Alex is giving him a confused look, and Sid realizes that he has failed to ask a pretty basic question. “Alex? Have you done this before? Not heat, obviously, just—been a guide, had a guide, whatever.” Alex smiles – a sardonic, twisting thing. “Don’t you know, Sidney Crosby? I’m bad, terrible captain, most selfish alpha, won’t be heat-guide like good Canadian captain.” He laughs, and it sounds more like a cough. “I’m think everybody know, they talk about so much.”

Sid peers down at the human who was shoved at him – a young man, as far as he can judge. “What is going on?!” Sid asks, feeling as unmoored as a dragon ever can. The human looks nearly as confused as Sid does. “Uh, you heard the village headman,” he says tentatively. “The crops are… bad. Worse every year. We know you protect the valley, so we figured you must be mad at us if you were letting the crops fail.” “I protect the valley from things I can bite,” Sid huffs, still thoroughly confused. “I don’t know what you expect me to do about… blight, or insects, or poor crop rotation."

“Sid, need you to pay attention to me,” Alex says firmly. “You have bond crisis. You sick, Sid. Very sick. Need somebody to touch you to stop you being sick.” “I didn’t know you could get sick from being lonely,” Crosby mumbles. Zhenya makes a noise that sounds like he’s been punched. “I guess it makes sense, though.”

“What kind of pleasure do you want to offer the Lover?” Sid asks. People usually want sex, of course, but not always – Sid’s had supplicants who just wanted to make out, or cuddle, or flirt… and one memorable supplicant who wanted to give him a massage, which was awesome. She confessed to Sid afterward that she’d gone in intending to have sex, but “when I saw those muscles, I was like, damn, I need to get my hands all over that!”

Zhenya checks everything one last time: the artificial slick goes in the pocket of his jeans, and yes, the bottle of wine for Sid’s collection is nestled in a wood box in the back seat. He’d actually gone out and bought cream cheese to make a cheesecake on autopilot before he’d remembered – food is an alpha’s courting-gift, not an omega's. He'd thrown the cream cheese out, and bought the wine the next day.