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Geno is going to do something stupid. He knows it even as he bows his head, tugging hard at the laces of his skates. The Metallurg locker room is noisy and chaotic as the team dresses for the game, but Geno is only peripherally aware of the conversation around him. He’s in one of those inward-facing moods, on edge and ripe for a fight.
Geno feels different the moment he hits the ice for warm-ups. Not better, but anticipatory, his entire body gearing up not just for the game, but for the opportunity to ride someone into the boards so hard his ribs ache, to drop his gloves and bloody someone’s nose. The thing is, Geno isn’t even mad about anything in particular, certainly nothing that he can identify and put into words. It’s the usual problem, again, a low simmering rage just waiting for an outlet.
That outlet comes late in the second period, a hard hit in front of the net and a stick in Geno’s face. Geno retaliates, swift and decisive. In the end, there’s no blood, but there’s shoving and a few punches thrown, emotion cresting with the hardest blows and then ebbing away along with the waning violence of the fight.
Hockey is perfect, in that way. By the time Geno skates out of the penalty box, he’s completely calm, his mind clear of everything except the game at hand.
It’s exactly what he needed.
---
Pittsburgh is strange and unfamiliar when Geno arrives for his rookie season. He doesn’t regret defecting from the KHL in a sequence like something out of a low-budget Soviet spy movie, but transitioning to the NHL is harder than he had imagined. He can’t drive, and his English is so rudimentary that he can’t talk meaningfully to anyone except Gonch, and Gonch’s family, and the small number of Russian speakers in Gonch’s orbit. The loss of Geno’s own support system—the stable and expansive network of family, friends, and lovers that he had back home—leaves him feeling off-balance and adrift. He feels an inordinate amount of pressure to perform, after all the trouble to get him here, but he injures his shoulder in the preseason, and Metallurg is threatening a lawsuit an ocean away, and—the whole thing just sucks, mainly.
Geno eventually gets back on the ice, but even hockey—the thing he’s counted on nearly his entire life—is different here. It’s obvious immediately that somewhere along the line, something has changed. He’s never had to balance hockey with a world of external stressors off the ice, and every hard check into the boards, every shove after the whistle, every scrum—it just makes Geno angrier.
What used to be cathartic, easy release at the expense of an unlucky opponent now just leaves him even more riled up and edgy.
He’s not getting laid as much as he’d like, either, which isn’t helping. It’s harder to pick up when he can’t string together the right words, but even when simply being an NHL player is enough to get him into a girl’s bedroom, sex—and the stuff that happens before and after sex—is just weird when he can’t communicate on a basic level. And picking up guys is absolutely out of the question now. Geno misses the kind of sex he could get out of those hookups—finding someone he could push around a little, who could take everything Geno wanted to give. It had been dangerous in Russia, but at least Geno knew the system, the nuances of how to do it with discretion. In Pittsburgh, the very thought seems like suicide.
He’s frustrated on a number of levels. The slightest things set him off, and he spends a lot of time in the penalty box for stupid shit. His first fight feels inevitable, midway through the season, the kind of fight with dropped gloves and punches thrown and jerseys stripped off in the melee. The kind that Geno used to relish, that centered him, calmed him.
But sitting by himself in the locker room afterwards, waiting for the rest of the team to finish the third period, Geno doesn’t feel calm or centered. When the game is over, he’ll be surrounded by teammates that he can’t talk to, and he’ll have to wait for Gonch to drive him home, home to Geno’s spare bedroom in Gonch’s house, and the whole thing will repeat itself in an endless cycle. He hurls a water bottle across the room, but that doesn’t help, either.
---
Geno cobbles together enough of a vocabulary to get through practices and games without leaning on Gonch for translation, and most of the guys are nice enough even if Geno doesn’t feel like he really knows them apart from where they’ll be on the ice and how they like to receive his passes. Sidney is—Sidney is special, though. Geno recognized this even before he played for the Penguins, but isn’t until he has Sidney right in front of him that he notices the shape of Sidney’s eyes, realizes how much he likes watching Sidney’s pretty mouth carefully forming words, even if the depth of their meaning is lost to Geno.
He has a lot of time to appreciate it, because Sidney finds him before and after practice to chat and sits near him during team dinners. He’s not sure why he’s the recipient of this extra allotment of Sidney’s attention; they don’t seem to have a ton in common outside of hockey, at least not that Geno can discern with his fragmented English. Maybe Sidney’s just a good guy like that—or maybe he likes Geno’s eyes, Geno’s mouth.
---
He gets into his second fight, and there’s blood rushing through his ears and blood splattered on the ice, and he doesn’t want to stop.
After the game, he doesn’t ride home with Gonch. He gets in a cab instead and tells the driver, “Bar. Not fancy.”
He ends up at a dive not far from downtown. It smells stale and cheap, the other patrons pay him no attention, and it suits his purposes just fine. A couple of drinks in, there’s a commotion from over by the pool tables—a group of young guys, with the game’s apparent victor crowing obnoxiously as his friends chirp him. It’s the sort of behavior that Geno is all too familiar with after years spent in locker room. But it grates on his frayed nerves, and when it erupts again several minutes later, Geno decides that maybe what he really needs isn’t to get drunk; maybe he just needs a fight, the old-fashioned kind that doesn’t get broken up by a referee just when they’re getting warmed up.
He waits through two more games of pool, nursing a third drink and biding his time. When the guys finally leave, Geno follows.
The group splinters in front of the bar, going in different directions, and Geno follows the victor because he knows an asshole when he sees one, and he doesn’t think he’ll have to work too hard to goad him into a fight.
He trails him around the corner, then down one side street, then another. The road is deserted and quiet, and it seems like as good a time as any. Geno speeds up and passes him, clipping his shoulder deliberately on the way.
“Hey. What the fuck, man?” the guy calls.
Geno turns around. The guy is still walking, but he’s slowed down, glaring. Geno can easily keep pace in front of him, even walking backwards.
“What’s your problem?” he continues, raising his arms.
“No problem,” Geno says, but he mimics the gesture in an obvious taunt. “You have problem?”
Geno stops, blocking the way, and the guy gives him a shove. Geno shoves back, and then he swings, landing a decent punch. They grapple on the sidewalk, and the guy isn’t a pushover. Geno’s head rings from a blow to the side of his face.
The fight spills into the dark space between two buildings, and Geno is finally able to gain an advantage, toppling them both to the ground. He maneuvers his way on top, and he feels drunk with rage, the world blurry around the edges even as his body thrums with adrenaline.
His hands close around the guy’s throat.
He makes horrible, aspirated noises, and Geno bears down until he feels the windpipe collapse on itself. It’s quieter, after that—just the sounds of Geno’s heavy breathing and the low thud of the blows landing on Geno’s forearms and hands, gradually slowing and weakening until the body underneath Geno finally goes limp.
He waits another minute or so to release his grip. Then he kneels in the alley, gasping for breath. The reality of what he’s done is a vague, unformed thought at the corner of his conscience. Mostly, Geno just feels relieved, the anger seeping out of him as his heart rate slows down, a sense of calm rolling in to replace it.
He closes his eyes for a moment, relishing it. Then he stands up and retraces his steps, down the alley, through the side streets, back to the main road. He keeps walking, toward the Pittsburgh skyline, and waits until he’s a couple of miles from the bar to hail a cab.
At home, he inspects himself in the mirror. There is faint bruising near his left temple, and some redness along his jaw and forearms. It’s nothing that couldn’t be explained away by the fight that happened on the ice.
---
Geno feels normal again for the first time since he came to the NHL. He’s composed, controlled, his focus razor sharp. He’s playing fantastic hockey too, and staying out of the penalty box.
He coasts on that feeling the rest of the season and through the summer. When he returns to Pittsburgh, it’s a familiar place with familiar people, less of a shock than the first time. But the old frustrations are still there, and within a couple of months Geno starts feeling edgy again, every hit and every scrum piling up until his temper starts to flare on the ice. There’s a certain amount of leeway in the NHL, Geno knows, but there’s a difference between standard hockey violence and gratuitously dangerous stupidity, and the looks that Sidney gives him on the bench make him suspect he’s trending towards the latter.
Sidney tries to talk to him about it—Geno can read his determined posture even before he opens his mouth—but Geno really isn’t in the mood for Sidney’s adventures in leadership. Sidney may be the captain now, but Geno is pretty sure this is something Sidney doesn’t understand.
Suck my dick, Geno thinks idly to himself, eyeing the tense line of Sidney’s mouth as he realizes Geno isn’t listening to him.
Geno is the one inside his own head, and he doesn’t need Sidney’s advice. Not when he has his own way of solving the problem.
After their game, Geno goes out. He has a car now; he has options, even if he doesn’t really have any idea where he’s going or much of a concrete plan. He ends up in a sketchy part of town, dilapidated housing transitioning into steel-era industrial buildings. Across the street, Geno’s headlights illuminate a man slowly pushing a cart down the sidewalk.
Good enough.
Geno parks and gets out of his car, following the man. The cart rattles, making enough noise that Geno can approach unnoticed.
He’s still wearing his game-day suit. He slips off his tie and wraps it around the man’s neck instead.
It’s over quickly, and easier than choking someone barehanded, easier than staring him in the face while doing it.
Driving home afterward, Geno flexes his fingers, stretching them out, but even that strain in his joints feels good.
---
They’ve won the Cup, they’ve won the fucking Stanley Cup, but that isn’t why Geno is reeling.
Sidney pushes Geno against the bedroom door with a muffled thud, and Geno kisses Sidney back, frantic and enthusiastic, even as he fumbles a hand behind them to turn the lock, clumsy with liquor. Sounds are muted through the walls, but the barest thread of bass from the stereo and the periodic swell of voices raised in celebration remind Geno that they are very much not alone, they are in a spare bedroom in Mario’s house while their teammates party around them—but they’ve locked the door, they should be okay, and the illicit thrill makes it even hotter.
Geno is still parsing the fact that this is even happening, trying to recall the exact way Sidney had propositioned him, the specific words Sidney had murmured into his ear in the kitchen while everyone else’s attention was fixated on the beer bong. It had been really hot; Geno hazily remembers that much, but he refocuses on the present instantly when Sidney slides down to his knees. They both reach for Geno’s fly, and he grunts in relief when he finally pulls his cock free. Below him, Sidney moans softly.
“Fuck,” Sidney breathes. He curls his hand around Geno’s cock and jacks him a few times, balls to tip. “Fuck, you’re big.”
Sidney’s tongue follows the same path, and then he sucks him down. Geno curses at the slow, luxurious pull of his mouth, letting his head fall back against the door.
For all of his amazement at Geno’s size, Sidney acquits himself well, taking Geno deep, deeper than he had reasonably expected. He’s noisy too, moaning as he works Geno over, and fuck, he’s close already. He hisses when Sidney suddenly pulls off.
“Next time,” Sidney rasps, pausing to mouth at the head, licking all over it, like he can’t get enough and can’t help himself. “Next time, I want this in me.”
Geno groans, because Sidney has Geno down his throat again, and because Sidney said next time, and if the past five minutes are any indication, it’ll be worth Geno’s time to do this more than once.
“Sid,” Geno warns, fingers curling against Sidney’s scalp. Sidney hums and keeps sucking, making it clear that he wants it. Geno tightens his grip, fucking into Sidney’s mouth, and he groans his name again as he comes.
Sidney leaves him like that—pants undone, cock out—and stands up to kiss him, deep and wet. Geno jerks him off, one hand tight on his dick and the other shoved down the back of Sidney’s jeans. He can just brush the edge of Sidney’s hole, and it’s a tease for both of them, until Sidney shudders all over and comes across Geno’s fist.
Next time happens in the small window of opportunity post-parade and pre-summer travel. They fuck at the foot of Sidney’s bed, too desperate to even make it all the way onto the mattress until after they’ve come. They lie together, panting and sweaty, and when Sidney lets Geno finger him afterwards, slick and used, Geno is pretty sure he wants to do this again. And again.
He rationalizes that things might cool off over the summer—they’d been pretty amped up on winning, and sometimes shit happens—but they don’t. Instead, Geno has international phone sex at all hours of the day and night, waking up more than once to his phone ringing and Sidney on the other end of the line, persuasive and horny and already two fingers deep.
It’s one of the best summers Geno has ever had.
---
They fuck on the road a lot. It’s been obvious since the very first time that they both get off on a certain amount of calculated risk. Sneaking around the team hotel offers an element of danger, even if Sidney has been rooming with Duper long enough to know his rhythms and his habits. Geno knows they’re actually pretty safe, but it doesn’t make it any less hot, fucking on luxury sheets with the curtains thrown open to a jaw-dropping view, his fingers pushed into Sidney’s mouth to keep him quiet.
They fuck when they’re at home, too, when it’s convenient, and for a long time that’s all it is—a pattern of hot sex and hockey, two of Geno’s favorite things.
There’s a physicality to Sidney that Geno loves, a sexual appetite that matches his own. He’s never had a partner so well-matched, who likes to be pushed around and likes to push back. Sex with Sidney leaves him exhausted in the best way, his arms sore and his legs shaky, bruises on his skin. It’s the type of release that calms him after bad days and bad games. He doesn’t think about anything else, about the ways he used to deal with those situations, because he doesn’t need to. Not with Sidney.
He stays the night at Sidney’s house once, accidentally; they both fall asleep and then laugh it off in the morning, but Geno stays for breakfast and it’s…nice.
He likes it enough that he does it again a couple of weeks later, on purpose. Sidney returns the favor a week after that.
They fall into a new rhythm of spending a little more time together for non-sex purposes, slotted in amongst the hot sex and the hockey. They’re cautious about it, and they still spend a lot of time apart, enough for Geno to feel like this is somewhat manageable. He hasn’t done this with a teammate before, and Sidney isn’t an average hockey player. Neither of them flies under the radar. Getting caught would be damning for them both.
“I haven’t been dating anyone else for a while,” Sidney tells Geno one afternoon, between innings of the Pirates game they’re watching in Sidney’s den. “What do you think of this being just us?”
Geno is caught off guard, and he hesitates, wary of putting a label on what they have, of making it more serious by setting expectations. But he likes Sidney, more than he thought he would when they started this. He wants to see where this is going.
Sidney is watching him, his face carefully neutral, but Geno can tell he’s nervous. Knowing that this isn’t easy for Sidney somehow makes it easier for Geno.
“Okay,” he agrees finally.
Sidney grins. “Okay,” he affirms, laughing a little, and the brightness of his smile reassures Geno that he’s made the right choice. He smiles back.
---
Sidney rings in the New Year by sustaining blows to the head in successive games. The diagnosis (concussion) and timetable for return (one week) aren’t cause for alarm. Geno will be around to help. It’ll be fine.
But—it’s bad. They lie together in Sidney’s dark, silent bedroom as his symptoms steadily grow worse. Sidney is frequently sick, and Geno is helpless to do more than lay a soothing hand on his back every time Sidney returns from the bathroom. Geno knows that Sidney’s pain tolerance is incredibly high, but he writhes under the severity of his headaches, yanking the covers over his head and eventually avoiding even the gentlest of Geno’s touches.
“Out a week” becomes “out indefinitely,” but before Geno can start to worry about what that might mean, he shreds his knee against the Sabres.
Geno has surgery and then his own recovery to deal with, and there’s very little time for Sidney. The rest of the season is miserable, lost to both of them, and it’s a relief when the Penguins bow out in the first round and Geno can just go home, back to Russia, back to where he can focus on getting better.
They trade injury updates back and forth over the summer. Geno is hitting all his benchmarks, and Sidney is cleared for on-ice workouts. They’re both on track for training camp.
But when September arrives, it’s clear that Sidney isn’t quite right and isn’t quite ready. Geno has learned more than he ever wanted to know about concussion recovery in general, and Sidney’s in particular. Their sex life has been pretty much nonexistent since the hit in the Winter Classic, but Geno gets it. Sidney’s head is a fragile thing. They’re both wary of doing anything to inadvertently derail the progress that Sidney’s made.
It’s a confusing series of improvements and setbacks with no reliable pattern, but finally it feels like there’s some forward momentum, that Sidney is skating and practicing with regularity, that a return to normalcy is right around the corner.
Sidney gets cleared to play in November, a comeback that’s spectacular but ultimately short-lived when his symptoms flare up two weeks later.
The day the Penguins officially announce that Sidney is out indefinitely, again, Geno goes to Sidney’s house and finds him in bed. His face is buried in a pillow, his hands laced behind his head. Geno sits next to him. He doesn’t know what to say.
Sidney shifts, pushing himself up onto his elbows so that he can look at Geno. “Everything is fucked,” he says quietly. “I think I might never play again.”
“You’ll play again,” Geno says, doing his best to sound convincing. “I know.”
The words feel hollow, because Geno isn’t a doctor, what the fuck does he actually know? Sidney doesn’t look particularly reassured, but he doesn’t argue, or say any of the things running through Geno’s head. He looks distraught, and exhausted, and he doesn’t fight when Geno urges him to lie back down.
Geno stays until Sidney falls asleep. He thinks of the long season laid out in front of him, of carrying the team on his shoulders without Sidney to share the load. He thinks about Sidney’s previous concussion, and how difficult the bad days were. He thinks about the very real possibility that Sidney might never play again, that Sidney’s career might be over because of a random hit in a meaningless game. He wants to be supportive, but inside Geno is fraying at the edges, the same old edginess creeping in.
A long, hard fuck would take care of the problem and settle him down, but now that’s off the table again for the foreseeable future.
At home, he goes straight to his closet and finds one of his game-day ties, pulling it slowly through his fingers. Then, he goes out.
---
On the ice, Geno’s playing the best hockey of his career. Off the ice, things with Sidney are a struggle.
It isn’t easier dealing with a concussion the second time around. It’s worse, because they both know what to expect—which is that having any expectations at all, positive or negative, is a fool’s errand. All they can do is ride it out and wait.
They’re having sex again, but not often. When they do fuck, it’s careful, restrained, and not particularly satisfying for either of them. Sidney’s health is unpredictable; he can go from outwardly fine to blindingly sick in a matter of minutes, and it combines with terrible mood swings to make the dynamics of their old relationship feel completely out of reach.
Geno loves Sidney, but fuck, it’s really hard. And when it threatens to be too much, he kills—again, and again, and again.
It’s looking like an MVP season, though, this season during which Geno kills four people. Geno isn’t overly superstitious, but he can recognize a pattern when he sees one. And the killing itself is shifting in Geno’s mind. It’s still a coping mechanism, but the more he does it, the more he realizes that he’s good at it. It’s a reliable way of making himself feel better, of making himself feel good, even. It’s part of his success.
He’s starting to enjoy it.
---
Sidney has his health back, finally and fully, and he has hockey again—and for the first time ever, he wants something from Geno that Geno doesn’t want to give.
Sidney has progressed from dropping hints about moving in together to initiating formal discussions about it in recent weeks. Making it through Sidney’s concussions together seems to have ticked some box in Sidney’s mind, and Geno isn’t sure how much longer he can brush him off. He knows he’s being evasive and weird, and Sidney isn’t good at hiding his frustration.
It culminates in a shouting match, both of their tempers flaring, and absolutely nothing resolved.
Geno goes out after their argument, because if there was ever a night he needed to blow off steam, this would be it.
Logically, Geno can see Sidney’s side of it. It’s been years, they’ve made it through some significant tests, and there aren’t a lot of good excuses left in Geno’s arsenal for why they shouldn’t. Except for the obvious, which is that he has no idea how they’ll make it through this, through Geno stalking strangers at night and strangling them in alleys, and he doesn’t know how he can hide it from Sidney if Sidney’s living in his house.
The thing is, he doesn’t want to stop.
Geno is distracted and off his game, his mind still on Sidney even as he parks his car and starts walking, but the realization comes too late. And everything seems fine at first. Normal. The tie is tight around the man’s neck, and the man’s hands scrabble fruitlessly at the cloth, just like Geno’s come to expect. He applies more pressure, his wrists twisting and flexing, and misses the fact that the man’s hands are no longer at his throat, but in his pockets.
Suddenly there’s a fist flying at his face, splitting his lip, followed by the flash of a knife blade slicing through the air next to his head. Geno startles, his grip loosening just enough for the man to wrench free and turn on him.
Geno isn’t trained in hand-to-hand combat, and a fight for his life is worlds away from a hockey scrum. He has nothing to rely on but his baser instincts as he flails for the blade. But he’s still bigger, still stronger. He wrests the knife away and aims for the patch of bare skin just above the man’s collar.
Blood gushes everywhere, steaming in the cold air. There’s a lot of it—Geno honestly can’t even believe how much there is. The man struggles for a moment longer, staggering in Geno’s grip, before he collapses. Geno sags under the weight, but he holds him up, too shocked to do anything else, as he bleeds out.
Sense returns to him in slow motion. His ears are ringing, breath coming in gasps. He lets go, the body slumping to the ground.
The weapon is nothing more than a simple pocketknife. Geno presses the dull edge against his thigh and leverages it shut, then shoves it into his pocket. His tie, dropped in the struggle, is a stained mess at Geno’s feet. It goes into his pocket, too.
The walk back to his car is a blur, and Geno’s hands shake as he pulls off his filthy, sticky gloves. His coat goes next, and he turns it inside out and balls it up, tucking his gloves inside and shoving the entire thing in the trunk.
He grips the steering wheel with his bare hands and bends forward, resting his forehead against his knuckles. There’s blood on the front of his jeans, enough that he can smell it, sharp and metallic, but he holds the position and breathes deeply, waiting for his heart to slow down. He’s never had a close call like that, but he’s also never gone out on the heels of an argument with Sidney. It’s clearly a problematic combination.
He drives off before he’s really calmed down, but he can’t stay any longer. At home, the bright lights in his garage give him an opportunity to survey the damage. A glance in his rearview mirror reveals blood on his chin from his split lip and spatters of someone else’s blood on his neck. His jeans are probably salvageable, but the coat is a lost cause. For now, it goes in a corner of the garage. He’ll deal with it properly in the morning.
When he walks into the kitchen, he suddenly has a lot more to deal with than just his clothes.
Sidney is sitting at the table, unexpected and unannounced, and he abruptly pushes to his feet.
“Geno? What the fuck, are you okay?”
Sidney is moving toward him, and Geno sees it as soon as it happens, the moment when Sidney gets close enough to take in Geno’s appearance. He stops short, his expression shifting from concern to horror. It isn’t just Geno’s split lip; there’s blood, too much blood to be Geno’s, so much blood that Geno stinks of it.
“Shit, Geno, what did you do?”
Geno ignores the question, rising panic mixing with fury that Sidney is even here, that Sidney is seeing this. “Why you here, Sid?” Geno asks, yanking at the zipper on his hoodie. He needs something to do with his hands, but they’re shaking so badly, it’s hard to find any purchase on the tongue. Then something else occurs to him. “Where’s your car?”
Sidney is motionless, and it takes him several seconds to respond. “You’ve been so weird lately,” he says. “I felt bad about fighting, so I came over. It was so late, and you weren’t here, and I thought, maybe—” He pauses, motioning toward his head. “I know it hasn’t been easy being with me, for a while. I thought maybe there was someone else, and that’s why you’ve been so weird. So I moved my car around the block and waited for you.”
Geno gapes at him, at the very idea of Sidney sneaking around and then lying in wait, trying to catch Geno in the act. Well, he’s succeeded, although maybe not in the way he expected.
Geno gives up the fight with his zipper. “Fuck, Sid,” he swears harshly. “Not cheating on you.”
“No,” Sid says faintly. “No, you weren’t. But please, Geno, whatever this is, we need to deal with it right now.”
Geno doesn’t answer immediately, because he knows that as soon as he does, it’s over, and the factions of his life that he’s kept carefully, rigidly separate will become hopelessly entangled.
“I killed someone,” he admits finally. It’s the first time he’s said the words aloud. He wishes there were a different way to say it.
Sidney is stoic, unflinching. “Who?”
Geno shrugs. “A stranger. No one I know.” He covers his face with his hands for a moment, then pushes his fingers through his hair. “Not mean for this.”
“You mean this was an accident?” Sidney asks, and Geno hates the tentative expression on his face, the hope that this is somehow not what it looks like.
“No, I mean I never want you to find out,” Geno says. He looks away, down at his clothes, and gestures at the stains. “And I never do like this. I usually choke. But this time, this man, he had a knife.”
“You’ve done this before.” Sidney clarifies, unnecessarily. His voice is surprisingly calm. “How many people have you killed?”
Geno meets his eyes as he does the calculations in his head. “Seven.”
Sidney blanches. It’s difficult watching realization dawn on Sidney’s face as the full extent of Geno’s depravity reveals itself.
“Fuck, Geno, why? Can’t you stop?”
Geno hesitates, because this question is harder. He isn’t sure he has the words. “I get angry sometimes. Need to do it, or it gets worse. I don’t feel…normal, if I don’t do,” he manages. “And I play better, when I do. More focused.”
It’s the truth, although not the whole truth, and he’ll slit his own throat before he tells Sidney the rest of it. That he did stop, but then Sidney was concussed and they couldn’t fuck like they used to, and Geno went back to killing people because he needed the release. And now he likes it too much to stop.
He already looks like a monster. There’s no point in making it hopelessly worse, in making Sidney feel any amount of guilt over something that is absolutely not his fault.
Sidney regards him silently.
“What you do, Sid?” Geno asks, when he can’t stand it anymore. His voice sounds hoarse, and he hates it. “Will you tell?”
Sidney hesitates, but finally he shakes his head. “No. No, I’m not going to tell. Not right now. But I’ve got to think, Geno.”
Geno nods, and he doesn’t move as Sidney shrugs into his coat and leaves.
It’s very quiet in the house, and Geno still smells like blood, and there are practical matters that he needs to tend to.
He strips off the rest of his clothes in the laundry room and stuffs them into the washing machine. He adds detergent and a liberal amount of bleach. He’s not sure what that mixture will do to the clothes—if the blood will come out, if they’ll be wearable, but if not, he’ll burn them in the backyard along with his coat.
Geno showers, and then he lies in bed for hours. He takes turns feeling wracked by the fear of losing Sidney and the crippling dread of what Sidney might do. Sidney said he wouldn’t tell, but he’d been face to face with a murderer at the time, and Geno wouldn’t blame Sidney for lying through his teeth to get out of there.
Geno thinks very, very seriously about skipping practice the next day, but he knows there’s no point in hiding. Sidney’s going to do what Sidney’s going to do, but Geno figures having a squadron of police on standby at Consol is simply not his style.
Sidney’s eyes are wide when Geno passes him in the locker room, but he appears determined to act normal. Geno follows his lead.
It’s the same script for the game that night, and another practice the following day. Every time he comes home, he sees his coat in the corner of the garage, discarded and abandoned. He’s not sure what he’s waiting for, but he can’t bring himself to deal with it.
He spends the evening watching television, his phone on the coffee table in front of him. He’s worried that Sidney hasn’t called. He’s worried that Sidney will call. He stays up late, until the early hours of the morning, and he only goes to bed when there’s nothing left he can bear to watch.
Dawn is just creeping around the edges of the curtains when Geno hears the faint sound of his front door opening and closing. Sidney appears a moment later in the dim light of his bedroom, padding silently across the carpet and sliding into bed next to him. Geno can’t help the clumsy way he reaches for Sidney, but Sidney folds into his arms without hesitation.
“I love you,” Sidney says, very softly, tracing his fingers along Geno’s collarbone and then up, until his hand curls around the back of his neck. “Should I be afraid of you?”
Geno shakes his head and cups Sidney’s cheek, tilting his face up. He kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him, and when he goes to pull back, Sidney kisses him some more.
Eventually it tapers off, the exhaustion of a series of sleepless nights making itself known. Sidney’s eyes are closed, his face still cradled in Geno’s palm. Geno’s thumb gently follows the elongated sweep of Sidney’s eyelid.
Later that morning, Sidney stands next to Geno, bottle of lighter fluid clutched in his hand, as Geno’s coat and gloves are engulfed in roiling flames.
---
Sidney starts moving in a month later. It’s a gradual process, and they don’t make a big deal out of it. But slowly, more and more of Sidney’s things end up at Geno’s, until there are very few reasons left for Sidney to go back to his house at all.
And after the exchange in the kitchen, Geno didn’t think it was possible for Sidney to have more questions—but he does.
“So what’s your plan, when you do it?” Sidney asks over lunch one day.
Geno pauses, food halfway to his mouth. “What?”
“When you go out,” Sidney says. “Do you always try to do the same things? Or is it different every time?”
Geno’s brow furrows. “Why you ask?”
“I want to know,” Sidney admits. His gaze is steady. “I think I should know, and I’ve been wondering how you do it.”
Geno takes a deep breath. “First couple of times, no plan. But now, most times try to do the same.”
“You said you—you said you choke them,” Sidney says quietly. “With your hands?”
“With a tie.”
Sidney pauses, and Geno can see him turning the information over in his mind. “You wear gloves, right? You should always wear a hat, too, and cover your face with a scarf. Don’t let anyone recognize you.”
Geno considers the advice. He usually wears gloves, but he hasn’t always covered up as well as he could.
“Okay,” Geno says.
“Pay attention all the time, think about the details,” Sidney goes on. He gives him a long look. “Don’t get caught, Geno.”
---
The guy is fucked up, his movements unsteady, muttering to himself. It’s clear he doesn’t even know Geno is there. It’s for the best.
He pulls the tie out of his pocket and doubles it up, slipping his fingers into the loop and wrapping the loose ends around his other hand.
It’s quick, after that. The man is easy to overpower, no match at all for Geno’s superior size and strength.
It isn’t smart to linger once it’s over. Geno knows that very, very well. He takes one last moment to admire his handiwork, to appreciate the slow, sweeping calm invading the edges of his brain.
Then he pockets the tie and walks back to his car.
At home, he tugs off all of his clothes and loads them into the washer. Then he goes upstairs and heads straight into the shower, bracing a hand against the wall and letting the spray hit his chest. Sidney joins him a few minutes later, his hand warm where it spreads open across his back.
“Okay?” Sidney asks.
Geno nods and then dips his head forward a little more, letting the water run through his hair. Sidney shifts closer, his arms sliding around Geno’s waist, holding on to him. His grip is strong. Familiar. Relieved.
They stand there together for a quiet moment, until Geno turns around and shakes the water out of his eyes so that he can look Sidney over. Sidney’s already hard; Geno isn’t, not quite yet, which is normal—this has never translated to immediate, full-blown arousal for him, and it usually takes him a little longer to get there on nights like this.
Sidney pulls him down into a kiss, hands pushing into Geno’s hair. Making out in the shower turns into making out in bed, and by the time Sidney is stretched around four of Geno’s fingers and gasping into Geno’s neck, Geno is more than ready.
Sidney goes easily onto his back, and Geno settles between his thighs, easing inside, taking his time.
Sidney touches him restlessly, hands sliding over Geno’s shoulders, his back, fingers digging into his hips, urging Geno to fuck him harder.
He grabs Sidney’s wrists and holds him down, and he isn’t gentle about it. Sidney shifts, testing the grip, but Geno is bearing down with all of his weight, and he has Sidney’s arms securely pinned.
Sidney stares at him, wild-eyed, and his breath hitches on the inhale. His exhale, when it comes, is nearly a whine, and he pushes up into Geno. His upper body may be restrained, but Sidney’s strong, and he has enough leverage in his lower body to roll his hips, fucking himself on Geno’s cock. It’s slow and deliberate, and Sidney is panting with effort.
“Oh fuck,” Sidney breathes, tilting his head back, and it’s a temptation that Geno can’t resist.
He lowers himself down and presses his mouth to Sidney’s neck, kissing the thin, delicate skin above his throat, taking it between his teeth. It’s so good that Geno groans, and Sidney responds, gasping his name.
God, Geno is so fucked up. But then, so is Sidney, to put up with Geno like this, to fucking get off on it.
Sidney shivers, and his hips don’t stop moving, but Geno is matching his rhythm now, pushing into him. Geno noses along the curve of his jaw until he finds his mouth. Sidney’s hands flex, and Geno adjusts his hold, lacing his fingers with Sidney’s. Sidney grips back, tight and sure.
He rocks into Sidney, fucking him harder, but the angle isn’t ideal, and Geno can’t get as deep as he wants.
He lets go and pulls out, urging him onto his hands and knees and moving into position behind him. He cups Sidney’s ass and takes a moment to admire the way he looks, flushed and wet and worked open by Geno’s cock.
Sidney arches his back and slides his knees wider. It’s a good view, and Geno can’t help himself, teasing them both by rubbing the head of his cock between Sidney’s cheeks, across his hole, down to his balls.
Geno finally pushes in again, and the brief interruption has left them so sensitive that the slow, easy slide makes them both hiss.
He withdraws and shifts a little before pushing in deep again, and Sidney makes a choked sound, grabbing at the sheets.
Geno slips into a rhythm that leaves Sidney groaning, and he can’t look away, watching Sidney take his cock, over and over.
“Don’t stop,” Sidney gasps, and he sounds desperate, out of his mind. “Don’t ever stop fucking me.”
“Won’t,” Geno promises. The word catches in his throat a little.
Sidney doesn’t seem to notice, too far gone for subtlety, and Geno fucks him harder, fucks him through it as he comes, and the way Sidney looks, the way Sidney sounds, brings Geno to the edge right along with him.
This close to coming, Geno feels huge, Sidney tight around him, shaking with aftershocks. He groans and grips Sidney’s hips firmly, pulling him back to meet every thrust.
Sidney whines softly, oversensitive, but he doesn’t ask Geno to stop or pull out, and the willingness to let Geno do anything, have anything he wants has Geno groaning again as he comes.
It’s so good that Geno keeps going until he’s completely spent, and then he doesn’t want to move, resting against Sidney and laying a hand on his lower back, where Sidney’s skin is wet with sweat. Sidney hums indistinctly into the sheets as Geno caresses him, and they stay like that until Geno’s knee begins to protest and he has to shift into a different position.
They sink down to the mattress together, and Sidney gingerly rolls over and kisses Geno, slow and deep. There’s no hurry to do anything else.
In the morning, Geno wakes up with Sidney pressed against his side, one arm resting on his chest. It’s warm and comfortable, and Geno burrows a little deeper under the covers and drifts off again. When he wakes up again, he’s alone. He stretches his limbs in all directions across the bed, something he can’t do with someone else next to him, and then lies there for a few minutes listening to the faint sounds of Sidney moving through the house.
Geno showers and goes downstairs to the kitchen, because breakfast, slow and unhurried like the rest of the morning, sounds like the best possible way to start the day.
From the kitchen, Geno can see into the laundry room, where Sidney is pulling Geno’s clothes out of the dryer.
“You want eggs?” Geno calls to him. Sidney fluffs Geno’s hoodie with a single sharp snap and then folds the sleeves under.
“Sure.”
Geno puts a pan on the stove and cracks in half a dozen eggs. While they cook, he keeps an eye on Sidney, who methodically deals with Geno’s jeans, and his t-shirt, and his scarf, and then his hat, arranging everything in a neat pile as he goes.
Sidney pulls the tie out last and folds it in precise fractions, looping it end over end. He lays it on top of the rest of the clothes, stroking his fingertips along the edge of the material and then smoothing it down with the palms of his hands. Carefully. Reverently.
His eyes meet Geno’s. Slowly, they both smile.