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When Nicke first came to play in the states, they gave him two options. The preferred option was that he would be paired with one of the Alphas on the team, and any time he went into heat, the Alpha would deal with it. It was the way things had been done in the NHL for nearly a century, and it worked. The other option was to take suppressants, to ensure he never went into heat during the playing season. There were side effects, and they were different for different people, and since it could potentially have a negative effect on his body to never go through heat, he would be required to go off suppressants for the summer. Unfortunately, this would mean that summer heats would be protracted and even painful.It was his choice, they told him. That's what they told everyone. He could change his mind at any time, of course - especially if he chose the suppressant option. He'd come off in the off-season, and they'd help him pair with an Alpha on his team. They'd make sure that he was taken care of.Nicke chooses suppressants, at least initially. He doesn't go into heat, and it dampens his scent to the point where he barely registers as an Omega. None of the Alphas give him a second thought as a mate, though Mike is the only one who’s unpaired. Ovi tells him it's strange, knowing Nicke is an Omega but not being able to scent him.Nicke teases - Ovi can only scent Sasha Semin, anyway. Sasha would probably kill Ovi if he tried to scent someone else, even if it was Nicke and it was just casual. Nicke’s glad he's never been the possessive type of Omega.He doesn't notice any real side effects from the suppressants. A few bouts of insomnia when his body is adjusting to the new chemicals injected into his system for the first time and a few days where he feels wired and jittery after each subsequent monthly injection. Nothing horrible, no non-stop nausea or vomiting the way he's read about some Omegas having.Coming off the suppressants for the summer is hell on earth. It's actually painful, for starters - his body is so empty and aching that he writhes in bed and whimpers into his pillows because he doesn't have it in him to scream. He begs his friends for help, any Alpha he knows that he's casually hooked up with through the years who might come to him and make everything stop hurting, make the ache go away, make him feel like his body isn't on fire.It's nearly ten days before the fever breaks and his body goes back to normal and he swears never again. Whatever Alpha the team wants to pair him with, he'll do it, as long as he doesn't have to go through this hell again. He tells them first thing when he goes in for his physical at the beginning of training camp that he’s not doing it again, no more suppressants.It’s painless, really, the way everything goes down. All it takes is a bit of paperwork to switch Nicke from suppressants to making sure that his birth control is up-to-date. They also let him know that if he’s interested in any Alphas on the team, they need to know, and also, it’s frowned upon to pursue an Alpha that’s already paired, and they finish his physical and send him on his way.When he enters the locker room for the first practice, heads turn his way. Ovi raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. Nobody says anything, until after practice when Sasha Semin saunters up to him with a crooked grin.“Decided to ditch the suppressants?” Sasha asks him. Nicke flips the bird, and Sasha laughs. “Ovi says you smell like candy.”“I didn’t say that,” Ovi protests. Anyone else might have blushed about it, but not Alex Ovechkin. “I say he smells sweet, not same thing.” Nicke watches Ovi’s nostrils flare, like he wants to scent Nicke. Nicke knows that Ovi would never do that in front of Sasha - not while Sasha is currently his mate.Mike, on the other hand…“Like dessert,” Mike says. Nicke catches him lick his lips. Mike’s still not paired, and well, it wouldn’t be a hardship if Mike decided he wanted Nicke to be his mate.He wants Mike to bite him - claim him, mate with him.Nicke hates it. When Nicke lived with Michael Nylander the year before, as a rookie, Nylander explained a lot about how dynamics work in the NHL. Nicke knows that the league tends to pair up Omegas with unpaired Alphas on the team, and that Alphas take care of Omegas. Nicke also knows that it’s generally frowned upon for an Omega to pursue a paired Alpha. (Nylander’s the one who tells Nicke some vague story about how sometimes Alphas will collect more than one Omega, or vice-versa, but he won’t get into details and Nicke is too embarrassed to ask. Pairing is a necessity to keep things running smoothly, and management tries to prevent drama by instating rules.Nicke tries to impart this knowledge to those who come after him, like Marcus when he first joins the team in 2010 from the SHL. It’s not the same with Holtby, the other rookie who really spends time with the team that season, because for starters, he’s a goalie, but because he’s come up through North American leagues, which all seem to handle dynamic the same way as the NHL. Nicke played in Sweden - he knows that managing dynamic is largely left up to players, and not openly managed by the league itself. They have a hand, and they make sure things are managed, but they don’t instate rules the way the NHL does.At the very least, Nicke feels like he can warn Marcus about the potential side effects of suppressants. Because of course, Marcus would rather not have a heat than deal with having an Alpha in his space. Nicke gets it. Nicke didn’t want that, either, but he’d rather have Mike, rather be paired with Mike, than deal with any of the side effects.Marcus says, “but that’s not typical,” and Nicke just sighs because Marcus is being too logical about this and clearly not about to listen to what Nicke is telling him. Nicke’s only three years older than Marcus, so it’s not like he feels like he’s in any real position of authority. If Marcus wants to have the universe’s most miserable heat at the end of the season, Nicke isn’t going to stop him. When Marcus comes back at the end of his first offseason, he expects Nicke to ask him questions. He knows that Nicke wants to be able to say ‘I told you so,’ but Marcus was right when he said that Nicke’s result wasn’t typical of what guys normally experience. If that had been typical, it wouldn’t be something the league offered year over year, and if it were typical, none of the players would take it.It’s not typical, so when Nicke walks up to Marcus after Marcus comes out of the exam room from getting his shot, Marcus isn’t surprised. “How was coming off suppressants this summer?” Nicke asks, without preamble. Marcus raises an eyebrow because, wow. To the point much? Nicke’s swigging from a bottle of water, and he’s just come out of a different makeshift exam room, having gotten his birth control re-checked.“It was fine,” Marcus says. It was… fine. It could have been better, but based on what Nicke’s told him, it could have been a lot worse, as well. “Just fine?” Nicke asks. “Not like your entire body was on fire and you wanted to die?”“Not really,” Marcus says. “I just wanted to sit on a cock for ten days straight, which is, you know. Heat.” He can feel how hot his face is, and he knows he’s blushing and he doesn’t make eye contact with Nicke then. He can’t believe that he just said that out loud. He and Nicke are friends, but - well, that’s fucking ridiculous when he says it out loud. “Not usually ten days.”“You asshole. I wanted to die,” Nicke says.“I told you it wasn’t typical! It’s in the paperwork!” Marcus says. His face is still hot, but he lifts his head up to make eye contact with Nicke.“You would read the paperwork,” Nicke says, grinning.Marcus flips him off, but he’s grinning as he heads into the next station of his physical. Sasha doesn’t re-sign with the Capitals in 2012, and everything is entirely thrown off by the lockout. Nicke goes to play in Moscow with Ovi, and - well, it’s no surprise when he finds himself collapsing into Ovi’s bed, letting Ovi fuck him through his heats. Nicke is still paired with Mike, but Ovi is - well, Ovi is a free agent, technically, with Sasha gone.He pushes Nicke’s face into the mattress when they fuck, and leaves teeth marks across Nicke’s shoulders. Mike pretends he’s not jealous when he and Nicke talk on the phone, but Nicke’s never met an Alpha who could allow his Omega to get fucked by someone else and not be jealous. But Mike’s not in Russia, and Nicke is. It’s not like Mike and Nicke are married.When the lockout ends, they go back to the States, back to Washington, and Nicke goes back to Mike. And then - well, Nicke learns the reason why Alphas don’t share.“You smell like him,” Mike says, sulky. “Hm?” Nicke asks. He’s busy taping a stick, and not really paying attention to Mike.“You smell different. I can smell Ovi on you,” Mike says.“He was literally in here two seconds ago,” Nicke says.“I know the difference between him being in a room and you smelling like he’s been fucking you for the last six months,” Mike says. He’s leaned back in his stall, watching Nicke.“It wasn’t six months,” Nicke says.“Near enough,” Mike says.“Are we really going to fight about this?” Nicke asks. “You never got pissed at me for fucking Alphas over the summer before. So why now?”“I don’t fucking know,” Mike says, irritable. He gets up and storms out of the room.Nicke sits there, confused. He doesn’t understand why Mike is acting this way - Nicke has been paired with Mike since Nicke’s second year on the team, and he’s never had any interest in leaving Mike to be with Ovi, even if Sasha hadn’t been in the picture. And Mike has definitely smelled other Alphas on Nicke before - every year when Nicke’s come back to training camp, he has to have smelled like the last Alpha who fucked him through heat.Things are weird with Mike, and Mike’s being weird with not only Nicke, but also Ovi, so Nicke leaves after practice and goes to lunch with Marcus. “Consider,” Marcus says, playing with the straw in his drink, too logical and mature for how young he seems to Nicke with his round face and wide eyes, “that he might have feelings for you.”“I don’t want that,” Nicke says.“Maybe he doesn’t either,” Marcus says. “But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t. Why else would he act so weird about it?”“I don’t know!” Nicke says, raising his voice too loud. At the very least, they’re not speaking English. “I don’t know,” Nicke repeats, more quietly.“It’s the only reason I can think of that he’d even care,” Marcus says. “You’re his Omega, you’ve been his Omega, and he wants to keep you. I mean, in the scheme of things, O is definitely the … stronger Alpha. So if he has feelings for you and he thinks that O is just gonna swoop in and take you away from him, then - “ Marcus trails off and shrugs.“I hate when you’re smart,” Nicke says. “Why can’t we come out here and talk about your love life instead of mine.”“Oh are we talking about your love life?” Marcus asks. “Like you’re admitting that you do have feelings for Greenie?”“Absolutely not,” Nicke says, but he feels caught. Marcus raises his eyebrows, and Nicke realizes that he doesn’t just feel caught, he is caught.He’s got fucking feelings for Mike Green.Marcus laughs at him. “You do,” he says, delighted. “Nicklas Backstrom has a romantic feeling.”“No,” Nicke says.“You do!” Marcus says. “Let’s order champagne. Let’s celebrate you having one whole feeling.”“I’m going to kill you,” Nicke says. “And when you find an Alpha you want to mate with, I’m going to make your life a living hell for at least forty-five minutes.”Marcus laughs at him until there are literal tears streaming down his face, and Nicke crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back in his seat. Once Marcus has wiped his face and taken a drink, Nicke says, “let me make fun of your love life now.”“Uh,” Marcus says. “The upside of suppressants is that I have normal sex and I don’t care about anyone’s dynamic, and I especially don’t care if I have an Alpha.”“You know, I’m a little jealous suppressants didn’t work out for me,” Nicke says.“Because then you wouldn’t have feelings for Greenie?” Marcus asks.“No one will ever find your body,” Nicke tells Marcus, pointing at him with his fork. Marcus just dissolves into laughter again, and once he’s done this time, Nicke changes the subject. The last thing Nicke wants to do is deal with the fact that, okay, he does have feelings about Mike. For Mike. He’s trying not to think about it.Because this means that he needs to go to Mike, and he needs to talk about his feelings, and there’s nothing that Nicke hates more than talking about his feelings. So, instead of calling or texting, Nicke goes straight to Mike’s and knocks on the door. Mike answers after a few minutes, but he looks confused.“Wait, is it - are you - you can’t be in heat,” Mike says.“No, asshole, I wanted to talk,” Nicke says, irritated. Because he and Mike are friends, even if they are paired.“Oh,” Mike says. He moves so that Nicke can come into the house, and closes the door behind him. It’s awkward, unlike the thousands of times Nicke has come to Mike’s home over the years.“Look,” Nicke says. “I’m not gonna ditch you because Ovi isn’t paired anymore. It was just because we were in Moscow, and I wasn’t gonna let some strange Russian Alpha fuck me when Ovi was right there.”“Okay,” Mike says, and crosses his arms over his chest, hunching in on himself.“You’re my Alpha,” Nicke says, “is what I’m saying. And I want it to stay that way. Because I like you.”“Okay,” Mike repeats. Nicke sighs.“I’m not good at talking about my feelings but if you have feelings about us or - I like you, you know. Not just as my Alpha,” Nicke finally says.“Nicke,” Mike says.“Mike, please, just - I don’t know if that’s why you’ve been pissed about me having sex with Ovi but I - “ Mike cuts him off.“Please stop talking,” Mike says. His voice is quiet.“Please,” Nicke says.“I did get jealous,” Mike says. “I didn’t like you smelling like him. I hate when you come back from the summer smelling like other Alphas but I get it. And I try not to let it get to me. But. It’s just.”“I don’t want Ovi,” Nicke says. “I want you.”They’re still standing in the foyer of Mike’s house, only a few feet between them. Mike closes the space and presses their mouths together, and it’s the first time Mike has ever kissed Nicke outside of Nicke’s heats.Nicke loves it. During training camp, Nicke is surprised to find Marcus sitting on the floor outside one of the rooms set up for physicals. It’s unusual - normally they see each other passing in the hallway, because their physicals are slightly different, since Marcus is still on suppressants and Nicke isn’t.“Are you okay?” Nicke asks. When Marcus looks up at him, his face is pale. Nicke’s seen guys pass out before, and Marcus for sure looks like he’s about to pass out. “Babe, what - ““I don’t understand what’s wrong with me,” Marcus says, his voice quiet. Nicke crouches down next to him, and reaches out, putting his hand on Marcus’s arm. His skin is clammy.“Can someone - “ Nicke raises his voice. “We need a trainer.”This brings several people into the hallway, including the trainer from the room who just administered Marcus’s shot. He also crouches down next to Marcus, pressing his fingers against Marcus’s wrist, checking his pulse, asking him questions. Nicke stands up and steps back to move out of the way of another trainer.“What’s going on?” Ovi asks, coming to stand near Nicke.“I don’t know,” Nicke says. “He was just sitting out here on the floor and he looks like he’s gonna pass out.”The trainers are helping Marcus to his feet, balancing him between them. Other players are crowding into the hall, trying to find out what the commotion is. The trainers stop at the end of the hallway, and one of them talks to the new coach, Trotz, briefly, before they remove Marcus entirely.“All right boys,” Trotz says, coming down the hall. “Let’s get back to business, you’ve all got tests to go through.”Everyone hesitates, but they start moving. Nicke goes straight to Trotz. “What’s going on?” he asks. Trotz looks surprised that Nicke is stopping him, but he pats Nicke on the shoulder.“They think it’s a bad reaction to the injection,” Trotz tells him. “They’re gonna take him to a specialist, get it sorted out.”“Okay,” Nicke says.He doesn’t see Marcus again until the next morning, when he comes in for the next day’s practice. Marcus looks tired and drawn and listless where he’s sitting in his stall, toying with the ragged tape at the edge of a stick instead of getting dressed. Nicke goes over and plops into the stall next to him. Marcus jumps, then looks over at Nicke. “So what happened?” Nicke asks. Marcus sighs, and he doesn’t answer for a minute, then he starts peeling the tape off the stick.“Apparently,” he says, pitching his voice quiet, “they have a new manufacturer for the suppressant or something, and I had a bad reaction to it. So basically they took me to a specialist and gave me some kind of other injection and I threw up and passed out and now I’m here and I don’t want to talk about it.”“But you’re - you’re okay to practice?” Nicke asks.Marcus makes a non-committal noise. He looks like he wants to die. “I’m gonna do it anyway,” Marcus says.Nicke doesn’t think about it much after that. It’s a weird bad thing that happened once, but after Marcus struggles through that first practice, he seems fine and Nicke thinks that there isn’t anything to worry about. Technically, it’s not Nicke’s life, and Nicke doesn’t have to worry about it.Marcus has never had a heat during the season, and Nicke has never been around him when he’s gone, so Nicke doesn’t notice that anything is happening. It’s Mike who says something to Nicke, sidles up to him and tells Nicke that he can smell it on Marcus.“Are you okay?” Nicke asks Marcus after practice one day.“I’m fine,” Marcus says.“Mike says that your heat’s coming,” Nicke says. Marcus’s eyes go wide, and then he frowns.“Mike needs to mind his own fucking business,” Marcus says, suddenly irritable. Suddenly, his scent is so strong that Nicke can smell it.“Yeah, but you can’t just. You need an alpha,” Nicke says.“I don’t want to do this,” Marcus says. “I want to be back on suppressants and I want to not do this because I don’t want to fuck my teammates.”“Everyone does,” Nicke says. “I do.”“I’m not everyone, and I’m not you,” Marcus says. “Things have been fine for me and now everything’s fucked up.”“Ovi could help you,” Nicke says. “He’s not paired.”“I don’t want this,” Marcus says. “Just stop.”“Mackan, come on,” Nicke says. “It’s going to happen, you know? You can’t stop what your body is going to do now without the medication in your system. But you also know what it’s going to be like if you don’t let someone help you.”“I just don’t want things to get weird,” Marcus says.“Nothing was ever weird with Mike,” Nicke says. “Even - you know, when we paired up, and then. I mean, you know, he and I - And you know, Ovi and Sasha were never weird.”“Things were weird after Sasha left. For a while. I remember,” Marcus says.“But it worked out,” Nicke says. “You don’t know what’s going to happen. This isn’t what you wanted, but it’s gonna happen, so you have to deal with what happens.”Marcus takes a deep breath, then sighs. “Yeah. I’ll deal with it.”“Talk to Ovi,” Nicke says. “That’s who I’d go to first.”Marcus nods, but he doesn’t say anything else. The next morning, before practice, Nicke finds Marcus in the locker room, talking to Kuznetsov. It’s Kuznetsov’s first full season with the team, and Nicke didn’t think about it before, and doesn’t think about it until he watches Kuznetsov lean in and scent Marcus, burying his nose behind Marcus’s ear. Marcus’s eyes fall shut and he tips his head, giving Kuznetsov full access.Sure, Nicke said to just let things happen, but Marcus seems to really be taking that to heart. He’d sort of expected Marcus to go with someone who was more familiar, who Marcus had been around longer - honestly, Nicke had expected it to be Ovi. Instead, he’s watching Marcus lean into Kuznetsov, and watching Kuznetsov’s hand slide to rest at the small of Marcus’s back.Nicke feels, suddenly, like he’s seeing something he’s not supposed to. But he needs to get dressed, and other guys are going to be coming in soon.He clears his throat. Loudly.They spring apart, and Nicke watches as Marcus’s face turns red, and he turns away from both Kuznetsov and Nicke to his stall. Kuznetsov doesn’t seem to feel quite as much shame about having been busted coming onto an Omega in the locker room. He blushes slightly across the tops of his cheeks.“Morning, Backy,” he says, and grins, flashing teeth. Kuznetsov is just a baby Alpha, and he doesn’t intimidate Nicke in the slightest. Kuznetsov probably knows that. Nicke rolls his eyes and heads over and sits down next to Marcus.“You gonna be okay?” Nicke asks. Marcus doesn’t look up at him. “Mackan.”“Nick,” Marcus says. “I don’t want to talk about this.”Nick sighs and gives it up. For now. It’s not like Marcus really expects Nicke to let it go. He’s been particularly prickly about it, but he knows Nicke is just looking out for his best interests, and is just trying to make sure that Marcus is going to be fine going through something that he doesn’t necessarily want to do. And God, Marcus really doesn’t want to go through this.They told him it would potentially be dangerous to go back on the suppressants now that he’d had a reaction. Even if they got a different brand, a different manufacturer, his body could still reject it, and the reaction could be even worse. So it doesn’t matter what Marcus actually wants, he’s going to deal with what he has to do now, and how different things are going to be this season compared to the last.Since they always get their suppressants the first day, when they’re getting their physicals, it wasn’t until he came into the locker room the day after his medical scare that anyone even knew what he smelled like without. And he’d just been glad that no one had said anything to him then, because he wasn’t sure how he would have reacted.He knew that he was going to have to make a decision soon, when he could feel his heat getting closer, feel the build up like unused energy coiled up at the base of his spine. He tries to ignore the ways different Alphas on the team react to it when they catch his scent. Instead, he moves through the locker room, just trying to go through his day and not think about it. None of them say anything to him, but he catches them looking, sees nostrils flare. He doesn’t want to smell like anything to them.This sucks.Nicke stops him as he’s leaving the rink that afternoon. He shouldn’t have expected to get away without talking about anything.“Look,” Nicke says, stopping Marcus as he’s about to get into his car. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I just want to make sure that you’re okay with this. I mean.” Nicke stops, looks around to make sure that there aren’t any other people standing around. They’re on the lower floor, so there aren’t a lot of people. “He’s new, this is your first time since you’ve been here, it’s. Are you okay with it?”Marcus sighs. “It’s not what I want,” he tells Nicke. “But there’s no one else I’d - no one is appealing to me, you know? I don’t want to do it but at least he smells good.”Nicke laughs. Marcus doesn’t think of himself as someone who thinks in terms of picking a mate by what Alpha smells good to him - that scent should indicate which one he’s compatible with more than a personality. Dynamic is stupid like that, but it seems to work. He’s definitely heard Mike teasing Nicke about how sweet Nicke smells, and Nicke and Mike are… well. It always worked for Sasha and Ovi, too.“If you end up - if you’re paired with him, are you going to be okay with that?” Nicke asks.Marcus shrugs. “I don’t know,” Marcus says. “We haven’t. I haven’t been through anything yet. With him. Maybe he’s bad in bed.”“You made me worry about you and you’re making jokes about it,” Nicke says, frowning. He crosses his arms over his chest.“You worry a lot more than I do,” Marcus says. “Besides. What’s going to happen is going to happen and there’s nothing I can do about it.”“You could always find someone else. Some stranger. Whatever you do at home,” Nicke says.“I don’t fuck strangers at home,” Marcus says, making a face. “Besides, at least I know Kuzy, and I trust him, and he’s not going to be crazy and make me his weird Omega love slave or something.”“I’m done having this conversation with you,” Nicke says, frowning.“Good!” Marcus says, grinning. “I didn’t want to have it in the first place.”Nicke makes a noise and shoves Marcus, who stumbles slightly, laughing. He takes a deep breath and sighs. “I’ll tell you if something’s wrong, okay? You probably didn’t want to do this when you came back and couldn’t be on suppressants. But you got lucky and you’re happy. Maybe I will too.”Nicke pauses, narrows his eyes. “Do you have a crush on Kuzy?” he asks after a moment.“No,” Marcus says, but maybe it’s too quick. Even if he did, he wouldn’t be able to tell if it were real or if it were all the ridiculous hormones inside his body making him feel that way. “I don’t think so. I don’t know, I can’t tell. I’m too close.”Nicke hums, looking at him thoughtfully.“Fucking stop. Stop looking at me like that. No,” Marcus says.“Okay fine,” Nicke says. “But we’re gonna talk about this again. Later. When you’re not a walking sack of hormones.”Marcus flips him off and gets in his car to leave. Nicke goes to Ovi.Ovi is, on the whole, pretty far removed from anyone else’s dynamic, since Sasha’s been gone. He’d teased Nicke and Mike for a while, but that had gotten boring for him, and he’d moved on, mostly to teasing Willy and Latts, mostly for Willy being the world’s worst Alpha, wrapped around Latt’s little finger.Someone’s gotta give Kuznetsov a shovel talk, and Nicke doesn’t know enough Russian to make sure that Kuznetsov really, truly understands what is going on.Ovi laughs in Nicke’s face, of course. “I’m not giving him shovel talk,” Ovi says. “If anything, you should give to Jojo.”“Jojo is not the Alpha here,” Nicke says.“He breaks Kuzya’s heart, I’m kick his ass though,” Ovi says. Nicke shoves him.“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Nicke says.“No, you worried because Jojo’s some kind of blushing virgin I guess,” Ovi says.“No, I - I mean. It is his first time with someone in the league but that’s not what I mean,” Nicke says. “I just want to make sure that he’s not gonna end up all fucked up from this.”“He’s an adult,” Ovi says. “I think he can handle himself. Did you talk to him about this?”“Yes,” Nicke says. Ovi looks at him for a moment.“He tell you you worry too much?” Ovi finally asks.Nicke shoves him again, and Ovi laughs, and shoves him back, and that starts a shoving match that ends up with both of them on the floor, Ovi with Nicke in a headlock yelling for Nicke to give up, or just yelling as Nicke digs his fingers into the meat of Ovi’s thighs, trying to get him to let up enough for Nicke to get loose.Marcus and Kuznetsov nearly trip over them on their way into the locker room.“I don’t want to know,” Marcus says, then just sidesteps around them, heading for his locker. Kuznetsov stands there for a second, looking at them, grinning.“You getting rid of Greenie?” Kuznetsov asks, looking at Nicke.Nicke pinches Ovi hard on the leg, high up on the inside of his thigh. He yelps and lets Nicke go, and Nicke rolls away from him, sweaty and red faced. Nicke runs a hand through his hair, and Kuznetsov reaches down a hand to help Ovi to his feet. Nicke pushes himself up on his own.“Definitely not gonna date Ovi,” Nicke says, running his hands through his hair again.“He stinks,” Ovi says, not subtly, nodding toward Marcus. “He gonna go any minute.”“I can hear you,” Marcus says irritably. “You’re speaking English.”“He smells great, actually,” Kuznetsov says. Ovi grimaces. “But no, not today, I don’t think.”“Not today,” Marcus says. “By tomorrow morning, though.” He stands up to pull his hockey shorts on. “And also it’s none of your business.”“I’m captain,” Ovi says. Marcus stands there for a second, his chest protector in his hands, and Nicke can tell by the look on his face that he’s going to say something and it’s going to be - well, it’s going to be something.“Not of my ass,” Marcus finally says. Nicke has to give him credit, he doesn’t even blush.Ovi stares at him, stunned. Marcus talks back to Nicke all the time, and to some of the other guys, and he can for sure be a little shit, but Nicke can’t remember a time he’s ever turned it on Ovi. Kuznetsov is weak with laughter, nearly on the floor he’s doubled over so far.“Did he just?” Ovi asks.“I raised him well,” Nicke says.“I came over from Sweden like this,” Marcus says. Willy tries to come into the locker room right then and nearly trips on Kuznetsov.“What’s going on?” Willy asks. Somehow that makes Kuznetsov laugh even harder, but Ovi is trying to pry him off the floor, dragging him bodily toward his own stall.“Absolutely nothing,” Marcus says. Kuzy comes over after practice, toting a bottle of wine - “I don’t drink, but you do, so I figure is nice” - and offering to either make dinner or help Marcus make dinner. It’s nice, Marcus thinks, because typically the Alphas he hooks up with over the summer, between seasons, don’t bother to put effort into anything but fucking him.It’s - it’s nice, because Marcus has a glass of wine, and he and Kuzy have dinner together and it’s nice. It’s nice that they’re getting to know each other outside of a hockey context, and outside of pairing up for Marcus’s heat. Marcus is still confused whether or not his attraction to Kuzy has to do with anything real, or just his hormones.They spend half an hour trying to pick a movie on Netflix that they end up making out through after the first 20 minutes anyway. Marcus can’t remember having ever been in a date-like situation with an Alpha before, so it’s new and weird, and he thinks that he has to ask Nicke what it’s like for him, with Mike, when this is all over.Marcus’s heat hasn’t hit yet, so he’s not wet, but he’s still turned on, with Kuzy’s knee pressed between his and Kuzy’s hand slid into the very top of Marcus’s sweatpants, curved around the bare skin of his hip. Marcus fists his hand in the back of Kuzy’s shirt.“You wanna take this to bed?” Kuzy asks after a while. The movie’s still playing, but neither of them know what’s going on. Marcus doesn’t think of himself as the type to have sex with his Alpha just before his heat, but - he wants.“Yeah,” Marcus says.Kuzy pushes himself up, leaverages himself over Marcus to stand up from the couch, pulling Marcus up. Marcus stumbles from the momentum, bumping against Kuzy, who wraps an arm around his waist and kisses him again.“I can’t tell if me wanting you is my heat coming or not,” Marcus blurts out, and he feels his face heating up. Kuzy laughs, and it’s not his regular loud, brash laugh, but something deeper, sexier, a sound that vibrates against Marcus’s body and sends what feels like lightning arcing down his spine, and he thinks if he could be wet right now, he would be. “I want you to fuck me,” Marcus says.“I can do that,” Kuzy tells him, and Marcus pulls away from him, reaches down and grabs the remote, exiting out of Netflix and turning off the TV. Kuzy reaches out and slides his arms around Marcus, pulling him back until Marcus’s ass is flush to Kuzy’s groin, slipping his hands into the front of Marcus’s sweatpants, sliding his thumbs along the cut of his hips.“Come on,” Marcus says, taking a step, pulling Kuzy with him. They stumble their way out of the living room and down the hall to Marcus’s bedroom.Marcus tugs his t-shirt up and over his head and tosses it onto the floor, and Kuzy throws his to land beside it. He pushes Marcus down onto the edge of the bed and reaches for the waistband of his sweatpants, grabbing them and tugging them down off his hips and tossing them to the floor. He’s naked and hard, sitting barely on the edge of his bed.“Condoms and lube?” Kuzy asks him.“Nightstand,” Marcus says. Kuzy takes a couple of steps forward and tugs the drawer open, rummaging around for a moment before tossing a tube and a packet down on the bed next to Marcus. Before he comes back, he slides his own sweatpants and underwear off, leaving him standing naked in front of Marcus.They’ve seen each other naked before. They’re in a locker room together all the time. Seeing Kuzy naked and knowing that they’re going to fuck is very different. It’s not Kuzy his teammate, or even his Alpha. Just one man standing in front of another, slicking his fingers up with lube and leaning down to press their mouths together.“Gonna fuck you tomorrow, too,” Kuzy says to him, tipping his head down to bite Marcus’s neck, leaving a mark that’s going to be obvious later, probably still obvious in a couple of days when they make it back to practice. “You won’t need lube then. I’ll just shove you down and fill you up.”Marcus fucking whimpers, and it’s embarrassing. It has everything to do with what Kuzy’s saying to him and not at all with the way he’s teasing Marcus’s ass with slick fingers, pressing in just the tip.“Stop fucking talking,” Marcus says. “And finger me.”Kuzy laughs again, the same laugh from the living room except this time, he slides one finger in until the rest of his fist is all the way against Marcus’s ass. He can feel Kuzy’s mouth twisting into a smile against his skin, where Kuzy’s leaving a mark on his neck - too high to hide under his clothes, staking an obvious claim on Marcus’s body. Marcus wants to hate it, but he doesn’t.“More, come on, I can take more, I’m - “ his voice cracks when Kuzy crooks a finger - “I’m an Omega.”“You’re not in heat,” Kuzy says. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”“You won’t,” Marcus says. “You won’t, please - “Kuzy slides in the second finger, and Marcus gives up holding himself up, letting his body fall back onto the bed. Kuzy follows him down, changing his angle and pushing his fingers in further. Marcus groans, closes his eyes.“I like the sound of you begging,” Kuzy tells him.“Yeah,” Marcus says. “You’re gonna get to hear a lot of it tomorrow when I’m begging you to knot me.”He hears Kuzy’s breath catch in his throat. Kuzy pulls his hands away, making Marcus whine, then wipes the lube off his fingers onto Marcus’s sheets, reaching out and grabbing the condom. “Make yourself comfortable,” he says, ripping the condom open.Marcus moves to rest against the pillows, tucking one underneath his head. He watches Kuzy roll the condom on, watches him open the top of the lube and squeeze out more onto his dick. Tomorrow, they won’t need it. Marcus wishes he could remember how many condoms he has in his nightstand, but he can’t. He hopes it’s enough to get through heat.Kuzy climbs onto the bed and settles on his knees between Marcus’s thighs, resting one hand on Marcus’s hip and using the other to guide his cock, brushing the head across Marcus’s ass. It makes Marcus squirm, which makes Kuzy put pressure on Marcus’s hip with his free hand to hold Marcus in place.“Please,” Marcus says, but only once. Kuzy obliges him, pushing into him steady and smooth until his body is pressed flush against Marcus’s.“You’re wet,” Kuzy says, bending down and nudging his nose along Marcus’s jawline, inhaling. Marcus bucks his hips, wanting Kuzy to move. He doesn’t know if he was closer than he thought, or if fooling around this close has made him go early, but he can feel it burning in his abdomen, the aching need that heralds his heat.“I need you to knot me,” Marcus whispers, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to -”“It’s okay,” Kuzy says, and takes one more deep inhale of Marcus’s skin, his scent. He shifts his hips back, pulling out almost all the way and making Marcus whine before pushing all the way back in.Marcus shifts his legs, wraps his heel behind Kuzy’s thigh to pull him in, trying to control it, trying to urge Kuzy to go faster and harder, because he needs it. He digs his fingers into Kuzy’s shoulders, Kuzy’s back. His nails are too short to scratch, but he wants to leave marks. He wants to mark Kuzy as his just as much as Kuzy has marked him.Kuzy fucks him steady, but Marcus - now fully taken over by his heat - wants more. He needs more. He’s not a vocal fuck, typically, but Kuzy has him begging for more, for harder, for faster. Kuzy does, after a fashion, but he seems to enjoy making Marcus beg for it first, and eventually reaches a hand between them to jerk Marcus off, Marcus’s precum smeared across his stomach already.He comes with a gasp, hot and hard across his stomach, smearing across both himself and Kuzy as Kuzy continues to fuck him, until finally Kuzy comes with a yelp, his knot swelling and spreading Marcus wide until Marcus whimpers.“You okay?” Kuzy asks. And it hurts, sure, but it’s supposed to. After a moment, his body is used to it, and he nods his head.Kuzy turns them onto their sides, still locked together by his knot. He’s good, maybe the sweetest Alpha Marcus has ever had, as he pets Marcus’s hair as they come down, waiting to be able to move apart. Marcus will need it again in the morning, or even before his alarm goes off, and he’ll be awake and begging Kuzy to fuck him again.For now, he’s wrung out, and falls asleep with Kuzy’s hand stroking over his hair. “Wow.”That’s all Nicke can say when Marcus shows back up in the locker room two days later, his neck a mess of hickies and one clear, perfect ring of teeth marks. Nicke watches a blush creep up the back of Marcus’s neck without saying anything else, while Marcus strips out of his shirt and reveals the other bitemarks and bruises on his chest and hips.“I can’t believe you let him claim mark you,” Nicke says, keeping his voice low and speaking in Swedish. “Also that’s gonna sting like a motherfucker when you start to sweat.”“Worth it,” Marcus says, and grins. “You should see him.”Kuzy does come in a few minutes later, and when he strips out of his t-shirt, Nicke twists his head from looking at the scratch marks down Kuzy’s back to looking at Marcus, eyebrows raised.“Told you,” Marcus says.It’s not until Ovi wolf whistles and he and Kuzy enter into some kind of shoving match that Nicke realizes that there’s a bite mark on Kuzy as well - Marcus’s claim mark. Nicke’s not sure that he expected that. Claim marks are kind of old-fashioned, and he wouldn’t have expected either Marcus or Kuzy to be that kind of guy. In the heat (ha ha!, he thinks) of the moment, Nicke supposes.“We’re gonna talk later,” Nicke says.Marcus smiles at him, but it’s very smug, and Nicke shoves him over before heading out of the locker room toward the ice.The only way Nicke can actually get Marcus to come over and to be willing to talk about any potential romantic life Marcus may have is for Nicke to invite Marcus over, and for Nicke to cook for him. That, and Marcus isn’t really fit to go out in public without wearing a lot of scarf. Which is fine when he’s walking around outside, because it’s cold, but he can’t exactly go sit down for a meal somewhere in the state he’s in.Marcus sits at the island in Nicke’s kitchen and twirls a beer bottle around and around between his fingers as he watches Nicke cooking, making dinner from his mother’s recipes. Nicke can see the bruises through the thin fabric of the white t-shirt Marcus has on. It’s ridiculous.“What the fuck happened?” Nicke asks, after they’ve both had a couple of beers.“I don’t know,” Marcus says, shrugging. “But apparently I don’t just want him just because he’s an Alpha and I want him to - well, mate with me.”“Based on?” Nicke asks.“I’d rather be with him than with you right now,” Marcus says.“You don’t think I’m irresistibly sexy?” Nicke asks. Marcus fucking laughs at him - hard, throwing his head back and everything. “I’m cooking you dinner!”“Which I really appreciate,” Marcus says, still grinning. “But no, I don’t think you’re irresistibly sexy. Or sexy at all. I just don’t think we’d be sexually compatible. You know, on account of you also being an Omega. And not that I think Greenie could kick my ass, but I don’t want to have to fight him.”“He can totally kick your ass,” Nicke says. “You’re soft. All squish.”“Mmm,” Marcus says. “Probably not what Kuzy would say.”“How did you end up letting someone claim mark you? That’s so - “ Nicke trails off, waving his spatula through the air. “It just doesn’t seem like you.”“I wasn’t even in heat when he did it,” Marcus admits.“Wait - what? How?” Nicke asks.Marcus rubs his hands across his face. “We had dinner together, you know. Because I didn’t know when it was gonna happen, and we wanted to talk, get to know each other as people and not hockey players and it’s like, okay, we’re going to put on a movie, except then - well.” Marcus trails off, and sighs.“I can’t believe you Netflix and chilled Kuzy,” Nicke says, and laughs.“I didn’t mean to!” Marcus says. He’s blushing now, bright pink across the tops of his cheeks. He ducks his head down, and Nicke watches as he brushes his fingers across the bite marks on the side of his neck. “He made me go. I wasn’t in heat, and we were in bed, then I was.”“Mike did that to me once,” Nicke admits. “I should’ve gone the next day, but we were fooling around, and - you know.”They’re quiet, the only sound in the kitchen the sound of sizzling from Nicke’s skillets on the stove. Marcus finishes off his beer, and hops down off his stool to get another. He doesn’t say anything until he’s settled back on the stool. “I want him,” Marcus admits, then. “Not just as my pair Alpha. But. Him. I’m attracted to him, and I feel weird about it because he’s my teammate.”“Me and Mike are okay,” Nicke says.“Maybe I’m not that lucky,” Marcus says.“Look, I don’t know. You won’t know unless you go for it,” Nicke says. Marcus sighs, and takes another drink of his beer. Nicke’s pretty sure that Marcus doesn’t want to keep talking about it. Mike doesn’t re-sign with the Capitals.Nicke feels heartbroken without having ever spoken with Mike about it, when he hears. He shuts himself in the bedroom of his house in Gavle, in the dark. And he cries, and he hates himself for it every second that it happens, but it hurts. He loves Mike. It took him forever to admit it to himself and even longer to be able to admit it to Mike.He doesn’t know if the offer was just that much better, or if Mike didn’t want to be with the Capitals anymore. Maybe Mike didn’t want to be with him anymore, and couldn’t find a way to say it and Mike’s just going to fucking ghost him and leave the team and the state - is DC a state? Nicke’s not really sure how American states work, even after all these years.This is, of course, ridiculous, and Nicke knows it.Mike calls the next day, late in the afternoon for Nicke and still early for Mike. They stare at each other over Skype without saying anything. Mike has a sunburn across the bridge of his nose and the very tops of his cheeks. Nicke loves him so much it makes his throat ache.“Nicky,” Mike says. “I’m sorry.”“Did you want to leave DC?” Nicke asks him.“I didn’t want to leave you,” Mike says. “I don’t give a fuck about if we’re in DC or wherever. Philadelphia.”Nicke laughs, quiet. “Not Philadelphia,” he says. “I love you, you know.”“I know. And you know I love you,” Mike says. “But I had to.”“And it’s not because you want to break up with me but didn’t want to actually break up with me,” Nicke says.Mike barks out a laugh. “You fucking idiot,” Mike says. “If I wanted to break up with you I would, Nicklas. I don’t. I want to be with you and I’m a little pissed off that someone else is going to be your Alpha now.”“I hate it,” Nicke says. “Will you have another pair in Detroit?”“I don’t know,” Mike says. “Will you be pissed if I do?”“I’ll hate it,” Nicke says. “But I have to have a new Alpha, so I can’t. I can’t say that you can’t have someone else.”“Maybe it would be easier on us,” Mike says after a moment, “if we… if we broke up.”“I don’t want to,” Nicke says, immediate.“I don’t either,” Mike says. “But I hate feeling jealous. I hated the jealousy I felt when you came home from Russia after you were with Ovi.”Nicke’s stomach twists at the phrase “came home.”“I want to try,” Mike says. “Even if it doesn’t work out, I want to try. I love you too much not to.”Nicke takes a deep breath, holds onto it, and then exhales slowly, counting to ten.“Let’s try,” Nicke says. They all expect Nicke to pair with Ovi, after that, once Mike is gone. It’s the easy option - Nicke has had Ovi as his Alpha through heat before, even though they’ve never really been paired.“Who are you going to pair with?” Marcus asks him. They’re in the weight room, and Marcus is stretched out on one of the benches, resting between presses while Nicke spots him. “Not Ovi, Greenie would be so pissed if it was Ovi.”“I know,” Nicke says. “It’s hard already, with Mike in Detroit. I don’t want to pick someone that’s gonna piss him off. I thought about - I thought about going back on the suppressants. For him, you know. Maybe I wouldn’t have such a bad reaction to the new manufacturer.”“Mmm,” Marcus says. He reaches up and takes the bar again, and Nicke positions himself as spotter, counting off Marcus’s reps.“Maybe it would be worth suffering,” Nicke says, once Marcus has the bar back on the rack. Marcus sits up, draining half his water bottle into his mouth while frowning at Nicke.“You know it wouldn’t be,” Marcus says. “You said it felt like you were burning alive and you wanted to die. Is Mike worth that?”“Maybe,” Nicke says. Marcus stands up and wipes down the bench while Nicke changes the weights for his set of reps.“You love him that much?” Marcus asks.“Would you do it for Kuzy if one of you got traded?” Nicke asks.“I don’t know. It’s not the same, because I can’t go back on suppressants,” Marcus says. “So I don’t have the option, really, if one of us gets traded.”Nicke hums, then straddles the bench, lying down and stretching out and reaching up to wrap his hands around the bar. Marcus moves into spotting position, and Nicke starts lifting. When he’s done with his set, he sits up.“I just wonder if it’s. Am I betraying him to pair with someone else,” Nicke asks.“You don’t really have a choice, though,” Marcus says. “Your body needs someone. And if Mike would be pissed if it were Ovi, then it has to be someone else, but it has to be someone.”“It’ll be someone. I just. I don’t know what to do,” Nicke says. He stretches back out to do a second rep, and they’re quiet for a while while Nicke works through his reps.“I think,” Marcus says after a while, stretched out on his stomach over one of the lower body machines, his hair brushing across the floor. “That whatever happens, it doesn’t mean that you and Mike don’t love each other. And if we were all just Alphas or Betas it wouldn’t be this complicated, but we’re not. It doesn’t mean you don’t love him, you’re just doing what your biology dictates you have to do. Who fucking knows, maybe one day you guys get back together after you retire and have six babies or something.”“Why are you fucking wise and shit?” Nicke asks. “You’re like a fucking old man in a 25 year old body.”“I love you too,” Marcus says, using his calves to lift himself up to look at Nicke, his hair flopping sweaty into his face. “I think about it a lot. What I would do.” Marcus pushes himself up so he can get off the machine and lean back against it, pushing his hair out of his face. Sweat makes it stick and it’s pretty gross, but something about it makes Nicke see some of what Kuzy must see, whatever sex appeal he finds in Marcus. Marcus is too much like a brother to Nicke at this point, but Nicke briefly thinks that it would be easier if Marcus were an Alpha, and Nicke could go to him. But he also knows that an Alpha Marcus would never be the same as this Marcus.“What would you do?” Nicke asks.“What I had to do,” Marcus says. “I’d pair with another Alpha, but I love Zhenya, you know?”“Love him?” Nicke asks, raising an eyebrow. He hasn’t heard this before. Marcus is too flushed from the workout for Nicke to be able to tell if he’s blushing about it. Nicke assumes he is, because it’s the kind of thing Marcus blushes about. “And you say his name like a Russian.”“He taught me how to say it right,” Marcus says. “He said that he didn’t want his boyfriend to keep calling him by his hockey nickname. Do you know how many Russian nicknames he has? And they all have differing levels of intimacy? It’s wild.”“Does he still call you Jojo? Does he call you Jojo in bed?” Nicke is grinning at him.“No,” Marcus says. “And he never has, so don’t even ask me.”“You’re really ruining this for me,” Nicke says.“Why do you think about what I do in bed so much,” Marcus asks, exasperated. “Stop trying to derail and make this about my relationship. I’d pair, because I don’t have a choice. But it wouldn’t mean that I didn’t love Zhenya and wouldn’t try to keep that relationship as long as I could.”“Don’t you think you’d get jealous?” Nicke asks. They head toward the locker room to shower and change. Marcus shrugs.“Probably,” he says. “But logically you have to try and talk through it if you can. And then if you can’t, you break up, and maybe one day when you’re old and creaky and retired you can try again.”“I’m already creaky,” Nicke asks, stripping out of his t-shirt.“You’re old, too,” Marcus responds.“I left that wide fucking open for you, didn’t I?” Nicke asks.“You usually do,” Marcus says, dodging out of Nicke’s reach as he heads for the showers. They’re out at a bar after a game, some weird place with too-loud music and weird lighting. Marcus has had a few drinks - most of them have - and Marcus is fully just sitting on Zhenya’s lap. Zhenya’s arm is snaked around his waist, and Zhenya himself has his head turned, talking to Dima next to him at the table, while Marcus is leaned forward, his elbow on the table, shouting over the music to have a conversation with Latts.Something at the bar catches his eye.“Oh my God,” he says, stopping mid-conversation with Latts. He’s so startled he almost slides off Zhenya’s lap. “Is that what I think it is?”What he’s pretty sure he’s seeing is Andre Fucking Burakovsky’s hand slipping around Nick Backstrom’s waist as they’re talking near the bar. Andre Burakovsky, a tiny baby Alpha, leaning into Nicke’s space. Marcus is pretty sure that he sees Nicke tilt his head so that Burky can lean in and scent him.Unexpected. A little weird.“Did… Burky just scent Papa?” Latts asks.“Sure looked like it to me,” Marcus says. He leans forward on Zhenya’s lap, making him yelp and squeeze Marcus back against him, while Marcus reaches out to smack Tom to get his attention.“Stop squirming, Marc, you’re gonna kill me,” Zhenya says. Marcus laughs, and because he’s drunk it makes him want to squirm around more, enjoy Zhenya getting hard against his ass. Only, their teammates would never let him live it down if he did and they noticed.“Whip,” Marcus yells. “Did you know about this?”“No, this is totally. That’s new.” Tom tells him.They’re all watching now, the way Burky invades Nicke’s space, leaning in too close to him, possessive. All of them would have thought that Nicke would have paired with Ovi, but now they’re sitting in a bar, watching Nicke invite Burky to take him when he goes into heat.“Hey,” Marcus says, leaning back so that he can get into Zhenya’s ear. It’s an awkward position, but it’s not something he wants to yell out loud and draw attention to with the other guys. “Is Nicke about to go? Do you know?”“I haven’t been paying any attention,” Zhenya says, putting his mouth in close to Marcus’s ear, making him shiver. “He has to be though, right? He hasn’t since the season started. You haven’t either, and you’re gonna.”Marcus smiles, letting his head drop down as Zhenya whispers to him.“How long?” Marcus asks, not bothering to lean back in and whisper.Zhenya trails his fingers along the seams of Marcus’s jeans, on the outside of his thighs. It tickles, and raises goosebumps on Marcus’s arms.“You’re disgusting,” Latts says, grinning at them.“We all have our faults,” Marcus says, picking up his beer bottle and saluting Latts. “Some of us apparently have flaws that are going to lead to us fucking baby Alphas.”Zhenya laughs, a loud bark audible over the music. “You’re cut off, you need to go to bed,” Zhenya says.“Oh, make me,” Marcus says, without really thinking about it. Which is a mistake, since he’s literally sitting in Zhenya’s lap, and he’s kind of ticklish. He almost lands in the floor, but Zhenya catches him easily and they’re both on their feet.“Please kill me if we’re ever that disgusting,” Latts says.“Agreed,” Tom says.Marcus hears their beer bottles clink together behind him as he and Zhenya leave the bar.