Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Solaris is not scared because his scale for fear is fucked up, but he is… upset. Having a gun pointed at his temple was not in today’s agenda.
“What are you going to do? Shoot me?” Solaris barks a laugh, because really. What the fuck this guy even wants. Why does he even if Solaris has or hasn’t beat a fucking little loser of one of his pushers. Like- it happens in this sort of company to take or throw a punch or two. And it’s not his fault if the fucker didn’t shut his fat mouth when Solaris has warned him to.

When the loser has warned him about a visit from his boss, after Solaris has smashed his stupid face on the wall and kicked his torso until he folded in half, he has laughed at his face too. Not believing half word of it. Because from what he knows the boss of a neighbor pusher doesn’t give a fuck about the state of their face.

And yet…this motherfucker is here. With a fucking gun pointed at Solaris head.

“You know, it’s a messy business dealing with a dead corpse.” He goes on because the man doesn’t say anything.

Besides they are in the middle of morning. Full day, outside. Sure the bench Solaris has claimed as his new sleeping quarters is half hided, in an area of the parc less crowded, far form the playing area with the screaming kids and the too curious and aware mums.

But they are still in Canada, and this sort of this doesn’t happen in Canada. They don’t shoot at people in parks in the middle of the morning here.

The man keeps silent, just an eyebrow goes up at the mention of a dead corpse, so Solaris shuts his mouth too and squares him up like the guy is doing with him.

What worries his the most is how this motherfucker has found him.

He is a middle age white man, with thick, dark blond beard. Classic blonde dude with blue eyes, like more or less everyone in this god damn nation. Also, he is a dom. Which bleh. A middle age dom with a gun. The combination that Solaris dislikes the most.

The dom has squared shoulders and cracked nose. He is old but well kept. Solaris can see that he must do some sort of exercise and that in the youth he was built like a bull. Strong and heavy. From how his feet are planted on the floor he must have some past in the military life, and from the steadiness of the gun this is not the first time that he points it on someone’s face, and probably neither the first where he actually takes the shoot.

All of this lead to one thing: danger.

The guy is older, and probably shorter, but heavy and probably knows his way in hand-to-hand fight. Now: Solaris is younger and more skilled, but he is bone deep exhausted without a full meal in a couple of months.
So, he is not sure if he would be able to overpower the man. All this considered that 1. Maybe he is not alone. 2. The gun. 3. Probably it is not the only weapon he has.

For one, terrifying, moment he fears this guy is a cop. That would be very bad.

The dom doesn’t lower the gun, but he eyes wander behind Solaris. To the bench and observing his things. Solaris swallows down. He doesn’t like this. Why is this guy so calm? Why isn’t he talking?

The silent ones are always the worst ones.
Solaris settles to wait. He is not going to break the silence first. It would meant losing and he is not a loser.

“The kid just wanted to help.” The man says, and Solaris is absolutely not surprised that is voice is so deep and smooth. So easy to follow.

He snorts. “Nobody asked him to.”

The “kid” tried to make him space. Without his consent, which is harassment. Solaris told him to fuck off, the kid not only didn’t, but he insisted and so Solaris clobbered him.

That’s it. Pretty simple.

“He is young.” The man says in response, as being young would excuse someone for being a jerk. “I warned him about you. Heard a couple of curious stories about the boy with orange eyes that has popped up from nowhere down at the port.”

Solaris shudder. Fuck. He has never hated his eyes more than now. He would like to do something about them. He can’t afford contact lens and besides he doesn’t have enough fresh water to put them on and off safely, and he doesn’t have sunglasses. Besides, by now everyone down the port knows him and knows that he has orange eyes, it wouldn’t have sense trying to cover them anymore.

It’s still a fucked situation and fucking easy to recognize.

“Told him to not fuck with someone who has crossed the fucking ocean with a fucking rubber boat and made it alive. Fucking monster.”

Solaris flinches again, harder, just in memory of those terrible, never-ending days. Lost in the middle of the sea, just water and water and water and nothing beside him and his stupid little boat. Under the sun, with not enough food and potable water. And then the waves, enormous, and terrible. And then the tempest, the falling in water, thinking “that’s it” and making peace with it. With the knowledge that at least he tried. That he would die like a coward.

And yet, somehow, he didn’t die. The ocean didn’t swallow him down. Sharks, or other fish, didn’t eat him, he didn’t die from dehydration and he passes an unknown amount of time gripped to a floating piece of wood until a fishing boat picked him up.

The boat came from Canada and so he handed up in Canada.

A full body tremble shakes him completely. Suddenly the smell of salt and the taste of sea water shocks him. He loses balance and even if he seated on a bench, on the fucking ground, he feels the vertigos of being on water. His hands go freezing cold in a moment and the last breath gets stuck somewhere in his throat.

“But now it’s fine, yes? You are nice and dry at the park. With trees all around you and grass and solid soil under your feet.” The man says as sensing his panic. The dom’s voice snaps him back to reality. Yes, yes. He is on land. In the dry. He is safe and alive. No more sea for him.

“Yeah, like that. Breath a little deeper.” The dom keeps talking, and Solaris hates how much itis actually helping. The gun is still in front of his face, but the dom’s posture is more relaxed than before.
If Solaris’s muscles didn’t feel like jelly, it would be the perfect moment to launch against the man and steal the gun. He doesn’t. He barely feels the point of his fingers, so instead he relaxes on the back of the bench.

“What the fuck you want form me?” Solaris asks, because it’s clear that the man doesn’t want to kill him. Maybe he wants to beat him, which is fine to him. Pretty fair. Solaris has beat the boy and not the boss beats him. Not the first, not the last for sure.

“Well that you don’t beat my boys for instance.” The guy has the audacity to smirk.

“Teach them to respect a no.” Solaris shoots back.

The man snorts. And he puts away the gun. Solaris watches him, wary, but doesn’t move. He is not going to move until the man tries something wrong. If not Solaris is going to let him be. He suspects this motherfucker is not exactly a small fish. Better not having beef with this one.

“It’s cold here in the winter.” The man says with a light tone, like commenting on the weather.

Solaris doesn’t answer. He may not have finished school, but he is not stupid, he knows where the guy wants to arrive. Also, he knows that in Canada is fucking cold, it’s Canada. But Solaris grew up in Russia, ended up in the Siberian tundra for a while and the ocean water is fucking cold. So yeah. But he is working on the little problem of finding a house. And the document’s part too.

It’s just fucking long and complicated and expensive.

“Your English is good, but very scholastic.” The man comments on. “Where are you from?”

Solaris keeps shut and glaring. This guy already knows too much about him for his liking.

The man signs after seeing that Solaris is not going to give in.

“Does the keta help you sleep?” he keeps asking, almost kindly. “Keep the drop at the bay?”

Solaris shoots up on his feet and snarls. “Fuck off.”

The guy doesn’t back down like he wished, but he raises his hands in surrender. “Easy big boy. Easy. It’s all fine. Just asking.” he says and the words, the tone, the lack of fear in his eyes, the kindness, just makes Solaris angrier. He is not a fucking dog that you can call big boy and say easy at.

Solaris takes a step in his direction, looming over him. Not much, but he is taller. Good. He likes to be the tallest in the room. It makes him feel safer.

“Fuck. Off. I’m not a dog. I don’t care you the fuck you think you are, but I will smash your stupid face too if I have to.” he warns him. He growls actually. Solaris knows that he is borderline feral right now, that if he doesn’t calm down, he will go down completely, the drop making him go very aggressive and very violent and not allowing logic reasoning. He hates it, and the hate makes him spiral faster.

The man finally takes a small step back and something inside him quietens down. Breathing at a normal cadence is a little easier.

“Ok, ok. It’s all good, yes? I got the message: you are not a dog. Got it.”

Happy and more grounded, Solaris releases the punches that he didn’t even realize to have closed. He forces his shoulders to relax and to return to planet earth. The last thing he wishes it’s to go feral and giving this dom the right to actually try some trick or worst call some sort of Canadian sub social services.

“Do you want to know something funny?”

No, Solaris doesn’t. He grunts hoping that would be enough as a no. It’s not.

“We share the same boss. That’s why I know some much about you.” The man says with a smile. “You work for EJ, right? Big dude, a little fat, around fifty, that smokes too much and has always the same pair of jeans. He deals with the construction part. Nice little houses by the lakes.” By the description it seems like he is not guessing. That he actually knows EJ. “They didn’t insist too much on the contract I imagine. Old pal Bill told about it, right?”

Solaris doesn’t answer, but that doesn’t stop the man. “He always had a good nose for this sort of thing. A talent if you ask me.”

Solaris keeps silent. He doesn’t understand why this guy is telling him all this shit.

“I know that one of my boys is searching for a new housemate.” The man offers with a shrug. “The rent is around 800 and it’s not that far from the city center. There are no problems for the lease.” And then. “He is a sub too.”

Solaris snorts and looks away. He returns to sit down on the bench.

He hates that despises his size, people can still guess his dynamics.

“Why should I trust you uh?”

It’s not like Solaris is so stupid that he is going to enter in a stranger dom car, that is a gangster, just to the promise of a room.

“How do I know that you are not into sub trafficking or some shit, uh?”

The dom signs. He reaches the back pocket and Solaris tenses up, afraid of the gun, and breathing out when it’s just the phone. He digits until there is a sound of a phone call.

“Hei boss, what’s up? ” a young voice rings on the other side.
“Hei, I hope I’m not disturbing you. Maybe I found a good candidate for you.” The older man says.
“Really? ” it sounds genuinely happy. “Are they a sub? I don’t care about the gender, but the dynamics...I want to feel safe in my home. ” The boy says.

The man chuckles. “Yes, he is. I have heard about your preferences, don’t worry. I got him here with me, do you want to chat a little? I think he got some questions for you.”

The man smiles when Solaris glares at him.

“Of course, no problem! ” the boy exclaims.

“Here.” The dom passes him the phone, which Solaris takes with a frown.

“Hi, I’m Sam.” Solaris presents himself with the fake name he is using. “With whom am talking with?”

“Hi! I’m Thomas, but everyone calls me Tommy! I’m a 21-year-old sub, I like to keep the kitchen clean and to have flowers on the balcony in summer. My ex-housemate is a close friend of mine, but he just got collared so he moved out with his new dom. I like to share meals with someone, and I don’t like to sleep alone in the house, so I don’t work well in living on my own. ”

The speed is what surprise Solaris the most. Again, it sounds genuine and not like a scam. But still, Solaris is not easy to give trust.

“Uhm- I can be tidy I suppose.” It’s all Solaris manages to say.

“Do you have any pets? Because I’m allergic. ” it doesn’t seem to be a problem.

“No.”

The boy exhales. “Oh cool. When can you come to see the house? My schedule is pretty flexible, but I can’t start tomorrow at 5 pm I can’t. ”

Oh, this fast. All right. He gives a quick glance at the older man, who is already half smiling. “Wait, wait. So, the rent is for a room, right? A single?”

The boy answers all his questions. About the house, the rent, the owner, the area and in the end, they settle to visit that evening. Solaris tracks down the address and Tommy’s phone number.

*

Solaris moves the day after, and sleeping on a proper bed feels unreal. Tommy works in one of the labs to synthesize some drugs.

He started to talk about it, in detail, because it turns out that Tommy talks a lot, about everything, but Solaris stops him fast.
“I don’t want to know. The less I know the better.” He says over the first dinner they share.

The thing is that Solaris doesn’t plan in being involved in this gang situation much more. The sooner he can get out of it, the better. And the only way to actually get out this sort of situation is to know the less possible. For now, all he needs is a job and a house without a proper, legal contract with the proper, legal documents, because he doesn’t have any. To put aside enough money to keep living without a job for when he is going to ask political exile and then Canadian citizenship and at the proper offices.

Tom is quick to understand that Solaris doesn’t talk much and especially about his past. He doesn’t take offence about it, probably it’s not the first time that he meets an irregular immigrant, and he compensate with his own talking.

Solaris has no idea about his working schedules. Solaris goes out home around seven, seven and half after he bought a bike, and returns around eight. When he goes out Tommy is still sleeping or walking around the kitchen like a zombie (he is not a morning person) and when he returns, Tommy is usually there, waiting for him to eat dinner together.

*

Everything is going fine. Solaris has a nice house, a couple of new, well maybe friends, it’s a big word, but people that he hangs out with regularly, which enjoys the company. He and Tommy have settled in a nice, comfortable pace. It’s almost domestic. They eat dinner together almost every night, with Tommy cooking and him cleaning. Then Solaris showers and then they watch something curled on the sofa, or they keep talking if they are in the mood.

Work is fine too. It’s tiring and physical demanding. But it feels good to move again some weight and to sweat his own money. Solaris is starting to regain some of the weight he has lost in the time of his run.

It pisses him off the lack of proper ID, how long and difficult it seems to be to have new ones, and he can’t sleep without having a joint. He still has some meth in stock, for when sleeping is impossible, or after a particular bad nightmare, or when he his body starts to lose it for the need of spacing.

He can’t fucking stands these new needs that he finds himself blocked with. Besides he can’t trust any of the doms he knows. Just the thought makes him spiral. So he takes the meth to relax enough and to be high enough to space without dropping.

But, aside from that Solaris considers himself in a very good position. Especially considering his starting point.

Until around three months after moving in with Tommy, and four in Canada, he returns home and finds a stranger in the house. The apartment is dark, which is the first sign that makes his body hair on the back of his neck rise. Careful in not making a sound he walks towards the kitchen, where comes from the only dim sources of light.

It’s the led map up the gas. Fills the room of a strange, cold, yellow light witch Tommy uses for cooking. Usually thought, he switches on another, bigger, light too since that small one is not enough.

His hand goes on his back, under the jacket and the jumper where he keeps the knife and hides it behind the leg. There is a shadow moving on the wall of a person. It’s a man from the cut of the hair and the shape of the torso. It’s too big for being Tommy’s.

Now that he is closer to the kitchen, he can hear the low sound of the tv. It’s on a French channel and neither him nor Tommy knows anyone that specks French.

He grips the knife harder.

Solaris breaths in a last time before lunching against the infiltrator in his fucking house. He shoves the stranger’s face against the wall, blocking his against it, with an arm turned, using an easy, but effective, body lever to immobilize him. With the other hand he pushes the lateral blade of the knife against their throat, with enough pressure to make them feel it, but not to break the skin.

The man shifts under him, trying to break the grip on his wrist, and Solaris puts even more weight in it. He is reaching the breaking point of the bone.

“I’m Rick! Richard!” the man says in hurry, a little bit out of breath. Solaris doesn’t know any Rick. Or Richard. So he doesn’t bulge. “Tommy’s boss. The guy from the park that had found you this place.”

Oh. Now he recognizes the voice. It’s too dark to see his face, especially now that it’s in the shadow of Solaris frame, but he is sure about the voice. He releases the grip at his arm, and the blade from the neck and takes a step away.

“What the fuck.” the guy, Rick apparently, mutters. “I was worried you would have broken the wrist.” He complains.

Solaris doesn’t acknowledge it as he switches on the big light. Yes, definitely him.

“What are you doing in my house? In the dark?”

The older man uses the other switch to turn off said light with an annoyed gesture.

“Tommy dropped at work today. I’m taking care of him, but he wanted to wait for you for dinner. He is on the coach, resting, that’s why the lights are off.” He explains like Solaris is supposed to already know all of this. “I texted you about it.”

Ah.

Rick returns to the stove, checking the pot.

“I didn’t check the phone.” Solaris says. He is not going to apologize for what has just happened. “I thought you were an ill-intentioned person.” This is how close he is going to a proper sorry.

Rick snorts, but doesn’t turn, busy using the wooden spoon.

“How is Tommy?” he asks then. Because dropping is never a happy event and he doesn’t like the fact that the sub’s boss had to bring him home.

“Better, but still a little messed up.” Tommy’s voice makes both of them turn. His voice is little and weak, sort of cranky like he had cried a lot. The face is white like a white like snow, the eyes red and puffy. Basically, he looks like shit.

Solaris hurries at his side, taking most of his weight as he walks (small and dragged steps) to the closest chair.

“What are you don’t up?” Rick asks, with an accusing spoon in the air.
“Heard you two talking.” Tommy manages a weak smile. “Did Solaris managed to take you down?”

Rich scoffs. “Only because I didn’t expect it.” As Solaris says at the same time a proud. “Yes.”

“Where do you found that thing by the way?” Rick moves around the kitchen with familiarity where things are in the cupboards to set the table. Solaris decides to wash his hands with the dish soap in the kitchen even if it’s going to dry his hands like hell because he doesn’t feel to leave Tommy barely out a drop with a dom alone.

“The garden shop.” They have many interesting items, if you consider that everything that can cut a plant can cut meat and bones easily enough.

He takes out the glasses and puts them down.

“What thing?” Tommy asks, eyes big and curious.

Solaris retrievers the knife from the back of the trousers, showing him, no seeing why he should hide this.

Tommy’s eyes go even more wide. “Do you go around armed?” He sounds horrified.

“Why, you not?” Solaris frowns. Tommy literally synthesizes drugs for living. For the local mob.

Tommy makes a scandalized face. “Of course not!” He exclaims. “We are in Canada!”
Solaris turns to Rick, in search of support. Because Rick must go around armed. With a gun. But apparently Rick is a coward, because he is not even looking at them, very focused in putting the pasta in the plates.

“Better safe than sorry.” Solaris settles in managing on his own.

Tommy goes sad, for same strange reason. “Don’t you feel safe here?” he asks in such tender and caring way that Solaris doesn’t even know how to react.

The answer is no. He doesn’t. But it’s not their fault. It’s not the neighborhood or the people he works for, or the people Tommy works for. The fear comes from Russia, and Solaris feels that he didn’t escape far enough. And probably never will.

He is scared that some Russian agents will come and kidnap him and return him to the facility.

Solaris feels a shiver of pure terror darting through his spine. He clears his throat.

“It’s more a habit actually.” it’s not even a lie. Even if he didn’t escape, even before, he grew up in a place where it was better to have something to defend yourself in case of necessity. He started to go around with a knife in the pocket of his jeans around ten.
Tommy doesn’t insist, and Solaris is fucking grateful for that. He is less for Rick presence. He can’t fully relax with a stranger dom so close to him. In his space.

They start eating in silence. But it’s kind of oppressive. Solaris would like to know what has triggered Tommy’s drop, who he has to hunt down and smash the face, but he doesn’t want to stick his nose around or worst trigger the drop again.

He also wishes to not have to see how Rick fills the smaller sub’s glass of water because he is too weak to raise the full bottle, or to cut the chicken in the pasta in smaller pieces.

“How did your day went?” Tommy raps out.

Solaris suddenly remembers a funny thing that has happened today.
“Oh, you would never guessed who I have met this morning.” He shoves a big fork of pasta in his mouth. “Our lovely neighbor.” He says indicating with the thumb the flat next to theirs.

Tommy’s eyes spark of interest and with a little more life than before.

“Really? Did you tell him anything?” he asks to Solaris, before turning to Rick and explain the situation. “Basically, from last week the couple of that flat has started to fuck like rabbits every god damn day. But like super loud.”

Solaris nods. “Yes, the girl screams like they are skiing her alive.”

Tommy rolls his eyes. “Yes, totally fake in our opinion.”

Rick looks completely involved in the gossip. “Every day?” he clarifies.

Tommy nods serious as fuck. Solaris is very gland than some color has returned to his cheeks.

“Everyday. For like 5 minutes though.” Tommy laughs a little. “So what did you told him?”

Solaris shrugs. “Nothing much.” he has been really polite, but only because the guy last little. “I told him that we live here and if they could…you know take in more consideration the neighbors.” He says. “And the guy like, goes white in the face. But like in a second. And he is like: but I’m just returned from Toronto.”

Tommy’s jaw drops. Solaris matches his shock. “I know bro. I know.”

“I really hope they are going to fight this night, so we can hear.” Rick is smirking from ear to ear. It contaminates Tommy too.
“Oh fuck yeah.”

(The two do fight that night. And the three of them mute the TV to hear the discussion better.)

**

It takes him almost two years to finally have some temporal ID. In the mean time he has moved from Halifax to Ottawa and then Toronto. He did a course for having the license as tattoo artist and basically doesn’t do meth anymore.

But mostly he started to play hockey.

Canadians have an obsession over this sport. It’s ridiculous the amount of people that have a fixation over it. Over the players. The teams. The various leagues.

Solaris is no new to the sport. He didn’t know the rules, nor he has never actually played it or watched a full game, but he used to skate too. He used to do ice skating when he was a kid, before everything went shit, and he remembers these groups of smelly boys toddling around with those stupid sticks and the protection masks.

Once in Canada, with the start of the season he got dragged to see some games of the local team. And when Tommy and friends discovered that he used to skate, they dragged him on ice. It wasn’t been hard to convince him to apply for a beer league. Solaris does like skating. He missed it, terribly.

Sure, he doesn’t jump or spin, like he used to, and he has put that aside. He is too big and heavy now. So hockey. Hockey is not bad, it turns out. It’s a good mixture of speed and fighting.

Also hockey is good for his body. Since he didn’t work in building sites anymore, passing his work days seated comfortably on the stool, drawing and tattooing, he has a lot of unspent energy. And the gym is one expensive, two boring.

Hockey training gives him a purpose. The shouting of the coaching stuff is easy to follow and helps him settle that stupid part of his brain that craves for orders. Winning is good, losing less, but manageable. There are worst things in life, Solaris knows.

It does help that sometimes he can’t sleep a lot. That instead of meth, he takes the stick and the puck and go outside, doing shoots until he is tired again. Or that he jumps on squats until he doesn’t feel his legs. Or pushups, or pull ups , or jumping the cord or whatever he feels to do. So it’s not really a surprise when he improves till the eye can see and that in neither a couple of months, he goes from the last guy arrived that barely knows the rules to the point leader.

When Coach takes him aside and asks him if he is interested in giving a shot in a local, semi-professional team he says yes. From there the path is not simple, because he still worked his ass off, but pretty linear.

Hockey gives him the opportunity to move a lot around Canada, to put a lot of distance from the port he has arrived and even if in all this time nobody has come to search for him, he still finds to breathe a little easier. It also helps him with the bureaucratic situation, which is fucking unfair but he is not going to complain.

*
2022

Four years later he plays for a AHL team in the US, he has the Canadian citizenship, he does a fair amount of money, that he is managing with the main purpose of stocking enough cash is case of running and paying lawyers to keep the Russians away from him.

He has a dom, a stripper he met in a club, that likes to play the sugar baby act, which Solaris doesn’t mind until she doesn’t spend too much and she signs everything that Solaris tells her to sign.

Being selected for the Olympic roaster is a big surprise.

“Are you sure?” Solaris asks his agent, because it sounds like someone has made a big mistake.
“Of course! Fuck Sol you are a fucking point machine!” his agent, Cal, always sounds so fucking excited.

Solaris is a fucking money machine for him too.

It wasn’t a mistake. So Solaris found himself on a plane crossing the other ocean, so fucking stressed that the medical staff on board tried to make him take a sleeping pill. Which he refused.
The moment the little figure of the plane was up the map of Corea, flying on soil, Solaris has relaxed.

He is not scared of flying, or height. So traveling around the American continent is not a problem. He is fucking terrified of the ocean under them and the possibility to end up in the water again.

They don’t crash and they take a bus to the hotel. He throws up anyway that night after a nightmare of being shipwrecked again.

The Games per se are sort of overwhelming at first. He shares the room with Jack McBain, another forward of two years younger than him that plays in the college league. Jack is messy, his farts stink like hell, and he thinks he is better than he actually is.

For the covid restrictions the famous “Olympics sex” is banned and Jack laments about that pretty often especially at meal time where they eat in the common area, and he spots various girls and say shit like “oh I would go with that one.” or “would love that ass.” or “nah bro too muscular, not my type.”

Solaris doesn’t point out the misogyny in those comments, or that Jack with that crocked face and that shitty temper of his wouldn’t be successful in sneaking any of those girls.

He trains with these people that he has never seen before, mostly not even hear the name, and try to work together like a team for two weeks and follows the doping drama around the ladies’ Russian team of ice skating.

Solaris looks at them, in their nice outfits, doing those beautiful movements. Looking so light and flying in air during the jumps. He looks and something inside of him boils for rage. Of envy.

That should be me, if only life wasn’t a nasty, fucking unfair, bitch.

So when at the third period of the quarterfinals a Swedish motherfucker that wears 23 scores in the first minutes, Solaris thinks “no bitch” he wastes two precious minutes to convince the coach in putting him on ice again, instead of someone with more experience, and then he does what he can do better.

He forces his way in. He was saving the energy for the last two games, so he still didn’t skate at full speed. But he is willing do risk it.

Solaris honestly doesn’t give a fuck if for some reason that he can’t see, his teammates have all collective decided that they are going to lose this game. He will play the last period alone if he has to. He will win it alone if he has to.

He doesn’t give a fuck.

His childhood was dictated by the Russian ice-skating mentality and then he passed ten years fighting in underground, illegal, MMA. Where if you lose, you die or almost. So, no, Solaris doesn’t participate “to have fun”.

Winning is the first place, everything else is losing. And losing is not an option.

And he doesn’t go down without a fight.

So he skates faster, he goes very deep in a couple of seconds. Only one of the Swedish defensemen is close. He can see him with the corner of the eyes. He gives another push and he is alone in front of the goalkeeper. Solaris sees the shoot before doing it.

The bugle screams and they are one to one.

The others are over him with some seconds of delay. They are screaming and celebrating. Solaris doesn’t really perceive them. He is looking up at the time.

56 point 32 seconds.

Coach decides to take Tomkins out, and Solaris will scream at him after the game, because the Swedishes score another goal at the ’58.

For the moment Solaris doesn’t give a fuck. He doesn’t hear his name getting called for a last minute’s change, and he darts up again to steal the puck.

What a fucking stupid rule, he thinks as he scores from the neutral zone how can you play a game without the goaltender.

2 at 2. They are at the ‘59 minute.

Barbiero takes a penalty for interfering, but he stops Lander from Sweden who was attempting a desperate shoot.

Overtime.

Solaris just needs a glare to coach for being left on ice. Staal is the man for the face off.

“Win it and then pass to me.” He says to Staal. Who nods. He is out of breath and covered in sweat. It’s late and Solaris bets that he is moving only thanks to adrenaline.

Solaris puts himself in the best position for Staal to pass. Somehow Staal wins and passes to him. Solaris doesn’t even move from his position. He just scores from there.

Apparently, it’s the shortest overtime in the Olympics history. Solaris doesn’t give a fuck about the record, or the hat trick.

At the media time he is forced to attend after the game he is snappish. A journalist dares to observe that he doesn’t look very happy right know, and Solaris gets up and walks out.

The semifinals are against Russia.

It’s strange to play against the team that he considers his. Solaris is not Canadian, he should represents Russia, he still considers himself Russian.

In the second time there is huge fight, with him at the center of it and other two Russian. He gets expelled from the game because he has hurt, like bad hurt, one of them, but the boys have seemed to have woken up from that indolence, and started to play hard again. So they take the game in.

Solaris sobers that not-so-big-could-be-worst scolding from coach and that night Jack told him the fight has been “awesome” with shiny eyes.

Solaris fucks with the goaltender of the Finland women’s team in a closet. He takes her bare, slammed against the wall, a hand around the mouth. The day after he does the same with the men’s team.

They win three to one. Every shoot it’s his.

Solaris returns home with a golden medal, the MVP award and a golden ticket to NHL.

Chapter Text

November 2023 – Paul Maurice

You can say a lot of things about Rowene. You can say that he is one of the biggest talents in the league, for example. Or that he is an asshole. You can say he is a little bit of a slut sometimes. That he has squared balls. That his dom is stunning almost like him. That he is a little eccentric with those long hairs and the red eyeliner. You can say that he is arrogant and full of shit.

Paul won’t say anything about that. But Paul knows something for sure. Rowene is one of the most serious and diligent people in the room aside from Barkov.

So when he doesn’t show up for practice without any notice, Paul knows that something is up.

His feeling only gets worst when he hears that he is not answering the phone, or texts, and neither his dom is.

Everyone is on edge. Barky and Chucky dropped by his house, but they returned empty handed. To the press they say that Rowene is sick. They lose the game, because everyone is worried sick and nobody can really focus. The doms drip in fights easily, penalty minutes rising. The subs are snappy and scared. All of them are tucked between someone’s legs during intermissions, and Paul can’t really get angry when stupid errors happen or when Bob misses an easy shot.

At the media interrogation, Paul manages a shrug and a sad smile. “Not every night can be your night, right?” he says as an answer.

The day after they depart for a road trip of one week in Canada. Paul passes by Rowene’s house to try a last time before taking the plane. Nobody answers at the door and the lights are off.

The second day of Rowene’s disappearance his dom, a young woman named Talhia, with green eyes and delicate nose, finally answers the damn phone.
“She said that they had a fight and broke up.” Emily from the personnel office reports over the zoom call. Paul is in a small meeting room with the head of the medical staff, Alec, at the hotel. On the line there is Bill Zito and Adelyn from PR. All of them with grim faces.

“She doesn’t know where he is.” Emily finishes and Paul feels like an immense weight is crushing his lungs. He will have to ask Dakota from staff to kneel form him a little bit before bed to hope and calm the nerves enough to catch some sleep.

Bill raises his virtual hand because since covid they all got really polite with Zoom calls.

“Yes?” Emily gives him the word.

“I think we should start to consider the possibility to report at the police as a missing person.” he says. Adelyn takes a visibly shattered breath, while Emily nods.

“I agree. The girl was clearly agitated at the phone and she became a little erratic when I have mentioned the police, which made me…suspect. She told me to not worry too much about it and that he uses to hide when he is in a feral state.”

“So he has dropped.” Alec clarifies. Because it’s a fundamental detail.

“Apparently yes. She remained vague about it, so I suppose that yes, he dropped, for her fault, went God knows where, and now she is feeling guilty for this mess but doesn’t want to take her responsibility.” Emily’s voice hardens, and she takes a big, calming, breath. “The girl has assured me that he will come back in a couple of days, on his own.”

“We need to consider that if we call the police, the media will know about his in matters of hours.” The PR observes, which well. Nobody will want to deal with them.

In the end they decide to wait another day before calling, in the hope that Rowene will find his way back on his own.

*

He doesn’t return on his own, but karma does the job for them. The morning after they wake up with the news of Rowene’s house on fire. Hockey’s side of Internet explodes.

Police tell someone of their staff that informs Paul and the others on the road that no body was found in the house, but it’s undeniably an arson.

*

Four days after they still don’t have any news of Rowene.

A little, deep part of Paul is starting to fear the worst.

Bill has a press conference with the head of the police to say that Rowene has been missing and that an investigation has been started. The fire has destroyed the majority of the property, leaving almost no evidence. Taliha has been interrogated, but they don’t get to know the detail about it.

Agents are searching for him. His car has been founded in the garage, so the area of research is pretty restricted, since they suppose he is on foot.

Media presses them. The general sentiment is anguish and stressed.

Police are considering the possibility of kidnapping and with the day passing even death. They all get interrogated. Getting asks if they saw someone following him, if they heard Solaris lamenting about a fan, online hate. About his relationship with his dom.

Bill confides to him that the agents believe that Tahlia has killed him.

*

On the sixth day the police don’t search for an alive person anymore.

*

Ten days have passed and still nothing.

The moral is down the heel on the flight back. There are already some people form the staff that are starting to organize something to show the respect.

*

On the twelfth day the social media offices are teeming of energy, video making for Rowene, and flowers, photos have started to pop up and mushrooming at the entrance of the practice area with floods of crying fans coming to show their respect or leave something in memory.

In this setting, Paul is at the second coffee of the day (and it’s not even eleven in the morning, but it has been some difficult days) when Aron, a staff member, comes running in the meeting room where he and the rest of the coaching staff are trying to sort out something for the morale and to keep going.

“He is here!” Aron almost yells. He is out of breath, the chest rising up and down like has just run and eyes wide open.

Jamie is the fastest to react. “Who?”

“Rowene!”

Paul shoots on foot. “Where?”

They all jog behind Aron as he blurts out trying to explain. “He is- I don’t even know where to start.” they turn a corner. “He entered through the public entrance. And he has a dead panther over the shoulder and oh my God-”

What the fuck.

Aron takes out the phone. “Yes, I have Paul. Okay, coming.” He turns off the call. “Medical.” He says and they go down to the medical area of the facility. Paul doesn’t really know what to expect. His hearth is battling in his chest, somehow his nausea has gotten worst and he needs a cigarette.

At the same time all he wants to do is to see Rowene, and check on him.

By the time they arrive to the doc, there is already a mess. Bill is there, with two security agents, Rowene, a dead panther, a dead snake, Alec and two other doctors. And basically everyone is freaking down.

The two security agents and Rowene are fighting. Alec and Bill are trying to separate them.
Everyone is yelling.

Paul takes a big breath, grounding himself.
“Enough! Stop it!” He raises his voice, instilling every single drop of dom voice in the order. Everyone stops abruptly and turns to him.

“Everyone out except for Alec and Solaris.” he orders then, because Rowene passed twelve days possibly in feral state.

“But- “one of the two agents tries to argue.

“Out.” Paul’s tone doesn’t leave space for arguing. He whispers at Aron to collect Bobby. Just in case Rowene is not able to use English. It happens pretty often that during subdrop the sub regresses to their mother language. And Bobby is fucking perfect to this situation. Paul knows he is not going to lose his calm, and he and Rowene chit chat often in Russian.

Slowly they walk out of the room, and Paul can breathe better. He his eyes locked on Rowene, who is staring back, and waits to be alone before breaking the eye contact to actually look at him.

“He needs to go to the hospital.” It’s the first thing Alec says, anxious, when the door closes.

Alec is not wrong. Paul can’t wrap his head on how Rowene has managed to not only to arrive here on his own two legs, but also keep fighting against the two agents.

Rowene looks like a survivor to a plane crash on a desert island, if not worst. He is covered on blood, dirty and sweat. Barefoot, chest naked with hungry sun burns that are almost purple on the shoulders and cheeks.

The left shoulder is covered of blood, with a black, big, point on the pectoral. A bullet, his brain supplies. The right wrist is twice swollen than normal. There are deep cuts, like claws all other the up chest, the abdomen, the arms and hips which Paul can only imagine coming from the dead panther.

And when Rowene turns, because despite all this, Rowene keeps standing and walking and moving around like he doesn’t have a broken wrist and a bullet in the other fucking shoulder, his back is bloody too, with the clear signs under the dirt, the sand, the sweat of a heavily dose of whipping that has broken the skin in a lot of bloody cuts.

Paul inhales, forces his shoulders to relax, the instinct to go and find and tearing apart that stupid dom he has, had, and tries to ponder the situation the best he can.

He makes a gesture to Alec to not talk again, when the doc opens the mouth again.

Rowene is as stubborn as talented. If Paul knows something is that it’s impossible to make him do something he doesn’t want to. Also Paul doesn’t know his full story, but it’s of public domain that the sub has asked political exile form Russian and that something very bad and very traumatic has happened in his life.

Alec backs down, as both of them follow with the eyes Rowene moving around the room, rummaging inside the cabinets, throwing out carelessly what he wasn’t looking for and putting aside what apparently he is searching for.

“Solaris.”

The sub’s face snap in his direction. His eyes are present, lucid, with only a background light, slightly glowing, that Paul can’t really interpreter. But it feels dangerous.

The important thing, though, is that Rowene is not feral. He knows what he is doing more or less.
“What is that?” Paul indicates the dead panther on the floor, choosing not to approach the elephant in the room. Rowene follows his pointed finger.
“A gift.” He says after a second. Then he turns again.

“Oh, thank you.” Paul says calmy. He needs to remember that there is a relationship between them. That Rowene can, if not trust him, at least talk with him. “Because we are the Florida Panthers?”

The sub nods. “The bitch tried to kill me, so I killed her first.” He says after a while. His breath is heavy and irregular, probably for the pain and the fatigue. “Then I remember. I play for the Florida Panther and I thought no shit, have to bring it back with me. So funny.”

Paul doesn’t investigate how Solaris finds being attacked by a panther funny,

“Is what happened at your torso?” Paul investigates. Rowene grunts in a yes.

Alec and Paul share a look.

Paul looks at what Rowene is gathering. It looks like he wants to deal with the cuts himself.

“How about we call an ambulance? So – “

The regress is immediate. Rowene snarls at him, passing to Russian. Paul doesn’t back down, because he knows that he can’t afford to lose any floor here. Luckly Bobby arrives a moment later. He knocks and Paul answers. “It’s just Bobby, okay? Your goaltender.”

Because the sub turned at the door like it was the passport to hell.

“Hei.” Bobby greets them. He says something in Russian, Paul can fell the soothing tone, and someone must have informed him about the state of Rowene, because he doesn’t look to much shocked by it.

“He says no hospital.” Bobby informs them.

Rowene looks ready to fight teeth and nails for his spot on the floor.

Paul signs and turns to Alec.

“This room is not sterilized, the risk of infection- “

“Like he is clean.” Paul snorts. Alec signs. The cuts looks old of at least a couple of days, at least from the look of the dried blood. If Rowene already didn’t catch an infection until now, he is not going to take one in this room.

“All right.” The doctor sounds defeated. “I will do it, okay? No hospital.” he asks Rowene, who nods. The sub flops on the little bed without being asked to. Says something in Russian and Bobby passes him a glass of water.

Paul looks greedily at the little, controlled sips that the sub takes from the glass. Bobby is at his side, his hip touching the bedding, a hand right under the paper glass just in case Rowene’s grip loses it.

Rowene is particularly docile under the doctor’s hands. At some point he returns to speak English, and answers at Alec’s questions, even if he doesn’t remember much.

Bobby remains at his side all the time, a hand close if Rowene wants to take it for comfort, but looks away as Alec snitches him up. Paul doesn’t. He makes himself look, trying to forge the memory in his mind, so he won’t let it happen again.

Three hours later, Ales flops exhausted on the chair. He had to order more suture thread because he didn’t have enough in stock. Bobby and Paul manage to walk Rowene in one of the dynamics rooms in the area, practically supporting all his weight because now that the tension, the adrenaline and the feral state are all gone, all the exhaustion has hit the him like a train.

Rowene drops dead to the world the moment his head touches the pillow. Paul looks at him marveled. Rowene is truthfully amazing. He watches him and wonders how the fuck he is still alive.

Paul remains at his side. He doesn’t like the idea that Rowene might wake up alone in a room that maybe doesn’t even remember entering. The idea to leave the sub screeches something in his guts.

It takes Chucky’s timid knock and poking face form the slid to the door to realize that he is on the verge of a drop. Paul is almost sixty. He has plenty of experience of his own body and yet he failed to recognize the signs. The slight trembling of the hands, the overwhelming anxiety that closed his throat just at the thought of leaving the room, the sub alone. The compelling need to make sure that the room is at the proper temperature, the covers are fitted well, that there is water on the side.

“Hei.” Chucky says with a soft smile, voice low. Behind him there is Sam too, which face is harder, worry cutting deep lines around the eyes and the mouth. Paul is pretty sure he has lost some weight these days, eating less than usual during the road trip.

Both subs’ eyes flick on the bed. Chucky doesn’t look for long, quick to return his attention over Paul, probably already sensing his drop. Paul widens his legs, in a silent request, that Chucky answers immediately.

Paul checks the pillow before allowing the sub to put his precious knees on it, to check, to do something right for his subs, and then it’s suddenly easier to breath, to control, to think better with Chucky’s frame tucked between his legs. Safe and secured and under his sight. Under his radius of action.

Paul likes that. He passes a hand between Chucky hair, and left it right at the back of the skull. The sub smiles at him, snuggling his face on the inner thigh like a cuddling dog.

Sam is crawling slowly and carefully in the bed.

“Careful, he is all stitched up.” Paul warns him, even if he knows that Sam is being careful. The other man gives him a flat look, but he goes even more attentive and Paul chest widens in comfort.

Sam settles beside Rowene, not touching him, but close enough to feel his warmth and taking Solaris’s hand in his.

For a while nobody says anything, just resting in silence and peace, welcoming the idea to have Rowene back with them.

Bobby comes with Barky, and they coax Paul to go out, take a piss, drink some water and go talk with Bill. Someone brings Dakota to him, who sticks at his side and allows Paul’s nerve to stay calm and having the young sub kneel for him is the only reason that Paul manages to manage the next hours of meetings.

Again they are interrupted by Aron, than comes running to call them. Apparently Rowene is up. But not up, just awake, no. Up in the sense that he is arguing with Barky because he wants to go out.

For the second time in a day Paul finds himself jogging in the corridors.

As in a game, Bobby is slightly a part, some distance between him and the hot center. He gives Paul an unsurprised rolled of eyes when he opens the door. Barky and Chucky are both on feet, arms pressed against their chest, jaw tight. Sam is on the bed, looking deeply uncomfortable and at the same time angry. With whom Paul doesn’t know.

“For the God’s sake Rowny you are sick!” Chucky sounds exasperated, like he has already said this thousands of times and knowing the character wouldn’t be surprising if so.

Rowene’s attention snaps to Paul. His eyes are glowing, flaming of rage. All his body is in tension, ready to snap and Paul knows that if they are not careful is handling this timing bomb, Rowene would go physical, fucking up his fresh stitches.

“Can someone please tell me what is going on?” Paul asks to assert the situation.

Chucky turns instantly, looking out of himself and also at Paul like the teacher you call to resolve an issue and you trust will back them up.

“This stupid cunt wants to walk away! On his own! Like nothing is wrong!”

Barky closes his eyes for a second. Solaris’s nostrils flare, his eyes flash dangerously.

“Chucky you are dropping, why don’t you let Barky help you mh?” it’s more a rhetorical question than a real one, with Barky already with a hand cupped on his scruff, right up where Chucky’s red collar would be and another one on the low back.

The sub goes, follows his dom out of the room with a small whine and hurt look to Paul.

Sam is still frozen on the bed, looking like he doesn’t want to catch any attention to himself.

Now, though, that Chucky and Barky are out of the picture, Paul is alone under Rowny’s boiling ire. The sub squares the shoulder, raising up in all his height. Ready.

“Where do you wish to go?” Paul asks, because maybe he can send someone instead, and convince Rowny to rest on the bed. Like every normal person on Earth with more than 50 hours-fresh stitches all around the body would do.

Rowny pounders the question and Paul settles to wait. He is relieved to see that some of the tension on the sub shoulders slowly disappears.

“My things.” He says eventually, voice hard “Water. Some food.”

Paul nods. It sounds manageable. “We will send someone to collect them, yes? – using we to make him felt included - You shouldn’t move too much. You heard Alec earlier.” he is not very sure about how much attention Rowny actually has put in Alec’s expiation for the treatment of the next few days. In synthesis moving as little as possible, mandatory rest, wearing the tutor for the shoulder and another for the wrist, both of them still miraculously on. Drink water and avoid solid foods for one or two days.

Rowene’s frown deepens.

“No.” Head shaking. “I do.” He takes a step in the direction of the door. His English is way worse than usual. Paul doesn’t move. “It would be better for your health and a faster recovery if you take it easy. Bet you want to return on ice as soon as possible.”

Paul must have catch something right because the sub stops. But then he snorts, so maybe no.

“I be careful, not first time with points. The boy can come and help.” He nods at Dakota, still at Paul side, that flinched so he almost falls. That is not going to be an option. Rowny is short tempered on good days, and today is definitely not a good day. The last thing they want is another sub dropping.

“I will gladly help you.” Paul proposes instead. He wait for a reaction. Rowny considers the proposal, Paul can almost see how he is classifying his options.

Eventually he must realizes that Paul is his best option and if it’s not Paul, it will be Bobby or some of the other doms. “Okay.”

Paul exhales, relived. He gives a last nod to Bobby, who is still placid on the armchair. “Stay with Sam.” He instructs him. And then to Dakota: “Go to Teddy and ask for some job to do.” Because the sub is a service one, and keeping him busy with some manual work is the best way to treat him.

He follows Rowny outside. He walks on his own, with a slower rate than usual, but with a new, rougher attitude. On a normal day, when nobody pisses him off, Rowny looks almost high. He is in the chill, in his own world, minding his business. He agrees to social things when invited, but never proposes them. Maybe he is not kind, but he is polite and if urgent he gives a hand to help. On bad days everyone has been quick to learn back off and let him be.

Right now he has the same face when he is pissed off on ice with the mission of life is to win the next face off at cost to break some face.

They march is silence, people stepping aside to let them pass to the player kitchen.

“Water. Half glass.” Rowny says. It’s not an order because he is a sub, but the voice is equally hard and Paul is fucking grateful to be here instead of Dakota.

Rowene takes a seat with a heavy sight and mumbles a thanks when Paul puts the glass on the table. “Is there anything like soup? Not too hot.”

Paul serves him the soup that the chef of the facility has made only for him, without telling him so.

Rowny eats on his own. He is a stubborn boy so Paul is going to wait, even if it’s screaming against every fiber of his body, for him to ask help. If he tried and forced his way to hand feed him as it should be done since both his arms are out the way, probably all he would obtain would be a hungry strike.

Rowny doesn’t back down and ask for help. But he asks Paul for more water and a tissue.

“Who do you think will have my agent number?” he asks at half plate, his tone visibly improved as his mood with some food in him. And his English.
“Legals probably.”
Rowny hums and return to his plate. Paul watches him and the door, shaking a little the head to anyone who comes near.

Paul fills a last time the glass of water in a silent request to Rowny to drink it as he puts away the plate and the spoon. He smiles when he turns and the glass is empty.

Rowny gets up and starts pacing again through the corridors again. Paul a silent shadow on his side, content of the not quite equilibrium they have seem to reach.
Rowene doesn’t bother to say hello. “The number of my agent on a piece of paper.”

Alex form behind his desk looks like he has seen a ghost.
“Alex. The number of his agent on a piece of paper, please.” Paul intervenes before Rowny snaps.

Alex turns to him, still astonished. Paul inhales and lucky the man to recover.

“Yes, yes. I-now I will find it.” He clicks very fast on the mouse. They wait long five minutes, which Paul passes to find the best way to phrase “sit down” to Rowene, without saying “sit down” until finally the lawyer scribbles something on a post it.

“Here. It’s good to see you back.”

Rowene grumbles a thanks, and looks over Paul expectantly until Paul takes the post it. They have to work on how Rowny asks for the things he wants but for today it will do.

Next stop is the changing room. Inside is thankfully empty. Rowene stops at his stall.

“There is a blue box and backpack in the drawer, take them.” Solaris nods at the drawer under the seat. A little curious Paul scouts down to take the object. Ther is indeed a blue, metal, box of the seize of a pair of man shoes, but that definitely doesn’t have shoes inside from the weight and the sounds it makes, with a combination lock on it.

The backpack is a black, no brand, standard type, full of things, but light. Paul wonders what there it’s inside and why Rowene has them half hidden in the locker room.

Looking satisfied and somehow a little more relaxed, Rowene hums. “Car.”

The stop by to Paul’s office to take his personal things and then to the parking lot. Rowene collects another bottle of water from the bar and doesn’t lament the little box of already cut fruit that Paul takes for him.

“The seatbelt.” Paul observes before starting the car.
Rowene closes his eyes like he is tired. He is probably. He should be on a fucking bed, resting, not walking around.

“The stiches.” It’s the answer, like it would explain everything. Paul’s jaw twitches. He very aware of his stiches, of how many they are, how much of his body are fucking covering and…and that they probably can’t be pressured by a seatbelt.

Paul exhales deeply. “I will go slow.” He states even if Rowene didn’t ask for it.

“To where?” Paul asks then. The address Rowny tells him it's that of his house. Paul shallows. He is almost sure than nobody has told him about the fire. That his place is not feasible.

How to tell a sub that has just went out a feral drop of 10 days that their own home, their nest, their sanctuary of safety, is destroyed.

“I know about the fire. Let’s go.” The sub has still his eyes closed, the voice sounds ten times more tired than before. Paul drives slowly and carefully. At some point Rowene falls asleep so the does a larger way, just to make him rest more.

*

The house looks even worst now. The flames have eaten the roof and the walls, leaving a precarious structure of the skeleton. It’s sad and empty. The grass around the property is now sand and there is still the no-entry band of the police.

For a long moment Rowene just stares at it. And Paul stares at him, checking the breathing or any minor sign of dropping. Paul doesn’t have the nerve of comment, trying to console him. There are no appropriate words.

Eventually Rowene opens the door. Paul follows him right away. They walk to the only intact thing, a sort of second garage, made in metal, separated from the house. The sub opens the metal box and takes out a small key, that he passes to Paul. He takes it and open the big padlock on the door. Inside there is a big, gray pickup, modified so it’s looks more like a hybrid between a camper and a pickup.

“You can go, thank for the ride.” Rowene says in a dismissive tone. “I will go to the check ups, don’t worry.”

Paul doesn’t really register it. He is too shocked for the inside of the garage. It’s look like a bunker for one for those people that prepares themselves for the apocalypse. There are guns, tanks of dried food, gasoline, water, military boots, clothes perfectly stacked and vacuum sealed. He bets that somewhere there are documents, fake passports, money.

It’s strange and unsettling to actually see, with his own eyes, how unsafe Rowene feels deep down. He knows, because Barky told him in one of their team meetings, then Rowene has asked to have a room as close as possible to the fire-escapes and that he never takes an uber or order things at his home for the fear that someone could track his address down.

Paul blinks himself to reality. Rowene has opened to car, and climbed inside on the small stairs.

He already knows that the sub won’t like this. That he craves freedom and autonomy like air.

“I’m sorry.” Because Paul really is. He is really so fucking sorry for him. He is so sorry that Rowene has been hurt so much in his life that he needs to have a backyard fire resistant garage where he stocks reserves for a potential escape. He is so sorry that someone he should have trusted like his previous dom has shuttered that deem light trust and whipped him. He is sorry that for the pain he must be feeling, the emotional one, the physical one. He is sorry that now, Paul will probably need to impose, to take the sub with him because medical protocols they are legally oblige to follow, require that a sub can’t be alone for the next 72 hours after a drop longer than a full day.

“You need to be with a dom for the next 72 hours.” Paul forces his voice to be flat, calm and smoothing. His shoulders open and posture relaxed. He keeps a good meter between him and the door of the car. “It’s protocol.” He adds, because Rowyn doesn’t say anything at that.

“You can choose with who. It can be someone from the team, a friend or professional.”

Paul had to argue for twenty minutes at the last meeting because Bill and Alec wanted to sent him on a rehab center for subs, and didn’t want to listen to him pointing that if Rowene didn’t even want to go on fucking hospital, figures a rehab center. Thanks fuck Rowene’s agent told them that if they did, Rowene would probably have fired himself just not to go.

Still Rowene looks displeased.

“There is no way out, your agent tried. I’m sorry.” He offers again, even if words can do very little.

Rowene takes out a package of cigarettes from a cabinet. Marlboro Gold. He offers one to Paul, that he kindly accepts. He follows the sub of what remains of the garden and remains standing at his side while Rowny sits on a stone table at the shadow of a tree that has miraculously saved from the fire.

They smoke in silence. Paul has no need in pressure him, content enough with his well deserved ciggie.
“What a pity.” Rowene keeps his eyes locked on the ruins.

Paul doesn’t let his emotions to be seen. His ex-wife always said that he would be a great poker player. He can’t even imagine the feeling that a person may feel in front of the destruction of their own house.

He keeps shout, wanting to give Rowene a full choice in what saying and what no.

Rowyn takes a particularly deep breath of smoke and exhales thought the nose. Paul pushes aside the thought that he is very hot right now.

“Bet you live in big fat ass house.” Rowene says next and Paul feels a little disoriented by the change of topic. He supposes that his six bedrooms villa on a canal could be considered a “big fat ass house”. Even if the estate agency didn’t described like that on the site when he was looking.

“Yes I suppose.” The house it’s too big from him, he gets lonely more often than not, but his daughter likes to have a big garden for her dogs when she comes to visit and he likes to host Canadian Thanksgiving when they are not on the road.

Sensing, or at least hoping to sense it right, where Rowene is going to aim, he says. “Five guest bedrooms, four bathrooms and a gym a never use. It’s not even all white.” The walls are cream as his daughter has very intelligently suggested, because Paul doesn’t want to feel like in hospital in his own house.

At the last comment Rowene snorts but he also smirks, and Paul smiles back.

“Can I sleep in my car, or must be in the same house?” the subs asks. Paul is surprised that he is not fighting this more. Maybe he doesn’t have the energy today, but he bets that the next few days will be rough for everyone involved. And Paul really hopes that Rowyn will chose him. Mostly because he has seen with his own eyes how subs are treated in Russia and he knows what to avoid.

“First night in, the rest on the car.” Paul says. It’s not true. It should be all three days with the dom, in the same room possibly, but he is willing to make a stretch if the car is parked in his yard.

Rowene puts out the cigarette on the stone and slowly rises up. Paul is quick in offering a hand, but it’s not taken.

“All right let’s go to this not all white walls. Bets ten dollars is vanilla white.”

Chapter Text

The walls are indeed vanilla white. Paul says that his daughter states that it’s cream. Solaris begs to differ. Cream has a yellow pinch that it’s not present in this shade.

Solaris passes more than he wants to admit in considering the wall color. It’s the boresome. The main problem with being sick but not sick enough to feel wasted, is the boresome. Boresome leads him mind in places where it would be better not go.

To avoid it Solaris has two strategies: get his day very busy or do drugs.

Unfortunately at the moment neither of them are available.

The problem with stiches is that they don’t hurt enough to cut off all his energy or moving capacity, but at the same time he constantly has to remind himself that no, he can’t move like he feels to because of them. Sure they pulse and feels hot under his skin, but it’s nothing that he can’t stand.

*

Day one he sleeps in. Paul comes to wake him up for the meds and some food but Solaris won’t heard about it. He hisses at him until he fuck off. Which he doesn’t. Paul patently avoids any scratch attempts and keeps talking with a low tone of encouragement until Solaris gives in for tiredness and opens his mouth to take the spoon of antibiotics and then some water.

Later he returns for the bandaging or at least Solaris thinks so, because it was hard to stay awake.

Day two Solaris wakes up with a strong need of peeing in a room that doesn’t recognize. But there is the scent of Paul everywhere so he doesn’t panic and pisses in a plant vase since he doesn’t have the energy nor the will to find a bathroom. Again Paul comes at some point to administer the stupid antibiotic and forces some wet food in him.

At some point he wakes up with the district, real sensation to being touched. There are hands on his shoulder and he shutters, trying to shoot away from the touch, to preserve his injured shoulder.

Why is he so much in pain?

A voice speaks and it takes a while for Solaris to recognize that it’s Coach Maurice. Why the fuck is he with him? But he likes his voice so he closes his eyes again and lets his brain shuts down again.

On the third day he wakes up he his eyes don’t feel too heavy to keep open. He stares at the ceiling with a terrible choice of the lamp as he does a mental check on how he feels and what he can remember.

Solaris knows that he is at Paul’s house, in what he supposes being a guest room. There are two doors, one open to a corridor and another to a bathroom. There is a big plat close to the window that Solaris can say by the smell that he has pissed in the vase even if he doesn’t remember doing so. The curtains are kept shut, keeping the room in a deem but warm light.

He looks down and sees an amount of bandages that could compete with a fucking mummy.

He is hungry, thirsty and needs to pee. He is a has some nausea, but probably for the lack of food and liquids, Solaris is enough confident that it will pass after ingesting something and a good glass of water.
He can smell how much sticky and gross he is, with a visceral need to shower, the cat inside of him demanding to be clean. He shutters internally resisting at the urge. His wrist doesn’t pulse anymore that much and when he tries to move the fingers slowly with the usual movements he does to see if anything is broken, it’s fine. He actually can raise his hand, feeling ok, and looks down. The wrist is still bandaged, but it has returned to a normal size. That’s very good. He remembers that stupid little serpent crushing his poor wrist.

He can breathe normally so the ribs are okay. Feet and legs feel okay too. His left shoulder is still in the binder, the center of it pulsating, the arm locked on his chest. He tries to take it off, but finds out that he doesn’t have enough strength to open the Velcro.

Basically all his body is a low, deep root, throbbing. Pain pounding in a low, exhausting way.

A wave of nausea reminds him the main problem. Food. Food is something he can fix.

With a lot of difficulty, swears and imprecations, he raises on his legs, next to the bed. Solaris waits until the whites dots disappear, the vertigos to stop and his breath to return more or less normal. Only then he attempts a step in the direction of the door.

Difficult, but not impossible. He just need to go slow.

He stops again by the door. Catching his breath. He feels like he has eaten a box of sand. The house sounds dead like a grave, even if he doubts that Paul has actually left him alone in these conditions. Finding that he doesn’t care if Paul is present or not, he returns to his exploration toward the kitchen.

He has never been at Paul house before, but now he doesn’t put any attention in it. It’s just annoying big. Solaris despites big houses, with too many rooms that no person will ever need.

Finally he finds a fridge. There is a little bit of everything. He devours the entire box of cooked zucchini. He doesn’t bother to search for a spoon, eating directly with his hands, nor to heat up the food for lack of patience. He has just started to attack the cheese spread, and drink some broth directly from the pot and making a mess on himself, when he hears steps.

So, now. Solaris remembers most of it. He remembers that he run away, why he has run away, something in the between, how he has returned to his house to set in on a fire to destroy the proofs after he noticed agents searching for him, thinking that the Russians were searching for him, and then he remembers how one day he woke up in the middle of a forest, close to a river, with a dead panther over him. And the thought: where the fuck am I?

It took him three days to find the right path to return, mostly because he kept to drop in a feral state and lose himself in his head and any type of rational reasoning.

He didn’t really paid any attention at the commemorative altar by the public entrance and he has a vague memory in arguing with someone at the desk. Then he has a hole, Bobby’s voice appears at some point, and then waking up in one of dynamics room with Sammy and Chucky at his sides and on IV plugged in the vein.

Another hole and then Paul next to him in his garden looking over the remains of his house like it was a war zone.

“Good morning, how do you feel?” Paul has a little, proud smile over his face, like he is happy to see Solaris up and eating. His eyes are shining of happiness. Solaris grunts, he doesn’t relay feel like talking right now. He takes another serving of the cheese.

“I see that you are hungry. It’s a good sign.” Pual moves around the kitchen. He takes out a plate, a glass, water and the cutlery, setting the table. He taps a chair. “Sit.”

Solaris sits only because being standing is difficult. Paul warms a cup of broth for him, set a plate with the cheese and some cold, white rice, putting a spoon in his hand after cleaning it with a tissue.

“How do you feel?” Paul sits down next to him, a glass of cold tea in front of him. Solaris rumbles again. He doesn’t feel particularly bad. But Solaris scale of pain is different. Sure everything burns, everything throbs and at the same time everything stings. The texture of the bandages feels all wrong and he can’t do big movements without risking to open the stiches.

But if Solaris compare this to that the taser or to have eight broken ribs… it’s manageable.
Paul nods again. He takes a sip of his tea. “Do you remember what happened?”

Solaris nods. The cheese is finished, but he is feeling full now and he knows that his stomach would be able to handle to much food for a couple of days. Paul seems pleased by the confirmation and not worried by his nonverbal answers.

“How do you feel about a wash of the hairs?”

Solaris picks at that. Oh yes, he is in urgent need of a bath. He doesn’t even want to imagine the state of his hair right now.

“Are you comfortable if I do you? Or do you prefer someone else?”

Solaris likes that Paul always give a choice, that allows room for different ideas from his. The average dom would just said something: “you need a bath, so bath time with me. Too bad if you don’t feel like it, but you have to do what a tell you.”

He likes Paul. He mostly likes Paul’s voice, so smooth and deep at the same time. Sweet but strict. It’s never too hard, but neither with baby talk. There is just something that makes him easy to follow it. He also like Paul’s hands. They are soft and big, calloused but at the same time cured. His nails are always well kept, and he uses this hand cream for cold during road trips that has a smell that makes Solaris go crazy.

So, yes if someone has to wash his hair, Solaris would like that someone to be Paul.

But first. He needs to do something. He needs to flag this territory as occupied. His. So no other bitch will roam around.

Paul is quick to offer him a hand, a stable support to keep standing and Solaris lowers himself in accepting it at the first strong vertigo. Paul’s touch feels noninvasive and strictly professional and he allows Solaris to go wander around, letting him decide where to go.

Solaris’s goal is the garden. He saw from the window of the kitchen a big backyard with a lot of plants that he is going to mark.

“Wait.” Moving his tongue to formulate a word is hard. It took him 10 seconds good of focus, but it’s worth it. Paul waits at the door and Solaris can feel the dom’s eyes following him as he go the first spot and scent-mark it with urine. And then the second one and the third. He doesn’t have the strength to cover all the property, but for now it will do.

“Better?” Paul asks. He nods. Very better. Now the animal part in him feels way more settled and calmer, knowing that he has claimed the area. Now he can rest in peace.

“Hair or nap?” Paul asks after they are inside again. Solaris thinks about it. A nap sounds good, moving has drained all the energy out of him, but a nap while clean sounds even better. He points at his head.

“Okay. I asked my daughter some advice to take care of them, and I will do my best, yes? But it has passed some years from the last time that I have combed some hair.” Paul talks in that melodic voice of his. Taking care of the tangles is what takes most time. Paul is extra careful, with his reading glasses on, tacking lock by lock, a YouTube tutorial under as reference, and very very attentive in not hurting him by mistake.

Since Solaris hairs are long to his hips, it takes a lot of time. But it’s nice, Solaris always likes when his hair are petted and touched even if he is grow up pretty selective to who can.

Paul washes his hair in the bathtub, treating him like he is made of glass. He always ask if it’s all right, check in the water temperature and ask how to apply the conditioner as he likes. It’s nice, soft and sweet. Keeping his eyes opens, his guard up, became difficult after a while.

“You can let go if you want. I got you.” Paul reassures him, and returns talking a low tone and Solaris closes his eyes and lets himself float a little with his voice like a lullaby.

Chapter Text

Paul

The medicines that Alec has administered to Solaris are a cocktail of antibiotics, analgesics, sleeping pills and dynamic homeostasis. After the little trip around the arena, Alec wanted to sedate him, mumbling with himself like a pot of beans, that until Solaris didn’t return in himself it was too risky to keep him awake. Just in case he wanted to do another trip, with the risk to overdo and do some heavy damage.

Paul, deciding to follow Crosby’s strong advice against it, opposed and so they have reached the compromise of the sleeping pills.

Malkin who everyone knows being Rowene bondmate is planned to arrive in four days, unable to fly before for his last injury, with Crosby at his side, and Paul is very relieved to have a keeper with some experience and knowledge in how to deal with Rowny as a sub. He also knows that Malkin presence will benefit Rowny on the emotional level, helping making him feel safe again.

The pills work. For little thought. The second day they are already fading.

There is a nurse, one specialized for pet patients, that comes once a day to change the bandages, teaching Paul how to do it in the future, and checking the vital parameters. Even if highly drugged it’s impossible to make Rowene use the bedpan, and so Paul has to deadlift the him and bring him in to the bathroom. He gives him dry baths with wet wipes because it’s recommended to keep the cat pets as clean as possible to avoid any stress for them, since they are particular careful at their level cleanness, and puts some used T-shirt in the bedding to help Rowene associated his smell with something positive.

On the second afternoon Paul has entered the room with a distinct smell of urine and he has cursed, worried about possible infections if Rowny had wet himself in the sleep, only to find the bedding perfectly dry.

He turns, sniffing around a little, searching for the origin of the smell. And- Rowene has pissed in the fucking plant vase during the morning.

Unbelievable.

So when the day after he hears movements coming form the kitchen, Paul only signs and call the nurse, telling her not to come for the risk that Rowene might feel overwhelmed with too many people around and because he needs to associate only Paul has his keeper. She is not happy about the development, like Alec, and like Alec she suggests a higher dose of drugs to keep him in the bed for at least another two days.

Paul has decided to see how Rowene is and based from how lucid he is, to proceed or not.

*

Rowene has appetite, more than he should, devouring the entire pan of zucchini and some cheese. He is standing more that he should and he is able to walk more than he should. He is not feral, but he is a little in his petspace, not talking, but seeming to understand Paul word’s, and going to the garden to mark the territory.

Paul is ready to run in case Rowene collapses, worrying about the stiches and that he is maybe overdoing, but doesn’t intervene. He final goal is to make Rowny safe here, and if the boy needs to mark the house, in order to do so, Paul is not going to stop him.

Grooming is one of Paul’s favorite activities as a keeper. It’s just…nice.

It feels so good when they let go, feeling enough safe with him, just with a brush. It’s simple, but effective, sending Paul’s instincts on fire. Of course Paul like all the other things. Playing with them with sensorial toys, providing them food and shelter, coddling with a purring cat pet on his lap after a long day is wonderful, but there is something about grooming that just hits different. Maybe is the intimacy, the closeness that offers, something similar to sex without the sexual part.

Really, seeing Rowene going all soft and relaxed, looking at Paul with adoring eyes, feels really really good. Paul looks back, full of affection and maybe something else blooming in his chest. He looks down and Rowny beautiful face, in those two gems he has instead of the eyes, now calm and content and so trusting, and he promises himself that he won’t let anyone else hurt the boy.

*

There is nickname that has started to stick on Rowene after the Olympics between media. Like “Sid the Kid” for Crosby, “the great one” for Gretzky, “McJesus” for McDavid.

Rowene has “The God Blessed.”

Paul personal opinion on it is that it’s total bullshit. Paul is not a believer, nor in some God nor in luck. He believes in hard work, consistency and determination. All qualities that Rowene has plenty. That all his boys has plenty.

But there is just something else around Rowene. Paul watches him from the French door overlooking the garden. He looks at Rowene completely naked, fresh wounds in the air, the metal of the stiches, and he can sense, almost see, the sun rays touching him, surrounding him like a protective cloud. Kissing him. Curing him. Choosing him.

It’s almost like there is a column of a denser concentration of rays, like the space to cover Solaris it’s just brighter, as like there is a stronger source of light on him. For him. Paul has the district need to put sunglasses when looking at him, that he doesn’t have when looking at the plant next to him.

It’s crazy and unreal, how after the morning passed under the sun, Rowene returns inside and he just- he walks better, moves better. His eyes are brighter, more alive and present. His face as gained some color, somehow some weight. Which is impossible, Paul knows, rationally, because Rowny didn’t eat anything while outside, but it’s like the Sun has fed him.

It’s like when you give some water to a limp looking plant and then they are green and standing again before you actually realize.

It’s impossible, dreamlike, and just a mental thing, Paul tells himself. Rowene is healing faster for his pet metabolism, not because he passed four hours under the sun. It wouldn’t make any sense.

But then, when the nurse comes over for the daily checks up, she frowns.

“This is- I have never saw a healing so quick.” She says, dumbfounded. And Rowene shoots a knowing, fucking smug, look over him. Because they may have a little discussion early, when Paul found him without the bandages on the grass. And Rowene has told him to trust the process.

“Siqiniq will heal me. You will see.” He has told Paul. And not amount of ordering and talking and discussion has made him move from his spot, until Paul throwed in the towel and spat a “suit yourself.”

And Rowny has actually suited himself, basking in the garden.

Then she proceeds like usual, but at the door, out of Rowene earing (he doesn’t bother to accompany her at the door) she talks to Paul in a low voice.

“You need to keep a closer eye on him. There exist illegal drugs that improve the metabolism and so the healing process but they are illegal for a reason. The stiches look like there are ten days old, not four. It’s impossible that they are already like that naturally.” She stresses with a low voice.

Paul nods, and assures her than he will. He closes the door behind her, and remains there, with a hand on the door, unable too move. Thinking, processing.

There is no Sun Spirit, not God or divine entity, that is miraculously healing Rowene. But Paul also knows for a fact that the boy is not taking anything. Where wouldn’t he found it? They didn’t go out, and the alarm system would have advised Paul if someone would come in the property or in the garage where the car is.

So even if he had some shit in that oversize and over-luxury version of camper of his, Paul would have known if he had gone to collect it.

And he didn’t.

All Rowene did was bathing in the sun rays.

“What did she told you?” Rowene is at the other end of the corridor. The window behind him is exposed, the curtain kept open, the light invading the house surrounding Rowny from behind, crating an imagine like a card of a catholic saints, the red hair crossed by the rays and absorbing the light, in an effect of a nimbus.

He looks God-like.

Paul turns, feeling all ups and down, and keeps shut. He doesn’t want to say it loud. To make it real. He just stares at Rowene like he witnessing a miracle.

Maybe he is.

But then Rowene moves, steps out the light, and the vision, the sensation, suddenly ends. Rowene returns Rowene, snapping back in being just a person and Paul feels like he can breathe again.

That was nothing. Nothing. Paul is just stressed and tired and he is seeing things. He can’t do his job, but at the same time he is. And Rowene is fucking intense to take care of sometimes.

They are not in “Percy Jackson” or some fantasy world. Some shit doesn’t exist. Rowene doesn’t have superpowers and a fucking star can’t heal him by magic.

As if Rowny could read his mind he jokes. “Don’t worry, lucky for everyone I can’t shoot energy rays or stuff like that.” He says with a laugh. “I just sense things.” Paul’s guts drop under the floor and for some reason a wave of fear shocks his body.

What kind of things?
Rowene tilts his head on the side, like he curious on something.

“I’m hungry. Would you be so kind to make me something?” he asks with a sweet voice, and Paul is not deaf so he perceives the sub voice. “Like a smoothie?”

Paul breaths in and goes make him a smoothie. Rowene waits patiently on the side, seated on the table, following with the eyes. After the first sip and the approving hum, Paul feels better. The cold sensation in the veins has passed and he feels centered again.

After they watch Seattle embarrassing Tampa, when Rowene puts the head on his lap, demanding pets that Paul is more than happy to provide.

“What kind of things can you sense?” Paul asks during intermission. Rowene hums and the vibrations are so strong that he can feel them in his belly.

“You wouldn’t believe me.”

Paul doesn’t push. He probably wouldn’t.

Around five pm Rowene returns in the garden, and Paul uses the time alone to call Alec, Bill and Crosby.

Paul thinks that Alec would calm the fuck down if only he dignified to come over and attend with his own eyes that Rowny is really doing more than good. Bill told him that he has talked with Rowene’s agent and formalized the long injury absence, frozen the contract and spoke with police for an eventual visit for next week, if Rowene was feeling up to it. Also in a couple of days a certificate therapist will come and declare if Rowny is able to take decisions for himself or not and formulate a plan for psychological and dynamic therapy. Crosby confirmed that he and Malkin are going to arrive tomorrow around lunch, and that they have a five-days permit. They are not going to attend the game and spend the five days there, allowing the two bond-mates to be close in such a delicate moment.

*

Paul cooks dinner for both of them, and during the meal he informs Rowny about the incoming guests. The sub is not thrilled and Paul would have thought.

He doesn’t look happy at all, closing his face in a cold mask the moment Paul has nominated the two names.

“Is there any issue?” If impellent Paul is willing to call the thing off, even if it’s common knowledge that bond mates are better when together. Especially in post-traumatic experience and big drops.

Rowny shrugs, looking away. “No…it’s just-Zhenya will worry so much.”

“I think he will worry anyway.” Paul says back calmy. He can’t even imagine what Malkin have been thought with the bond the days Rowene disappeared.
“He will be so dramatic, mark my words.” Rowny signs.
*
Malkin is indeed very dramatic. By the time he was at the door from the car his face was already wet, and sobbing. He clinched around Rowene like he feared the other would disappear. But Rowny hugs him bag, eyes closed and nose hidden in his neck, probably scenting him.
Crosby gives Paul an apologetic look, but him too looks a little bit trashed. Which is perfectly understandable. Paul gives him a nod back and a tight smile.
The two subs go inside, probably in the nest that Rowene has built this morning, and Paul helps unload the car. Crosby has told him that they had a couple of things for Rowny, and he expected a bag, maybe a big bag, surely not three big ones.

“How are things?” Crosby asks when both of there are seated in the living room, close enough to hear if the subs give a calling, but far enough to give them some privacy, with a glass of iced tea in hand.

Paul studies the other dom. He sees the tight skin on the face, the dark circles around the eyes, the slight drumming of the fingers on the knee. He is trying to fake it, but he is tried and anxious. Looking around the house like in search of potential treats and Paul has seen how carefully he has arranged the bags in the corridor, just out the sub’s room.

“All things considered very good.” Paul says. Immediately Crosby’s shoulders snag in relief. “As I already told you on the phone when he returned he was dehydrated and heavily wounded, but lucid enough and mostly cooperative.” Crosby nods at his words. “By the law here, after a drop like that it’s mandatory for the sub to have a contracted dom for at least six months. I’m his emergency keeper until a specialist can declare him capable of consent, and then he will choose the next one.”

Paul really fucking hope that Rowny will consent to have him as his keeper in the future.

“The stiches are healing very well, no signs of infection or problems, and the doctor will come tomorrow for a visit. The major worry, thought, is the dynamic.” Paul takes a big breath. “The level of hormones is concerning to say at least. Our dynamic specialist says to worry only if the numbers don’t raise within a couple of weeks.”

She told Paul in a very long phone call that a feral drop longer than a week is devasting on a hormone level, so that the low numbers are perfectly normal and to not worry to much. Her words didn’t help Paul in feeling less worried.

“For now he is under stabilizers, but he can’t take them forever. The hope is that the presence of his mate will help him settle enough, to start recover on that side.”

Crosby nods again, a stiff, rigid movement. Knuckles of the hand that is gripping the cup are white.

*

Paul is old but he doesn’t have a hold mentality. Most doms of his age thinks that subs should be kept at home. Shielded from the outside word, with controlled interaction outsides, for they “safety”. Because they are too weak or instable to manage “dom stuff”, or a fancy way to say anything that is not housework, childcare and nursery.
Paul doesn’t agree. But he agree in the fact that people with different dynamics have different needs. The other doms of his age far too quick forget that they need subs as well to be healthy and functional. For Paul having different needs doesn’t imply that a dynamic is better that another, just to be different as being equal.

This is why he believes that dynamic healthiness is fundamental for his players and believes a what in jargon is called a “traditional room” even if his version is far from being “traditional”.

Unfortunately traditional dynamic is not based on consent, communication and acceptance. It’s based on unblinded, silent submission not based on trust but on fear. It’s insulting that his way to manage the room is called like that, but he wasn’t the one how decided the name, and now is too sticked to change it.

His room is based on consent and Barkov is the perfect captain to make sure that nobody is forced to do anything they are not comfortable doing. So nobody did really insist when Rowene claimed that he manages his dynamic is private and he won’t submit for the boys. Rowene is free to deal with his dynamic until his hormones level are good.

Which they were according to the medical staff.

Now that Rowny is under his care Paul has to find a way to approach the topic without trigger him in a drop. According to Crosby it is not going to be easy.

The presence of Malkin is both good and bad. Being close to his bond mate is clearly helping Rowny is settling some of his fears, calm him down on a very deep level in a way that only a bond mate will able do. They move in couple, always close, searching each other with touches and smells.

Malkin has scent market all the house, in and out, so much that even Paul’s normal nose started to feel a difference form before. He poses at Paul, showing the teeth, putting himself as a shield to his mate, if Paul tries to come near without food. He is not as wary with Crosby, but he still doesn’t let Crosby touch his mate, growing slightly.

Paul is surprised to see that Rowene is not bothered or annoyed but the act, but he looks at Malkin with pride every time he sniff at Paul or go around the garden to enforce the borders.

Crosby doesn’t intervene often, and doesn’t try to play with Malkin knowing that he is far too focused in being close to his mate, and he doesn’t bat an eye when Rowny goes out for his daily dose of sun, but he does put his foot down for applying the suncream on his sub, even if he is not happy about it.

Paul watched at the scene folding from the shadowed part of the garden, a trail of fresh fruits and cold tea on the small table, nose white for sun protection and an open Hawaiian shirt because he is still a Canadian with delicate skin.

Should I put some sun cream on Rowny too? Well, Rowny should also be confined in bed, with bandages, not in the garden with nothing covering the stiches. Besides Malkin would probably bite he fingers off if he tried to touch Rowny in front of him. So, instead of getting up, Paul gets more comfortable on the lounge and tries to not enjoy too much Crosby’s struggles.

By the time the younger dom returns he has a slightly heavy breath and a layer of sweat on the forehead. Paul passes him a glass of cold water.

For a moment neither of them says anything, both looking at their respective subs warming under the sun’s rays.

“The doctor will come with afternoon.” Paul says without turning. With the corner of the eye he sees Crosby deflect on the bench. “Rowny knows him, it’s the one that stitched him back together, so it should be fine.”

Paul plans to inform Rowene about the visit at lunch, but he doesn’t see any clouds on that front. The problem may be Malkin, who is in the pet headshape since he has arrived and doesn’t seem interested in exit it any time soon. Which wouldn’t be a problem per se, but it unsettles Rowene, even Paul can see that, and like this he doesn’t understand that not every dom is a threat right now.

Crosby signs. “I will take care of Geno.”

*

Crosby’s taking care of Malkin meant sucking out every vital energy from his dick, leaving practically drooling on Rowene’s lap for the duration of the visit, that Paul is not even that sure he realized it was happening. But Rowny behaves, a small smile while he toys with his mate’s hair. Alec roams around, pokes him around, check the stiches and does a lot of satisfied hums.

“Yes, yes everything is healing very well. A bit faster than expected, but everyone is different no?” he observes at some point.
“Paul is taking good care of me.” Rowny answers and Paul feels his heart blossoms.

When Alec goes, Rowny and Malkin stay in the room for a nap. Paul arranges the pillow under Rowny, arranging the hair so he has the face free.
“Good nap.” He wishes him, unable to restrain himself in caressing the sub’s cheek with the back of the hand. For the second time in one hour, Paul’s heart melts at the sight of Rowene follow his hand, in a silent request of cuddles.

He will make sure to give him all the possible cuddles after dinner, now he has to leave Rowny to his rest and to go talk with Alec that made him a signal to talk in private.

Paul leaves the door ajar, spots Crosby in the way to the house gym that Paul has used maybe two times since he lives here, and goes find Alec. The head team doctor is outside the front door, in the shadow of the porch, car’s key in hand and buried deep on the phone. Probably writing an email to the rest of the medical stuff or a small report for himself. He waits until Alec finishes his business.

“Everything looks very good, the hormones are raising too.” Alec takes out the e-cigarette that his wife doesn’t know out. “But-“ he says, because of course there is a but “There is the issue of the milkings.”

Alec stamps a significant gaze at Paul, who nods. He has already thought about the matter. This doesn’t mean that he has found a satiating solution.

“I think that we can delay it until the stiches are more solid. Abdominal contraction could damage some of them.” He continues. “This gives us another week. Do you know when he had the last one?”

Paul shakes his head. “Didn’t want to risk triggering some bad memory so soon.”

Alec nods, moving his weight from a foot to the other.
“Understandable. But well we can hypothesize that he got one within the last week before the run.” He takes out the calendar and counts the weeks. “That means four weeks. With the next one, five.” Alec pauses, grave. “We can’t wait more.”

“I know. I will find a way to take care of him.” Paul assures him, and the first step is asking Crosby.

*

In the end is Rowny the first one who takes out the topic, two days after.

Paul is busy making lunch, Crosby and Malkin are doing a scene in the playroom that Paul has very kindly made available for them and Rowny has just returned inside from the morning sun light exposure.

The improvements are visible at glance.

“What are you making?” Rowene starts the conversation normally enough.

“Salmon with the veggies.” Paul doesn’t look up from the book receipt. He is too old for the online ones.

He hears as the sub sits on the table, his legs are so long that he doesn’t even have to jump or raise on tiptoes to do it.

“I will need a milking soon.” Rowene says with the same flat tone of voice, almost bored, he has used to comment the plant choices of the garden.

Paul almost drops the spoon, but he recollects fast enough to not have lost too much dignity.

He signs, because he has anticipated this topic as a delicate one. “I’m aware. When did you have the last one, if I may ask?”

“Three days before the run. I usually deal with them alone, but with the stiches on my arm I don’t think I can.” The sub doesn’t wait for an answer. “Me and Zhenya have thought, that if you are comfortable, we could do this evening, with Zhenya present.”

Rowene doesn’t offer any explanation behind this proposition, but Paul is not stupid or blind. He knows that Malkin presence makes Rowny feel protected and safe. He knows that his mate would defend him in case Paul tries to hurt him.

“Yes, of course. After dinner?” Paul is already planning to do the milking directly on the bed, and tuck him for the night directly after it.

Rowene nods and gets up, signaling that the conversation is over. “Sounds good. Call me when it’s ready.”

*
Even with Malkin here, that grooms and lick clean Rowene’s back every day, is still Paul the one grooms him and wash teeth.

“How are you feeling?” Paul asks him with a brush in hand, and both of them know that he is not asking in general.
“Good. I trust you.”
“I’m gland to hear it.” He admits sincerely. Paul is not going to fuck up. “Do you like prize?”
This is not going to be a sexual affair, but Paul wants to know where the borders are.

“Yes, but nothing exaggerate.”

Paul frowns and forces his hand to not stop. “Like what?”

Rowene snorts. “Like, I don’t know cupcake.” It’s Paul’s turn to snort.

“What a pity, it’s my favorite.” He jokes and Rowny’s barked laugh fills the room.

Finally Paul is done with the hair. He still has no idea how Rowny didn’t get tired of them and cut them off.

“Wait for me on the bed, ask Geno to help you take off the pants.” He instructs him, and waits for a nod, before going to collect the lube, water and paper tissues.

*

Rowny has obeyed, but Paul didn’t have any big doubts about it. The sub is sprained on the bed with a towel under him and Malkin curled at his side, rubbing a hand on the naked hip of Rowny.

“We will do five today, okay?” Paul is not really asking, it’s just politely informing him. Rowny nods after a big breath from the nose.
“Which is your safeword?” Paul already knows it, of course. He also knows the translation in Russian, passed the afternoon in learning to recognize the sound with google translate.

“Orca.” Rowny’s voice sounds less confident than usual, keeping a close eye on every Paul’s movement.

He smiles at him, reassuring. “Okay. I will stop at that and we will use the traffic light system to check in. I will also stop immediately if you say red as well.” He waits for Rowene to give an answer. He nods. Paul prefers verbal answers, but for not it will do. “You can call me as you prefer, but not master, yes?”

His dad used to make his subs called him “master”, liking to play God with them. Paul couldn’t stand it.

“Okay.” Rowene spreads a little the legs, in a clear invitation. Paul takes it, kindly sitting between them. He lifts on leg on his and move the other farther form the center. The two subs have already put a pillow under Rowny’s waist. Such smart boys.

“Can I call you Solaris?” Paul asks confirmation. It feels more personal than the short “Rowny” than everyone uses aside from Malkin, but a milking, one lead like this, is personal too.

“Sol is fine too.” The sub is already a little bit out of breath and all Paul has done is looking.

“Okay, thank you Sol. I will start now.”

It’s not the first time he has seen Solaris naked. It happens sometimes to enter the room while the boys are changing, but Paul is always careful to keep his eyes high, out of respect, and never look at their crotch, but he knows that Solaris is not small.

Yet, having it displayed so close, Paul can’t help to be surprised. He warms some lube between the fingers as he takes a closer look. As the majority of Europeans he is not circumcise. Paul is not going to touch his penis, but he notices that the head is thick and imposing. Of course the shape, the color and the proportions of the organ are just perfect, like everything in Solaris seems to be.

Maybe, now that he is watching better, Solaris is not big per se, it’s just proportionate to the rest of his body, which is fairly enormous. Paul ignores the tattoos and the piercing at the belly button and the lack of body hair, going directly under it. The testicles are full and heavy of seminal fluid like a boob full of milk, almost begging to be emptied. Paul caresses them with the pad of the clean thumb. The skin is soft like silk, abnormally hot, almost to much too be pleasurable, and under the softness of the skin they feel hard like a rock from how stuffed they are.

Solaris gives a little whimper.

“Does it hurt?” Paul asks in a whisper and Solaris gives a big scoff as answer. It must be. They must feel heavy and so sensible to touch and texture that wearing too tight underwear must be uncomfortable.

He takes both of them in the palm to gently lift them, careful not to squeeze. Solaris’s belly muscles contract, but he doesn’t complain. He only takes another big, steading breath. Paul looks briefly up, to check in, just to find Solaris staring at the ceiling like it have made some personal offence on him, a hand closed into Malkin’s one, who is instead looking at Paul fingers with a rapid gaze.

Paul returns to look down. As every male sub, the perineum opens himself during puberty in a subvagina. But not every one of them has a clitoris too. Solaris does. A small flaming pink bulb, just under the root of the scrotum. For today Paul is going to ignore that, maybe in a future session he will use it too.

The external labials are red and puffy, on the verge to be irritated and Paul makes a mental note to put some cream on them after. The penis is completely flat on the side of the right hip, the lips and subvagina dry.

Paul wets them with the fingers, careful in doing gradual movement and trying to stimulate the natural response of the area. He brush the thumb over the clitorises, making small circles of it, applying some pressure, until Solaris breath increase and the muscles of the subvagina starts to contract.

The penis starts to show some movement, giving small bounces of interest, and even if it’s a good sign that Paul is on the right direction, he ignores it. He has to bat away Malkin’s hand, thought, reserving him a stern look.

“No.” Paul orders and Malkin retreats with puppies eyes, that are not going to work.
“You are doing very good Solaris. Just like that.” Paul keeps warm the area externally.

When a milking is given from a person that is not the sub’s partner, usually it’s not a sexual procedure. It’s just something that has to be done every week for the health and the right regulation of the sub’s hormones.

Paul knows that a lot of people prefer to uses toys to do it. He can see why. It’s less personal, require minimal touch and there are occasions in which the distance is more comfortable for all the people involved. Paul too has the right toys to do it, but he prefers to do it manually.

Maybe it’s because he is from old school, when milking toys still didn’t exist, but he likes to have a first touch on the matter. To feel the response on his skin.

When he sinks one finger inside Solaris, it’s so hot that it takes out Paul’s breath for a second. Technically he knows that Solaris has a higher body temperature, even for a pet sub, he knows that Solaris’ hands are always boiling, that he is always hot like pod of fire, because it’s an issue to handle carefully during games and practice since he sweats the double of a normal player, needs more water and ice packs to recalibrate the temperature.

But now, with an index finger inside this tight furnace, it feels like when you go to close to fire to feel the warmth and ends up with a burn.

Will be my fingers burned when I take them out?

He rotates the index, feeling the walls of the vagina adapt at his will. He hears Solaris’ hitched little breaths and considers the sub ready for another finger.

“I will go with a second one now. Color?” he checks is, extra careful.

“Fucking move.” It’s the rash answer. If this wasn’t a simple milking session and if Solaris were more comfortable around him, and if they had a contract allowing so, Paul would have probably slap his pussy.

But that’s not the case, so Paul simply asks again. “Color?”

“Green.” Solaris sounds already exasperated.

Paul hums and nuzzles the second finger inside. The walls of the vagina welcome him like they were expecting him, almost like purposely drawing him inside and locking the ring of muscles around to keep him in.

Paul rotates the wrist and starts working. He finds the prostate easily enough, a relevant bulb in the hot wall, and pushes on it like it’s a button. Maybe he has used to much strength because Solaris jerks up in a seated position with a surprised yelp, too fast for the stiches, and falls on the mattress with a pained expression.

Immediately Paul stops and checks in, as well as Malkin.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” Solaris doesn’t looks fine. He has moved a hand on the lower stiches on belly, touching the wounds through the covering.

“Geno, you will tell me immediately if you smell blood. Okay?” he instructs the other sub. For now they look clean, but the movement was big and rushed, and the bandages are quite thick.

“Yes, Paul.” Malkin is already lowering to give a closer smell. “No fresh blood.” He says. Paul relaxes.

“Thank you. Now keep him down.”

And Malkin does. Apparently his desire to keep him mate safe is stronger that the desire to brat. Good because right now Paul doesn’t have the energy to deal with a brat.

Solaris looks slightly offended and a little betrayed when his mate puts the hands, carefully, on his shoulders, but doesn’t say anything.

Paul checks in the color again before resuming. The prostate is swollen and bigger than it should be. Solaris jerks again when Paul touches it, lighter this time, a leg kicking the sheet. Malik moves before Paul instructs him to, blocking the leg too.

“Bear a little with me, com’on.” Paul wishes to distract him somehow. A sexual distraction would be ideal, especially with Malkin here that knows what Solaris likes, but they didn’t discuss anything like that, so it’s off limits.

Instead Paul pets his hip, hoping that some skin contact will soothe the sub a little bit. It doesn’t particularly and the first dry orgasm sounds and looks painful. The penis has returned spent on the lower belly, dribbling the seminal fluid like it’s struggling. It probably is. The sperm is pearly white, so dense be almost gray, and Paul doesn’t have to touch for knowing that the consistency is more gelatinous than liquid.

He keeps the two fingers inside, sensing that taking them out, making Solaris feel empty would distress him and Paul wants the opposite. So with the free, clean hand, he takes the paper tissue he has brought with him, so clean the first round.

He counts until five and then returns to stimulate the prostate.

At every round the sperm loses consistency and color, until the fifth one is almost transparent like it should be, smooth and watery like the wetness of the vagina.

Solaris is breathing hard, limbs tired and melted on the bed, a layer of sweat over his forehead. He is so exhausted that he barely manages to keep his eyes open. Malkin is purring no stop from the first orgasm, his penis hard and high in his pants, with a wet stain on it, but it doesn’t seem in need to be cared of.

Paul praises both of them, and after having clean both of his hands, he pets Malkin, cupping his neck and caressing his ears has he has seen Crosby do. Malik nuzzles in his palm, probably smelling his mate’s scent on it, and Paul lets him until he calms down a little.

He gives Solaris water and puts him in a pair of lose trousers. He also changes Malkin, who is more complaint than expected, feed some water on him too and then tuck both of subs to sleep.

Chapter Text

Solaris spends the entire day touching and moving things. He knows that it’s silly, but he can’t really help himself. He is just too happy to finally be able to move again.

Chucky laughs at him, but he pays him no mind.

Finally, after four long, exceptionally boring, weeks he can move his fingers again. He doesn’t even wait for Alec to remove the ones on the left side before starting to move and touch and play with the fingers of his right hand while still seated on the medical bed.

Yes, yes, yes.

A sensation of rightfulness feels his chest. Like things should be. Now he can return to be independent. To brush his teeth on his own, to dress on his own, stretch and move as he please. He doesn't have to be constantly aware about his movements, to not move too fast or too strong. Do not make the movements too big. His upper half of body is not in constant pain anymore, not a big throbbing mess.

Solaris doesn't really listen to Alec talking about how the cuts have healed nicely. How the muscle tissues are still intact and bla bla bla. How he has recovered earlier than expected and started to set a plan for his active recovery. Physiotherapy and stuff like that.

There is Paul for that, nodding and attentive like the best scholar of the class, and beside he will return here anyway to talk about the same things in a day or so.

Solaris barely has the patience to wait for Alec and the other two doctors to finish their silly tests and measurements. He wants to go out and stay out. To do something now that he can.

He perceives a wave of happy warmth coming from the bond, Zhenya reacting at his joy. He waves back even if he didn’t realize he had opened the bond. It happens sometimes with big emotions that the control they have on the bond slips slightly.

He decides to let it open for a while, knowing that Zhenya would appreciate it.

*

“How do you feel?” Paul asks on the way home. Solaris is the one driving, he didn’t even have to insist too much. He just has watched Paul on the way to the car and the man has just signed and tossed the keys. Solaris has almost jumped on spot.

“Very good.” He is so happy that he can return to doing stuff.

Solaris is still at Paul place and he will be staying there for a while. Dynamic regulation stuff that he didn’t really pay attention to. It had sense when he was still stitched up. To live with someone else for obvious reasons.

But now, Solaris wonders how their…relationship? The balance they have achieved will change. Solaris is not blind or stupid. He is perfectly aware of the strict routine of the day that Paul has settled for them to help him regulate without being invasive. Paul wakes them up at six, even if Solaris hates to get up before the sun raise, it just feels too wrong, so he rolls around the bed for another hour or so, time for Paul to arrange some breakfast and do his business in the bathroom.

After eating whatever Paul has chosen for him, Solaris spends the rest of the morning in the garden taking his first round of sun of the day. Sometimes Paul stays with him, but most of the time he retreats in his home office and comes out only of his 10 o'clock coffee. Then is lunch, mandatory nap time after lunch that Solaris fakes because he is not an infant and needs to sleep every five hours. They do the nap on the couch of the livingroom, with the news in the background because Paul is still a man of almost sixty years old and so he watches the afternoon news program, and falls asleep at half of it. Because he is old.

Solaris usually is pretty content to just lay there, with his legs on the other man’s lap, getting scratches behind the knee.

After nap time usually someone for the team comes over. To keep him company. The pilgrimage pity was not Solaris’s idea and he is not sure if it’s Paul the one organizing the thing or Barky.

It’s not always appreciated, depending a lot on the day and the person. Sometimes Solaris just gets up and goes to his room, closing the door behind him, while over time he invites them to stay for dinner.

But a part for the meals schedules, Paul has set a routing for taking care of him on a more basal level. Paul baths him, combs his hair two times a day, does his skin routine every night and morning. One time a week Paul milks him dry, keeping a rate of five/six orgasms at time, leaving him a puddle and somehow professional but not cringe.

Now that Solaris can do all of this alone, and will, he is not sure how the routine will change. How Paul will react. Is he going to be sad because Solaris doesn't need him anymore?

*

“How do you feel without the stitches?”

Oh yes. Solaris hates this new thing.
These not-exactly-mandatory-but-highly-recommended, weekly therapy sessions.

The therapist is a sixty-year-old black woman, with a stupid, bald orange block note that she keeps on her lap, and that looks at him with a warm smile that looks only a little forced.

She doesn’t know how instagram works, nor the slang that Solaris uses. Which is annoying. She is not into sport neither, which is even more annoying, and she had raised her hairbrows when he told her that he used to do sex work.

Mrs.Harris is not the one that two weeks ago has declared Solaris mentally stable to make decisions for himself, but she has been recommended by them.

So now Solaris every Thursday has to lose one hour of his life, two if you consider the time to arrive and return, answering stupid questions like how does he feel, how did he sleep and what he wants to do with his life, if he miss Clara, because others have decided that Solaris needs help. Need to talk with someone.

This is actually the first session they are doing in Mrs.Harris studio and not Paul’s house. Soalris has driven here, feeling free like wind in finally going out on his own after almost a month stuck inside four walls.

“Good.” Solaris is not exactly inclined in opening up with this stranger. He doesn’t want to be here, nor does he feel the need to blurt out all his private business to this person. Solaris doesn’t particularly trust western medicine, they have focused too much only and exclusively on the material component of a living being, ignoring and forgetting and even denying the other part. The spiritual one. In Solaris's opinion you cannot heal completely if you don’t heal your spirit too.

He doesn’t either trust these mind doctors. Doing more damage than progress, poking their nose around where it shouldn’t. Solaris saw how much they have ‘helped’ his mum and his friend Yulia. If he closes his eyes he can still see, like it’s there, Yulia lying in the hospital bed, because she couldn’t make herself eat, tubes and sensors attached to her, her hand filled with small, purple holes for the IV, her eyes every time more glassy and empty. And Solaris could feel, could almost touch her spirit going weaker and weaker, until one day he refused to go away when the visiting hours ended, refused to move from his stupid orange chair, refusing to let go of her hand.

He could feel that the only reason why her spirit didn’t already fly anyway was because Soalris was forcing it inside and flowing his strength in her.

He resisted for two days.

Knowing that if he fell asleep, his compensation would come less and her spirit would leave.

The doctors used to go up and down, unsettled and confused. How Yulia with her vitals, her heart so slow that should not be enough to supply the oxygen minimum quantity for living, was still breathing.

But then Solaris’s body betrayed him and he fell asleep. And Yuilia’s heart stopped.

A priest has come and called it a miracle.

He heard the doctors talking. How they did everything they could. How no therapy seemed to work. The psychiatrist talked about ‘trauma’ and ‘too much’ and ‘pity’ and ‘maybe with another approach’. Solaris was eleven, but it already sounded like bullshit.

So no, he doesn’t trust the mind doctors.

Besides, he already has someone to talk with. He talks with the spirits.

“I can finally move.” he adds, just to say something in this awkward silence.

She nods and looks at him like waiting for him to expand the concept. He doesn’t.

“How does the returned freedom make you feel?”

Solaris shrugs. “Good.” Maybe he shouldn’t say only ‘good’. “I mean, I can brush my own teeth now.” She doesn’t laugh at the attempted joke. Instead she writes something down and Solaris despites it.

He hates that he doesn’t know what and why she notes something down.

“How has your relationship with Paul changed?” Mrs.Harris asks after.

“Mmm well, he has returned to work in presence, so we spend less time together.” They basically see each other only for breakfast and dinner. Sometimes when Solaris is at the club for his physiotherapy sessions, he drops off his office just to say hi and drink a cup of coffee together.

Paul doesn’t bathe him anymore, nor does he comb his hair. Solaris has also returned to manage the milkings on his own, as he has always done. They still talk during dinner and they spend some time together after, but both of their lives have returned to the usual rhythm.

He thinks that Paul is slightly sad about it. But it’s not Solaris’s problem and he doesn’t like to feel so dependent on someone else.

Again she waits for something that won’t come. Solaris gives a look at the watch.
35 minutes to go. It’s going to be so long.

*

He has driven in the middle of a national park, where light pollution is at the minimum. Since he doesn’t have the stitches he has started to sleep in his van and when Paul is on the road he doesn’t see any reason on why to stick there, in that empty, too big house that doesn't even feel like his or particularly familiar. So he sleeps out.

He never goes too far and he goes around with a GPS tracker connected to Zhenya's phone.

Paul talks over the phone, he likes to call every evening when he is on the road, and Solaris feels the stars caressing his skin. He has camped on the roof of the camper, away from nasty animals like snakes or iguanas and somehow closer to the sky.

That night he doesn’t sleep much. He had passed the majority of the time looking for answers to his questions in the sky.

Did he do the right thing? Can he trust Paul? How to get rid of Mrs.Harris? Why has this happened to him? What can he learn from this?

Flashbacks of the meeting with Clara of that afternoon keep popping out his eyes every time he closes them.

The thing is that Clara is hiding. And she does well in hiding. It’s probably the only smart choice that the girl has made recently. His fans want her blood and they would if they found her outside. The police suspect her and all the friends she had were in common and none has taken her side. He did a small trip on Instagram and Twitter to see the situation. Online hate never disappoints.

She cries in his arms the moment she opens the door of the shitty motel, clinging on his T-shirt, desperate for some comfort. Solaris breaths in her distress, her fear.

She is scared and alone. The shutters are closed and the air of the motel room stinks of sweat and chemicals. Of xanax and opiates.

Clara cries and sobs, and trembles, her face devastated and all wet, and Solaris looks at her state and the nasty monster inside of him sings. It’s so satisfying to hurt people that have hurt him. The sadistic part of him craves for more. More, more. For the desperation and agony that are keeping her awake at night. Her miserable state, reduced to a puddle of nothing, forced to fold back on drugs and alcohol to gain some peace.

Solaris hugs her back. Puts her on his lap and pets her hair.

“I’m not a monster, right Sol? It was an incident. I didn’t mean to, you know that.” She sobs against his shoulder. Hugging him tight around the shoulders. He is pretty sure that the last dose of xanax is starting to end its effects. He surely is not going to give her another one, wanting to see, to sight her real, full pain.

He hums, choosing to not answer right away. Solaris knows that she really didn’t mean to. Clara was on coke and dropping. She wasn’t actually thinking straight.

Something happened and she wanted to talk with him about it, something about her mother searching for her, Solaris didn’t really give the right attention to her, because he didn’t really care about it and Zhenya got hurt in the last game, so she snapped and then they had a fight and then for some reason she had made the very bad decision to drug him up with a dose that it would kill him if he wasn’t an ex addict, strap him in their bed, and whip him until he bleed. And then she dropped so hard, because she knew that when Solaris would recover it would be very bad for her, that by the time Solaris had woken up, almost a day after, she was still crunched on the floor.

It’s also true that after Solaris freed himself by breaking down the bed, he had filled the sink with water and pushed her head inside until she stopped moving. Then he walked away because he needed Zhenya and returned to set the house on fire to get rid of a body that he didn’t even search for, so he didn’t notice that there wasn’t any.

Still it was a pleasant surprise when he discovered that not only was she still alive, but that she never told the police the full truth.

Clara raises her head, searching him with her pleading, puffy red eyes.

“I’m not a monster, right? Right Sol?” She starts to hyperventilate. Solaris adjusted his back on the couch, both hands on her hips.

Just because he knows that she didn’t do it on purpose, it doesn’t mean that he is going to forgive her. He says nothing, raising his hands on her ribcage.

Clara has lost some weight. She whimpers when Solaris tightens the grip on her. He can feel every single rib, and he doesn’t resist pushing a finger horizontally in the space between the lower two.

She tries to squirm away, but Solaris grip holds. He also has lost some weight, but he is still way stronger.

Solaris moves his hands lower again, returning to her waist. Now bony and fragile. Solaris inhales deeply as his dick gets hard at the thought of the sound her ribs would do if he broke them.

Without really realizing so, his hands go lower, finding the buttcheeks and he digs the fingers in the soft meat. Clara whispers loudly, sobbing and begging for something, what she doesn’t even know.

Solaris gives her a light clap on the butt. “You are not a monster, baby.” He reassures her eventually. “You are just a little stupid sometimes.”

Clara is as pretty as stupid. Not able to make a single smart choice on her own. Spoiled, dull and shallow.

His dick gives another twitch of interest as he imagines how strong he could make her cry.

Without really stopping to massage the soft meat of her butt, going up and down, cracking a finger between the cheeks, sensing the hotness between her legs, he keeps talking.

“But just because I know you didn’t do it on purpose, it doesn’t mean I will do nothing for it, no?” he sweet talks to her, feeling high for her trembling breaths. He nuzzles her neck, where the smell of fear is stronger.

“No…please. I-” Clara is even able to talk for how hard she is sobbing. “I will do anything, just please…”

God, she is a fucking mess.

Solaris relaxes on the sofa, letting her squirm on him, trying to get closer and closer. She also gives a small, probably instinctive roll of hips on his lap, rubbing their two together.

He doesn’t stop her, but neither indulge her.

“Well, my sweet girl, there is something you could do for me.” He says. Solaris had a lot of time to think for his best route of action. Not going to court is not an option. He wants Clara to pay for her mistakes, and suffer. A 30 year sentence will do the job. But he doesn’t want the trial to go too long. He has a season to think and playoffs to win. And he surely doesn’t want to ruin the two small months of holiday, of Zhenya, for this.

If Clara confesses, everything would be faster to set and easier. If she doesn’t, Solaris will obtain the same result, probably pushing for more just because he would be annoyed, only in a longer time.

“I need you to confess, baby. You did a very bad thing.” He searches for her eyes, which she is trying to hide in his chest. She sobs. Her chin trembles. “You hurt me a lot. And the house…” Solaris clicks his tongue. All his shit. All of it, gone. His pretty little house, that he had put so much care and love in decorating.

His nest. His clothes. His memories. Zhenya’s things. All gone.

Clara’s eyes go wide and she loses that small color she still had in the face. She opens her mouth to say something, something stupid like ‘she isn’t the one that started the actual fire’ and Solaris covers it with a hand to not make her situation worse.

“If you confess, I will be very pleased Clara. Yes? The trial will be just a formal thing. Quick and easy.” He says with a low, calm voice. “I wouldn’t lose even more games.”

Solaris has already lost too much time. “I already lost a month for your fault and I will lose another one for the recovery. And don’t even think to say that it’s not your fault, Clara.” He grips her jaw enough to hurt her, but not to bruise the skin.

He can’t leave any signs of his passage.

They shouldn’t even meet, in theory.

“You know what's going to happen, if you don’t? I’m going to make sure that the only way you get out of prison is in a wooden box.” Clara returns to have difficulty in breathing, and Solaris only pushes his hand harder.

“So you are going to tell the police that you abuse drugs often, that you used to scene while high. That you are jealous of Zhenya and that you have done that mess on my back while high. And that you are then one who has set up the fire, yes?”

It’s not even so far from the actual truth.
“Make the smart choice for once.” It’s not a beg, because Solaris doesn't really beg, but it’s a close thing.

He waits for Clara to nod. She does, folding under his will. After her nod, he stamps a kiss on her temple and claps her but, making her raise.

“Very well. I was hoping you would see sense.” He says, satisfied, as he gets up and fixes his trousers to hide his wood.

*

Solaris looks up at the sky. With Paul’s sexy voice in his ears and Claras’s devastated face in mind he gets all hard and wet again.

He groans. He would love to touch himself just at the sound of Paul’s voice. Not even the words, just the voice. But he doesn’t want to make it creepy. Paul doesn’t look interested in him like that, which is at the same time strange and flattering. Solaris is not really used to having to do with someone, in close contact for a long period of time, that at some point doesn’t start to show some sexual interest in him. Especially older doms.

Maybe this is why Solaris feels so much attracted to Paul. Because Paul is a new, interesting person that doesn’t treat Solaris like the usual.

But at the end of the day, it’s cool. Solaris is not going to live for the rest of the season at his place, and the moment he moves out everything will return like before.

Finally Paul says goodnight, and Solaris can finally lower his pants. For a second he regrets not bringing some toy with him, or a tissue for after, but he doesn’t want to go down and take one.

The fantasy starts with Clara’s crying face. People are so fuckable when crying. But it quickly goes to something more similar in blowing Paul. He bets that Paul has a wonderful, big dick.
Paul has a huge big-dick energy.

Solaris is sure it’s big and thick. In his imagination Paul is not circumcised, head would feel fat and heavy on his tongue, his precum a little salty. Solaris would spend the day cockwarming him, tucked between his legs, under the desk of his home office while he talks on the phone and Solaris would suck him out of the bad mood he gets every time he has to deal with the front office for the trades.

*

Life keeps going. Clara goes to confess three days later, the police tell him and his lawyer. Solaris minds his recovery, careful in not overdue, but working his ass off because he wants to return on ice. Paul goes and returns from the road. The boys are on fire, winning more than losing. He keeps going to Mrs.Harris with increasing boredom and he does an interview for an article on his situation.

He travels with the team when it’s the week of playing with Pittsburg, passing two nice, relaxing days at Zhenya’s and Sid house, in the comfort of Zhenya’s nest, surrounded by his scent and his love.

*

“There is no need for you to follow the trial.” Solaris says in the warmth of their bed after a good fuck, without stopping the scratchers. Zhenya tenses under his touch. He turns his face to look at him.

“I want to.” Zhenya answers, a stubborn frown on his eyebrows. “I want to. And they will call me to testify.”

His mate is a vendicative creature. Solaris knows that Zhenya wants only the worst for Clara. And he will make sure of that, only he doesn’t want to give his mate more worries than necessary.

Solaris caresses his face. “There will be no need to get you involved. I will think of everything, yes?” He knows that Zhenya doesn’t look forward to the possibility of testifying in court. Mostly because he doesn’t know much about his relationship with Clara. She and Solaris were together for not even a year. Solaris didn’t invite her to Canada last summer and he didn’t really talk much about her to Zhenya.

For him the relationship with Clara wasn’t that important. Just a person he used to have over, totally replaceable with someone else for what he cares about. Solaris just wants someone accessible and easy to fuck with and a semblance of a stable relationship to keep abay the dynamic office.

It’s nothing like Zhenya. Like the bond they share. Nothing will ever be like that.
Clara had the pro that she is enough opportunistic to skip (the majority of the time) Solaris’s evident lack of effort in having a serious relationship. Because truth to be told they never really loved each other. Sure there was chemistry and sexual attraction. But Clara only wanted money to spend in purse and fine food, and Solaris bed warmer and someone to bring at the galà dinners.

All of this Zhenya didn’t really understand. Zhenya is smarter than he lets to see and beside there is the bond, which talks a lot. Solaris knows that Zhenya knows that he doesn’t really care about his other relationship. Still Zhenya only desires the best for him, so he wishes that Solaris would have a person next to him, when they are far, that truly cares and loves him.

Zhenya tucks his nose in Solaris’s hook of the neck. Mouthing slightly the soft skin there.

“Clara has confessed, so the trial will be just a short formality.” Solaris plays with his hair. “She will get what she deserves.”

Zhenya hums. “Good.” He mumbles. “Stupid bitch.” Solaris can’t not agree.

*

The trail is an easy affair. Solaris lawyer is an asshole with absolutely no sense of morality, only of money, that would defend the worst pedophile in the world for the right to pay. Only he would win the cause.

That’s why Solaris has chosen him over the lawyer of the association of sub’s rights that has been suggested to him.

Solaris wants blood, but he has to move smart. He is the victim here. The lawyer, Robert Deegan, doesn’t bat an eye behind his fat ass, definitely too big desk and too white office, when Solaris tells him what he actually wants, and how he wants things are going to be perceived.

He nods and says ‘of course’ and ‘I understand’ with that cocky face of his. Tells his price and Solaris nods and says ‘of course’ and they shake hands.

The trial will be held in private form and Deegen is the one that deals with the media. By the time Solaris can return to play in a real game, it’s done.

Solaris held a press conference, saying again how the team has supported him, how good the boys have been and how excited he is to return on ice. That yes, he feels good and he is receiving the best help possible.

He does a three day trip to Zhenya for the New Eve because he knows that Zhenya cares about this shit, even if for him it doesn't have any meaning since he follows the celebrations of his culture with another calendar, and the first time he returns on ice he does a hat trick.

Just to make a point.

Chapter Text

The thing is that Solaris is getting horny. He can’t stop thinking about how it would feel to have the mouth stuffed full by Paul’s dick.

Living with Paul has its own complications. Lucky Paul spends a lot of time in the office, and Solaris feels relaxed and secure enough only in his truck to lower his guards enough to masturbate, so they are not going to have incidental meetings. When he wants to have proper sex he finds someone online or simply walks in the right bar, and then goes to their place and returns pretty late.

On the road is slightly different since Solaris is still in dynamic prohibition, so he and Paul have to share the hotel room. In this case usually he goes out and finds someone to spend the night and return only in the morning to not wake up Paul, who needs and deserves all the hours of sleep. The older dom doesn’t need to be woken up at two in the morning because Solaris wanted to get his dick wet.

Yet when Solaris wants something, he gets it.

He starts slow. For some reason, others have decided that Solaris is still sick. That he is a poor, little sub, with his heart broken and his instincts all over the place. That he can’t distinguish from good and bad and needs to be protected and shielded from the bad people.

It’s total bullshit, and untrue, but unfortunately Paul is one of them. So even if his tactics are slowly working, Paul is still determined to not give in and give Solaris what he is aiming for.

Solaris starts with the basics. He starts to spend more time in Paul's office for instance. Lay lazily on the new couch that Paul has bought just for him, Solaris may have not vocalize it but he has noticed the change and have noticed that there aren’t any smell except his own on it so he knows that Paul is not allowing overs to use the small couch, and something inside of him jiggles a little too much at the thought that Paul is so attentive, with his legs spread in silent invitation. A silent temptation.

He gives Paul intense looks when he does something hot like barking at the phone, while he palms his chest. He starts to go around the house half naked, waggling his hips a little more than usual. Asks for advice he doesn’t actually need, slowly shorten the distance between them on the couch when they watch something.

Then, after a while, after Paul is getting comfortable, he asks Paul to join him in the home gym. It's been weeks that Pauls says that he should do something about the back pain and light layer of fat around his torso. Every time he sits down and up he complains about how rigid he feels all the time.

And Solaris does around two hours of stretching everyday. Paul accepts because of course he does, Solaris knows that in his head it’s an easy, probably safe, occasion to do some platonic expression on their dynamics.

So Solaris doesn't keep track of the time and after a couple of times, in which Paul understood what Solaris likes to do, he lets the dom decide the sequence of exercises and the timing. In exchange Solaris touches him a little more than it’s proper and does deep breaths every time that Paul pushes him. Not a moan but quite. He breathes out an “harder” every time he is bent on the floor, legs open, chest on the floor and Paul behind him hands on his lower back keeping him there.

Solaris only grins when he notices the half wood of Paul the second time they did this.

When finally Solaris returns playing, he allows Paul to pet his head at the after dinner kneeling. When after a particularly tough loss, which has shaken Paul more than him, he moves the pad between the dom’s leg instead that on the side like usual, and Paul simply nods a little relieved and also a little sad, he gets the confirmation that he is going on the right path.

That night Solaris makes an effort to stop his mind and relax. It’s not something that he usually does. Kneeling doesn’t have the same effect on him that has on the other subs. For him it’s not the first step to subspace. Doesn’t make him relaxed and soft like Chucky who could go down like a stone just by kneeling for Barky and hands on his hair and neck.

For him it’s just a position. It is quite uncomfortable if done wrong, with the wrong pad actually, but he doesn’t really feel anything special. It’s a good place to do oral sex, that yes, but when he had felt as Zhenya feels when he kneels for Sid, it has been a total foreign sensation.

That night, with Paul sturdy hand between his hair, face folded on his tight, and eyes on Paul’s crotch, he decides that he would ask for a change in their contract.

That stupid platonic contract that Paul has brought. In which Solaris has been a particularly strict truth to be told. It was not his first contract. He and Clara had one too, a lot less formal, a simple list hand written on a white paper of things that they don’t like and things they like. They didn’t even sign it.

There wasn’t a section dedicated to rules or punishments or rewards…nothing like this one. Solaris prefers his old type of contract. More simple to manage and to understand. But he had a formal contract like that before. With a professional dom he used to go when he was still in Canada.

In their contract there is a section and subsection for everything. Solaris put ‘no’ basically at everything, except for kneeling because Paul is a dynamic person and has his own needs to fulfill and Solaris is his sub, so he will.

Kneeling is fine. It’s not a bother to sit on the floor for less than 30 minutes a day, it doesn't hurt him in any way. Just a little boring but the small, pleased smile that Paul has every time he gets up makes it worth it.

Despite what everyone is so convinced about Solaris knows that he can trust Paul. That the older dom will respect his boundaries. That’s why he has put down so much without worrying to face discussions. Not that discussion would have made him change the answers anyway.

He also knows that the conditions in the contract can be changed anytime and talked about.

So the day after Solaris sits down Paul and asks him if he is comfortable with some cuddling and petting.

He is. And he is also very happy about it.

*

After that Solaris increased the level. Touches Paul here and there. Gives him particularly long looks.

Then one day Paul walks in the garden while Solaris is on the phone with Zhenya.
Solaris is wearing the earbuds so as to have both hands free to wander between his legs.

On the other side of the phone Zhenya is talking filth about what they are going to do next time they will see each other. Solaris has already cum one time, three fingers deep in his pussy, with Zhnya’s voice in his ears and Zhenya’s lust in his soul.

Right now he is playing with the tip of his dick, pinching it between his nails, and the other hand playing with his clit while Zhenya talks about this new toy, a double end dildo, and how they could use to fuck each other reciprocally, when Paul arrives.

Solaris is seated so he can see at the same time the house and the garden. He has the head resting languidly on the floor, his throat completely exposed, like he thought he had still a lot of time alone and he didn’t do this on purpose, when Paul appears from the backdoor.

Paul must not notice at first his state, because he walks in normally and opens his mouth probably to ask how his afternoon went, but no sounds come out. He remains stuck with the mouth open, jaw slack.

Zhenya cums with the perfect timing and Solaris feels it everywhere and more through the open bond, and moans back, the hand on his dick faster. He doesn’t cum right way, he waits for Paul to unlock his eyes from the water, where his hands are working to look up at his face.

Paul’s eyes are wide and shocked. His cheeks are suddenly flaming red, blushing to his chest. In a blink, just as Soalris is arching his back too, he turns and runs inside.

*

After Solaris has cum another time just to see if Paul would come for the dinner, after he said bye to Zhenya and dried himself, he finds Paul in the living room and a plate covered on his seat in the kitchen.

“I lost track of the time, I didn’t realize it was so late.“ Solaris prompts, lying on all the sides.

Paul looks away from the tv. He looks dead serious. For a second Solaris worries that maybe he has pushed too hard and too fast.

“So you didn’t do it on purpose?” he asks. Solaris shakes his head, looking innocent like a sweet angel.

“No, I was on the phone with Zhenya and then… you know.” he shrugs, casual. Like he didn’t call Zhenya on a certain hour and then bring up the topic on purpose.

Paul breaths in. “Okay. Go eat, I left your dinner on the table.”

Solaris goes to eat, but he refuses to eat alone like he is in grounding, so he brings the plate to the living room. He keeps a respectful distance with Paul and they talk normally. Then Solaris goes to put away the plate in the dishwasher and when he returns there is a kneeling pad between Paul’s legs.

He takes the message and sinks down with a fluid movement. He likes to touch Paul when he kneels for him, usually somewhere near the ankles or the dom’s knees, more recently, but today he opts to keep the hands on himself.

Paul cups both his hands under Solaris’s face, bringing it up, making them face each other.

“I’m not blind Solaris. I have noticed the little game you are playing.” Paul starts, and he looks so hot, so centred. His voice is hard, but not mean, just steady. Solaris’s mouth waters.

“Oh yeah? And what am I doing?” He teases, not bothering to try and move his head. Both Paul’s thumbs start to pet his cheeks.

“You are flirting with me like I’m one of those desperate men that would pay to have a taste of you.” the dom says. “And I don’t like it.”

Without even realizing it Solaris pushes backwards, taken aback from the harshness of the tone and the straight reference to his past. But Paul’s grip, even if it doesn't harden, doesn’t allow it.

“It’s a little insulting towards me to put me on their same level, don’t you think?”

Solaris is a little stunned, which doesn’t happen often. He never thought Paul was like one of those disgusting men that he had sold himself for some money when he was younger. Mostly because he wouldn’t be so subtle with the approach.

He doesn’t consider how he had behaved in the last weeks particularly dissolute. He didn’t act slutty like he used to at the strip club or on the street, like he can still do if wanted. He didn’t wear anything indecent or too suggestive, didn’t bend at 90 to show his ass at every occasion. Didn’t play with his fork or sucked suggestively a lollypop in Paul’s face.

But most importantly he is not doing all of this because he wants something back. He doesn’t feel like he has to buy or earn Paul’s benevolence with his body. Or his time or attention. Or to pay back for all the care and the energy that Paul has invested in him. In taking care of him while he was stuck with the stupid stitches.

Which is probably what Paul is more worried about, except maybe for his honor.

In fact the next thing Paul says is right about it.

“You don’t have to feel like you own me something. Or to pay me back with your body, you hear me?” The thumbs on his cheeks never stop moving. His voice is dead serious. “You are safe with me, Solaris. I will never hurt or exploit you. I didn’t accept to be your dom because I wanted you in my bed. I accepted because I care about you and I want to help you the best I can.”

Solaris smiles, a little touched. He nuzzles between his hands.

“I know.” Solaris knows. He has seen how much Paul cares about him. Genuinely cares.

How the dom is almost careful about his well being, how hard he is working to meet Solaris’s needs and way to do and live things. He hears in his voice and smells in his scent Paul’s sincerity.

Paul’s sadness when Solaris sometimes wakes up with a nightmare in a random hotel room, soaking wet from sweat, and scared, so fucking scared and Paul will talk to him, telling where they are, wait for Solaris to search for some touch and respect his time. How the dom helps him drink some water and dries him with a towel before hugging him and petting his back until he calms down enough and manages to return to sleep.

“I know that I don’t have to repay you. And I’m sorry if you felt like that, I just…” Solaris decides to be honest “I just want to blow you.” He admits with a half grin. “I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s making me crazy. And I know that you would be hesitant for some reason so I was trying to take it slow and showing you that I wanted this.”

Paul’s eyes melts a little and all his body frame relaxes. “Are you sure about that?”

Solaris keeps their eyes locked. “Yes.”

Paul breaths in through the nose. “All right. I believe you.” He moves the hand to cup the base of Solaris’s neck, who gets the need to show his throat. He doesn’t, resisting to bend at such silly urge.

“So…Can I blow you now?” Solaris asks hopefully. Paul signs and Solaris sulks already hearing the ‘no’.

“We didn’t discuss sexual activities in our contract.” The dom says, even if he sounds sad about it too.

Solaris rolls his eyes. “I don’t need a contract for a blowjob.”

Paul hesitates for a moment. “I do.”

Solaris signs. He should have imagined that. Paul must be feeling on edge and walking eggs with him, since even if he is good at hiding it, the dom still considers him in a ‘delicate situation’ that requires a ‘delicate approach’.

“Fine. Then take out the contract.” Solaris rolls his eyes. As always he gets what he wants.

*
*

Ps. paul’s dick is even better than he imagined.

Chapter Text

PAUL

It’s past lunch time and Solaris hasn't got up yet. He has woken up a couple of times, Paul has catched him stir and turned around, but not even opened his eyes. Paul is starting to get worried.

Did he got sick?

Paul looks over Solaris’s big frame splattered on the bed. He is on his belly, an arm under himself and another turned under the pillow. His long hair are free and fanned out all around him and a big portion of the rest of the bed.

Solaris has started to sleep with a bonnet for the hair after he saw it on TikTok. It’s kind of ridiculous, but Paul didn’t dare to say so, and Solaris is pretty satisfied by whatever results he is seeing, and Paul is not. The only tangible news that Paul has noticed is the decrease of hair in the bed.

Today, though, Solaris doesn’t wear it because they have fallen asleep soon after sex and he must have forgotten, so Paul can pass a hand between his hair too and not only the back.

In these months Paul has learned that it’s not a good idea to wake up Solaris by touching him. Not by calling his name because Solaris may take it in a bad way and fear they have to run. To what and who Paul doesn’t know.

Instead he takes out his phone and plays the usual ring tone that the sub has an alarm.

He waits patently at the side of the bed for Solaris to stir back to consciousness.

“Good morning.” Paul says gently. Solaris rubs one eye. He passes a hand between the sub’s hair and gives him some scratches behind the ear. Solaris leans into the touch, turning on his back, and Paul takes the message and after putting down the phone he gives him some scratches on the belly too.

He blandly ignores Solaris’s morning wood.
“How are you feeling?” By touch he doesn’t feel hotter than usual, so maybe it’s not a fever. A half purr comes up Solaris’s throat.

Solaris closes his eyes again. Nuzzling in his hand and moving the head to demand more scratches under the chin. Paul indulges him.

It doesn’t look like a drop either. Solaris’ drops make him violent and aggressive. He doesn’t look aggressive right now. He wouldn’t let Paul touch his belly or the back of the head. He just looks…tired.

Between one thing and another they went to sleep around three am yesterday. But now it’s like two pm so Solaris got plenty of sleep. And Paul woke up at nine and he doesn’t feel that tired, despite his age.

Maybe it’s just one of those days when everything is slow and tiring. Or maybe it’s just because today is one day close to the new moon day. Terrible nights those close to the new moon.

If Solaris gets a nightmare, it’s when they are close to a new moon.

The sub doesn’t go out and he always plays worse. Even if his worst is like the same level of their third line. Paul has checked and there is a suspicious correspondence between the Lunar phases and Solaris’s points. There is a pick at the full moon and a ditch with the new moon.

He is not sure where the line between reality and Solaris’s conventions lay. When he talked about it with Solaris, the sub had scoffed, irritated.

“I feel weaker with the new moon.” He told him, as this would explain everything.

Also today the forecast says it will snow all day. Snowing means clouds, that means no sun. It will be a bad day for Solaris.

“I don’t want to.” Solaris mumbles after the second time Paul has asked him what is wrong.

Paul frowns a little. “What don't you want to do?”

“Play at the Rogers. It’s full of them there. They distract me.”

Paul feels a shiver. He knows who ‘them’ are.

Solaris states that not only ghosts, or spirits as he calls them, exist, but he can sense them.

The first time Paul learned about it was almost a month ago.

Solaris starts to act strange the moment they step in the hotel room in Chicago. He fidgets around, keeps glancing over at a particular angle of the wall. He even has zoned out for like 10 minutes.
At first Paul says nothing. It happens that from time to time Solaris gets anxious over things completely clueless to Paul. But usually he manages on his own and gets pissy if Paul tries to intervene.

But with time rolling it only gets worse. So he decides to act.

“Tell me what 's wrong.” Paul demands for like the fourth time. Solaris looks insecure, one of the rare times he looks like that, and Paul hates it.
“You can trust me.”

Solaris looks him dead in the eye and then to the wall again. Paul sees how he shallows, how he takes a big breath. How he forces his shoulders down.

“I’m not crazy.” Solaris starts, and it’s not a good start. “I know that some people think I am. But they are real.” He says, and Paul forces his head to nod. And to keep calm. “I feel them.” Solaris has returned to look at him. “There is a ghost up the bed.”

Paul doesn't believe in ghosts. He doesn't even believe in spirits or God or stuff like that. But Solaris does. A lot.

Fanatic is maybe not the right word to describe him, because he is not like violent in expressing his beliefs and he doesn't talk or force anyone into believing his religion.

But he is surely a zealous one.

“Okay. Does it have bad intentions?” It seemed a pretty standard thing to ask for a ghost. Paul didn’t feel particularly stupid when asking this. He personally didn’t feel anything wrong in the room nor he believes that there is one. And Solaris is all strange all the time and Paul will play along if that means calm him down.

Solaris crooks his head. “Mm no. She is just sad. And maybe a little annoyed at me.”

Well fuck. That’s not good to hear. “But it’s not like she can like- do something.” Solaris adds. “But it bothers me.”

“Why?”

Solaris is clearly very uncomfortable.

“She wants me to help her. But I don’t- I don't know how. Like the rite.” He looks over the wall with a defeated expression.

“Okay.” Paul says again. More to himself. “What do you do in these situations?” He really fucking hopes it isn’t the first time that something like that has happened.

“I ask to change room at the desk. Usually on another floor.”

Paul is already walking to the door. “All right. Let’s do that.”

So now he knows that the spirit of some, not all, dead people doesn’t transit to the spirit world. Solaris is not sure why or how something like this happens, but he knows that it shouldn’t.

He told Paul that these ghosts can do stuff, like move things and walk around, but whatever they do it won’t be reflected on the living beings. Which is the same level of reassuring and very confusing.

The ghosts are stuck in the place where they have died. So the woman in the hotel room can move around the hotel freely, but cannot get out.

If they have died outside, like in a car crash, they will be confined outside and not be able to go inside places.

Solaris is convinced that ghosts can talk between them, but to communicate with living people they can do it only by sensations and emotions rather than words.

He knows there are rites to free them and allow them to join the spiritual world. But that is a sacred knowledge that only angakkuq have the right to know. And he yet not one.

Paul is still not sure if believe Solaris or not. He doesn’t even know if he should get worried or not. A quick trip around the internet didn’t really help to calm his nerves. It could be a sign of paranoia or schizophrenia or other shit like that.

When he calls Crosby for some external and objective opinion, he could have asked Malkin but he doubts about his objectivity, the other dom reassures him.

“Oh yes. I don’t think there is anything to worry about. He doesn’t get too weird about it. I have consulted a therapist about it and they told me that it is better to indulge it until it doesn’t get too limiting and invasive in his daylife and social life.” He says. “And that it’s probably the result of OCD and paranoia and neglect abuse in his early childhood."

Crosby sounds too light and undisturbed for the heaviness of the information that he is sharing.

“I bet you have noticed how he moves things around so they are all in order.”

Oh yes, Paul has noticed. Received a cold shoulder treatment for an entire day when he approached the topic.

“Yes, I did.”

At the same time he is surrounded by hockey players that are one of the most superstitious breed of players in professional sports. Him too has his own little, silly but foundumental, rites on game day.

“He says there are tons of them at Rogers Place.” Paul explains, returning to the main topic. Crosby signs on the other line.
“Oh yes, Edmonton. G told me that Sol told him that he says that the Oilers are jinked from the ghosts there.”

*

He lets Solaris not play that night. Since it's a new moon he doesn't even step out of the room to eat dinner.

“Why didn’t Rowene play tonight?” A journalist asks in the post game interview.

Paul thinks about giving the real reason. “Oh you know he believes that the Rogers arena is haunted by hundreds of spirits of the dead native children buried in a mass grave under the foundations of the arena. They want to be freed by him because he is a shaman and has a connection with the spiritual word, but he can’t do it because he doesn’t know how. He feels guilty and overwhelmed by them. Oh yes, and today there is also a new moon, so you know less Moon energy for him.”

He almost chuckles.

“Personal reasons.” He says instead and then he moves to the next question.

*

When he returns to their hotel room the lights are already off. He preps for the bed silently, feeling the exhaustion of the long day on his shoulder as he brushes his teeth. God he never feels so old as when a game day ends past midnight.

“How did it go?” Solaris comes close to him, covering him like a blanket the moment Paul steps on bed.
“We won.” He lets himself relax and enjoy the warmth of Solaris’s body against him. At home they don’t sleep together. Solaris prefers to sleep outside generally and beside in Florida would be too hot.

Even now in the cold weather of Edmonton they take off the comforter, Solaris’ body warmth more than enough to keep them warm during the night.

“Good.” Solaris mumbles before nuzzling for the last time Paul's chest.

*

Paul watches the 2024 All Star Games from the comfort of his own couch and the other coaches as company. They drink some beers and eat pizza as they watch Solaris demolish the other players in the skill competitions and then on ice paired with Geno.

In formal games it’s against the rules to have both parties of a bonded couple on ice at the same time. The bond, the unique way to be two in one is a too big advantage to be fair and when it was still admitted it had led to forced bonding.

But the All Star Games are not normal games, they are basically made only for the fans and the fans want,no crave, to see how two bondmates can play together.

Neither to say, is some of the best hockey Paul has never seen.

In the post game interviews, when they call Solaris and Geno together, it’s recorded how they look at each other with heartshapes eyes. And Paul’s heart melts a little.

“They are disgustingly cute.” Jamie says as he takes a gulp of his beer. Paul doesn’t say anything, a fond smile on his face as he watches Solaris looking at Geno with big, dreamy eyes.

*

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that the reason why Solaris handles the milking on his own is shame.

Paul feels sorry for him. There is nothing shameful in having different biologicaò needs, and it can be fun to do together. But he is not the one that has to stick his fingers inside his hole once a week, so he doesn’t approach the topic.

It would be like telling a woman that giving birth is not that bad. It would be disrespectful and out of place.

The important thing is that Solaris in one way or another does it. And he does. He never skips a week.

They don’t fuck every day, they don’t have the time or the will and Paul wouldn’t have the energy, but enough that Paul every time he fingers him open he gives a small check.

And everything is in order.

Like now for example.

Paul pushes the index and middle fingers another time on Solaris’s prostate like it’s a button on the videogames of the 80s. In response Solari’s back arcs complitely.

The boy is very responsive. He is not particularly vocal, but he tweaks and squirms a lot after Paul learned how to touch him the right way.

Paul feels like he had followed an accelerated course of sex-talk of Russian and Inuktitut. Languages that Solaris slips in easily in these situations. Now he knows how they say “yes” and “please” and “harder” and similar. Words that Solaris whispers like a chant between his lips, against Paul’s ear when they fuck.

He also knows “green”, “yellow” and “red” and his safeword. Whale.

“Paul, Paul, Paul.” Solaris says his name like he is worshipping one of his Gods.

It makes Paul feel powerful and capable.

He leaves the prostate alone and sinks down. He doesn’t wear his glasses which is a pity because he would pay gold to see Solaris’s face as he eats him out.

Solaris loves to get fucked. It has been kind of a surprise how much of bottom Solaris is. How his Soalris, all fierce and bold in his daylife, melts on the mattress only craving to be filled full.

He is not even a power bottom. He is a total pillow princess, leaving Paul to do all the hard work.

It’s not really hard work. Paul finds joy and pleasure in taking care of his partners.

Unfortunately Paul has already cum once and he doesn't have to get hard again any time soon. For some reason Solaris has decided that tonight Paul was even sexier than usual in his game suit yelling at the refs, and wanted to reward him with a blowjob.

Paul didn’t say no.

For obvious reasons, when Solaris had to sell himself on the streets to survive, he is not particularly fond of giving blowjobs. Paul never asked and never will, knowing that when and if Solaris feels up to it, he will let him know.

But for the couple of times he had the honor to be sucked by Solaris, it has been by far the best head he had ever received.

All this to say that Paul can’t fuck him like Solaris whish. Solaris is a greedy creature by heart. He wants everything and now.

But Solaris is not the only one good with the tongue.

*

Solaris returns home before dawn. Paul didn’t expect him before lunch.

He crawls in Paul’s bed obviously trying to be careful and not wake him up, but it’s a hard thing to do for someone that weighs more than 100 kg.

“Hei.” Paul doesn’t have the energy to open his eyes, but he moves the arm helping Solaris in tucking himself under him.

He must have showered and brushed his teeth because he smells fresh and soapy, not sweaty and all sticky with alcohol.

“What are you doing already here? Didn’t you have fun with the boys?” Pauls mutters.

Solaris nuzzles closer. “Yes, but I wanted to be with you more.” Paul smiles against his head, pushing Solaris closer.
“Always so sweet.”

It makes him earn a loud purr.

“Are you happy?” Solaris whispers in the dark.

“The happiest of my life.” He admits without shame because Solaris is not his ex wife who would get offended that his happiest day is not their marriage or when they met or the birth of their daughter, but the night when he won his first StanleyCup.

“Good. I won it for you.”

Solaris’ purrs cuddle him to fall asleep again.

*

They win the next year too. And the other after too.

Solaris says that his first cup was for Paul, the second for himself and the third for Geno, who joined Florida after Crosby retirement in 2026.

That year Solaris gets nominated for the Olympic Team again and he convinces Paul to fly to Milan with him because: you need better suits, Paul.

He and Geno sit together in the stands and they hug each other when Solaris scores the game winner of the final with a Crosby’s assist.

*

At 28 and after only four seasons in the NHL Solaris decides to retire.

It doesn’t surprise Paul. It’s not like he is content about his decision, but he is not discontent about it.

He just knows how much Solaris could have done, could have achieved in a normal length career. The hockey fan in him thinks it is a pity.

But he also saw it coming. And he knows that for Solaris hockey is not a passion. It was just a job and a way to be on ice. Winning so much and so fast has dismissed his interest in the sport.

He is the best player in the world with the best team in the league. These three years have proven that there is no match against him.

At the same time Solaris is aware that it’s not possible to win infinitely. That at some point they will have to lose. It’s natural. It’s how things work.

And Solaris is not the type to face a loss. He has never lost a championship in his life. Paul is pretty convinced that he is the only athlete that has won every single big tournament that has participated.

“I have lost so many things in my life, let me have at least the sport.” Solaris has commented when a journalist asked how he felt about winning so much.