Sid’s gotten pretty used to total strangers asking him what he’s trying to prove, or telling him he wasn’t raised right, and they always expect it to bother him. He doesn’t tell them he hears much, much worse on the ice. When shit gets even worse than usual—when a ref calls him a brat when he’s arguing a call, when another team’s goon tries to put him on his knees five times a game—he sits on the bench and presses down on his chest protector, feeling the shape of the captain’s ring on its chain around his neck, until he doesn’t feel like throwing up anymore. Sid’s never had a dom, not even for a night, but he has his team, and that’s enough. That’s more than enough.

Sid and Tyler come together at Worlds to win gold, commiserate about falling for unattainable teammates, and comfort each other with their dicks. However, when they come home those teammates might not be as unattainable as they thought and are getting the wrong idea.

The procedure was an unmitigated success. A healthy baby boy, perfectly average in height and weight with a heart that beat steady as a metronome.

Sid’s standing in the hotel hallway, already in sweats and a t-shirt. “Hi G,” he says, already pushing past Geno to walk into his hotel room. “I couldn’t sleep so I thought we could watch TV or something.”

Sidney looks from Flower's arm to their handcuffs to the little nest on the floor where he assumes Kris slept. There's a giant, empty champagne bottle on the table in front of the couch, he's pretty sure the same glitter that was on Kris's face is also on his jeans, and his head still aches. "Okay," he says loudly, "I know I'm kind of stating the obvious here, but what the hell happened last night?"

Malkin’s table stays until closing time, still lingering over that bottle of Beluga when Sid comes out of the kitchen to start his nightly closing routine. He goes through the same checklist of jobs he does every night after the kitchen closes but before the bar does, tries to keep his mind on the tasks at hand, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice Malkin’s gaze tracking his movements, if he pretended that he can’t feel the heat of Malkin’s eyes on him as he moves around behind the bar. Sid tells himself to keep his head down, but when he does look up, just to test his theory, Malkin doesn’t even bother to look away, just holds Sid’s gaze, direct and unblinking with just the tiniest hint of a smile. The thing is, Sid’s notoriously bad at this stuff. He’s never had any working gaydar that he’s aware of, and he’s been wrong – very wrong – about this kind of thing probably more often, in his life, than he’s been right. So he assures himself this is just another one of those occasions where he’s definitely reading something incorrectly, imagining things, because there’s no way the captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins is, whatever – checking him out. That would be ridiculous.

They met by accident, fate, Geno always says, three years ago.

Sid's hair is a thing. It's her thing, and she's always a girl even when she's a hockey player.

“Are you?” Taylor asks unexpectedly. “Am I what?” Looking up from the stove, Sid finds her watching him with an odd look on her face. “Happy.” It should be an easy question to answer.