so beautifully Casey can hardly stand it. They are picking up speed.

He hadn’t anticipated the way the sheer sound of it all would drive him wild. The slap of skin on skin, the wet slick of lube, and Routhier, swearing and utterly losing control of himself. The way his own moans mix in, intertwined with the rhythmic groans of his linemate. Casey can feel himself draw closer and closer to the edge, heat pooling and curling in his gut, like a string being pulled taut.

“Marks, I’m close,” Routhier is gasping, desperately, and Casey could tell, because Routhier’s dick is bobbing in front of him uselessly, leaking precum all over their stomachs.

Casey gets an idea, and decides to act on it before he can think better of it. Gathering his arms under the knees, he picks Routhier up, and flips them so Routhier’s back rests on the bed while Casey stands at the edge of it. Routhier gasps at the change, still fully seated, and now that Casey has some newfound leverage, he pulls out and slams back inside with ferocity, setting an even faster pace than before. Routhier howls.

“Yes! Yes! Oh god, Marks.” The sounds he’s making only serve to make Casey move faster, pump harder.

“Oh my god, Rou.” The heat in his gut pulls deeper, sinks further into his very being. It’s hard to stay standing. “You’re perfect, you’re so perfect.”

That seems to do it, because suddenly Routhier is clenching all around him and crying, and hot white cum is shooting up between them, painting both of them without a care in the world. The sight of it, and the feeling of Routhier tightening on his dick is enough to tip him over as well, and Casey’s vision whites out as he cums helplessly into the condom, pleasure taking over every cell of his body. The feeling is indescribable. Casey doesn’t think he’s ever come as hard in his life as he has just now. He gasps, trying to catch his breath, and allows himself to flop forward to rest on top of Routhier.

That was…perfect. Casey can’t even really wrap his head around how perfect that was. He is exhausted, and sweaty, and sticky, and he’s never been happier. He huffs a drained, half-hearted laugh, overcome with the feeling. Below him, Routhier laughs the same laugh. Casey feels like he’s never been more in sync with another person.

“Good?” He asks, all smiles.

“Good. Very good.” Routhier smiles back to him.

Casey feels like he’s on top of the world.

They win the Toronto game 4-1. Him and Routhier each get a goal and two assists. It’s the best game the team has played all season.

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

Previously: After losing badly against Ottawa, Casey and Routhier came up with the brilliant idea to try having sex with each other in order to improve their performance on the ice. Though they were both clearly new to it, they both enjoyed it more than expected, and at their next game against Toronto, they played amazingly.

Chapter Notes

Chapter 2 for ya! This one definitely had the most formatting going on, but also I think has my favourite line in the whole fic. I've been super happy with the response so far, it really does warm my heart to see the comments being left, and I really love the people anticipating Ilya's reaction. Please let me know what you think of this one!!

Also just want to state here for the record that I have not read The Long Game, but I know the broad strokes of what happens, which is all that's really relevant for this fic. Probably most important though is my characterisation of Hayden and JJ, which I'm choosing to generalise as broadly supportive now but regretful of how they acted. Won't get into it any further since I don't know exactly what I'm talking about! But for the purposes of this fic, I needed them supportive so that's what we're getting.

Once again thank you to my lovely friends for giving me notes ahead of time!

Against their mutual instinct to repeat anything they do just before winning a game (especially a game against Toronto where they won four to one) Casey and Routhier do not have sex again before their games against the Buffalo Blades or the New York Admirals. They don’t discuss it, they just…don’t bring it up. Casey tells himself he’s giving it time to work its magic, see if the effects last. However, they lose both games. The one against Buffalo isn’t as bad; They still each score a goal a piece. But it’s the only goals the Ravens score, and Buffalo scores more than that. The New York game is a complete wash though, because neither of them gets any points, and it ends in a shutout.

So, Casey feels he can definitively say there’s strong evidence that his theory is true. But he might need to collect a few more data points.

Thankfully, after New York, they’re headed back home to Vancouver, where they have a bit of downtime, so he can try to pitch his case to Routhier before they play again. Obviously, they can’t discuss it while they’re still on the plane home, but Casey’s got a clever workaround using the plane wifi.

You
Ok, I think it’s time we revisited our strategy

He scratches at the fading hickey under his jaw. Luckily, it was small, and no one had asked him about it, probably assuming he’d found some girl to hook up with in Ottawa, but it still feels conspicuous in this moment.

Casey watches as Routhier’s phone pings with the notification in the seat beside him. Then he is faced with Routhier’s bewildered look, which he is quick to point directly at Casey. Casey does his best to not look him in the eye, and subtly gesture back at the phone, before he does something dumb like respond out loud.

Roots
here???

Casey smacks Routhier’s arm.

You
No, you dumbass!!
What, you think for round 2 we go straight to the mile high club???

Roots
i don’t know????

You
Ok that’s not what I was thinking at all

Roots
neither was i???

You
Our whole team is here, how would that even work??

Roots
i thought maybe you thought it would be hot??

You
I def meant like, when we get home

Roots
noticing you didn’t deny that

Casey manages to actually get his whole elbow into Routhier’s side before he can begin to defend himself.

Roots
ok ok
obviously your place isn’t going to work, so i guess it will have to be at mine?

You
Yeah, it’ll have to be yours
You think tomorrow, after morning skate?
I’m thinking I’d rather spend tonight in my own bed

Roots
tomorrow is good
we can test it against the deserets then

You
OOh yeah, Utah is a good team, we’ll know for sure if it works after that

Roots
👍

Their morning skate, it turns out, is going to be a lot more eventful than they were anticipating, because just before they leave the airport, their coach gets the team together and lets them know that management has reached an agreement with Montréal. Patrik Wahlström and Elias Webber, their captain and their second best d-man, are being traded for Hayden Pike, a first line winger, and Jean-Jacques Boiziau, top-notch defenseman.

“We’ve been in talks for a while.” Coach Hoffman is reassuring them, trying to keep everyone calm, “Montréal has been looking to blow it up these last few years, and I think we could all see that Wally was looking for a change of scenery. He agreed to waive his clause, and we approached him with plenty of warning, so he wasn’t surprised. Feel how you want about it, but I want you guys to give a nice big welcome to Pike and Boiziau when they get here for the Deserets game tomorrow. Águila, you’re our third A for now, enjoy it while it lasts.”

They’re finally dismissed, and Pokorný sidles up to him and Routhier as everybody shuffles off, muttering to themselves

“Makes sense why cap didn’t fly with us,” the goalie grumbles under his breath.

“I fucking told you, didn’t I?” Casey smacks Routhier playfully. “That guy did not want to be here, and it showed.”

Routhier shrugs. “He was always kind of a piece of shit anyways. I won’t miss him.”

“Absolutely not.” Pokorný agrees. “And you guys didn’t even have to spend five years with him in charge, you should be so thankful.”

“Pike and Boiziau is pretty sick though. They’ve won the cup like three times, right?” Casey adds, the thrill of change starting to take hold.

Pokorný grins. “Yeah, who knows? Maybe this team finally has a chance to get good again.”

Casey tries and fails to not shoot Routhier a private look at that comment, but he ends up meeting his linemate’s eyes. He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

Routhier coughs, and looks back to Pokorný. “I, uhー I hope they aren’t part of those guys who were shit to Hollander.”

Oh yeah. Casey had kind of forgotten that that was what everyone thought of Montréal these days, in the last year or so since that whole thing had gone down. Rumours had been flying of a team so homophobic they had let Shane fucking Hollander slip through their fingers because they were nervous about a little shower time. Just a plain stupid move in Casey’s opinion. And, once again, it’s very good supporting evidence for his theory that the MLH has just been too homophobic to try what him and Routhier are trying.

“No no, I heard they’re close with Hollander,” Pokorný reassures them, “I mean, I think they’re maybe the only ones who were cool about it, so I guess we just got lucky.”

Routhier hums, and they finally make it out to the parkade. “Yeah, I suppose. I’ll see you tomorrow, eh Marks?”

“Yeah, a’course, see ya tomorrow.” Casey exchanges a complicated handshake with him, before Routhier takes off looking for his own car.

Quietly, Pokorný watches Routhier go. And as they find their own car and start loading things in, he stays quiet. It’s only as they’re driving out into Richmond that he finally speaks up, not taking his eyes off the road.

“Is something up with Rooter?” he asks, curiously.

Surprised, Casey turns. “What? Like what?”

Pokorný just shrugs. “I don’t know. He seemed a little tense back there. Maybe for the last few days. Thought you might know since you’re friends.”

“Oh.” Casey hadn’t noticed that. Or, he had, but Routhier’s always like that around him. He wasn’t aware of any change from normal.

Ok, well, that’s not exactly accurate. He can think of one thing they are doing differently now. But he hadn’t noticed that Routhier was tense about that specifically in the last few days, enough that Korny is bringing it up to him to ask what’s wrong. They hadn’t talked about it, but now maybe they should, if it’s affecting Roots that bad. They wouldn’t want it to mess with their results.

“So you don’t know?” Pokorný prompts when Casey doesn’t answer him.

It’s occurring to Casey that he can’t explain at all what he suspects the reason might be.

“Uh, no. I’ll ask him though.” He manages to stutter out.

Pokorný nods, and doesn’t say anything further as they cross into Vancouver proper.

You
Are you alright?

Casey sends it as he’s laying in bed that night, tucked away in his own room in Pokorný’s house. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. The idea that maybe Routhier is not as cool with this as he’d let on keeps eating at him, worming its way under his skin and making him feel itchy. That maybe he hadn’t even noticed, had just breezed past like he always does, and hadn’t thought properly. He doesn’t want Routhier to be uncomfortable, to secretly resent him for dragging him along on this insane scheme. So he sends the text, just to be sure.

Roots
yeah, why?

You
Korny told me you seemed tense the last few days

Roots
oh
i’m all good, i promise

That’s that, then, Casey thinks. He said he’s fine. He should leave it at that. But the feeling of uncertainty doesn’t disappear.

You
Ok
I thought maybe it was because of us having sex

Roots
oh, no
well…

The little texting bubbles appear and disappear for a while, and Casey can’t really help that his heart rate picks up as they do. This certainly seems like a lot of words to be typing. Routhier is probably trying to figure out how to let him down gently, how to word it in a way that won’t hurt his feelings. God, he knew that the exchange on the plane had been too presumptive. He always takes things too far, every chance he gets, but he can’t ever seem to make himself stop.

He’s interrupted by the long-awaited text from Routhier.

Roots
ok, i’ve maybe been tense the last few days because i feel like i haven’t been honest with you.
i know that you said you’re straight, so this probably isn’t the same for you
but i’ve been kind of thinking…i might not be
but this was like, even before we hooked up, ok? i was sort of considering it as a possibility for a long time, like longer than we’ve known each other. so when you came up to me and offered to try it with no consequences, i thought it would be the perfect opportunity to see if i liked it for real
and i think after that night, the answer is a pretty solid yes

And that…that’s so utterly far from what Casey was anticipating that all the tension rushes out of him in a flash. It wasn’t that he regretted it at all. In fact, he had liked it enough that it was undeniable. Relief shoots through him. Routhier had said as much, right after they’d come, but Casey knows the things you say post-orgasm are maybe a little bit unreliable, so he hadn’t been sure. But now he knows that Routhier doesn’t secretly hate him for pushing somewhere unwelcome, and Casey can relax.

Roots
i just wanted to let you know
i feel like i tricked you a little bit, by not telling you beforehand, but i wasn’t even sure myself

You
No, no bud, not at all
Don’t even worry about that, I don’t care

Roots
i just feel like i took advantage of you by not letting you know i might be into guys

You
I don’t feel like that even a little
Thank you for telling me, but also you flat out don’t need to worry about that, I don’t mind

Roots
even if we keep hooking up?

You
Yeah bud
I’m not homophobic or anything, I’m totally fine to keep having sex
You’re my best friend, ok? I don’t care if you’re into guys

Roots
ok
you’re my best friend too
i am really looking forward to tomorrow actually

You
Yeah?

Roots
ever since you said that shit about the mile high club
have not been able to stop thinking about it

You
Oh I see
You like the idea of being overheard

Roots
NO
ta YEULE!!! (shut your FACE!!!)

You
I don’t know that one

Roots
it means SHUT TF UP
you ASSHOLE

You
LMAO
Ok yeah I’m just joking
I’m looking forward to tomorrow too

Roots
i sort of had an idea, if you want to try it?

You
Ok? What were you thinking

Roots
i know last time we decided who was doing what by a coin toss
and believe me, i liked it the way we did it
but i was wondering if maybe you would want to switch this time?
just to try it out
what would you think of that?

That does make Casey pause. He hadn’t considered it at all, but he does think it would only be fair for them to take turns at it. Experimentally, he tries to imagine it. Imagines himself in Routhier’s position from the other night, fingers in his ass, then a cock, stretching him out. His mind flicks back to how big Routhier had been, and he pictures that length slowly disappearing inside himself, imagines the feeling it would give him deep inside. Does he like that? Would he like to try it?

The answering boner he gets is pretty clear.

You
I would be willing to try that
It’s only fair right?

Roots
i don’t want to pressure you into anything

You
No, I mean it, I want to
I trust you

Roots
ok
i’ll see you tomorrow then? my place after morning skate?

You
Absolutely
I’ll see you tomorrow!

And if Casey maybe jerks off that night to the thought of Routhier fucking him, that’s between him and his sheets.

When him and Pokorný are piling out of the car in the players parking the next morning, they run into the new guy, friendly as a golden retriever.

“Hey, I’m Hayden Pike,” he says, gigantic grin beaming across his face as he sticks his hand out to shake. “I’m your new winger. Pokorný, right? And Marks?”

Casey takes his hand. “Yeah, that’s me. And we mostly call him Korny, on account of his old man jokes.”

“Shut the fuck up, Marks,” Korny scoffs, though he’s clearly amused. “You see what I have to deal with every day?”

Pike looks between them with a friendly smile. He’s shorter than Casey realized, though he thinks that’s probably because he normally sees him on skates next to Shane Fucking Hollander. Rather, he used to. And mostly on posters and on tv, because Casey hadn’t even been playing in the league by the time the Great Montréal Divide had happened. Regardless, the guy feels a lot more human and approachable, here in the Ravens parkade, shaking hands and trying to make friends like the new kid at school, and Casey thinks that maybe he’s glad this is the guy that’s coming to replace Wahlström.

“You billeting with him then?” Pike says to him, clearly recognizing the most likely reason a rookie is carpooling with a veteran player.

“Yeah yeah, he’s my babysitter,” Casey shrugs, falling in stride as they start to make their way in. That draws a chuckle out of Pike.

“Whereabouts are you then? Me and my wife Jackie have to start looking for a place, and I haven’t been here in ages.”

Korny makes a gesture with his hand, waving in the general direction of the house he owns with his wife Nina. “We’ve got a place in the Kitsilano area. Most of the guys are either out that way, or in condos near the arena, but we like Kits better because it’s closer to the airport, and we have an actual yard.”

Pike nods. “That sounds more like what we’re looking for. We’ve got four kids running around, so we could really use the space. Have you got any kids yourself?”

Casey tunes them out as they start to exchange the banal small talk old married people do, the ‘how many kids,’ the ‘what does she do for work,’ boring things that Casey can’t be bothered to concern himself with, but seem to take up the minds of the vets for whatever reason. When they get to the locker room though, Routhier is already there, chatting away in French, and Casey lays eyes on the other new guy, Boiziau, chatting right back to him. Routhier catches his eye and smiles back at him, waving him over.

“Marks! We are forming a Québécois allegiance on the team. You are all going to have to learn to speak it.” He’s beaming playfully, a sparkle in his eye that he rarely gets in the locker room. Casey thinks it really suits him.

“Oh fuck no,” Pike chimes in from behind him, “I managed to spend twelve years in Montréal and avoid learning anything, I’m not about to start now.”

Boiziau jams a thumb in Pike’s direction, talking aside to Routhier. “So, the first thing you need to know about this guy is that he’s an asshole.”

“Hey, fuck you JJ.” Pike smacks the man on the arm, playfully, speaking to a long, close friendship between them, all while Boiziau smiles. Obviously, these two know each other very well. They seem like decent guys, completely unlike the rumours out of Montréal make things out to be. Casey is glad. He knows the locker room could really use a set of guys like this, guys who can keep things friendly and even-tempered. The captain they’d just gotten rid of…Casey definitely thinks they’ll be better off without his tantrums, the cold tension he always brought to the room. This seems a lot warmer, a lot more welcoming.

Routhier, of course, extends his hand politely, shyly. “I’m Théo Routhier, but everybody calls me Roots.”

“Or Rooter,” Pokorný contributes, though Routhier scrunches his nose up at that.

Pike takes his hand. “Nice to meet you! Really seems like nicknames are a bigger deal on this team, huh? They just called me Pike.”

“Oh that’s an easy one,” Águila, their new alternate, steps in, leaning in from his stall nearby, “We’re calling you Piker for sure.”

They exchange handshakes and greetings as well, and Pike starts going around the room to do introductions while Casey turns back to Routhier and JJ.

“You two are close?” He asks.

JJ grins and nods. “Yeah, me and him go way back. He’s got family out here, so when they wanted to trade him before free agency kicked in, he wanted to come west, and he was nice enough to negotiate me going with him, so I wouldn’t be left alone with the Metros.”

“So they aren’t…” Routhier trails off, but each of them can tell exactly what he’s implying with that silence.

This, for the first time, draws a more serious look over JJ’s face. The first whisper of tension Casey has got from him, and it’s about his former team. A resigned appearance has shuttered over him, like he’s had to have this conversation far too many times, and it has hurt every time. It sucks the air out of the room a little bit, honestly.

“No,” he answers eventually, “They are pretty much all homophobic pieces of shit.” JJ says it in a way that makes it clear that’s all he’s going to say on the topic, resolute and final.

Routhier and Casey exchange a glance filled with meaning. Obviously, JJ’s words are barely brushing the surface of whatever he feels towards them, and the guys in Montréal are levels of evil and fucked up that have to be cartoonishly bad, for that much hate to be just brushing the surface. But there is definitely something to be said for JJ having that hate, and how that speaks to who he is.

Casey remembers, of course, what Routhier had told him last night. That he might actually like guys for real. Hearing such direct confirmation of the homophobia plaguing his hometown team…it can’t feel great. It certainly isn’t unexpected; famously hockey is one of the most homophobic sports out there, and Casey has experienced his fair share of awful words slung around carelessly. But honestly even to Casey, who is from Bumfuck-Nowhere, Alberta and totally straight, it doesn’t feel great to hear that a team in the league is getting away with that level of intolerance, so he can only imagine what Routhier is feeling. He sticks his hand out, resting it on his linemate’s shoulder to show him some support.

JJ gives them an intrigued look.

“I’m, uh. I was born in Montréal.” Routhier stutters it out quickly, and Casey realizes it looks a little strange to comfort his friend over homophobia. “So it just, uh, sucks to hear that.”

Luckily JJ seems to accept that, nodding in understanding. “Yeah it was…hard, to accept. But I’m glad me and Hayden are out of there, huh? The Ravens are a bit better about it?”

“A bit,” Casey confirms, “Wahlström was honestly the worst of it, and he’s gone now, so we’ll have to see how the dust settles there. But I mean, me and Routhier, we’re good. No problems from us.”

“Good.” That looks like it resolves something in JJ. “I know Hayden is planning on having the team over once he settles in, and he’s hoping it’ll be okay to bring Shane and Rozanov when we play the Centaurs eventually. It’d be nice if our teams could be cool about it.”

It sort of hits Casey with a delayed impact that JJ is talking about The Shane Hollander and The Ilya Rozanov, and he remembers that this guy is a legendary defenseman who’s won three cups, but before it can truly take him out, their coach finally steps into the room to give them the whole spiel about how the lineup is going to change, and Casey gets swept up in that. But he likes these two new guys, he decides. He likes the future of the team with them in it. Even if it still kind of baffles him who their friends are.

“Ready?” Routhier asks him as he takes his seat. They’ve just finished with morning skate, and Casey is getting into Routhier’s car. Honestly, it feels like a bit of a frivolous thing to even bother driving there, since Roots lives just a few blocks from the arena, but he knows Routhier likes the privacy it affords them. If they are going to be recognized anywhere in Vancouver, it would absolutely be in the few blocks around the arena.

“Absolutely.” Casey grins, lets it take up his whole face. In a zippered pocket in his hockey bag, he’s brought all the same supplies as they’d used last time, just in case Routhier hadn’t grabbed any in the time since they’d landed yesterday. He’s looking forward to this second round with his best friend. It had been really, really good last time, and most crucially of all, it had worked, making both of them better, more relaxed and focused on the ice. In that Toronto game, Casey felt like he was much more aware of where Routhier was at any given moment, and that had made passes quick and decisive. But of course, as with any experiment, it only proved something if you could replicate the results.

Casey is very happy to replicate the experiment.

“And you’re sure it’s fine? That I’m…you still want to?” Routhier seems nervous again, fiddling with the buttons on the dashboard for no reason.

Casey raises his hand to rest on Routhier’s, drawing him away. “You’re my best friend, Roots. This doesn’t change anything for me, okay?” As Casey speaks, he locks their fingers together. He wants to reassure Routhier. Clearly, this is something he’s really anxious about, wanting to make sure Casey is comfortable with everything they’re doing. All he can think to do to tamp that anxiety down is assure him that yes, Casey is actually very cool with having sex. He of course consents to this. There’s no need for that worry line between Routhier’s eyebrows to form over how Casey feels about it, because Casey doesn’t think he’s capable of being weirded out by this. It’s Routhier. As if he would turn down Routhier.

Of course, it’s hard to put this into words. He’s not sure how to explain exactly how eager he is. But when Routhier’s conflicted look doesn’t go away, Casey finds he would very much like to kiss it off his face.

He flicks a quick inspection around the parkade to check if anyone is there to see them. When he finds no one, he gives in to the impulse, draws his hands up to cup Routhier’s cheeks, finds his gaze and holds it, steadying and assured. Routhier gazes back, intoxicatingly, his breath warm on Casey’s face.

“Hey,” Casey says, thickly, “I mean it. I want this.”

Then his lips find Routhier’s, softly, asking. Routhier meets him, pressing back tenderly, his lips parting open after only a moment and sucking Casey’s tongue into his mouth. It’s hard to worry about anything like this, as they meld together, gasping little wet breaths between each of their movements. Every touch, every press feels electric, and Casey can’t get enough as their lips glide over each other, slowly and deliberately. Every ounce of the feeling he has, that earnest desire to do whatever Routhier wants, he injects it into the pressure he applies, sucking it into his skin like he’s trying to write it there. Casey could get lost here, in the gentle touches and soft language between them.

Routhier pulls away with a wet pop after what has to be only a minute, but felt like at least five times that.

“We have to get to the apartment,” he says urgently, a need present in his voice that hadn’t been there just a moment ago.

“Agreed.” Casey can only get out the one word, still utterly locked in on the saccharine taste of Routhier’s lips.

Time passes in a very horny blur from there. Casey recalls the drive over, remembers trying not to look at each other in the elevator in an attempt to stay calm, but failing more often than not. Remembers closing the door behind them and immediately locking lips again, desperate to press skin against skin. It should kill the mood, when Casey dips into the bathroom to prepare himself, but the delay almost makes the tension tighter, the anticipation pulling him further and further into it. By the time he emerges, every inch of his skin is trembling with desire, and Routhier is lying naked on the bed.

“Casey,” Routhier breathes, open and wanting. The sight is exhilarating.

Casey does not hesitate, striding across the room as fast as his legs can take him, like he can’t help himself. Thankfully, he’s not far behind Routhier, stripping the towel off as he goes and flinging it to the ground. He’d learned from last time that clothes had just gotten in their way. This time, he would like to remove any and all barriers between them as fast as possible.

He crawls up the bed, in between Routhier’s legs, considering, and begins by pressing an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of his thigh.

“Would you want to…” he trails off, slowly bringing his mouth higher, inching ever closer to that one central point. Routhier is not hard yet, but he can see the effect his kisses are having on him, slowly beginning to stand at attention. Obviously, Casey has never tried this before, but he’s curious. When he’s received it in the past, it’s felt good, and he would like Routhier to feel good. There’s another part of him that wants to know, wants to taste him and commit that taste to memory. He licks closer, daring.

“Yes,” Routhier hums, reaching down to tangle his fingers in Casey’s hair, “Please, Casey.”

Bolstered by the hunger in his voice, Casey goes for it, taking the tip into his mouth for the first time. The answering gasp he gets in return is all he needs to press further, sliding his lips around it, and it’s actually unreal the way he can feel it stiffen on his tongue. Feeling the evidence of desire, rather than seeing it, does wonders for him, shooting blood down to his own cock as he laps at the tip. Beneath him, Routhier moans, squirms, trying not to buck up into Casey’s mouth. This is something Casey thinks he could get used to, the feeling of Routhier pressed up against him, pressed inside him. He pushes further, and then sucks back, wrapping his lips tightly to increase the pressure. The sound Routhier makes as he tightens his hands in his hair…Casey wishes he could listen to it for hours.

“Oh fuck,” Routhier is gasping, thready and desperate. “Fuck Casey, you have to-”

Just then, Casey tries swallowing farther, taking more into his mouth, and is confronted with the fact that he can only take so much before Routhier’s cock is tapping against his uvula, and then he is gagging and sputtering back helplessly. He draws away quickly, embarrassed.

“Fuck, m’sorry,” he manages to get out as soon as his throat stops betraying him with spasms, “I thought I could…fuck.”

Immediately, Routhier’s hands are on him, reaching around to take him by the jaw and drawing him up to eye level. “No, no Marks, it’s okay,” he is saying, whispering between them, “Honestly, I wouldn’t have lasted very long, so it’s probably for the best.”

“Yeah?” Casey looks into his eyes.

“Yes. It would have been, like, really embarrassing.”

Casey looks down, trying to judge how far along he’d actually gotten Routhier, and sees he’d actually made a lot of progress. Routhier’s cock is hard, flushed and dripping wet, saliva and and precome mixing together. The sight of it makes Casey harder. An impulse overcomes him, and he grinds down onto it, closing the space between them for a moment as he lays flush against Routhier’s whole body, before he pulls back and grinds down again. He’s not even sure what it is he’s seeking here, but it feels good, pinning his cock between them for a second or two as he presses their stomachs together. That feeling is all he can really think about, the desire for contact, for more, more, more. Since that kiss in the car, it’s all his mind has had on repeat. The urge to put his fingers everywhere, to reach out and press against every patch of Routhier’s skin they can find. And the want, for Routhier to press back, to seek out the tiny sensitive parts of Casey and explore them, touch them until Casey can’t take it anymore. Before, it had been a strange, new feeling. Now, Casey is familiar. And he wants more.

At Casey’s next thrust down, Routhier pulls him by the jaw once more, bringing him forward so their lips meet again. It’s hotter, wetter than it was in the car, and Casey is happy to get lost in it, scraping teeth against his lip and losing track of whose tongue is whose. He hardly even notices as slowly, Routhier begins to move them, gradually flipping them around so Casey is the one resting his back against the sheets, and Routhier hangs above him, powerful arms holding him up on either side of Casey’s chest. Then, one of those arms is dipping down, reaching to stroke Casey’s cock, and Casey is forced to pull back sharply as his whole body reacts in pleasure.

“Holy shit, Roots,” he pants against his lips. Fingers trail up and down the length of it, slowly, tantalizingly, and every point of contact is perfect, shooting through him from head to toe.

“Mmm,” Routhier hums, sounding pleased, “You should call me Théo, when we are like this.”

“Théo,” Casey manages, before his lips are captured once again by Routhier’s. By Théo’s.

It’s not long before Casey starts to draw close to the edge, but like he can sense it, Théo pulls away before Casey can go all the way over, and he reaches for the nightstand. From the drawer, he produces a condom and lube, almost making a show of pulling them out in front of Casey, like he’s asking a question.

“This is still okay?”

And god, Casey had almost forgotten in the heat of the moment that today is the day he gets fucked. His whole body shudders at the thought, wanting.

“Yes,” he breathes, fully consumed with the idea, “Please, Théo.”

Théo‘s pupils darken. Casey can’t even pretend that seeing Théo‘s cock twitch when he says it doesn’t fill him with pride, seeing the effect he has on him. The evidence of his desire, completely out of his control.

Théo doesn’t hesitate after that, quick to slide the condom on and coat his fingers in lube while Casey waits eagerly. When he deems it safe, his hand is travelling south once more, until a finger is pressing at Casey’s entrance, and slowly, gently, pushing inside. At first, it isn’t pleasant at all, mostly just feeling like an intrusion, uncomfortably stretching muscles he’s never enjoyed stretching before. His erection flags a little at the feeling, and he tries to breathe through it. Slowly though, he adjusts, like his body is getting used to the idea, and it doesn’t burn like it did initially. Gradually, with all the care in the world, Théo moves his finger, pressing deeper and curling, asking for more and more room to work with. And somehow, the burning stretch of it starts to give way to something more delicious, a kind of deep ache of pleasure he has never experienced before. It’s just a whisper, to start, and as Théo adds a second finger it grows, pulling him deeper into the sensation when Théo spreads his fingers and starts to really stretch him out. This is nothing at all like the pleasure Casey is used to, during sex. This is somewhere within, something entirely internal he didn’t even know he was capable of. By the time a third finger is being pushed inside him, Casey is starting to push back, chasing the feeling.

Then…oh. Théo‘s fingers touch something inside him, and the feeling crystallizes into something even greater, overwhelming. He throws his head back with a gasp, unable to manage even a single word, just mindless noise.

“There it is,” he hears Théo mutter, satisfied with his work.

Casey can barely think around the sensation. “Théo. What…” He can’t even properly organize his thoughts enough to ask how Théo is doing that. It must be his prostate, touched by someone else for the first time ever. If this is how it’s meant to feel…Casey can suddenly understand exactly why people are always talking about it. This is amazing. And this is all with just one touch. Casey can’t even imagine the amount of pleasure that awaits him.

Théo draws his fingers back and presses in again, pushing against that same spot, and it drives Casey just as wild as it did the first time.

“Oh my god, Théo,” he cries out, “Please. I need you.”

Lazily, Théo circles his hole before thrusting his fingers in again.

“What do you need from me?” Acting completely unaware.

“I- nngh. Please.” All Casey can do is beg. Words are difficult right now.

Théo is insistent. “I want to hear you say it,” he tells him, unrelenting in his slow rhythm.

“Fuck!” Casey bursts out as his prostate gets hit once more. “Need you inside me, please.”

And then the fingers are pulling out, and Casey can’t help but whine at the empty feeling they leave behind. But Théo‘s hands are grabbing at his ass now, pulling him up off the bed to line himself up, and Casey can feel the tip of him, poking at his entrance. Slowly, carefully, he feels more than the tip push inside, and everything else disappears.

The stretch, which had burned so much at the start, is now the single best thing he thinks he’s ever felt. Deeper and deeper, Théo‘s cock goes, filling up every pocket of space that exists within Casey, and every inch further it pushes is another wave of pure ecstasy, a new frontier he’s discovering for the first time. When he finally reaches the base, and Théo is fully seated inside Casey’s body, he’s absolutely positive Théo has to be buried so deeply that you could see him protruding from Casey’s stomach. When he looks down, however, all he sees is his own cock dripping precome onto his abs, and Théo, face tight, sheathed fully inside him. It feels impossibly good.

Théo’s eyes crack open, checking on Casey, and meets his gaze.

“Good?” He asks breathlessly, obviously just as affected as Casey is. All Casey can manage is a nod, sharp and decisive, to confirm. Gingerly, Théo bends down, licking into Casey’s mouth, but Casey is so far gone that he can barely close his mouth enough to offer a kiss in return. Instead, he settles for tangling his hands into Théo‘s short hair, pulling him closer.

Then, Théo moves, pulling back just an inch or so, and thrusting back inside, and Casey loses all sense.

It’s perfect. That deep feeling he’d had in his prostate before, which had been so overwhelmingly amazing, now feels like just a taste, a small portion of the complete experience he’s having now, where his world has shrunk entirely to the parts of his body that are touching Théo‘s cock. Théo pumps in, and Casey can feel the shape of him, can feel exactly the details of the head of it as it stretches his walls, over and over. Each thrust ends with a gut punch of pleasure as it slams into his prostate, hitting precisely and exactly the perfect spot within himself, taking Casey further and further out of his mind. Impossibly, it feels like he’s getting deeper each time, and faster, faster, spiralling higher and higher to some impossible summit.

Above him, Théo is moaning into his mouth, muttering unintelligible French against his body as he rolls his hips. Casey looks, and watches as Théo‘s cock slips into his hole like it belongs there, back and forth, disappearing entirely into the thick pressure. The sight is almost too much, tipping Casey way too close to the edge. He watches it plunge inside him, feels the answering explosion of pleasure as it hammers his prostate, and his vision almost whites out. Over and over.

“Théo…” he chokes out, but his breath has been so thoroughly stolen from him that it comes out as a whimper, nearly silent.

“Casey!” Théo‘s thrusts get more desperate, his hips snapping up and hitting him perfectly every time, the slap of skin becoming an entirely intoxicating sound that fills the room.

Théo’s cock strikes deeply inside him, perfect, thick, entirely filling his body with every exquisite inch, and manages to find the exact point inside him that has Casey finally spilling over, like water poured over hot rocks. He cries out, screaming, and his come shoots out in one magnificent burst, thickly coating both of their stomachs with the force of it. Around Théo, Casey clenches as it happens, and he gets the profound pleasure of watching Théo lose control and fuck him through it, faster, frantic, groaning as Casey tightens his hole around him. Then, in just a few thrusts, Théo is coming too, shooting into Casey’s body with a powerful cry, perfectly, beautifully, before dissolving bonelessly against him.

For a moment, they just lie there, entirely spent. He doesn’t pull out, so Casey can actually feel it as he softens inside him. He can’t say he hates the feeling.

“That was…” He starts, trying to even begin to capture it all.

“Good?” Théo pants into his shoulder, still trying to catch his breath.

Casey takes him by the head, moving him just enough that they can make eye contact.

“That was amazing,” he breathes, and kisses him squarely on the mouth. Casey’s not sure he’s ever enjoyed sex as much as he has just now.

Chapter End Notes

Chapter 3 will be out on Tuesday I think, and then final chapter 4 on Friday!

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Previously: Casey and Routhier resolved to repeat their experiment to confirm the results, and Routhier confessed he thinks he’s not straight. Casey was supportive of him, but maintained he himself was still straight. When they landed back in Vancouver, they learned their captain had been traded for Hayden and JJ, who seem like nice enough guys to them. Casey and Routhier agreed to swap roles for their second time having sex, and they enjoyed it even more.

Chapter Notes

Chapter 3! Some of you actually accurately predicted a few things from this one, which I find delightful. This is by far the longest chapter, and maybe the most serious it gets, but also has some of the most local Vancouver references inserted wherever I could reasonably fit them. We're nearly at the end now! Just one more after this to wrap it up, but I think it's something you've all been waiting for.

As always, thank you to my amazing irls who helped me edit this!!

So, the problem, of course, is not that the plan isn’t working. It is. The Utah game is intense, but Casey actually manages two goals, and an assist on Routhier’s goal, and they win the game handily. Which is a pretty big deal, since Utah led the division last year, and Vancouver hasn’t won against them since the year before that. So, with reasonable certainty, Casey can confidently say that his theory about gay sex leading to better scoring is solid, solid enough that they should definitely keep doing it.

No, the problem is that, like always, Casey is as dense as a rock. And maybe, about as in touch with his emotions as that rock would be.

Given their success, Casey thinks it’s probably time for him to formalize this arrangement he has with Routhier. The theory is proven, he thinks, so now it’s time to employ the strategy. They need to figure out how often they’re going to be doing this, before which games, at which locations. There’s still plenty of different variables he can think of to try as well. He’d scored more than Routhier in the Utah game, but before, in the Toronto game, they had scored equally. Was it affected by who bottomed? Could their results change from game to game depending on something like that? How long would the “effects” last? And for that matter, would it affect the outcome to change how close to the game they had sex? Could they see small improvements through make out sessions just before going onto the ice? Could those improvements be larger if they had sex more than once before a game?

Casey can think of a million different things to try, has seen even more possibilities online, and says as much to Routhier while they’re eating lunch at Japadog in the following days.

Routhier responds slowly, contemplative as he chews his food, not really looking Casey in the eye. He doesn’t really seem to be matching Casey’s enthusiasm. “You’re really thinking about all that?” He eventually says, hesitantly.

“I mean, yeah.” Casey swallows down another bite of his tonkatsu dog, which is entirely too messy. “I feel like, if we want this to work, we’ve got to figure out the ins and outs, right? See what helps, see what doesn’t. Trial and error, see what sticks.”

Routhier doesn’t say anything for a while, fixing him with a look that he really can’t read. It’s not rejection, but it doesn’t seem positive either.

“For the team, right?” Routhier fiddles with the edge of the cardboard container, looking away from him again.

“I…um, yeah. For the team.” For some reason, saying it out loud, it doesn’t actually sound true, even though that is entirely why they’ve started doing this. He clears his throat. “But obviously, only if that’s something you want to do, okay? I know we agreed to try it out, and we did. As far as I’m concerned, we proved it. But now that we proved it, we don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to. Okay?”

“Do you want to?” Suddenly, Routhier is turning towards him directly, addressing him head on, and Casey is a little surprised.

“I…yeah, I’d like to keep going, as long as you do too.” That feels a little more honest, more vulnerable. “There’s still tons of stuff I want to try with you, and I trust you, more than anyone. I think there’s a lot of room for us to go with this, and I’m happy to do it.”

“You like it, you mean?”

Casey isn’t sure what the distinction is. “I like it, yeah.”

”It feels good for you?” Routhier is really looking him in the eye as he asks it.

“I said so, didn’t I?”

For a while, Routhier just sits there, not moving, clearly thinking pretty hard as he searches Casey’s face for some trace of…whatever it is that he’s looking for. Casey can’t tell. But he appears to come to some sort of conclusion, returning to his hot dog without fanfare.

“Okay,” he says, quietly, “Let’s keep going.”

So, they do. Before their San Francisco game, they meet up at Routhier’s a few hours beforehand, and Casey fucks him into the mattress as deeply as he can. This time Routhier scores twice, and Casey only once. Before the Edmonton game, Casey gets another try at giving a blowjob, and has a much better time of it, taking his time getting used to the feeling, and getting blown himself in return. Interestingly, they each only get a goal, from which Casey concludes that the penetration actually does matter. Before the Winnipeg game, they decide to try out having sex twice, once the day before, and once the day of, and discover it actually tires them out enough that it circles back around and doesn’t help them, because they don’t score at all. They don’t always win, of course, but it’s impossible to deny that him and Routhier are playing leaps and bounds better than they were at the start of the season. Through it all, Casey is having the time of his life. His point total is higher than it’s ever been, and the sex only gets better the more they do it. It’s hard to find a downside.

Their improvements are not going unnoticed, of course. After the game against Calgary ends in a really beautiful overtime goal from Routhier, Coach Hoffman calls them both into his office and lets them know that with how well they’ve been doing lately, they’re being moved up to first line, alongside Pike.

“I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but whatever it is, keep it up.” He shakes their hands as he says this, solidly, firmly. Like he really respects them. “You two have been on a tear since the last roadie, and we could use that kind of firepower on the first line.”

It’s…exciting. When they get out of that meeting, Casey pulls Routhier aside at the next opportunity into somewhere private, and can’t help but start kissing him to celebrate. Routhier eagerly meets him, hot and heavy, and it quickly turns into a make out session. The first one they’ve had that doesn’t turn into sex later.

Through it all, they talk about it, but it’s sparing, mostly just making arrangements and then observing the results. Routhier always seems to have weird questions that have Casey wondering if they actually are on the same page at all. After he makes Casey come untouched in the hotel room before their next away game, Routhier asks Casey if he imagines a girl fucking him in his place so he can get off.

“I-…no? Why would I do that?” Casey answers, utterly bewildered.

Routhier shrugs. “I don’t know. You said you’re straight.”

“I am.”

“I know. That’s why I thought you might be imagining having sex with a girl instead.”

Casey isn’t picturing that at all. When they have sex, his mind is completely consumed with thoughts of Routhier, the name Théo playing on loop in his mind. But he’s technically right; if Casey is straight, it makes sense for him to imagine having sex with a girl. When they next hook up, Casey tops, and keeps his eyes closed, trying to imagine that Routhier’s tight hole is actually a tight pussy, tries to overlay some faceless woman onto him in his mind’s eye. It doesn’t really work. The sensation is different, first off, and second, it’s hard to maintain the illusion of the faceless woman when he keeps looking down and seeing Théo‘s face, flush and perfect, and getting far more turned on by that. He lets it go. His imagination is probably not that good anyway, and he’s sure that the real thing would be just as hot.

He doesn’t seek out any other hook-ups to test that out, though. It would probably mess with their results, and he wouldn’t want to risk that. That’s definitely the reason he doesn’t.

After Calgary, they do experiment with makeouts more, and maybe the occasional quick handjob in each other’s pants when they can get the privacy just before a game. As far as Casey can tell, their teammates are none the wiser, though they have certainly been enjoying the hot streak of wins they’ve been getting. There is one time, where Casey joins the locker room after they’ve had two really good back to back games, and the guys are whistling and congratulating Routhier at the scratches all over his back and shoulders, and Casey has to do his best to not blush, knowing he’d put them there.

“Goddamn, this girl had her claws in you, Rooter.” Àguila is wincing as he inspects the damage. “You must have given her a hell of a time.”

“Yes.” Routhier is smiling, and for just a moment, he makes eye contact with Casey, before inconspicuously glancing away. “She seemed to like it.”

Casey finds he enjoys the quiet confirmation to their team, despite the deception of the marks belonging to a girl. For a moment he wonders how the locker room would react, if they knew the truth. Entertains the possibility of everyone knowing he’d left his mark.

He schools himself back. Obviously, though, that’s not going to happen. He wouldn’t put Routhier in that position.

JJ claps Roots on the back. “Didn’t know you had it in you, rookie. It really is the quiet ones, eh?”

At this, Routhier does blush, and Casey has to look away because the sight is doing something to his stomach.

At home, Pokorný is maybe getting suspicious of all the time he is spending out of the house, but he doesn’t say anything to Casey. Instead, he keeps dropping hints about when the house is going to be empty, being extra clear about when he’s leaving and coming back, and Casey finds the nightstand in his room has been stocked with a box of condoms he’s absolutely positive he didn’t put there. Nina, Korny’s wife, is also pretty transparent when she starts talking to him one night about how it’s important to make a woman feel respected in a relationship, so Casey is pretty sure they think he has a secret girlfriend he just hasn’t introduced them to yet. Obviously, that’s not the case, but it is a pretty good cover, so he doesn’t correct them. Let them make whatever assumptions they want. He does take advantage of the empty house a couple of times though, just to know what it’s like to have Théo in his own bed.

“I’m really proud of you, sweetheart,” his mom is telling him over the phone on one of their off days, “Y’know, everyone at home has been watching your games and letting me know how much they love seeing you play so well?”

“Yeah?” He laughs down the line. He’s sitting in a dusty chair on the porch of the Pokorný household.

“Well, the ones who can admit that the Chinook are playing worse, at least,” she chuckles back at him, “I think when you beat Calgary a while back, you really tested their loyalty.”

“Wooow, no love for me.”

“Hey. Did I say that? Did I not just tell you they were coming up to me in the street?”

“Okay! Okay.” He grins to himself. Talking to his mom is always such a delight. She doesn’t really care much for the actual hockey part of his life, but she loves the drama behind it all, so they call and gossip every so often. Well, more like, Casey calls and feeds her information, and she lays it all out for him so he can better understand what the big deal is, which usually ends up being pretty entertaining.

He can hear her shifting on the other end. “So, how’s Théo doing, dealing with all of this?”

“Dealing with this?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. Just seems like media has really been in your faces lately, which of course, I know you don’t mind. But Théo is pretty shy, right? Has he been ok? I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with him.” A note of concern follows in her tone. She’s never met him, Routhier, but Casey knows she wants to, ever since they first became friends. Casey isn’t sure at all what she would think of their arrangement. He knows she wouldn’t be cruel to Routhier; his parents have been supportive his whole life. But if she found out how far they’d gone with each other before she’d ever even met him, she might just tear Casey a new one.

“Um. I think he’s been doing okay? I haven’t really asked him.”

“Oh my god, Casey.” She sounds exasperated.

“What! It hasn’t come up!”

“Sweetheart,” his mom hums, “Isn’t this your best friend? You two don’t talk to each other?”

Casey shifts the phone in his hands, which is starting to feel uncomfortable. “We do, Mom. We talk about stuff all the time, just like, mostly hockey stuff.”

“And this doesn’t count as hockey stuff?”

“…no?”

His mom laughs a sort of tired chuckle. “Ask him, honey. If I don’t get to meet him, I at least wanna hear about how he’s doing.”

“Mom, you are literally going to meet him. He wants to meet you. You were just away last time.”

They chat for a little longer about who they think might be the next captain, or if they’ll stick with three A’s and just let Pokorný unofficially have the C, but Casey doesn’t forget what she asked. She is, of course, completely right. Routhier is not a fan of talking to reporters, and reporters have been trying to talk to them a lot recently, so he should probably check in and see how he’s handling it.

He finds an opportunity just after they take a victory against the Colorado Blizzard, and Routhier gets asked to do media again. He’d got the only two goals of the game, so it makes sense they’d wanna talk to him, but when he comes back to the locker room, he’s got this strained look that Casey can’t help but notice now that he’s watching for it. Robotically, he moves to his stall beside Casey, and starts in on his post-game routine.

“Hey.” Casey goes for casual, taking care to not bump into him while he’s tense. He always hates that. “Are you, like…are the reporters giving you a hard time?”

Routhier freezes, just for a moment, before resuming his procedures.

“No.” He does not look Casey in the eye. “I’m fine. All they do is tell me how good I am doing.”

“Right. Okay.” Casey puts the rest of his things in his bag, but he doesn’t stand even though he’s ready to go. He watches Routhier carefully taking off his equipment, piece by piece in a specific order that he’s tried explaining to Casey before. It’s the psychology of it, he’d said. Everyone has superstitions they follow going into the game, but that’s just to psych yourself up. It’s just as important to have the comedown as well, to process the win or loss. It’s more about the long game, of keeping your head where it should be rather than caught up in the emotions of the game.

Casey doesn’t totally get it, because all his superstitions are pre-game things, like splashing water on his face and taping his stick perfectly. And now, having sex with Routhier the night before. But he knows that one of the reasons Routhier doesn’t like doing media is because it screws with his comedown routine.

“It’s just, you used to hate reporters, right? Like, it messes with your whole deal?” He can’t help but ask. “And I just figured that, y’know, with all this…attention, we’re getting, me and you have had to talk to media, like, way more. And that probably sucks, right?”

“Yes, Marks.” Routhier is giving him a flat look. “It sucks. Thank you for pointing that out.”

“No, I don’t mean-…” Casey runs his hands through his hair. “I just meant, if you want, I can talk to coach? And like, we can see if I can do media for you, sometimes?”

Routhier stops. Full on stops, and turns to face Casey more directly. There’s a look in his eyes, which Casey thinks he’s seen a few times before, but usually somewhere more private. He glances around the locker room, making sure no one else is seeing this, before realizing there should be nothing to see.

“You’d do that for me?” Routhier sounds incredulous.

Nonchalant, Casey shrugs. “Yeah bud. We’re a team. What helps you, helps me too.”

And if Casey thought the look he’d gotten earlier felt too intimate, the look he gets now blows the last one out of the water. Routhier sags a little, tension that had clung to him since he stepped in the locker room finally sliding off. He looks so relieved. Casey swallows.

“Thank you. I would appreciate it.” It’s an extremely genuine sentiment Routhier is giving him. Casey blushes a little in the face of it, and ducks his head to hide it.

“A’course, bud. Just trying to help.” He really hopes no one is seeing this. It feels like the two of them could not be more obvious right now, like somehow someone will see them and just know. He tries to catch the eyes of any of the guys, to see if they’re paying attention, but doesn’t spot anyone aside from JJ, who is obviously just trying to get Pike’s attention across the room.

Then, Routhier surprises him. “Would you want to…um.” He cuts himself off, nervously. “Would you want to come back to mine, tonight?”

Casey spins, back to looking at Routhier dead on.

“I- We don’t have a game tomorrow, though?” He’s confused. Usually, when Routhier invites him over like this, it’s to have sex. Which, usually, they do before a game, to make sure the effects happen when they need them. If they don’t have a game tomorrow (and in fact, not for the next two days), why would Routhier invite him over?

“I…no, you’re right. Sorry, I was just…Sorry.” Just like that, Casey watches Routhier close back up, packing away that soft heartfelt look he’d been wearing behind closed eyes, avoiding Casey’s gaze. “I’d better, um…I’ll see you Friday, then? Before the Metros game?”

“Wait, Roots-” But Routhier is standing, sliding his gear bag onto his shoulder, heading for the exit before Casey can get another word in. He looks back, just before he leaves.

“Sorry. Thanks for the media thing.”

Then he’s gone, and Casey is left to wonder how exactly that had gone so wrong.

At dinner that night, Pokorný has obviously picked up something. He keeps looking at Casey from across the table, each glance more searching than the last, and Casey wonders what conclusions he is coming to, because he has no idea what emotions are crossing his face.

When the two of them are washing dishes later, Korny speaks up.

“Good game today, huh?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Casey nods along, idly drying off a large pan.

The soft sounds of the dishwater echo loud in the kitchen.

“You and Routhier, you’ve been…strange, recently.”

It’s said with careful neutrality, obviously choosing words very selectively.

Casey shrugs, trying to hide the tension that curls in his stomach. “Yeah, I don’t know, we just got in a good mindset to score, I guess.”

“Yes, you two are playing great lately, but I actually wasn’t talking about that.” Pokorný sets down the pot he’s scrubbing to face Casey fully for a moment. “You’ve been…I don’t know. Closer, I suppose. But it also seems like you’re fighting?”

Casey almost lets the pan slip out of his hands. “Fighting? What?”

“Just, little things.” He goes back to scrubbing the pot. “You’re always over at his place, but you don’t talk to each other as much. And it seems like you’re avoiding looking at him in the locker room.”

Casey hadn’t realized they’d been doing that. They talked plenty, it was just mainly at Théo’s place, and mainly about their plans. But they definitely did used to joke around more in the locker room, or at least chat about something or other, now that he thought about it. But lately, Casey had been keeping his distance a bit, trying to avoid drawing attention to themselves. Almost certainly, Casey thought that if someone caught him sharing a look with Routhier, they would just know. So he’d been trying to keep his eyes elsewhere as much as possible. Evidently, he’d gone too far in the other direction, if Korny was noticing a change.

“Also, he seemed pretty upset when he left tonight,” Pokorný adds with a concerned glance.

He clears his throat. He’s got no idea how to try and explain this.

“Yeah, I mean…I don’t know why he was upset either,” he dodges, going for the more immediate question.

Korny hands him the pot to start drying. “You were talking to him, right? What did he say to you?”

“Uh-” Casey’s brain stalls, and he can’t come up with a lie. “He just invited me over.” The truth, without the context, does sound innocent enough. They’re friends. Friends invite each other over for reasons that aren’t sex.

“Oh.” That makes Pokorný pause. “And you didn’t want to go?”

“No, I…” Casey stops. Did he want to go?

“I…I don’t know. Maybe.”

But if he had wanted to go, that would have been different, right? Because they meet up for a purpose. If he had gone tonight, they would have just been what, having sex for the fun of it? Well, okay, Casey can admit that he enjoys it when they’re together, but it’s only…it’s okay to enjoy it, but that’s just a byproduct of the arrangement they have. Of course he enjoys having sex. That’s sort of the main reason people do it. But for them, it’s not the main reason. They only started having sex in the first place to try and improve their game, so to Casey, any enjoyment he gets out of it is just happy coincidence, a side benefit of their larger, original benefit. He enjoys it, because who wouldn’t enjoy being pinned down by Routhier? But if they did it for no reason, just because they liked it…That’s different. The balance Casey feels like he’s holding in his head would shift. Even as he imagines it, he’s shutting it down in his own head, because it’s starting to fill him with a quiet terror. It would be different. Casey doesn’t think he can allow different.

Pokorný seems to sense that he’s got all the information he’s going to get out of Casey, as he drains the sink.

“Well. You can do whatever you want. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. But if you want to, you should go, y’know? I’m sure Rooter wouldn’t mind.”

Casey goes to sleep that night trying as hard as he can to not think about whether or not he had wanted to go.

“Fuck, Théo!” Casey gasps as Routhier presses into him.

Even with all the tension they’d had, they do have an arrangement, so the night before the Montréal game, Casey diligently arrives at Routhier’s apartment, as they usually do. It’s definitely…more strained, between them. But Casey had arrived already prepared, so they’d gotten right into it without much further discussion.

Throughout slowly fingering Casey open, Routhier had been quiet, only speaking when needed. It puts Casey off. In their past encounters, he’s always really liked the way Routhier directs him around, telling him how to move, where to touch. He’s silent now, and Casey isn’t sure he likes it. He enjoys hearing Roots voice, especially in the position they’re in, ass in the air as Routhier stretches him out behind him. If he can’t see him, Casey would like to hear him, to know it’s not some stranger working him open. He slides himself further onto his fingers, trying to chase the feeling he usually gets.

When Routhier eventually lines himself up and starts to push inside, Casey makes a long, low noise, gasping and panting, more than he usually would. The space just feels so empty without the smooth glide of Routhier’s voice, so Casey tries to fill the void with his own sound, crying out as their hips meet. He’s not faking it, he’s…letting go, a bit more, hoping to prompt Routhier into responding. Into reacting to the sound of his voice in any way.

“Right there, Théo, fuck,” is what spills from his lips, needy and desperate, as Routhier pulls back and fucks into him again. Routhier doesn’t say anything.

The pace picks up, each thrust opening Casey further and further. Routhier is moving fast, pistoning in and out, but for Casey, the feeling builds slowly. With a major element missing, it’s harder for him. He doesn’t know whether Routhier is affected at all, and it bothers him. He tries to focus on the sensation of it, tries to embrace the stretch within, the purely physical pleasure of a cock ramming his prostate over and over. But he still can’t take the silence.

“Please, sweetheart, talk to me,” he pants between thrusts. The rhythm stutters for a moment, and Casey relishes in the fact that finally, Routhier has reacted to something. Then, Routhier’s leaning over, folding himself along Casey’s back to press lips against the nape of his neck, all while pumping harder, more forcefully.

“You want me to talk to you?” He mutters against Casey’s skin, sending electric shocks throughout him.

“Yes, yes!” Casey gasps.

“You like this? You like what I do to you?”

“Yes, please.”

“You want me.”

“Yes!”

Routhier leans further, his lips brushing Casey’s ear as he whispers.

“Then take me, Casey. Have me.”

Casey comes at once, waves of pleasure shooting through him as he finally releases, crying out in ecstasy. Routhier fucks him through it, railing into him until he snaps his hips one last time and stills, riding his own wave. They pant against each other, slowly, slowly coming down. Casey’s head is singing, reeling with it all. That had been something else.

Then, Routhier is peeling away from him. The atmosphere turns cold. Without a word, he heads into the bathroom, and Casey hears the shower going a moment later.

This is…not what Casey was hoping for. Usually, after, they clean each other up, talking softly with each other, before they settle down and head to their own beds, be that in the same hotel room, or all the way home. Personally, Casey prefers the hotel room, likes that they get to linger a little bit longer, fall asleep near each other. He feels better after nights like that. They’ve never done it like this, where they disconnect completely the second it's over. It feels hollow. Strange.

When Routhier gets out of the shower, he stops in the doorway. Leans against the doorframe, and doesn’t look Casey in the eye.

“Don’t say that again,” he says with gravity.

Casey props himself up on his elbows. “What?” What had he said?

“If you don’t mean it, then…” Routhier trails off, scratching nervously at his forearms. “I just don’t want to hear it. Okay?”

Frantically, Casey is trying to play back everything he’d said tonight to find his error. Had he said something insulting? He’d asked Routhier to talk to him. Was that too much? Maybe in the heat of the moment he’d said something terrible. His memory is failing him; he can’t remember saying anything like that, but he must have, because Routhier looks hurt, looks like the sight of Casey is painful.

“Okay.” He agrees, because maybe it will make Routhier stop looking like that. He can figure out what he did that was wrong later, but if hurt Théo, he can stop.

Routhier nods. The tension does not flow out of him like Casey was hoping it would. In fact, he looks resigned.

“Okay. Good.” He turns away from Casey, shrugging on a shirt. “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Something has gone really wrong here. But Casey cannot figure out what it is.

“Alright, alright! Let me say something.”

The locker room is buzzing ahead of the Montréal game, this time on home ice, and Casey is trying to drum up the excitement he’d had for it all week. He still feels sick from whatever had happened last night, but this was the first team they would be playing as a repeat since him and Routhier had started hooking up. They’d lost, the last time they’d played Montréal. If they did well, if they proved themselves, it would once and for all prove that their strategy worked well enough to change the trajectory of the team. Casey had been looking forward to it, had been eager to prove it. But now, sitting in the locker room, not talking to Routhier who was right next to him, the energy is gone, enthusiasm dissolved. He feels tense. Sick almost, coiled up anxiously in his stomach. He still isn’t clear what’s wrong.

Pike is standing to address the room, JJ not far behind him in a silent show of support. He has a serious look on his face, and as everyone turns to pay attention, he takes on an authority Casey hasn’t seen from him before.

“I know this probably won’t be news to you, but I’ve played with the Metros for years. Me and JJ, we know these guys like the back of our hand. They play strong, they’ll be tough to beat, and we can’t let our guard down because we’ve been on a hot streak. But you need to know…”

Pike trails off here, and Casey can hear the emotion in his voice as he does. He swallows, glances back to JJ, who steps up with steel in his eyes.

“They’re all pieces of shit,” JJ declares, his anger obvious to the whole room. “Whatever rumours you heard, about them being assholes, about kicking Hollander out, they’re true. Worse, probably. Especially the last few years.”

“Yeah. Basically that.” Pike nods, taking a steadying breath. “These guys have treated me, JJ, and my best friend like total shit since 2021. Probably even earlier than that, to be honest. They don’t respect the game. They play dirty. My guess is they’ll probably be chirping some really gross things tonight at anyone who will hear it, and I want you to know they’re doing it because they’re assholes. I hate them. JJ hates them. Tonight, me and him, we have a score to settle, and it’s probably gonna get messy.”

He straightens up, staring down each player with a new resolve. “I need everyone on this team to stand with us tonight, and fucking crush these assholes back, alright? Together, we are a stronger team. We are a better team. These last few weeks, we’ve pulled together an incredible showing, and Montréal doesn’t know what’s about to hit them. We are going to destroy them, okay? We are going to make them pay. They don’t deserve your respect. They deserve punishment, and we are going to bring it to them.”

“FUCK Montréal!!” JJ screams to finish it off, jabbing his fist in the air.

The locker room explodes around them with echoing calls of “Fuck Montréal!” Casey can see Pokorný and Àguila both looking extremely fired up and chanting it as well, shaking their sticks around like maniacs. Beside him, though he looks miserable, Routhier is waving his stick too, though he isn’t yelling with everyone else. Casey decides to take a page out of his book, and goes with wordless cries of encouragement, hyping everyone up, even though he too is feeling way off his game. Pike is totally right, this team deserves to be stomped into the ground. He can pull it together to do just that. He has a strategy that works, doesn’t he?

However, the game does not go the way he expects.

Pike hadn’t been kidding. Even just in warmups, the chirping is intense from across the red line. When they get down into the first face off, the Metros winger gets right into Pike’s space and accuses him of sucking dick to make it to the first line, to which Pike doesn’t even blink. Casey worries for a moment, because he looks like he’s completely used to it, and the implications of that are concerning. Then at every face off after that, the vitriol thrown around is even worse, and Casey has to buckle down to try and ignore it. Someone spits something nasty sounding in French to Routhier that has him flinching, and it takes everything Casey has to not just take the penalty and put his fist in that guy’s face.

Then, the checking is out of control. It had been bad, certainly, the last time they’d played Montréal, but it seems that by acquiring JJ and Pike, they’ve also acquired the insane grudge the Metros have against them, because it’s one of the roughest games Casey thinks he’s ever played. He gets crushed into the boards more times in the first period than he normally does in a whole game. Thankfully, the refs are quick to call most of the dirty hits, which gives the Ravens power play after power play.

The main problem, though, is Casey can’t seem to score.

He tries, snapping passes to Routhier like he always does, but Routhier is always a step behind, his stick just an inch too far back. He slaps his own shots towards the net, but they get caught in traffic every time. Routhier throws him what should be an easy back door goal, but it slips under his stick, and the chance is lost. Routhier also seems to be struggling, his wristers hitting the post three separate times.

“You two aren’t connecting,” Coach Hoffman is yelling at them while they’re on the bench, shuffling up to prepare for the next shift. “Get it together, boys, alright? You can play better than this.”

“I’m trying, coach,” Casey gasps, sucking down air between sips of water.

“Don’t try! Do it! Pay attention to each other!”

But it doesn’t seem to help. They go into the third tied one to one, and Casey is exhausted. Every two minutes or so, it feels like they go into another scrum, filled with heavy hitters and a tirade of slurs, and then have to scramble to try and turn it into a goal after the inevitable penalty calls. And it just keeps not working. He can’t explain it. Normally, Casey feels totally in sync with Routhier, can easily anticipate where he’s going to be, and can use that to slip past their goaltender with no problem. But something is different tonight, because that feeling never settles over him. They get golden opportunities, but they can’t seem to take them. Casey feels like a lost teenager, playing on the first line of his U16 team for the first time and completely blind to where his teammates are. He doesn’t know how to fix it.

Just before they go into overtime, Casey gets absolutely flattened into the boards by Wahlström, their former captain.

“Thought you two were supposed to be first line players now.” He jeers, a nasty grin splitting his face as Casey tries to pick himself up off the ice. Casey spits, honestly hoping for blood to appear in it so the guy can maybe pick up a double-minor, but it comes out as clear as ever. Wahlström’s chirping is just as pathetic as it was when he played for the Ravens, but it still cuts at Casey, strikes somewhere that hurts.

“Fuck off, Wahlström,” is all he manages. It sounds empty.

In the end, they just barely manage to eke out a win when Pike lucks into a crazy shot that bounces off their defenseman and into the net. It’s an incredibly hard fought win, and their bench lights up when it happens, teammates all pouring onto the ice to crowd around the man of the hour. They pile into the locker room, exhausted and battered, but victorious nonetheless.

“That’s my fucking team!” JJ screams to the roof, the buzz of their win taking over. “We are going to the Roxy tonight, boys! First round on me!”

This draws a round of cheers. Casey summons enough to throw his fist in the air in agreement, because they did win, even if for some reason, he’d played like absolute shit.

Coach pokes his head into the locker room. “Pike, Routhier, you’re up for media.”

”Wait.” Casey stands, getting in front of Coach. “Routhier isn’t feeling great. I can take over?”

This, for some reason, has Routhier snapping his head up to stare at Casey, even though it’s exactly what they’d discussed after their last game. Had he forgotten?

Coach looks at him strangely. “You sure, Marks?”

Casey nods. “Yeah, absolutely, I don’t mind.” He’s already stripped his gear anyways, and Routhier is still obviously mid-routine. It helps that he looks pale and worn out, it sells that he isn’t feeling well.

Coach shrugs. “Alright. I’ll let them know.”

Of course, when he’d made this plan with Routhier, he’d forgotten to account for the possibility that he could play badly. For the last few weeks, the questions have all been things like “What do you think changed for you, scoring wise” and “Do you think the Ravens will make the playoffs this year?” Really easy stuff to handle.

“Did you and Théo Routhier have some kind of falling out?” Is what the reporter asks this time, which just hits Casey like a slap to the face.

Cameras flash in his face, the microphone hovering expectantly in front of him as the room waits for his answer. Casey gulps, fiddling with his water bottle. He’s completely sweated through his compression shirt, and it clings uncomfortably to his skin.

“Umm…sorry, what makes you say that?” Casey stutters out, utterly blindsided by the question.

“I think we can all see that this game was a difficult one for the both of you, especially since we normally see such great chemistry between you two. Would you say something changed, for you two to be missing so much tonight?”

“Uhh, no.” Casey scrambles, trying to figure out how to piece together an acceptable response. “I mean, yeah, of course, everyone is going to have an off night every once in a while, it happens, you know? Me and Roots, we just weren’t feeling it tonight, but we’ll work it out.”

“So you did have a disagreement then?”

“No, I didn’t say that. I just mean, we’ll practice harder, try and figure out why we aren’t connecting.”

Across the room, another reporter calls out.

“Hayden, could you talk about what your game this Sunday against Ottawa might look like, especially since you’ll be playing against your former teammate Shane Hollander?”

“Of course,” Pike hums, seeming much more at ease than Casey feels. “I’m looking forward to it obviously. Shane’s my best friend, and an amazing player, so it’ll be difficult going against both him and Rozanov, but we’re still on great terms. The Centaurs are a solid team, so we'll come at it with everything we've got. I expect it’ll be a bit less physical than the game we just played, though.”

That earns a round of chuckles from the crowd of reporters.

“Are you planning to meet up with him at all?”

Pike nods. “Absolutely. Me and my wife are actually inviting both teams over for a barbecue afterwards as a bit of a housewarming party, assuming it doesn’t rain.”

Casey had totally forgotten about that, but he had agreed to go. He hadn’t realized it was happening so soon.

“This question’s for Casey: How would you say it was playing against your former captain tonight? It looked like he said something to you at the end of the third.”

Okay, this he could handle. He relaxes his grip on the water bottle. “Nothing much. Wally’s a good player, but I definitely think he’ll be happier on the Metros. He was just chirping a bit, not anything special.”

“Would you say the room is better without him?”

Jesus Christ. Why did it feel like all his questions were loaded? He’s glad Roots isn’t the one having to take these.

“I think Hayden and JJ were good additions. Obviously the room is different without Wally, but I like the way we have it now. We’ve got a good set of guys.”

The reporter moves on like he hadn’t even said anything. “And for you Hayden? How was it playing against your old team?”

On and on, the questions go. By the time they make it out of media, Casey feels like his brain has been stretched six ways to Sunday. Pike notices, apparently, dropping a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“You doing alright, kid? I know it was intense in there.” His tone is calm, even.

Slowly, Casey nods. “Yeah. I’m good. Just…a lot.”

“And you and Rooter? You’re good?” He sounds concerned, Casey supposes it makes sense, given he shares a line with them, and they’d both just made his game a lot harder than it needed to be tonight.

“We’re…I’ll talk to him.” Because it was becoming completely apparent that there was nothing else he could do. Obviously, this wasn’t working. He’d fucked up, somewhere along the way, and their whole strategy had broken. Routhier’s feelings had been hurt, and Casey still couldn’t pin down how, so the next step needed to be asking Routhier exactly what had gone wrong and fixing that.

Pike withdraws his hand. “Okay. Make sure you do, alright?”

Casey bobs his head. “Yeah, a’course.”

The Roxy is, number one, loud. Casey can barely think. The lights pulse in time with music, the crowd buzzes around him, and he can barely get a word out to the bartender to order something. But the vibe is good, despite all of that. He gets his can of Okanagan cider, and then mills about with his teammates while they celebrate their win. The place is swarming, and it’s hard to tell faces apart with this lighting, but someone slings their arm over his shoulders, and Casey just has to assume it’s someone who knows him, because he certainly can’t tell by looking at them. It’s only when they lean in to his ear that he’s even able to tell it’s Pokorný.

“Relax, kid!” Is what gets shouted next to his head, followed by an affectionate squeeze of his whole body. He grimaces, struggling to match the enthusiasm. As much as it’s nice in here, Casey really only has one thing on his mind.

“Have you seen Roots?” He calls back to Korny, just to get heard over the din.

“What?”

“Routhier, have you seen him?”

“Oh!” Pokorný swings an arm wide, spinning the two of them to face near the back, past the bathrooms. “Saw him over there a minute ago!”

“Thanks, I’ll go find him.” Casey tries to pull away.

Instead, Pokorný pulls him closer. “No, come on kid, hang out for a moment! He had a girl with him anyways, let him be.”

Ice shoots down Casey’s bones. “He what?”

Seemingly, Pokorný doesn’t hear him, or doesn’t care. “I know it was a bad game for you, but everyone has off days, alright? We won, take a moment to unwind, and you can come back stronger, and— Hey, what are you—”

“Sorry, I’ve gotta go,” Casey says as he carefully extricates himself from the goalie’s grip.

A girl. Routhier’s with a girl. The words keep bouncing around his head. He pushes through the crowd, forging a path past the stage in the direction Korny had pointed him in. He needs to find Routhier.

He can’t even describe what his brain is doing. It feels like he’s shut down into some kind of panic loop. He imagines Routhier tucked away into some corner, with his tongue down someone else’s throat, and it makes him want to throw up. Why? He shouldn’t care. Routhier’s his own person, and it’s not like they’ve made any sort of promise to stay exclusive. They have their arrangement, but Routhier isn’t his. It shouldn’t bother him.

He pictures Routhier pulling the girl in, taking her home. Pictures his hands on her waist, his mouth on her neck, possessive and wanting and so so wrong.

It’s like the image itself is stabbing him. A terrible, sick, undeniable feeling feels like it’s swallowing his lungs, pressing on his stomach, and forcing him to press on. It can’t be true. He has to see for himself. He forces himself through the sea of people, breath held tight, until finally he spills around the corner to the back room and lays eyes on the man in question.

There. Routhier is talking with a girl, but thankfully for Casey’s psyche, none of the more graphic images he had imagined are taking place. There is no hand on her waist. There are no lips locking together. They’re just talking, smiling at one another, leaning on the pool table and chatting about something Casey can’t hear over the music.

He looks happy, Casey thinks. The sick feeling does not go away.

His steps feel hollow in his shoes as he makes his way over to them. When he gets close, Routhier looks up, and a smile flits over his face for just a moment, before getting schooled back into something more neutral.

“Hey, Marks, this is—”

“I have to talk to you.” Casey immediately insists, quickly gripping him by his forearm.

Concern flashes across Routhier’s face. He sets his drink down on the table. “Are you okay?”

The girl, who looks nice enough, adopts some level of concern as well, gazing searchingly at Casey. It prickles something within him. Maybe his own possessiveness.

“I’m okay, I just…I’ve got to talk to you.” Casey tugs on his arm. “Privately.”

Routhier nods, his eyes all wide and worried. He throws a look back to the girl, gesturing to their drinks with a quick “could you watch those for me Katie?” before surrendering to Casey’s pull, dutifully following him into the bathrooms.

Casey waits patiently until the door clicks shut behind them. Waits to check, to make sure no one is in any of the stalls. Then, when he is sure, he takes Routhier’s face in his hands and smashes their lips together.

Instantly, there is relief. That sickness that had been building inside him is soothed, washed away by the intensity of the kiss. Routhier responds, blissfully matching Casey movement for movement, but it only lasts a second before Casey is being pushed away, his shirt in knots in Routhier’s hands.

“Wait, is that it?” Routhier is panting, angry. “You just wanted to kiss me?”

“I—no, I had…” Casey is finding it hard to think, lost in the heady feeling. “No, sorry. I wanted to talk, I just got…”

Casey trails off, because he doesn’t even know what it was that had made the need for a kiss so urgent. Or, sort of. He’d wanted to replace the images he’d drawn up in his mind with reality, with knowing Routhier was in his grasp. But he isn’t sure how to word it. In the silence, though, Routhier seems to figure it out, because his eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh my god,” he scoffs, “You’re jealous.”

He releases Casey’s shirt, leaving him adrift.

“So this is just more…Fuck, Casey, you can’t keep doing this to me.” His hands are covering his mouth, turned away from Casey like he can’t even face him.

Casey curls his fingers nervously. “Doing what to you?” He asks.

“Fucking-…!” Routhier starts, but cuts himself off. “You ask me to have sex with you, but it’s not serious because you say you’re straight. But then you’re really into it, and I’m really into it, and I think, ‘maybe I’m not that straight.’ But you say you are, and you make it all about the hockey part, so clearly it doesn’t mean anything to you. But then, clearly it does, because we start making out sometimes, and you give me these looks in the locker room, and you do nice things like take over media for me.”

Roughly, Routhier’s hand goes to his hair, pulling frustratedly at the short strands. “So I think, ‘maybe he’s coming around, maybe he really likes me,’ so I ask if you want to come over and you look at me like I’m stupid. So, I must have read things wrong, I should scale it back a bit, because we’re not in a relationship. But then you call me sweetheart in bed, you beg me to talk to you, and I can’t pretend any more, so I try to shut it down, and—and…”

Routhier squirms in frustration, and throws a wild hand out towards the doorway. “And now you’re here, getting jealous that I’m talking to someone, when we’re not even together! So yes, Marks, I’m sick of being jerked around! You keep giving me all these mixed messages, and I can’t tell if you’re doing it on purpose or if you’re just completely oblivious, but I’m getting tired of it, okay? I can’t keep giving you the benefits of a relationship without any of the rest that’s supposed to come with it. I thought we could be…I can’t keep—fuck.”

Then tears are spilling down his cheeks, and Casey can’t help but reach for him.

“Hey, no, I’m…fuck, I’m so sorry,” he hushes, hands hovering nearby, waiting for Routhier’s permission. “I can’t believe I didn’t…I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t even think about how it would seem from your perspective. I should’ve—I didn’t…”

His hands get smacked away angrily.

“Stop it!” Routhier fumes. “You don’t even care about me! All you care about is whether or not this is going to affect your point total. Maybe you even—” he sucks down a sob, “Maybe you even liked how I made you feel, but you don’t give a shit about me.”

“No, Théo,” Casey interrupts, stepping forward, “That’s not true. Obviously I care about you, I—”

“Not obviously, Casey!” Théo screams. “God, I don’t—...maybe you need to find someone else for this…whatever it is. Your hockey experiment, or whatever. Because I don’t think I can keep doing this. I—”

Tears fall to the tiled floor. “I do care about you, Casey. I can’t keep doing this acting like I don’t. So, you should find someone else.”

Casey’s heart is in his stomach, rolling around like a horrible caged beast. “Théo, I… I don’t want anyone else. I asked you because I…”

“Because you knew I’d go along with it?” Théo scoffs sorely.

“No.” Casey packs as much meaning into the word as he can. “I would never want to hurt you, Théo, not on purpose. I asked you because I couldn’t imagine trying this with anyone else. You’re…fuck Théo. I don’t even give a shit about the hockey. You’re way more important. We could never play again, and I would still be here begging you. I asked because I think I couldn’t accept that I wanted you, and I had to come up with some insane excuse to try to be closer to you, but I never wanted you to think I didn’t care.”

His voice is getting watery, which is annoying, because he’s not done talking. “I would…if you ask me to, I will stop this whole thing we have, no questions asked. But I wouldn’t…I couldn’t do it again with someone else, Théo. Because they wouldn’t be you. Because, I think I want to have something real with you. I think I’m…I’m probably also not that straight. I like being with you, so much. You’re…God, I can’t even describe it. You’re perfect, you’re so perfect. If you want to be with me, I’d be there with you in a heartbeat. I don’t want anyone else, Théo, it couldn’t be anyone else, you’re it for me— ”

All of a sudden, Casey is being pulled into Théo’s arms, and salty, tearful lips are meeting his.

“Yes,” Théo is gasping, elated. “Yes, I want to. Casey, you have no idea.”

Casey’s heart sings. He melts back into the embrace, slotting himself perfectly against Théo’s body like they were always meant to fit together, and captures his lips with his own. His blood pumps in a fluttery rhythm. This kiss is different. This kiss means something to both of them, in a way that none of their kisses before have ever come close to. This one is a promise. A declaration of exactly what they mean to each other, a concept that fills Casey to the brim with joy. He cups Théo’s jaw and deepens it, sliding together in beautiful harmony, interrupted only by the need to breathe.

Casey can’t believe how long he was denying himself this. The rush of emotions is intoxicating, flooding his whole body, knowing that this is Théo, who wants him, who cares about him, who tore himself up thinking that Casey didn’t feel exactly the same way back. He wants to burn those hurt memories out of his mind, tell the Casey and Théo of just a few days ago that they could have had this the whole time. That they could have each other, officially. He pulls Théo tighter, his hands wandering further, dipping down to find the hem of his shirt and brushing his fingertips against his abs. He never wants this to end. He wants to have him. Against him, Théo moans, leaning into the touch. Casey’s head is spinning, his whole world revolving around where they connect. He can’t get enough. His hand strays further upward, trailing the skin of Théo’s chest, where Casey plans to—

The bathroom door bangs open.

“—I promise, Jacks, I’ll start heading home right away, I— oh you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

An absolutely astonished Hayden Pike stands in the doorway, phone pressed to his ear, staring at the two of them, lips swollen and obviously in each other’s arms, and there is simply no other conclusion for him to come to except the truth.

“You have got to be fucking joking. Again?!?!”

Chapter End Notes

Like. What are the odds.

Chapter 4

Chapter Summary

Previously: After the success of their last two attempts, Casey decided their theory was officially proven, and made an arrangement with Routhier to have sex before every game. As time passed, people noticed the various results, and started commenting on both their chemistry and a potential disconnect between them. This culminated in a miscommunication between them leading to upset sex, resulting in them playing terribly in their game against Montréal. The team went out to a club afterwards, where the two of them finally confessed how they wanted to be together for real, only to be caught making out in the bathroom by Hayden.

Chapter Notes

The final chapter! I know everyone’s really been looking forward to this one :)) I’ve had so much fun writing this and it’s been great sharing it with everyone. For this chapter, in case you haven’t noticed it, I’ve included some html to show translations for anything not in English, which I have been using for the little Québécois bits that Théo has been using so far, but this chapter uses it really extensively. On mobile you can just tap the non-English text to see the translation, and tap away when you’re done, and on desktop you can just hover over to see it. Thank you to my lovely friends who helped me with these translations!!!

The game against Ottawa is such a stark contrast to the Montréal game that it doesn’t even feel like the same sport.

For starters, there’s no war meeting ahead of it warning everyone how nasty they’re going to be. In fact, the majority of both teams have plans to meet at Pike’s house afterwards for a pleasant backyard barbecue, even though it’s late November, and it’s nearly too cold to do it. At least they have the advantage of Vancouver’s warm weather, and the forecast says it will only rain a little bit. Casey is looking forward to this.

What makes him a little bit more nervous is the fact that him and Théo are going to be face to face with the guy who’d unknowingly started this whole spiral: Ilya Rozanov. And, worse: that he will know, by the time they have a chance to talk.

Hayden, after his initial reaction to discovering them, had been very reassuring and apologetic, swearing up and down that he wouldn’t tell a soul about them unless they gave the go-ahead, despite his past track record with secrets exactly like this. After being spooked by his initial entrance, that had been very reassuring, and Casey had been able to relax his grip on Théo minutely. However, Hayden had offered them some advice.

“You’ve got to get some allies in this, alright?” He’d insisted that night in his car, just outside the club. “Doesn’t have to be everybody, and obviously you can count me on that list. But if nobody but me knows, that’s going to become a really quick recipe for misery for both of you. Trust me, I’ve seen it happen. You need people to talk to, people who get it. Actually—oh, fuck.”

Hayden stops himself there, wiping an anxious hand through his hair. “Yeah actually, that might be exactly who you should talk to. I can give you their numbers, or I can tell them myself if you don’t want that pressure, but I think it would be a great idea for you to talk to Shane and Rozanov, since they’re like, the only people I know in the league with your like, exact situation.”

Casey and Théo look at each other and try to pretend that it’s completely normal to suggest shooting a text to The Shane Hollander and The Ilya Rozanov about their gay love life.

“Okay, not exact, I don’t know your whole deal, I’m just saying! They’re two players who are together, same as you, and they have like, a ton of experience trying to navigate that, so if you want advice, those are the people you should ask.”

When he puts it like that, it’s much harder to argue against. But it’s still far too intimidating for them to straight up cold call the two biggest names in hockey, so in the end, they agree that Hayden will tell them himself, after the Ottawa game, but before the party, mainly so that Rozanov doesn’t chirp them about it on the ice.

Of course, now that it’s come to the day of, even that sounds horribly intimidating.

The game itself is great. The Centaurs are a wagon at this point, slipping past their defence like they aren’t even there and getting pucks past Pokorný in several objectively beautiful goals. They’re good sports, too; it’s a very low penalty game, and the chirping is certainly creative, but never crosses the line into malicious and exhausting like it did with Montréal. It’s also a very different game because this time, Casey is in exactly the right mindset, and he and Théo together put up a respectable four points combined. They still lose, because the Ravens are not nearly as in sync as the Centaurs have become, but it’s a much better showing than their last game together, all those weeks ago. And as a bonus, they walk out of it without injury, and the promise of good food from Hayden.

“It’s Jackie’s family recipe, it’s delicious,” he hypes up to the room as they strip their gear. “Trust me, you guys are gonna be begging for another barbecue come spring.”

“It’s true,” JJ defends, a broad smile across his face. “It has been way too long since I’ve been to a Pike barbecue. Are you gonna make those ribs with that sweet sauce?”

“Fucking absolutely we are,” Hayden grins.

JJ pumps a celebratory fist harder than an actual celly on the ice.

That’s enough to really interest the guys, who have so far been mainly wary of rubbing such close shoulders with another team, no matter how curious they are. Hayden has been making his case all week, determined to eliminate any animosity before it can arise. But it’s hard to deny free barbecue, especially when it gets you a chance to talk to hockey gods numbers one and two. So, it isn’t long before Casey and Théo are clambering out of Théo’s car, fashionably late, and walking up to Hayden’s new Kitsilano house to join the party.

“Nervous?” Casey asks, fiddling with the sleeves of his hoodie after they’ve already knocked on the front door.

Théo, dressed smartly in a light button down, huffs out a soft breath. “Yes. But we do it together?”

Casey taps their heads together, pulling apart just in time for the door to open and Pokorný to greet them with a smile.

“There you are! You guys sure took your sweet time, eh?”

The party is a very lowkey one, shockingly. There’s a sliding door between the living room and the deck out back, and most people are staying indoors, but there’s someone’s kids running around the backyard, and Casey can spot a few people out there doing the actual grilling. Even though Vancouver is unseasonably warm in November, it’s still chilly enough that most people are happy to mill about the first floor rather than be outside. Evidently, they’re not having any trouble mingling with the other team, though. Casey can see several different pockets of Ravens and Centaurs chatting away with each other, happy as clams. He does not, however, see the husbands of hockey anywhere. Casey draws in a breath, and slowly, gently lets it out. He tries to let the sounds of conversation wash over him.

To their left, Casey sees Àguila talking with Boodram, one of the Centaurs alternates. Politely, Korny slips past them to rejoin Wyatt Hayes in the kitchen, presumably so they can talk about goalie things. There’s a circle of the defensemen around the couch, and Casey can spot JJ making a joke to Chouinard and Dykstra, and getting along eerily well.

“Oh, that’s really sweet,” Théo coos next to him.

“Hmm?” Casey turns, questioning.

Théo points to the circle of Centaurs just beside them. “Chouinard,” he mutters, quietly enough that he won’t be overheard, “I didn’t know their nickname for him was Chou.”

Casey blinks, totally clueless.

“It means like, darling, or dear. It’s really cute, I’m just surprised they used it.” Théo confesses, a light flush on his cheeks.

“Oh, I see,” Casey nods, “Like sweetheart.”

Théo’s eyes twinkle. “Yes, like sweetheart.”

“How do you say it again?” Casey bumps his shoulder against Théo’s. “Maybe I need to learn to use it.”

At that, Théo fully blushes, drawing a hand up to hide his embarrassment. “It’s like, chou.”

“Shoe,” Casey tries.

Théo chuckles affectionately. “We’ll work on your accent, but yeah. Mon chou. (My darling.)”

Casey’s heart does a little fluttery thing that has been happening to him a lot since that night at the Roxy.

The sound of a door opening down the hall snaps him out of it, and the two of them turn to see Hayden’s wife Jackie stepping out of the bathroom, fresh-faced and smiling. There are wet spots on her t-shirt, and it looks like she just got finished cleaning up some mess the kids must have made. Casey can see the moment she spots them.

“You made it!” She crows, stepping up to welcome each of them with a handshake. “I was beginning to worry. Hayden said I should send you two outside when you got here; I think he wants you to help him with grilling.”

That’s almost definitely not the reason, he’d asked that, but Casey is happy to take the excuse. She leads them out onto the patio, where Hayden is currently working on grilling a frankly insane amount of beef. He glances up when they arrive, and hits them with an self-aware grin.

“Geez, you two look like you’re about to get in trouble with the principal,” he jokes. “Can you move this plate over so I can start loading up the next one?”

Immediately, Théo jumps forward to do just that, while Hayden pecks his wife on the lips.

“Thanks, Jackie. Would you also send Shane and Ilya my way when they get back from the store?”

“For sure. I’m just gonna go make sure the plates are set out,” she promises, before disappearing back into the party, the patio door sliding shut behind her. With it closed, they have a bit more privacy.

“So, you’ve already told them…” Casey trails off.

Hayden pokes at the meat on the grill. “Yep. I let Shane know what was happening before everyone got here, told him you just wanted to talk about how to handle it. He understands, he said he gets why you’d want to talk. There’s a group chat he’s going to add you to?”

Jesus Christ. The sheer concept of being in a group chat with Shane Hollander is breaking his brain. His anxiety must show on his face, because Hayden shakes his head immediately.

“But I haven’t told anyone else, I swear. I wouldn’t do that to you, okay? Not even Jackie knows.”

“No, it’s not—thank you, Hayden. But I’m actually not worried as much about that as I am about, like…” Casey can’t even really bring himself to put words to it.

It takes a moment, but Casey can see the reaction when Hayden realizes. His concerned face smoothes out, replaced by one of amusement.

“Oh, I see,” he hums, entertained, “This is a rookie hero worship thing. Let me guess: you had a poster of him in your bedroom?”

How did he know? Casey would like to sink into the space underneath the deck and never crawl out again. Beside him, Théo actually has a full body shiver.

Oh, wait actually.

“Are you cold?” Casey asks, tugging off his hoodie. It is still around ten degrees out here, but they hadn’t really planned to be outside too much. He offers the sweater to Théo immediately.

“No, it’s ok.” Théo is declining, waving it back. “You know I can’t be seen wearing anything that isn’t Roots.”

“It’s a private party, the public isn’t seeing you in here.” Casey insists, shoving the hoodie into his arms. It’s an Arc’teryx hoodie, so definitely not something that fits in Théo’s brand guidelines, but it’s warm, and blue, which Casey happens to know is Théo’s favourite colour. “Your sponsors won’t even know. And besides, I run hot.”

That seems to do the trick. A cautious smile flits across Théo’s face, and hesitantly, he takes the sweater, carefully putting it on. He looks so soft in this moment. His fingers curl around the edge of the sleeve, tugging it around himself like it’s something precious. Casey’s heart does the fluttery thing again, because he really likes the sight of Théo in his sweater. He’s probably smiling like an idiot.

“Wow. I guess it’s a good thing you’re about to talk to some experts, because that was the most obvious thing in the whole fucking world,” Hayden says.

“Fuck off, Pike,” Théo chirps back, but his heart is nowhere near in it. Casey flushes. Yeah, he can see how that was obvious.

Hayden smiles back at them. “Honestly, you two are way too fucking adorable. I like you for each other. Very high-school-sweetheart of you.”

Casey is about to protest that they are very much adults and not teenage high-schoolers when the patio door slides open behind them, and a commanding accented voice spills out.

“Look who it is!” Ilya Rozanov, the captain of the Centaurs, generational centre, and three-time Stanley Cup winner calls out to them.

Casey freezes, and suddenly doesn’t feel all that real anymore.

Distantly, Hayden pats him comfortingly on the shoulder, plate of meat in hand. “Hey, Rozanov. I’ve gotta bring these inside, don’t freak them out, alright?” And then he’s disappearing inside without another word, leaving Théo and Casey completely stranded.

Rozanov, apparently completely unheeding to Hayden’s warning, steps forward, challenging smirk plastered firmly across all of his features. “So, it seems you two are the ones trying to wipe our noses, huh?”

“…huh?” Casey echoes back. Both because 1. That is Ilya Fucking Rozanov, talking to him directly, and Casey feels like maybe his knees might genuinely buckle, and 2. The sentence makes absolutely no sense.

Their confusion must be obvious. “Is Russian phrase,” Rozanov tries to explain, confidently gesturing to them, “Is like, when you are fighting someone, maybe they are bleeding, and you try to…hang on, this does not translate so good.”

The patio door is still wide open, so when Rozanov turns around and calls “солнышко! (Sunshine!)” Casey suddenly feels very exposed, knowing everyone in the living room can probably hear them. He sidles closer to Théo, trying to subtly brush shoulders and draw up some support between them.

And then, Shane Hollander appears, just to make Casey feel all the more out of his depth.

“Ilya?” Hollander asks, fortunately closing the door behind him as he steps out to greet his husband.

“Is there an English version of Утереть нос? (to wipe someone's nose?)” Rozanov leads with, stretching out a hand to take Hollander’s. Casey’s eyes fix there, shocked for a moment at the casualness with which they’d reached for each other. His own hand burns beside Théo’s.

Hollander frowns. “Oh, um…I guess, maybe ‘blowing someone out of the water?’ There might be a better one.”

“Blowing someone out of the water?” Rozanov’s eyes bug out of his head, a mischievous smile curling at his cheeks. “That can’t be right. Are they normally blowing people in the water?”

Playfully, Hollander smacks at his husband’s shoulder. “Stop. You know that’s not what it means.”

The two of them share a goofy grin, and Casey is struck by how obviously enamoured they are with each other. The way they grip each other, the look in their eyes, the ease with which they talk to each other…even without knowing their history, they’ve clearly known each other a long time. But Casey absolutely does know their history. He’d only been eight when they’d been drafted after all; he’d been following their entire careers since he was a kid. It feels completely impossible to connect the two people in front of him who are so transparently in love to the idols of the hockey world.

“Anyways,” Rozanov hums, sliding an arm around his husband’s waist and turning once again to face Casey and Théo, “Is like Shane says. You are trying to blow us.”

“Holy shit, stop,” Hollander exclaims, while Casey and Théo unsuccessfully try to melt into the boards of the patio, “You’re doing this on purpose!”

“Sorry? We definitely don’t want to, uh…” Théo shrugs anxiously, obviously still not even sure what it is exactly they’re being accused of.

“No, don’t worry!” Hollander waves him off. “Sorry about him, he’s being dramatic. He got this idea in his head that you were trying to steal our thunder by being the next league power couple or something.”

“Oh my god, Hollander. Steal our thunder?” Rozanov scoffs, scandalized. “Why would you let me make blowjob jokes like that when you had a much better phrase the whole time?”

“Ilya.”

“Yes, don’t worry. I’m just making jokes.” Rozanov winks, extending a hand for each of them to shake. “Is nice to meet you. Pike says you are wanting to talk to us?”

Cautiously, Casey takes the offered hand, shaking it in a daze. Théo does the same.

“Um. Yes. I’m, uh, Casey, and this is my, um…this is Théo.” Words don’t seem to be coming out of Casey like they normally would. “Did Hayden explain, or like…”

Hollander makes a sort of so-so motion after also shaking their hands. “Kind of. He said he walked in on you two together, that he’d recommended you find some people to be in your corner, and that he’d thought of us right away.”

“Honestly, maybe a little homophobic of him. He meets new queer people and his first thought is his gay best friend?”

“Ilya.”

“Okay, I’m done this time, I promise.”

“So he didn’t explain the whole…” Théo makes a sort of all-encompassing gesture, which Casey takes to mean their whole arrangement. Ah, fuck. He’d actually almost completely forgotten about the third reason to be embarrassed here.

“No. I do not know what this is.” Rozanov copies the gesture. “Something bigger?”

“He just means…” Is it even possible for Casey to find the words to properly explain here? “We’ve only actually gotten together in the last few days, but before that we had a sort of weird situation where we weren’t really together, we were just, um…hooking up.”

Both Hollander and Rozanov nod, like that’s exactly what they expected. Go on, they seem to imply.

Casey tries to breathe. “So, um, the actual reason we started, uh, ‘hooking up’ was, uh—” Casey can’t believe he’s describing this to them, “—it was actually, uh, because of you? A little bit?”

They don’t respond, but a curious look passes between them. Théo bumps his shoulder in support.

He does his best to power through, thoughts running thickly through his head. “Uh, so, I don’t know if you remember, but last time we played you…and like, I doubt you remember this, because Wahlström was being such an asshole to you, so you probably remember that more than anything, and like, you weren’t even talking to us, but we heard it so—”

“You told Wally to try it,” Théo interrupts him.

“Yes. Exactly.” Casey squares his shoulders. “So, we figured like, maybe that’s why you were so good, right? Like maybe it was the secret to really good hockey. So, why not, y’know. Try it out?”

“And then it worked.” Théo adds stiffly.

“Yeah, and then it worked, so we kept going.” Casey nods in agreement with Théo. “There was definitely, like a whole ton of other steps, and I mean, I know I was absolutely denying everything in my head for like way too long, but I’d still say it was—”

“Sorry, I think I’m missing something.” Hollander stops them, looking genuinely confused. “Who told Wally to try what? How do we factor into this?” Beside him, Rozanov looks like he’s trying to think back to that day, and scour through what he’d said.

“Uhh…” What the hell. There was no way this situation was getting less embarrassing. “…sex? Rozanov, you said something like, ‘you should try it, it helps your hips’ and I guess it was actually a really good suggestion, in the end, because I mean, we’ve been doing great—”

“Wait,” Rozanov interjects, disbelieving grin slowly growing on his face, “I told you to try having gay sex, and then you went and actually did it?”

“That same night,” Théo adds, completely unhelpfully.

Casey’s not sure he’s ever seen someone’s eyes light up the way Rozanov’s do as he looks at Hollander, like he’s just won the lottery. Hollander, however, scowls, though it seems to be directed at his husband’s antics.

“Я же говорил! Я знал, я знал что кто-то попробует это сделать! (I told you! I knew it, I knew someone would actually try it!)” Rozanov squeals, actively shaking his husband. “О Боже, нам придется завести вторую собаку (Oh my god, we’re going to be getting a second dog).”

“Нет, не придется (No, we’re not).” Hollander refuses to budge. “Sorry, um, just to confirm, you’re saying you two are in an actual relationship right now, and/or potentially realized you’re queer because of something my husband said to you? Like, is that the extent of it?”

“I, uhh…” Casey turned to Théo, who looked back at him with about the exact same level of confusion, but shrugged in agreement all the same. “Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty accurate.”

“Motherfucker,” says Shane Hollander, who had apparently been hoping they’d say no.

“A fucking hat trick, baby!” Rozanov cheers in the background. “Ты мне не верил, но я знал, что смогу это сделать! (You didn’t believe me, but I knew I could do it!)”

“Sorry, he’s just uh—” Hollander grimaces, glancing back at his husband. “We had a sort of longstanding bet that was related to something like this.”

“And you had better believe you are going to pay up,” Rozanov insists, circling back to bump into his husband.

“Илюша, я не говорил про собаку. Я сказал, что мы можем завести еще одного питомца (Ilyusha, I never said a dog. I said we could think about getting a second pet).” Hollander looks exasperated, but there’s a fondness there that isn’t hard to detect.

“Fine, whatever, cat or dog, doesn’t matter to me.” Rozanov rests his head onto his husband’s shoulder, seeming utterly content. “Tell me the story. When did you realize you were in love?”

Casey’s breath stutters in his lungs and throws him into a coughing fit. Numbly, Théo pats his back through it, clearly in shock.

“Ah. I see. We are not there yet.” Rozanov nods solemnly, like he understands deeply. “So, the sex is good then?”

“Crisse (Christ),” Théo whispers, like he hopes he’ll disappear into Casey’s shadow and cease to exist.

“I’m sorry, we’re being so rude.” Hollander tries to laugh it off, jabbing an elbow into his husband’s ribs. “What my husband means to say is that we’re glad you came to us, and we would absolutely be willing to offer our advice on anything you need to talk about.”

“Yes, what he said. It will be very interesting, I think, to have another player couple on the ice,” Rozanov smiles, very genuine.

“Thank you. That means a lot, especially coming from you,” Casey breathes.

“Oh?” Rozanov looks intrigued.

“We are…You could say we are fans,” Théo manages.

“Of course. Everyone is a fan of me and my Shane, huh?” Rozanov grins proudly. “The two best hockey players in the world. Should be easier for you now, huh? Now that you are not the first?”

“Oh, that’s true. Have you thought about coming out at all?” Hollander wonders, effectively switching topics.

“Umm…” they manage to say in perfect sync.

Casey starts. “I think maybe we need some time to figure it out for ourselves first. It’s still really new for us, y’know?”

Beside him, Théo nods. “I literally still don’t even know if I’m gay or not. So.”

“Oh, Jesus. Trust me, make sure you don’t spend too much time figuring it out. It gets miserable quick,” Hollander warns. Casey nods sagely, since it’s the first piece of actual advice he’s received, and it seems sound. “But don’t worry about coming out. You should probably find people you trust and let them know, just so you know you’re not alone in this, but nobody needs to know until you’re ready to tell them, least of all the world. I’ll just say…it’s better, in the end, if you get to pick how the world finds out, so you should have a plan.”

Rozanov squeezes him close. “This guy and his plans. You will never find someone more boring.”

It’s at this point that Hayden finally makes his return from inside the house, fresh plate of uncooked meat and veggies ready to go on the grill.

“Shane!” He exclaims, setting the plate down with a flourish. “I see you’ve been giving these two a talking to? Did you add them to that group chat you mentioned?”

“Oh shoot. I haven’t yet.” Hollander whips his phone out, then hands it over to them. “Could I get your numbers? We’ve actually got a group chat for all the queer players we know of in the league. Or, I mean, technically some of them have left the league now, but we have all at some point been playing. I can add both of you, if that’s something you’d be interested in?”

Casey takes Shane Hollander’s phone, and wonders how his life came to this because of a stupid fucking chirp on the ice a few short weeks ago.

They add their numbers. They get added to the queer group chat, which has far more people in it than Casey had realized were out there, and Rozanov makes them promise to introduce themselves to everyone in there later. It’s strangely nice, just talking out loud with them about it, even if it does still feel massively embarrassing to be spilling everything to the guy he’d dressed up as for Halloween when he was in grade five. It’s odd, to see that sort of icon slowly shift and settle into someone Casey can interact with, who jokes and clams up sometimes. Slowly, the tension relaxes. As the night goes on, he can feel the trust being formed as though it’s a tangible thing between them. Definitely, at first, when Hayden had suggested they talk to Hollander and Rozanov for advice, it had felt a little like a fantasy. Now, it’s starting to feel like something that will actually happen regularly.

“—and trust me, no one questions the hotel room thing,” Rozanov is saying, “We have teammates who were at our actual wedding who forget we are sharing a one-bed hotel room on roadies. It does not matter.”

“It matters a little. Be discreet,” Hollander refutes softly.

Rozanov nods. “Yes, of course, I forgot. Take a room far away from everybody else so you can make as much noise as you want, unless you like when people overhear, like my Shane does.”

“Alright, I think that’s enough.” Hollander sniffs, averting his gaze as much as he can. “We should probably get out of your hair, circulate a bit more, but it was nice talking to you, alright? Let us know if you ever have questions.”

“Yeah, of course.” Casey nods enthusiastically, firmly shaking their hands. “Genuinely, thank you so much. It’s such an honour.”

Théo takes his turn shaking their hands, almost reverent. “Thank you for all your advice.”

“And I’d better see you active in the group chat!” Rozanov adds as they head to the door.

Almost immediately, they begin to bicker, chattering in Russian as soon as they pass the threshold, seemingly unaware they can still be heard.

“О Боже, Розанов, они же еще дети! Полегче с шутками про секс? (Oh my god, Rozanov, they’re practically babies! You couldn’t lay off the sex jokes for a little while?)” Hollander hisses the words out.

“Да ладно, мы были еще моложе. Тебе даже чуть-чуть не смешно? (Oh come on, we were younger than that when we started. You don’t think this is even a little funny?)” From his tone, it sounds like Rozanov is making some kind of joke?

“Ладно. Это довольно смешно (Okay. It is pretty funny).” It seems Hollander is amused by it, and they disappear back into the crowd.

With that, Casey and Théo are finally alone. Now that the night is beginning to wind down, the kids have gone back inside, surely huddling up to their parents, and there aren’t nearly as many people near the patio doors now that Hayden has finished grilling, so the two of them also have a modicum of privacy. Not total. But enough that Casey thinks maybe he can get away with…

“Come here,” he says, and takes Théo’s hand.

Gently, he leads them out further into the yard. The sun has already long since set, so the darkness of the night swallows them as they walk out past the shrubs lining the deck and take a seat in the grass. Immediately, it’s damp, but that’s also true of literally anywhere they could have chosen to sit. Casey lies back flat on the ground to look up at the stars, and Théo mirrors him. Here, it’s finally private enough. They snake their hands through the wet grass without a word exchanged between them and take each other’s fingers into each other, locking them tightly like Casey has been wanting to do since the moment they stepped out of Théo’s car.

“Oh my god,” is all he can say.

“That was a lot,” Théo concurs.

“Yeah. You can say that again.”

The stars that night are beautiful. Not too many can wink through the light pollution of Vancouver, but the few that do are soft, twinkling delicately in the sky. Théo’s thumb swipes over his knuckles, tender and quiet. It’s the tiniest, smallest touch, but Casey appreciates it all the same.

“It was…hard, I think.” Casey murmurs, tightening his grip. “Standing beside you and watching them be so close, and not being able to do the same.”

Théo squeezes back. “Yes,” he sighs, almost with relief, “That’s what I was thinking too.”

A cable unwinds from around Casey’s heart. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I think…” Théo pauses. He shifts, shimmying over to lie closer to Casey’s side. “I think maybe we should tell some more people. Not everyone. Just…maybe, one more on the team? And maybe our families.”

“I can do that.” Casey nods. “Maybe two more on the team? One for each of us?”

Théo pulls him tight. “Okay. One for each of us. I’ve got JJ, you tell Pokorný?”

Casey just chuckles in response.

They watch the stars, and the water from the grass slowly seeps into their shirts.

“Are your parents good about it?” Casey asks. For a moment, he can’t dispel the image of Théo’s parents kicking him to the curb when they find out, eyes hard and unforgiving. He knows his own parents won’t be like that. They’ve never said anything negative about queer people, even daring to venture into positive on occasion, which is not nothing in smalltown Alberta. But he knows it’s always a possibility that things go very south, unexpectedly.

“They’ll be fine.” Théo shakes his head. “We haven’t really talked about it, but I’m pretty sure the reason they’re divorced is because my dad realized he was gay.”

“For real?” The grass tickles his head as he turns to Théo.

“Oh yeah. He introduced me to his ‘roommate’ the last time I was home. I don’t think they know I know.”

“Damn.”

Théo turns now to face him, his cheek resting on Casey’s shoulder. “What about you? Your family will be okay?”

Casey releases his hand so he can stretch an arm out around Théo. “Yeah, they’re cool. They gave me this speech when I was a kid where they basically said they would love me no matter who I loved, I could always come to them, yada yada . I think if I’d actually known then, I’d have just told them right away. I guess I needed it spelled out a little more before I, y’know. Figured it out.”

“Hmm. Good.” Théo hums it into the collar of his shirt. “I’m glad you figured it out.”

“Me too, bud.”

“Oh my god.” Théo grins against him. “Don’t call me bud right before I’m about to kiss you.”

“What, you don’t like it?” Casey beams, pulling away just enough to look his partner in the eyes.

“No.” Théo scowls, even as he drifts closer. “It sounds silly.”

Their noses are brushing together. “Okay, bud.” Casey smiles against him. “You want me to call you chou instead?”

Rather than answer, Théo presses his lips to Casey’s, and the party, the league, the world, it all falls away in favour of the precious treasure he holds in his arms now.

Chapter End Notes

And that’s that! I’m so happy this is finally complete and out there. I’m definitely gonna keep rotating Casey and Théo in my brain for a long time, but I might make another short little one shot of the queer group chat they talked about? But that’s a definite maybe, we’ll see.

Thank you so much to everyone who read and commented, every single one meant so much to me. Please let me know what you thought of the ending!!!

Edit: Someone let me know the translation code wasn’t working for them, so I’ve added the translation of the Russian used in this chapter here at the end in case tapping it or hovering over it does not work for you. The text that’s italic is the translation.

———

“I told you! I knew it, I knew someone would actually try it!” Rozanov squeals, actively shaking his husband. “Oh my god, we’re going to be getting a second dog.”

“No, we’re not.” Hollander refuses to budge.

———

“A fucking hat trick, baby!” Rozanov cheers in the background. “You didn’t believe me, but I knew I could do it!”

———

“Ilyusha, I never said a dog. I said we could think about getting a second pet.” Hollander looks exasperated, but there’s a fondness there that isn’t hard to detect.

———

“Oh my god, Rozanov, they’re practically babies! You couldn’t lay off the sex jokes for a little while?” Hollander hisses the words out.

“Oh come on, we were younger than that when we started. You don’t think this is even a little funny?” From his tone, it sounds like Rozanov is making some kind of joke?

“Okay. It is pretty funny.” It seems Hollander is amused by it, and they disappear back into the crowd.