#i'd like to imagine that with extra ~motivation from sid he'd have applied himself a bit more over that summer

[malk1ns]

sidgeno, 32, things you said right after hello

thanks for this one! prompts are here :)

“Wow, you’re huge,” Sid blurts out, Malkin's hand still clasped in his. “You must have grown, what, two inches since I saw you in May?”

Immediately, his face goes hot. For a brief minute, he clings to the hope that maybe he hadn’t actually said that, but over Malkin’s shoulder he can see Mario wince and Sarge bite back a laugh, so no—he really just said that out loud, and oh god, he’s still holding Malkin’s hand.

He drops it quickly and takes a large step back, mustering up the most normal-feeling smile he can manage. Based on Malkin’s quizzical, slightly amused gaze, he’s not quite managing.

Sid hadn’t told anyone what happened in Latvia.

He’d made a point to seek Malkin out—Zhenya, he’d asked to be called, but Sid’s been trying to get back to something slightly less incriminating whenever he thought about Malkin this summer—wanting to actually meet him, now that they were going to be teammates. He’d heard Mario talking about the situation with Metallurg, the pressure they were putting on Malkin to re-sign and stay in Russia, and Sid thought that if he could just talk to him, get to know him a little off-ice, he could convince him to come to Pittsburgh in the fall after all.

They’d gotten to know each other more than just a little.

Before Sarge even opens his mouth to translate, Malkin steps forward, closing the distance between him and Sid, and claps him lightly on the shoulder. “Yes, now you’re even shorter,” he says, poking his tongue between his teeth.

Sid remembers that, how Malkin—oh, hell, how Zhenya—always made that face when he was pretty sure his joke was going to land. He’s doing better now than he had at Worlds; Sid remembers how hard they’d struggled at first to talk.

It got easier later on.

Sarge makes a surprised noise, and Sid starts. He’d almost forgotten they weren’t alone. “You didn’t tell me you’ve been practicing,” he says to Zhenya, continuing on in amused-sounding Russian. Whatever he’s saying, it’s making Zhenya blush.

Mario’s eyebrows are so high they’re practically in his hairline, but once Sarge stops his teasing diatribe, he clears his throat. “Dinner’s ready,” he says, gesturing to the hallway that leads to the dining room. “We can keep talking there, Nathalie won’t be happy if the food goes cold while we’re all standing around by the door.”

Sid cringes a little and moves to fall in line behind Mario and Sarge, but Zhenya grabs his arm, holding him in place as the other two exit the foyer.

“Sid,” Zhenya murmurs, reeling him in. “I miss. Four months, it’s a long time.”

Against his better judgment and everything he’d sternly told himself all summer when he caught his mind wandering, Sid melts in Zhenya’s grasp. “Yeah,” he says, putting a hand on Zhenya’s waist. “It was too long. I wanted to call, but the long-distance charge…”

“Same for me. I think, maybe I ask JP to call for me, but then it’s problems with the contract, and…” Zhenya shrugs, frowning a little before refocusing on Sid. “But now I’m here.”

“Yeah,” Sid says again, breathless this time, pressing them closer together, until he can feel the heat from Zhenya’s body. “I thought—well, I saw the news, and I wasn’t sure, but I hoped you’d come. I thought about you so much.”

The corners of Zhenya’s eyes crinkle. He looks exhausted, and his suit is wrinkled, but Sid’s never seen anything better. “I tell you I come for you,” he says, and his voice goes sly, even as he widens his eyes in feigned innocence. “You tell me to, I do. You forget?”

Sid swallows. He didn’t forget a single second of it—the tentative first conversation, the beers they snuck into Sid’s hotel room when his roommate was out and they both had a day off the next day, which turned into Zhenya’s mouth on his, Zhenya’s dick in his hand. Every single stolen moment for the entire tournament had found them tangled up together, and Sid couldn’t forget it if he tried.

Zhenya’s still watching him, and his eyes have softened. He reaches for Sid’s face, ghosting his fingers over Sid’s cheekbone before thumbing over Sid’s mouth, tugging his lower lip down.

Sid lets him. He’s standing in Mario Lemieux’s front foyer, and his newest teammate and god willing the missing piece that will bring the Penguins success, God willing, is practically groping him where anyone could see, and Sid lets him.

“You should stay,” he says, darting a glance at the hallway and stepping back. “After dinner. I know you’re tired, but we…maybe we could say you want to see my Playstation. It’s in my room upstairs, we’d be alone. I can drive you back to Sarge’s later.”

“Yes,” Zhenya says, practically before Sid’s finished speaking. “Yes, I want to stay with you.”