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It’s ninety degrees outside, and Leon is sprawled artlessly across a king size bed that isn’t his, sheets rucked up at the small of his back as he arches his spine, heels digging into the mattress. He can feel the heat low in his belly, fluttering, still not quite there, but on the brink of it. The windows are open, curtains wafting gently in the breeze, washing over his bare skin. It would be nice, if he didn’t feel covered head to toe in honey, sticky to the touch, suffocatingly hot even with the faint wind. He can hear movement in the bathroom, the taps turning off, the rustle of a towel. He’s only vaguely paying attention, palming loosely at his dick where it lies, heavy and half-hard in the crook of his hip. Despite the heat, it smells like winter. He lets his eyes drift close, shifting to get a little more comfortable.
-
Leon hasn’t been taking his suppressants for a couple of weeks. He’d been on the extra strength dose he swallows like candy during the playoffs, refusing to even think about his hormonal cycle while he’s fighting for the Cup, but. Playoffs are over. For everyone, not just the Oilers. And so, for the first time in as long as Leon can remember, the morning after they were eliminated, he got out of bed, and didn’t take his meds.
The first two weeks were awful. He’d been warned about phantom heats, these hot flushes waking him up in the middle of the night feeling like his insides were melting, before disappearing into nothing while he’s curled up in a ball waiting for it to pass. But it does pass, and the phantom heats get more and more spaced out, and eventually, it’s been a week, and his sense of smell has started to flatten out. He can no longer smell his neighbour’s faint lavender scent every time they walk past his front door. He feels… something approaching normal.
After another week, the pills are out of his system. He can jerk off again without having to put a mammoth effort in, and he’s not useless for hours afterwards, his body going into overdrive to try and level out what’s happening in his body. If he’d paid more attention in the classes he was forced to sit through in juniors, maybe he’d know better what’s going on in there, but. He doesn’t think too hard about it. Just reacquaints himself with, well, himself, and when he’s done that, he texts Matthew.
They’ve been in a holding pattern since the last time they did this. Their teams hadn’t played, and then, well, playoffs. Leon had taken an extra dose before each game against the Flames, he couldn’t risk it. Not again. Not in the postseason. He felt fucking awful the entire series, numb and distant, but he didn’t even think about popping a boner, so. A win.
During the third, or maybe the fourth game in the series, he remembers Matthew winking at him from across the ice. There was a faceoff delay, so everyone was just milling around, chatting idly. They hadn’t talked, but he’d caught Matthew’s eye, gotten a smirk, a wink, maybe something more if the ref hadn’t blown his whistle and Matthew had snapped his eyes back to the puck, laser focused. So. That was the extent of their communication for the entire series.
Their text thread is strange. Matthew likes to send pictures of things he sees that he thinks Leon will like. A small, fluffy dog that’s not quite as cute as Bowie. A sunset over San Jose. A six pack of German beer at a store in New York. Leon dutifully heart reacts to all of them, sends videos of Bowie in return. Occasionally they’ll talk about hockey, did you see that goal by Matthews, etc. Matthew will text him “good game” often enough that Leon suspects he’s watching Oilers highlights the next morning. It’s not a relationship. Not an anything-ship, really.
But Leon still texts him, as soon as his head is clear, as soon as he’s processed the end of the season. They’d gone a series longer than Calgary. He doesn’t know what Matthew’s feeling like, but he’s had longer than Leon, so. It’s probably fine. He still looks at his phone screen for longer than he means to, trying to find the right words. Six months ago, he would probably have just invited Matthew to Edmonton for a fuck before they went their separate ways for summer. Now it feels weirdly indelicate. He doesn’t know what the etiquette is here.
hey, he starts, and then stops. After a pause, he starts again:
hey, are you still in canada
He knows full well Matthew is still in Canada, but it’s polite to ask. It’s early, he’s not expecting a response for a little while, but.
Three dots at the bottom of the screen.
for a couple weeks at least, is the response. want to hang out?
Hang out is doing a lot of heavy lifting there, Leon knows. They’ve never just hung out before. It’s always been sex.
Leon chews his lip.
i stopped taking the meds, he offers.
do the meds make you enjoy hanging out?
your place or mine? Leon asks, after another pause.
you know where i live, Matthew responds. Follows it up with a picture of the view from his condo, the sun just breaking up over the horizon, clearly taken from Matthew’s bed. At the bottom of the screen, the edge of Matthew’s bare leg, from ankle to just above the knee. The sheets are rumpled.
Leon books a flight.
-
He isn’t sure when Matthew went from foe to fuckbuddy to actual friend to whatever they are now. It was a slow slide, probably. They stopped snarling at each other on the ice after the second time they spent the weekend together through the force of Leon’s traitor biology, they were– cordial. But when Leon arrives at Matthew’s condo, he’s greeted with an actual smile, a one armed buddy hug. It’s– nice. Strange, but nice. They drink a beer on the balcony, Matthew makes dinner.
They fuck on his couch, slow and easy. Leon doesn’t ever fully relax into it, can’t stop categorising every twitch in his muscles as an oncoming heat. Matthew bites at the soft skin of his inner thigh, making him jump. ‘Hey,’ he says, squeezing Leon’s knee carefully. ‘I know– the meds, but– are you–’
‘I’m fine,’ Leon says, tilts his hips. His dick brushes over Matthew’s cheekbone, shiny with spit.
Matthew doesn’t seem convinced. Leon takes a deep breath, relaxes into it. The team recommends yoga in the offseason, for flexibility. Leon uses it to imagine strings running from spine to fingertip to toes, and snips them. He sinks into the couch cushions.
‘Worst case scenario, I get to try out this thing I bought,’ Matthew says. He’s flushed from the heat, from the beer, from the sex, but he drops his gaze, shy.
‘A thing, huh,’ Leon says. He’s starting to soften, reaches down to wrap a hand around himself, but Matthew nudges him out of the way.
‘I’ll show you if we need it,’ he says. ‘Otherwise, it’s a surprise, so shut up and let me suck your dick.’
Leon shuts up and lets Matthew suck his dick.
-
And so it goes, for a couple of days. Neither of them has anywhere to be. Matthew’s driving to St Louis at some point. Leon has a flight to Germany that he can push back basically indefinitely. Matthew fucks Leon against the kitchen counter. Leon eats him out in the shower. They trade blowjobs in Matthew’s stupidly big bed one morning, before Leon is even really fully awake, just feels Matthew’s mouth on him, hot and wet and greedy.
On the third day, his heat starts to roll up over him. They’re making out on the balcony like teenagers. Leon’s genuinely shocked it took this long, and that something so lazy was what finally triggered it.
Matthew breaks away from the kiss, buries his nose in the dip of Leon’s collarbone. ‘There it is,’ he says, inhaling deeply. ‘I thought I was losing my touch.’
Leon opens his mouth to ask if Matthew’s been trying to trigger a heat on purpose, and Matthew’s phone interrupts him. ‘Ignore it,’ he says. Matthew’s eyes slide to where it’s been abandoned on the little table he has out here, and something crosses his face.
‘I can’t,’ he says. ‘I’ll make it quick, I promise. I’ll meet you in the bedroom?’ He leans in for another kiss, runs the tip of his tongue over Leon’s lower lip before biting at it, rolls his hips into Leon, and peels himself off, apologetic the whole way. Leon watches him disappear inside, thumbing at his phone screen.
-
Matthew keeps his promise, is only gone for five minutes at the most. Leon is standing, naked, looking out at the city, forehead pressed against forearm pressed against tinted glass. He hears Matthew approach, doesn’t turn around. Lets Matthew slide up against him, running his palms over the muscles in Leon’s back, up over his shoulders. His bare chest fits against Leon’s spine in a way that makes Leon’s brain fuzzy. He’s still wearing underwear, though, which is a problem, because Leon needs Matthew’s dick inside him five minutes ago. He tilts his hips, pushes his ass backwards, gets a rumbling laugh out of Matthew, who digs his chin into Leon’s shoulder gently.
‘You’re so impatient,’ he says, mouthing at the tendon standing out in Leon’s neck.
‘You’re the one who took a personal phone call mid-sex,’ Leon says, tilting his head to give Matthew more room to work with.
One of his arms has snaked around Leon’s waist, palm flat against his lower belly. He digs his fingertips in until Leon shuffles, arches his back into it. He doesn’t snark back. Just bites Leon’s throat, and pulls him away from the windows, towards the bed.
‘How bad do you need it?’ Matthew asks, unwinding his arm around Leon’s waist and pushing at his hip until they’re facing each other. He’s so close Leon can feel his lips moving as he talks.
‘It’s not bad yet,’ Leon admits. Part of him wants to lie, wants Matthew to shove him onto the bed face down and take him, but. ‘Can I suck you off?’
Like the words, he feels more than sees Matthew’s slow smile.
Leon ends up on his back, one knee crooked, thigh falling to the side. Matthew crawls up his body, grazing his belly, his ribcage, his nipples with three days of stubble. He pauses at Leon’s collarbone, sucking a bruise into it. Their season is over. He can leave marks. He pulls up, thumbs at his work, pleased. Leon feels the tendril of shame that he always does when Matthew marks him up, but it’s buried by the roiling in his gut as Matthew throws a leg over his chest, kneels above him, until his dick is right there, impossible to ignore. Leon’s mouth floods with need, practically drooling as Matthew gets comfortable, making sure he’s not putting his entire bodyweight on Leon’s chest. Leon’s arms are trapped under Matthew’s shins; he shifts until he can bend his elbows, wrap his hands around the meat of Matthew’s thighs, fingers digging into the muscles there. Matthew has one arm braced on the headboard, the other in Leon’s hair, scraping blunt nails over his skull. The first time he did it, Leon’s brain almost leaked out of his ears with contentment, but right now it’s a dull buzz behind one ear. All he can think of is opening his mouth and leaning forward to lick at the very head of Matthew’s cock.
The hand in Leon’s hair tightens.
‘Ah, ah, ah,’ Matthew says, teasing. He shifts his weight so he can bring his free hand down from the headboard, jacks himself a couple of times. There’s a single bead of pre-come that’s making Leon feel insane. ‘I should make you ask nicely, first.’
Leon glares up at him. Matthew’s about the same size as Leon, but, just like hockey, sex is all about leverage. Matthew has him about as pinned as it’s possible to be.
Matthew laughs, but it’s not mean. It’s– fond. He lets go of Leon’s hair, braces himself again, and slowly, slowly, feeds his cock to Leon.
Matthew smells like cold air, like the first breath of winter. He tastes like sweat and soft skin. All Leon can do is take him in, letting his head fall back as Matthew rises up off his heels, tilts his pelvis. It’s hard to breathe like this; that’s kind of why Leon likes it. He can feel saliva starting to gather at the corners of his mouth, where his lips are stretched. Matthew isn’t the biggest he’s ever taken, but he’s big enough. When Leon’s taken as much of him as he can at this angle, Matthew gets a hand back in Leon’s hair. With one hand buried in the sweat-hand strands and one flat against the bedroom wall, he starts fucking Leon’s mouth shallowly and carefully.
It feels fucking amazing. It sounds obscene, wet and sloppy, Matthew making soft little sounds as he picks the pace up a little. Leon swallows and swallows to avoid choking, but Matthew hits the back of his throat, and Leon can’t do anything but force his gag reflex further down. He’s had plenty of practice, after all.
Matthew had been half-hard when they started, maybe three-quarters. He grows inside Leon’s mouth, as Leon hollows his cheeks, keeps his teeth out of the way. Leon suddenly has an image of them like this, Matthew’s knot swelling up, trapped behind Leon’s teeth, jaw stretched so wide that if he moves it feels like it might break. Matthew fucks into his mouth, and Leon comes, untouched, all over Matthew’s back, muffled whining escaping from his overly full mouth.
‘Holy shit,’ Matthew breathes, pausing in his thrusts. He pulls almost all the way out, so Leon is left to mouth at the head. ‘I didn’t realise you were that close.’
Leon lets Matthew’s dick fall out of his mouth. He swallows a mouthful of saliva, has to cough to clear his throat before he can talk. He considers lying, but. He’s never been very good at lying to Matthew.
‘I’m not,’ he admits. ‘I– was thinking about something.’
Matthew tilts his head. A strange expression floats across his face. Leon realises it’s uncertainty.
‘Something with you,’ Leon clarifies, shifting uncomfortably. Coming has taken the edge of the fugue state, and though he can still feel the heat threatening to break through, can feel sweat beading on his brow, his thoughts are a little clearer. He’s glad he’s already red-faced, because otherwise he’d be blushing. ‘I thought about your knot– like this. In my mouth.’ He feels his dick twitch at the thought again.
Matthew has to let go of where he was stroking Leon’s hair to wrap a hand around the base of his dick, squeezing. ‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘You can’t just say shit like that.’
Leon attempts an aloof shrug. It’s not very effective, trapped as he is.
‘You know last time I knotted you it didn’t go down for like six hours, right?’ Matthew says. ‘That– you’d be stuck like that for the rest of the day.’
Leon swallows again. He can still imagine the feeling, the ache in his jaw, Matthew coming down his throat once, twice, as many times as he can before they can separate. ‘Yeah,’ he says, hoarse. Matthew squeezes his dick again, eyes fluttering closed.
‘Not today,’ he says. ‘Fuck, I want that so bad, but– we’ll do it this summer, okay? I’ll come out to Germany, or you could come too– wherever. We’ll make sure you’re hydrated, and– fuck, Leon. One of these days you’re going to actually kill me.’
‘I try,’ Leon says. ‘WIll you come in my mouth now, or?’
Matthew laughs, breathless.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Yeah, Leon. I’ll come in your mouth. Close your eyes.’
Leon opens his mouth to argue, and then Matthew’s hand starts moving up and down his dick, twisting at the head like he likes it, faster and faster. Leon closes his eyes, keeps his mouth open, and feels the come hit his cheeks a heartbeat later, striping his face. Very little of it actually goes in his mouth.
‘You can’t aim for shit,’ he says, deliberately bitchy as he cracks an eye open.
‘I’d like to see you try,’ Matthew bitches back. ‘If you weren’t so distracting like this, I’d–’ He trails off. It’s one of those strange moments between them. Leon has Matthew’s come drying on his face, and somehow Matthew giving him a genuine compliment is too intimate, too close. ‘Whatever,’ he says, and climbs off Leon’s chest. ‘I’ll get a towel, so your other eye doesn’t get stuck like that.’
He gets halfway to the bathroom door, before glancing over his shoulder. Leon hasn’t really moved, beyond cracking the vertebrae in his neck, stretching his arms out so they don’t cramp. ‘When I get back, I’m going to fuck you until you cry,’ Matthew promises, and disappears into the bathroom.
-
Matthew is gentle when he wipes his come off of Leon’s face, using the corner of the cloth to dig carefully at the corner of his eye. Leon isn’t sure when it’ll stop surprising him that Matthew can use his callused hands so softly.
He isn’t gentle at all when he throws the cloth vaguely in the direction of the bathroom, a damp thunk echoing as it hits the door frame and drops, before leaning in to kiss Leon, all teeth and tongue, a hand fixed on Leon’s throat. Not choking, but with the promise of it.
Gentle when he slides a hand down Leon’s torso, over his hip. Not gentle when he pushes Leon’s thigh up and out. Gentle when he uses his thumb to test the give in the muscles of Leon’s ass. Not gentle when he skips the fingering and just buries himself in Leon in one thrust.
Leon’s heat hits the second Matthew’s hipbones hit his ass, and he throws his head back. Matthew still has the hand on his neck, drops it down a little to frame the hollow of Leon’s throat, light pressure on the top of Leon’s breastbone.
‘No foreplay?’ Leon manages, as Matthew stops, flush against Leon. His chest is pressed up against Leon’s leg from hip to knee, shin hooked over Matthew’s broad shoulder. Matthew’s laugh rumbles, shaking the bed. Shaking Leon.
‘Coming on my back wasn’t enough foreplay for you?’ he asks. ‘I can feel how open you are.’
Leon opens his mouth to retort, and Matthew slides his fingers in, hooking them over Leon’s teeth to hold his mouth half-open.
‘If I tried to finger you you’d only bitch at me and tell me to hurry up,’ Matthew says. He presses a kiss to the inside of Leon’s knee, where the skin is soft and sensitive. Matthew’s stubble stings. ‘You gonna shut up and let me make you feel good?’
Leon considers shaking his head. Considers biting down on Matthew’s fingers until there’s an imprint across his knuckles of Leon’s teeth. Matthew rubs his jaw over Leon’s knee again, bowing his head so he can press another kiss to Leon’s lower thigh. Another, lower.
When Matthew slides his fingers out of Leon’s mouth, Leon shuts it without a word. His cheeks are so hot he feels like his head might explode. He can’t tell if it’s from the way Matthew is touching him, the way he’s looking at him. The way Matthew told him to shut up and take it, and Leon– did.
Matthew grins at him. Bites carefully at a scar on Leon’s knee. Rolls his hips, and Leon’s vision blurs with need.
Leon’s mouth falls back open, his head falls back onto the sheets. He isn’t sure what to do with his hands, has one wrapped around Matthew’s wrist where he’s still braced on Leon’s chest, the other– just flung out onto the bed, graceless.
Leon’s learnt it’s useless to pretend Matthew isn’t good at this. That he gains anything from pretending that Matthew’s dick doesn’t fill him in exactly the right way, that Matthew doesn’t know exactly how to drive Leon insane. So he lets himself fall into it, the faint burn in his hamstring where Matthew is trying to fold him in half, the slick slide of Matthew fucking into him in short sharp snaps, the pressure on his sternum as Matthew puts more weight on him.
Leon’s orgasm takes him by surprise again, crashing into him, making him cry out wordlessly at Matthew’s ceiling. Matthew tightens his grip on the back of Leon’s thigh, fucks him faster and faster until Leon is dancing right on the edge of it being too much, tiny movements that feel designed to make Leon lose his mind, over and over and over and Leon comes again, painful this time. Matthew slows as Leon tries to curl up into it, lifts his hand off Leon’s chest to let him lift his head.
Leon’s free hand has come up to push at Matthew’s stomach ineffectively, falling down to palm at the base of his dick, trying to dig at the overstimulated feeling that’s making his balls contract painfully.
All Leon can hear is his own harsh breathing. He drops back to the sheets, hand falling away from Matthew’s wrist. He realises, belatedly, that Matthew is making small, smooth circles on his lower thigh, right by the divot of his knee.
Slowly, slowly, his breathing settles. He lets his muscles relax. He takes one last deep breath through his nose, and opens his eyes. Matthew hasn’t moved a muscle.
‘You okay?’ he asks. ‘Was that--?’
‘I’m out of practice,’ Leon says, trying for levity. ‘It’s been a minute.’
Matthew frowns at him. ‘Aren’t you supposed to get one of these every month?’
He’s still buried in Leon. Is very carefully holding completely still, except for that thumb still making circles on Leon’s knee, but Leon can feel him, long and thick. No knot yet.
‘Suppressants fuck with the cycle,’ he says. ‘Are we really having science class mid sex?’
‘So when was the last time you…?’ Matthew asks, trailing off, awkwardly.
Leon frowns. ‘March, maybe. Whenever we last hooked up.’
‘It’s July,’ Matthew says, and then pauses. ‘Wait, you haven’t– since we last?’
‘That’s not a real question,’ Leon says. His heat is making it hard to keep track of the expressions on Matthew’s face, but he catches that one, pissy and stubborn, like he’s tired of Leon’s shit. ‘No,’ he adds. ‘Not since we last.’
Matthew tilts his head. ‘Why not?’ he asks, using his free hand to gesture vaguely at Leon. ‘Who wouldn’t want– this?’
Leon half-shrugs. ‘Doesn’t seem important, normally.’
Matthew’s hips are shaking a little. Leon realises how much effort he’s expending to keep himself still.
‘Fuck me,’ he says. ‘We can have a heart to heart later.’
Matthew looks like he wants to argue. Leon tilts his hips, tenses his thighs, forces himself deeper onto Matthew’s cock. Matthew’s eyes go hot and liquid.
‘Fine,’ he says, putting his hand on Leon’s stomach. ‘I’m holding you to that.’
Leon waves him off. It’s just the sex-brain talking. Three orgasms later and he’ll have forgotten all about it.
-
Leon had forgotten how Matthew’s knot makes him feel. It’s not the same as the dildos he has back home. He kind of marvels sometimes at how inhuman they feel, now that he knows what a real knot feels like, from a real guy. He kind of understands the stupid, drunken look on the faces of omegas in porn.
It’s not that it’s big, even though it is. It’s that he feels like he can feel Matthew’s heartbeat through it. When Matthew felt it swelling up, he’d let go of Leon’s thigh, rearranged them so Leon is lying on his stomach when it hits. It’s more comfortable like this, in truth; Leon hadn’t been looking forward to being stuck with his leg over Matthew’s shoulder for hours. Matthew sinks into him, kisses the base of his neck, where the knob of his spine sticks out, and rolls over to his side, looping an arm around Leon’s waist with casual possessiveness to drag him along for the ride.
When they’re settled, Matthew immediately buries his nose in the nape of Leon’s neck, takes a deep breath. Drags his jaw along Leon’s delt, mouthing at the cap of his shoulder.
Leon thinks about chirping, about asking if Matthew wants a snack or something, but. He doesn’t. He just lies there, watches a plane glide far, far overhead. The sun is high in the sky, and even with the window tinting, the room is bright and warm. His arousal is quieter, if not fully sated. He’s still in heat, of course he is, but with Matthew in him and around him like this, it’s a little easier to ignore. Matthew jerks him off like this, slowly, mouth fixed on Leon’s shoulder, thumbing at the head of Leon’s cock until he comes with a soft noise, clenching down on Matthew’s knot, stealing another orgasm from him along the way.
‘When are you headed home?’ Matthew asks.
‘Whenever,’ Leon says. ‘I got an open ticket, so. I just have to text my dad to warn him I’m flying in so he can come pick me up.’
‘Mr Nine Million Dollars A Season can’t get an Uber from the airport?’
‘He likes to come get me,’ Leon says, shrugging. ‘And I only make eight and a half.’
Matthew laughs. He’s pressed flush against the line of Leon’s spine, so it physically shakes Leon right to his core. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Mr Eight and a Half Million Dollars A Season.’
He’s doing something with his hand, using the tip of his index finger to trace something on Leon’s stomach. ‘What are you doing?’ he asks. He thinks about craning his head to watch, but Matthew’s other arm is nestled in the crook between Leon’s head and neck, and it’s unbelievably comfortable. He feels like moving might upset the balance.
Leon dozes off like that, with Matthew’s free hand tracing patterns over Leon’s stomach.
-
Matthew’s knot has gone down while Leon slept; he gets woken up by Matthew pulling out, and even though he knows Matthew’s being careful, it still hurts, and then he’s empty, and that’s terrible, and he lets a small, needy sound out. Matthew kisses his cheek.
‘Don’t worry, I’m coming back. You need Gatorade. I even got the right flavour.’
Leon huffs, but he accepts a white Gatorade when Matthew returns. Matthew puts a bowl of fruit on the side table, and climbs back onto the bed, his own blue Gatorade wedged between his arm and his torso.
Leon’s drained half of it by the time Matthew cracks the seal on his. He’s starting to get that familiar mid heat feeling, of being vaguely sore, but also needing to be fucked like that’s a physical ache in itself.
‘I want to ride you,’ he says, deliberately timing it so Matthew is mid swallow. The resulting sputtering is very gratifying.
And that’s how Leon ends up on his knees over Matthew, one hand bracing himself on Matthew’s chest. He can feel his heart beating a mile a minute. Matthew is carefully blank-faced, but. Leon can read him too well by now. The control isn’t real. He can feel Matthew’s hands shaking with the effort of just steadying Leon’s hips without pulling him down onto Matthew’s dick.
Lowering onto Matthew’s cock feels like coming home. He lets out a long, low sound, head tipping forward, hair falling into his eyes. The pressure of Matthew’s hand on one of his hips disappears, and he opens his eyes to see Matthew looking up at him, hand stretched out to push his hair off his forehead.
‘You look fucking incredible,’ Matthew says. There’s nothing in his voice but raw emotion. It makes Leon want to drop his gaze, stare at a mark on Matthew’s chest that he left there during an earlier fuck.
But he doesn’t. He meets Matthew’s eyes, and then his ass is flush against Matthew’s hips, and they both exhale slowly.
‘You feel–’ Matthew starts, and stops. His hand is still on Leon’s face, fingertips pressed lightly against his temple. ‘Come here.’
He slides the hand around the back of Leon’s neck, and pulls him in for a kiss.
‘You know I’m kind of crazy about you, right?’ Matthew whispers against Leon’s lips.
And the thing is, Leon does know. He doesn’t think anyone has ever looked at him like Matthew looks at him. The small touches. Matthew buying two different colours of Gatorade. The bowl to their left is full of blueberries; Leon’s favourite. He doesn’t think he ever told Matthew that.
‘I had an idea,’ Leon admits, and feels Matthew smile. He kisses him again, and then levers himself back up, pulls almost all the way off Matthew, and then drops back down, setting a hard rhythm immediately. He’s a hockey player, he can do these kinds of movements basically forever.
Matthew is hanging on to Leon’s hips like he’ll die if he lets go. Leon can feel blunt nails leaving indents. Another series of marks he doesn’t have to worry about, because it’s summer. He could get Matthew’s name written on his ass, and no one would have to know but him.
-
Leon fucks himself to exhaustion. The lactic acid in his thighs burns. He’s lost count of his orgasms by the time he gets another knot out of Matthew, even manages to time it so he’s pulling out as Matthew is swelling up, and forces the knot back inside just before it’s too late, which makes Matthew’s back arch in an extremely satisfying way.
Leon gives in, and collapses on top of Matthew. It shifts the knot in a way that’s just the right side of painful, and Leon shudders through a final orgasm, forehead pressed to Matthew’s cheek. His heat fades into the background, leaking out of the base of his spine.
‘I give in,’ Matthew says, rubbing at Leon’s back. ‘You win. I feel like my dick’s gonna fall off.’
Leon laughs, breathless. Shoves his nose over Matthew’s jaw until he can slot their lips together. It’s not the best kiss in the world, they’re both shaky with exhaustion, and Matthew’s lower lip has indents in the swell of it where he’d been biting down. It’s still good, though, and Leon leans into it for a little longer while Matthew slides his hands over Leon’s hips, the dip of his waist.
When he thinks he can, he sits up, carefully. Settles himself in the dish of Matthew’s pelvis and reaches out to the nightstand for the bowl of fruit. He isn’t thinking when he holds out a blueberry to Matthew’s lips.Isn’t expecting it when Matthew gently takes it with his teeth. His hands are still on Leon’s hips. His thumb is making small circles again, like a compulsion. It’s soothing. He feeds Matthew another berry, and takes a handful for himself, setting the bowl aside.
‘My heat broke,’ he says, licking the juice off the side of his thumb. Matthew is watching him, intent. ‘I don’t think that’s ever happened this fast before.’
‘You’re welcome,’ Matthew says, after a pause, blinking and flicking his eyes up to Leon’s face. He grins, wonky. Leon always feels like he should have his mouthguard hanging out of his mouth when he smiles like that.
Matthew glances down at himself and grimaces. ‘I should have kept the cloth in reach,’ he says, wrinkling his nose. ‘We’re gross.’
Leon laughs, finishes his blueberries. ‘We’ll live.’
-
Matthew gets first shower, after a not insignificant amount of bickering, but since Matthew is wearing more of Leon’s come than Leon is, and it’s his shower, he wins. They could have showered together, Leon guesses, but with the heat broken, he’s sore, and he doesn’t trust either of them to initiate something under the spray. They are who they are, after all.
He eats blueberries in bed and chews on what Matthew said earlier. He’s crazy about Leon.
It’s not ‘I’m in love with you,’ but it might not be very far off, which is what scares Leon. He isn’t sure when exactly they slid from antagonistic to friendly to– this, but. He feels like he should have noticed. Without the haze of the heat hanging over him, it feels bigger.
The water turns off, and the door opens. Matthew emerges, still dripping. ‘You’re up,’ he says, scrubbing at his curls with a small towel. The one slung around his hips is clinging on for dear life, and Leon’s not ashamed to get caught staring. Matthew is still the wrong side of playoff skinny, and his muscles stand out in sharp contrast. In a couple of months, when he’s put some weight back on, he’ll be softer around the edges, but right now, Leon wants to run his tongue over the hard lines of his body.
Matthew finishes towelling his hair, snaps his fingers. ‘Hey, I’m up here.’
Leon rolls his eyes. Climbs out of bed. Matthew flicks him on the ass with the damp towel on his way past, making him jump. It’s all scarily comfortable.
Matthew’s shower is, admittedly, incredible. Multiple shower heads, a screen on the wall that lets you set the exact temperature you want. The water pressure is perfect. The shower gel in the cubby is sharp and citrus-y, and Leon inhales deeply as he washes the sweat from his hair, the slick from his body.
Another reason for individual showers; post heat clean-up isn’t dignified. Leon has cried in front of Matthew, but that doesn’t mean he wants him to see this.
He thinks while he scrubs. Is he crazy about Matthew?
Matthew is handsome, and annoying, and kind of mean in a way that really works for Leon. He apparently files away facts about Leon and brings them out later like it’s nothing.
Leon hasn’t slept with anyone but him all season long. That must mean something.
It does mean something, Leon decides, and he rinses a final time and shuts the water off.
The bedroom is empty when he emerges. He dresses and pokes his head out of the bedroom into the open plan apartment to see Matthew sitting on the couch, back to him, head in his hands.
Leon watches him for a moment. The tension in his back is palpable.
What if Matthew was just knot-drunk when he told Leon he’s crazy about him? He wouldn’t be the first guy in the world to say something he didn’t mean during sex. Leon chews on his lip, and watches. He knows he should make a noise, let Matthew know he’s here. It feels weirdly like intruding, to just stand here and watch, but.
Eventually, his curiosity beats the sinking feeling in his gut, and he accidentally on purpose bumps the door, knocking it against the wall so Matthew jumps and looks up.
‘What, are we breaking up already?’ Leon doesn’t mean for it to slip out so casually.
Matthew doesn’t say anything. That sinking feeling in Leon’s gut spreads upwards, to the bottom of his ribcage.
‘Not that there’s something to break up,’ Leon says. He tries for airy, lands somewhere about mild panic. ‘It won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t want to date me, I promise.’
‘I’m leaving Calgary,’ Matthew says, and that sinking feeling twists, turns into dead weight. Leon feels like he’s swallowed a dozen pucks. ‘I– the phone call earlier. It was to request a trade.’
‘Oh,’ Leon says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. ‘I– where are you going?’
Matthew shrugs. He looks haunted. Miserable. ‘The States. Maybe Texas. Maybe Florida.’ He laughs, humourless. ‘Not St Louis. Somewhere warm, and somewhere that my dad didn’t play.’
‘Oh,’ Leon says, again. ‘I didn’t– realise you wanted to leave.’
‘Neither did I,’ Matthew admits. ‘It was kind of a recent realisation.’
Matthew’s phone rings, and Leon wants to sink to his knees about it, saved from his next question. ‘What about us?’ had been on his lips, but it’s stupid. There is no us. No them. Maybe if there was Matthew would stay.
Leon realises, suddenly, that for all his shower thinking, all his considering, he still hadn’t been convinced that he has genuine feelings for Matthew. This revelation sure did, though.
‘Answer it,’ he says, nodding at Matthew’s phone.
Matthew glances at it. ‘I can call him back,’ he says. ‘We should– Leon–’
‘Answer it,’ Leon says. ‘It’s fine.’
Matthew looks at him, helpless. Picks up his phone. ‘Hey, Craig.’
Leon turns and disappears back into the bedroom. When he reemerges, quieter this time, Matthew is on the balcony, facing out into the late afternoon sun. Leon lets himself out of the apartment, duffel slung over his shoulder.
In the Uber to the airport, he texts his dad.
Flying out tonight. Landing tomorrow AM.