Sirius sighed heavily, he didn’t want to go to the game today, but he’d be letting the team down if he skipped out and he wasn’t in the business of letting people down – not anymore. So, he gritted his teeth and pulled his jersey over his head. It wasn’t even a league game, it was just a friendly, meaning that really it should be fun. It should be a lot of things, he thought, but it wasn’t.
He was excellent at ice-hockey, he’d be raised into it. He had been scouted at thirteen and ended up playing for the youth league of the snakes for two years until he left his family. Once he left, he carried on skating and transferred over to the lions. The semi-professional league that trained in James' family owned rink. For a time, he absolutely loved it, it was exhilarating to feel the ice beneath his feet and the press of aggression from the other players and he was over-joyed that leaving the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, hadn't ripped the love of the sport from him. Sirius used to love it, he really did, he used to thrive off of all the tension and anger.
Even now, he didn’t hate it – hockey. He wasn't sure he could ever hate the sport that gave him his life back but all of the jibes and stupid fights from teammates and opposing team members, however light-hearted, seemed to spark a specific fear into Sirius that wasn't there before. It didn’t used to, not when he was still living in the manor and even for a time after, it hadn’t worried him, but sometime two months ago the nagging had blossomed deep within his soul.
James Potter, his teammate and platonic soulmate, tore onto the ice one monday afternoon for practice and pushed Gideon Prewitt, another member of team, in a teasing way. He was shouting something about being the better player – about if he scored more goals than Gid, he should be able to take Gid’s very attractive brother, Fabien, out for drinks at the weekend. That was all it took. A friendly shove. And Sirius was suddenly back in his childhood home, Grimmauld Place, his mother was raising her fist, and his brother was crying as quietly as he could manage behind him somewhere. He was there again, waiting for the sharp pain that a fist across the nose brought with it. He was there and then he wasn’t. He slipped back into the game, and he was sat on the ice with his legs pulled up and his hands pushing into his ears to make the sounds quieten, except the sounds were in his head and James was kneeling in front of him looking calm enough that Sirius would have believed him if it wasn’t for the slight shake to his hands.
That was two months ago, and it had happened three consecutive times since. At the end of it all, it was utterly humiliating. Sirius was supposed to be a semi-professional hockey player not whatever he was becoming. He needed it to stop otherwise there was no doubt about it, he would lose his job. The team manager, Poppy, was nice enough but even she had to admit, she couldn’t have a player on the team that was predisposed to nervous breakdowns on the ice.
Either which way. He was going out on the ice today, so he needed to suck it up.
He tightened his laces for the fifth time and rolled his shoulders back. This was just hockey. It was just a game. It wasn’t a threat; he wasn’t in danger. It was just a friendly hockey game. He could do this, he could. He had to.
He inhaled and nodded to himself and then he was pushing out of the locker room and onto the familiar rink. A small grin fell into place, and he did a warmup circuit. He knocked his head back off his shoulders and let the sounds of his team fill his mind, his feet still lazily doing the similar route of the rink. Sirius knew he had T-minus forty seconds before James would be spinning him across the ice towards the huddle that would be beginning to form about now.
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And there he was. Two muscular arms slipped around his heavily padded waist and lifted him just high enough that Sirius’s own skates weren’t holding his body weight anymore. Then James dug the back of his blades in and spun the two of them in an uncomfortable tangle towards the others.
“Well, aren’t you looking dashing today,” James kissed the side of his face and let him go with one sudden movement causing Sirius to heavily thud to his feet again. He dramatically flung two fingers up at James and James grinned, “Aw Sirius, don’t be like that, I thought you loved me.”
“I do love you but trying to break my ankles just before a match is brave, even for you” Sirius pouted and lent against their teammate; Peter Pettigrew.
“Fuck off, I wasn’t trying to break your ankles, you dramatic idiot.”
“Peteee” Sirius dragged his name out in protest.
“Nope, I’m not getting involved,” Pete rolled his eyes, “Anyways start behaving because we’re playing a new team today and we don’t need to set the precedent with whatever dumb argument you’re about to have.”
Sirius rolled his eyes and moved back towards James. It wasn’t a stupid argument, it was banter, and it wasn’t their fault if Pete was too socially stunted to recognise it.
“James Potter, I apologise, you’re the love of my very life and I was clearly being nothing but hysterical,” He squeezed James’s cheeks between his hands, hard enough that James’s lips pursed. Then he poked him in the chest enough to hurt a little but not to bruise, and skated backwards as fast as he could, out of range of James.
“OI BLACK” James hollaed skating after him, laughing brightly.
James was like the sunshine to Sirius. He was bright and warm and soft, everyone wanted to be around him. They wanted his attention because when his attention was on someone, it was like being in the path of a thousand warming rays. Sure, James got sad, and angry, and he cried often, he was human after all, but his soul was made of the same stuff as the sun. When James loved, he loved with every piece of himself, and Sirius was the luckiest motherfucker in the world because James loved Sirius. It wasn’t romantic, it was more than that, what they had was unexplainable. They were one half of the others soul. James was his and he was James’.
“Black, Potter, that’s enough,” Poppy yelled across the ice, halting them both in their makeshift cat and mouse game, “The new team are about to arrive, try to have some resemblance of professionalism.”
“Yes Ma’am” They replied saluting and skating back over to the slowly forming team huddle.
Sirius was buzzing. He liked this part; meeting the new team and jostling with each other. The build up to the game was intoxicating and nowadays it was a better feeling to Sirius than playing. The adrenaline of physically playing used to be the best feeling the universe had to offer, other than getting shagged within an inch of his life, but it put Sirius on edge these days.
The team lined up together grinning and bashing their sticks onto the ice to mock-intimidate the up-and-coming team.
Sirius had played with some of them before; there was Barty Crouch Jr, he used to play for the Snakes too, the team that Sirius’s estranged brother still played for, but now he played for the Hawks. He was a nasty motherfucker but a bloody good player all the same. Off the ice, he was a good laugh to be around but, on the ice, he was a force to be reckoned with. There was Evan Rosier, he was sharp, clever, and brutal. Sirius and him had shagged a couple times when they played for the same team. They used to hook up in the locker room after the games, but since his move to the hawks and Sirius's move to the lions, it seemed that Barty and he had become more exclusive than before. Not that Sirius minded, Rosier was a good shag, but he wasn’t anything to lose sleep over. The last player that Sirius knew was Dorcas Meadowes; she’d always played for the hawks. Rumour had it, she was the reason that Crouch and Rosier had swapped their contracts. Sirius didn’t know much about her, other than the fact that she was fast as hell and a mean skater.
He smiled sharply at the new players. James and Marlene’s arms looped either side of him, so they were making a human-sized daisy chain. He scanned each of them sharply with his eyes, this game might be a friendly but sometime in the up-and-coming season they would be playing against the hawks in a league game, and he needed to know each players weakness like the back of his hand by that point.
His eyes snagged on the last player – the teams goalie. Sirius briefly choked on his own saliva. Holy shit. The goalie was ungodly attractive. His hair was shaved close to his skull on either side and shaggy on-top, thick scars tore through his face but instead of ruining his features, it painted him into something untouchable. Tattoos peaked through the top of his throat where his jersey ended. His eyes were sharp, his tongue running across his teeth and pushing into his cheek, hard. He politely skated past Sirius, nodding in his direction, and Sirius noted that the man had two inches on him.
Sirius also noted how impressive it was that he hadn’t immediately dropped to his knees and begged this man to fuck his throat.
Marlene lent close, so that her mouth was practically against Sirius’s ear, “Babe, pull yourself together, you’re drooling.”
Sirius snapped his mouth shut and flipped Marlene off, she let off a rumble of laughter and James coughed to cover his own laugh.
“Oh, shut up, as if you don’t both have a thing for another team’s player,” Sirius hissed.
It was true; Marlene had had a crush on the hawks' very own Dorcas Meadowes for literal years. It had gotten so bad that their team had staged an intervention last month but here they were, about to play against her again and Marlene was yet to make any type of move. Maybe Sirius could trap them into the locker room after the game, see if that could iron out the lack of communication going on. And James bloody Potter. Sirius and James saw eye-to-eye on everything at all times, except this. James had a very obvious, but claimed it was top secret, crush on Sirius’s brother, Regulus Black. Sirius had pointed out that if James wanted it to stay ‘top-secret’ then he should probably stop blushing every time Regulus looked in his direction.
Sirius had left his family home at fifteen and tried to never look back. Obviously, it hadn’t worked, his brother was still trapped in that godforsaken house, so at every opportunity he came across, he looked back. He tried to go back, once, it had ended with severely burnt forearms and a broken leg – he hadn’t tried again. Every year, like clockwork, he reached out to Regulus, just as a reminder that he was still here, that he was always going to be waiting, if Regulus needed him. Regulus hadn’t taken his offer up yet, but Sirius lived in the house with him for thirteen years, Regulus was nothing if not strategic. He hadn’t left yet but it didn’t mean he never would. It was incredibly dangerous to leave an abusive household like theirs, Regulus wouldn’t survive it if he wasn’t ready to go. And even if he was, he still might not, that’s why Sirius stayed here. Stayed in ice-hockey, stayed in the same state. He wanted to make the runaway part, as easy as it could possibly be. He would wait here until he died, and then he would come back to haunt the area, if that’s what Regulus needed. Whatever he needed.
James pinched Sirius forearm. It shocked him back into the present.
“Sirius?” James asked no louder than a whisper, “Are you okay?”
Sirius exhaled and nodded, “Yeah, sorry, I’m okay. I promise.”
He curled his pinky finger round James’ and then stretched his arms backwards until they popped. James watched him for a second and then nodded once and jammed Sirius’s helmet onto his head before tangling his fingers in the front straps of their helmets and bumping the front of both of them together three times. It was game tradition after-all.
Sirius skated lazily backwards towards his position as right wing; his confidence was encouraging the small gathering of people in the stands to stomp their feet in excitement for the impending kick-off. Peter took position as the left wing, Fabien and Gideon as right and left defensemen, Marlene as goalie, and James remained in the middle of the ice as their centre.
Barty faced James as the hawk’s centre, skating close enough for his skates to knock into James’, James shoved him backwards and Sirius tensed. Evan mirrored Sirius as their right wing, eyes fixed on the back of Barty. Dorcas stood tensed as their left wing, and the pretty boy as their goalie. Sirius didn’t know who their defensemen were and other than the need to know their weaknesses, he had no desire to get to know them.
The referee dropped the puck in. James knocked it over to Sirius and the adrenaline spiked down Sirius’ spine, even with the flashbacks, this feeling was something he would chase long after his ability to play division one hockey had faded.
They made it to the second intermission without Sirius having a one of his nervous breakdowns. They were almost in the clear. Almost there.
Then, in the third and final period, James tripped Barty. It was a little dirty coming from James of all people, but it wasn’t meant as anything serious, just him taking out a little frustration at the narrow gap between the scores. Except, Barty tumbled heavily. He didn’t hit the ice, but it wasn’t a discrete action either.
Sirius inhaled sharply.
Time seemed to slow down for him.
Evan had clocked onto what had happened, Sirius saw it in the way his head snapped up towards James. Sirius’ blood slowed in his body. Evan pushed forward, his skates digging into the ice as he ran full pelt towards James, he slowed slightly as Marlene took the puck, a brief glimmer of relief spun through Sirius, but she passed it back – unaware of what was about to happen, and Evan sped up. He slammed his whole body into James and James went flying backwards and thundered into the ice behind. Sirius watched as James’s head snapped harshly against the floor. Evan landed heavily on top, his weight likely winding James, Sirius winced from experience. James looped an arm around Evans throat and twisted them sideways, Evan swung for James’s face and Sirius snapped out of the rink.
He was hiding Regulus away. He was walking down the grand-staircase of his family house, towards the agony that waited for him at the end of his mothers fists. His bones were cracking.
Again, and again and again.
Soft hands were on his face and a gentle voice was speaking against the empty space between both of their faces. Sirius was on the floor again, his knees drawn up, his hands cupping his ears – fingernails digging into the skin behind them hard enough to draw blood. His eyes were closed tightly, and he thought he might be rocking himself back and forth a little bit, but he wasn’t sure if that was just the humiliation rocketing through his veins at breakneck speed.
“Hey, you’re okay,” An unfamiliarly gruff voice was insisting. The hands on his face tightening with a careful pressure, “Look at me, you’re okay, you’re in the hockey rink, it’s okay.”
Sirius was coming back into himself rather aggressively. He curled further into himself as he desperately tried to suck some much-needed oxygen into his starved lungs. Good gods, this was horrific. No one was going to play against Sirius properly now that they realised that he was a degree of unstable.
“Look at me,” The voice ordered.
Sirius opened his eyes slowly, only a little bit. Enough that he could see the face of the person in front of him but not enough that he could see the consequences of his actions.
Sirius tracked the movement of the man and considered burying himself out on the ice so that he never had to live another day knowing that the world’s most attractive person had witnessed him having a breakdown in the middle of a bloody game. After fifteen years in the Black household, he thought he knew the intimate feeling of humiliation, but as he made eye contact with the hawk’s goalie, he realised that he had been wrong. This was undiluted humiliation.
“There you are,” He offered a small smile, “It’s okay.”
“Kill me,” Sirius begged, his voice rasped after the ordeal he had faced.
The goalie cracked a devastating grin, “Nah, I rather like looking at you.”
Sirius raised an eyebrow and made a show of looking him up and down as if he wasn’t sat curled up in his own body with this man leaning over him. There was only one thing he could do better than ruining the good, and that was flirting.
He came back to himself again and braved a look around the rink.
His team was crowded around the two of them in a tight semi-circle. Making sure the view of Sirius was blocked from the cameras and the small crowd, gods he loved each and every one of his team.
There was no James.
Sirius heart rate began to pick up steadily. Where was James?
Breathing in oxygen got increasingly tougher again, like he was trying to inhale liquid concrete instead. He flicked his eyes over the four players in case all six-foot three of James was hiding somewhere between two of them – he wasn’t.
He looked back at the other teams goalie and whatever he saw on Sirius’s face had his eyebrows drawing down in a slightly confused look. If Sirius wasn’t currently hyperventilating, he would have liked to have bitten the man in front of him. The man hovering over him moved his eyes towards Sirius’s teammates and understanding flashed across his face.
“Get your centre,” He demanded.
“What?” Gideon asked.
“Get your fucking centre, right now,” He hissed, “Number seven, I don’t know his name.”
“James,” Marlene stated, not unhelpfully, “Yeah ok, on it.”
She left the protective circle to go and find James and Dorcas replaced her empty space. Sirius managed to acknowledge the irony that both hawks and lions were protecting his image, together. Nothing like a teammate having a nervous breakdown, mid-game, to really get the bonding juices flowing.
The goalies’ hands were still a steady and comforting pressure against Sirius’s face, he moved closer again, so that his face was inches from Sirius’s own and he started to mimic exaggerated breathing. Something for Sirius to focus on.
“Sirius,” James’s skates flung teeny shards of ice up over Sirius’s shin pads as he came to a stop. Sirius watched the sparkle of ice against the red and gold of his uniform. James slammed to his knees, hard enough that he would surely be complaining about it later, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Sirius moved his head sideways to look at James fully and the hawk’s goalie dropped his hands. He reached out to brush across the swollen skin of James’s left eye and trailed down to James’s split lip. Evidently, he was still breathing, and he was okay enough to be skating over which logically meant he had no broken bones but there had been a time where Regulus had learnt to cope well enough with hairline fractures that Sirius found it difficult to tell what type of pain Regulus was actually in.
So, he did what he did best, and pulled himself together so he could care for someone that he called his brother. James stayed very still and made sure not to flinch or inhale too deeply as Sirius moved his hands down James’s humerus, and his radius, and femur, and tibia, and fibula, and lastly over his ankles. Sirius’s touch was harsh, pushing enough that had there been any type of fracture, James would have probably gagged from the pain of it but that was Sirius’s intention, he had to know. He had to.
“Okay,” Sirius’s voice shook momentarily, “And Evan?”
“Barty,” The other team's goalie shouted, startling Sirius, and Barty appeared over the both of them.
“Yeah, Remus?” Barty’s eyes flickered over Sirius, but Sirius was relieved to see a lack of pity, there was merely concern on his face. He wasn’t surprised, he knew Barty and Regulus were close, he could probably take an educated guess over what was happening.
“Bring Evan over.”
Barty bristled at that. The sharp lines of his muscles began to tense.
“He needs to see that Evan is ok,” Remus aggressively whispered as quietly as he could, so that Barty could hear him without it making a scene.
Barty dropped his shoulders and nodded. He appeared a couple of minutes later with a sheepish and bruised Evan Rosier in tow. Sirius scanned Evan as critically as he could through the layers of protective hockey clothing. He would have liked to touch him to make sure, but he thought Barty might crack his skull into the floor if he tried that. So, he sensibly chose to self sooth with another slow scan of Rosier’s limbs.
Once he was satisfied, he closed his eyes and let his head fall back, the intention being to let it knock into the floor but the hawk’s goalie – Remus – shot forward and cupped the back of Sirius’s head with his hand so that his head was instead softly laid against the floor.
“You ruined the ending to the dramatics,” Sirius started to mock, trying to bring some sense of lightness to the situation, but he was exhausted, and it didn’t really land when he still had his eyes closed and his head still resting on Remus’s rather large hands.
Remus grunted in response but didn’t attempt to move his hand despite the fact that he must be awkwardly lent over Sirius’s body on the ice, in a particularly uncomfortable way.
“This is probably the most humiliating day of my life, I don’t think I’ll be playing again today – let me move and I’ll get off the ice for the reserves to come on in my place,” Sirius cringed at himself.
The teams swapped looks and then Pete cleared his throat, “Sirius, they called a medical emergency and ended the game early, it’s just us,” He nodded towards the other team and then their own, “Left in the rink.”
“Ah,” Sirius tried to draw up some semblance of regret, but he was just flooded with relief, “Thank fuck for that.”
He heard the clatter of skates against ice and felt his team patting him on the head gently as the team presumably disbanded from their positions around Sirius and headed to the locker rooms to change, now that he was no longer yelling around the ice – embarrassing. He could really do with being shot at point blank range.
“You got him?” Sirius heard James murmur.
“Yeah, I’ve got him.”
And then blissful silence. Sirius groaned at the events of the day. He was tired and frustrated and all in all, he was humiliated. He knew he couldn’t help it, and he knew that realistically it wasn’t something to be ashamed of, but he was trying to make a name for himself in the NHL; today’s scene wasn’t going to get him any brownie points.
Someone cleared their throat in front of Sirius’s face and Sirius started out of shock. His forehead collided into the other persons face and they reared back but the hand behind Sirius’s head ended up pulling him further into the goalie’s space once again.
“Ow,” Sirius whined, “Sorry, I forgot you were there.”
“Figured,” Remus rolled his eyes, but he was also grinning, so Sirius didn’t think it was a completely lost cause, “Don’t worry about it.”
“Sorry for having to witness whatever mess I became,” Sirius cringed.
Remus’s hands were back on either side of Sirius’s face, offering a comforting pressure, “No. Never, ever, apologise for that. Not to me.”
Sirius brought his hand slowly up to Remus’s face and traced his fingers down the side of one of his scars, “Want to know something a little secret?”
“Sure, why not?”
“You’re very pretty,” Sirius whispered, leaning further into Remus’s space under the guise of telling a secret.
“And that’s a secret, is it?” Remus replied, raising his eyebrows.
“No,” Sirius shook his head, “No it’s not. The secret is that I think you’re the prettiest, most attractive person I have ever seen.”
Remus’s eyebrows practically climbed off of his face and then the most wonderful thing happened. Remus’s brown skin took on a soft pink hue across his cheeks and nose. Sirius had just made the up-and-coming NHL Hawks’ goalie blush. His life was finally complete. It was agreed, he could die a happy man.
“I think,” Remus knocked his head forward so that his nose was touching Sirius’s, “You have a concussion.”
“I think,” Sirius mocked Remus a little, “That I speak nothing but the truth.”
“Want to know a secret?” Remus muttered against Sirius’s mouth and Sirius nodded slowly, “You’re beautiful.”
Remus ran his teeth along Sirius’s bottom lip and then pulled back out of reach.
“C’mon,” Remus pulled Sirius to his feet, “Let’s get these skates off and then get James and Evan to buy pizzas.”
Sirius tugged Remus to a standstill before they left the ice and ran his hands underneath his jersey and along the waistband of his shorts, dipping a finger under the elastic of his boxers. He felt Remus’s muscles move under his fingertips and pressed a little harder.
“Later,” Remus nipped at his mouth again, “Once you’ve eaten and have had something to drink and if you still want to after that, okay?”
“Playing righteous, are we?” Sirius sniped rolling his eyes.
“More like consensual,” Remus quipped back, pushing him gently.
“Fuck-sake. Fine,” Sirius half-heartedly hissed in frustration but nevertheless, he couldn’t argue with that, and followed Remus off of the ice, with the intention of wrapping himself around the very pretty man for the rest of the night.