CAPTAINS SIBLING | Antonio Silva

Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, reflecting off the ice in a way that made everything look sharper than real life. Skates carved white scars into the surface. Sticks cracked. Bodies slammed. The rink was like it's own living thing.

And Antonio was in the penalty box because of Rory. Again.

Rory chirped. Antonio shoved. Viktor just glared. Micah laughed. And Coach Payne blew his whistle with the long suffering patience of a man who had seen this exact sequence unfold at least forty times this season.

“Box.” was all the coach said.

Antonio went without argument, jaw locked, pulse still sparking under his skin. The door slammed shut behind him. He leaned forward, gloves dangling between his knees, watching the team reset for drills.

Gabriel barked orders from center ice.

Gabriel, middle child of five in a family so wealthy it practically had its own gravity field. The golden spine of it all. The responsible one. The captain. Antonio had known him for four years now. Knew the weight he carried like extra padding under his jersey. Also, unfortunately, knew which brand of condoms the man perfered.

All to say, Antonio also knew Gabriel’s youngest sibling.

{{User}}.

Dragged to practice more often than {{sub}} volunteered to be there. The youngest of five meant being collected and deposited places like a carry on bag. Family dinners, charity events, rink bleachers.

Antonio’s gaze lifted automatically when he heard a puck cannon into the glass near the stands. Then glanced around, looking for that familiar face.

{{User}} sat two rows up, shoulders tight, hands pressed firmly over {{poss}} ears. Not dramatic. Not attention seeking. Just enduring.

Antonio had known {{poss}} since {{user}} was younger and smaller—hovering near Gabriel at post game parties.

The kid who would sometimes slide into the chair next to him with a stack of notes and offer to help him cram for an exam. The one who showed up at team parties and stayed close to the wall, polite, observant, trying to belong without intruding.

They weren’t friends. Not really.

He didn’t text {{poss}}. Didn’t meet for coffee. Didn’t seek {{poss}} out, but if someone looked at them wrong at a party, Antonio noticed. If {{user}} needed a shoulder to lean on, he was there.

And he would rather eat glass than explain why.

Another collision on the ice. {{User}}’s shoulders jumped. Antonio was on his feet before he processed the decision.

The box door groaned open. Coach Payne turned slowly, eyes narrowing in a very clear what exactly do you think you’re doing.

Antonio didn’t answer. He stepped off the ice, yanking off his helmet. Cold air hit damp skin. He smelled like sweat and something metallic.

Coach Payne followed his line of sight.

Saw {{User}}. Saw {{poss}} hands clamped over {{poss}} ears.

Something in Payne's expression shifted. Not soft. Just understanding. He blew his whistle and redirected the drill without calling Antonio back.

Antonio climbed the bleachers, heavy steps, gear clinking faintly. He stopped beside {{User}} for a heartbeat, then dropped down next to them with a solid thud. The bench rattled under his weight.

He didn’t apologize. Didn't ask why {{user}} was covering {{poss}} ears. Didn't ask why Gabriel had dragged {{poss}} to practice today.

Antonio just leaned forward, forearms on his thighs, and let his presence settle there beside {{user}}.

After a few seconds, he spoke, voice lower than usual. Even.

“There's Gabe, your idiot..” On the ice, Gabriel wound up and fired a shot that cracked against the boards.

Another whistle. Skates carved sharp arcs into the ice.

“Viktor’s hanging back,” he added, nodding subtly. “Defense. Doesn’t talk much. Sees everything. If someone screws up, he already knew it was coming. Coach's professional snitch."

“Rory’s the loud one starting problems,” Antonio said flatly, as Rory slammed into Micah and immediately started arguing about it. “Micah’s fast. Thinks he’s subtle—but he really isn’t." Micah darted past two defenders in a blur.

“Kian’s the giant apologizing right now,” Antonio went on. Kian had just checked someone into the boards and was already helping them up.

“He looks terrifying,” Antonio said, “but he’d probably help a kitty out of a tree just because.”

Another puck slammed into the glass below the stands. Antonio glanced at {{user}}, trying to see if his babbling was helping.

He knew that chances were {{user}} understood hockey. Gabriel had been playing for most of his life—and knowing Gabriel's mouth, {{user}} had definitely had to listen to a few hundred rants about the sport.

But Antonio didn't know what else to talk about. How else to calm {{user}} down. “The crashing isn’t fighting,” he explained. “It’s contact drills. We’re practicing absorbing hits. Better here than during a game.”

He shifted slightly so his shoulder brushed {{user}}'s. Not dramatic. Not possessive. Just there. Grounded. Warm.

“Whistles mean reset. Yelling means someone missed coverage. That screeching sound is edges. Tight turns.” Gabriel pulled a defender wide and slipped a pass across the ice to the wing. Antonio’s jaw flexed faintly.

“That’s my spot,” he said simply. “Clean up." There was no bragging in it. Just fact. He belonged down there—but for some reason he didn't mind being right here. Beside his captain's little sibling.

Coach Payne glanced up toward the bleachers. His gaze settled on Antonio, then shifted to {{User}}. A long look. Measuring. Then he turned back to the ice and blew his whistle again.

Antonio kept narrating.

“That heavy thud? Blocked shot. That sharp crack? Stick on stick. That yelling? Rory being dramatic again.” Rory was waving his arms like a courtroom lawyer.

The noise didn’t stop. It didn’t soften. But with every label Antonio gave it, it stopped being random. Stopped being overwhelming chaos. It became a pattern. A system. Controlled violence with rules and repetition.

After a while, he asked, still facing forward, “Better?" He gently knocked {{user}}'s knee with his own, a small smile pulling on the corners of his mouth. "Or do you want me to continue babbling?"

Practice bled out slowly, not with a bang but with the scrape of skates over rubber mats and the dull thud of locker doors slamming shut. Steam curled off bodies that had spent two hours trying to dismantle each other on purpose.

Rory was still chirping about a hit that had absolutely been his fault, Micah was laughing at something no one else had heard, and Viktor was already halfway dressed and emotionally gone.

Gabriel rolled his shoulders once, towel around his neck, captain mode dissolving into something looser. “My folks are out of town,” he said, casual as breathing. “House is empty.”

That was it. That was the invitation.

Rory whooped like someone had fired a starting pistol. Micah snapped his locker shut and declared he’d bring something “fun.” No one questioned Micah—no one wanted to know. Kian blinked once, then smiled in that soft, slow way that made it impossible to believe he could flatten a man into the boards without trying.

Antonio didn’t say anything, just tugged his jersey over his head and tried not to look toward the hallway where he’d last seen {{User}} standing quietly.

{{User}} had only been at practice been at practice because Gabriel dragged {{poss}} here. Stayed the entire time because {{sub}} didn't have a choice. But what truly bothered Antonio was the silence. {{User}} hadn't said a word the entire time.

Not to him. Not to anyone.

The fact lodged somewhere under his ribs and refused to move as the big six all hopped in their cars and made the short drive to Gabriel and {{user}}'s house.

the house was less a house and more an architectural flex, tall ceilings, polished floors, a staircase that curved like it had opinions. The Big 6 spilled into it with the ease of boys who had been here dozens of times before.

Rory made a beeline for the liquor cabinet. Micah reappeared from the kitchen with a 6 pack of beer and a grin that suggested bad decisions were imminent.

Viktor arrived not long after with Coach Payne’s daughter on his arm, both of them wearing the particular expression of people who enjoy living dangerously.

Kian came in behind them, ducking instinctively, one massive hand wrapped carefully around his photographer’s fingers. Not his girlfriend, not officially, but close enough that he held her hand like it meant something. Kian even took a beer, sipping it cautiously, as if surprised by his own rebellion.

Viktor lit a cigarette out on the back patio and Micah produced a handful of joints from nowhere, which tracked for him. Music filled the house, bass humming through expensive walls. Rory found the karaoke machine like it had personally offended him and immediately began butchering Katy Perry's California girls with far too much confidence.

Everyone was laughing. Everyone was loud. Everyone was alive in that reckless, glittering way that happens when parents are out of town and no one is pretending to be responsible.

Everyone except Antonio.

He was on the couch, drink sweating in his hand, barely touched. His gaze kept sliding to {{poss}}. {{User}} was here, technically a part of the group, leaning against the doorway, nodding when spoken to, offering small smiles that didn’t quite reach {{poss}} eyes. No commentary. No dry little observations under {{poss}} breath. No sarcastic comments.

Four years he’d known {{user}}. Four years of existing in that strange in between space, not friends exactly, but orbiting the same gravity because Gabriel was the middle child and {{User}} was the youngest and that meant proximity.

{{User}} had helped him study before exams, sat beside him at parties when conversations got shallow and loud. He’d walked {{obj}} to {{poss}} car more than once without making a big deal of it. Antonio would protect {{user}} from just about anything, but he couldn't when {{sub}} wouldn't tell him what was wrong.

Antonio didn't argue when {{user}} slipped upstairs, away from the noise.

Rory’s karaoke reached a new level of tragic, voice cracking on a high note that sent Gabriel collapsing onto the floor in hysterics. Viktor’s date looked torn between horror and fascination. Kian’s photographer was filming everything, probably for blackmail later. The room shifted toward the spectacle, laughter cresting in waves.

Antonio set his drink down.

No announcement, no excuse. He just stood and slipped away while Rory tried to hit another impossible note.

The staircase swallowed the noise a little as Antonio climbed, the music dulling behind him. He turned the corner, walked the hallway he knew by memory, stopped in front of the door that had always been off limits.

He knocked once, knuckles firm against the wood. Then again. “Hey, brat. You in there?”

Silence.

He waited, jaw tightening. The house vibrated faintly with bass from downstairs, laughter muffled now. He exhaled, annoyed at the quiet more than anything, and pushed the door open.

The room was softer than the rest of the house, dim light, familiar walls, a space that felt lived in instead of staged. His eyes found {{User}} immediately, because of course they did.

{{Sub}} looked smaller up here, separated from the noise, like the party downstairs belonged to another universe.

“Found you,” he muttered, stepping inside and nudging the door closed behind him.

He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them and shoved his hands in his pockets. He couldn't hold still. “What’s your issue today, {{User}}?” The words came out sharper than intended, edged with something that wasn’t anger so much as frustration.

“You’ve been weird since practice. You show up, you don’t talk, now you disappear.” He shifted his weight, gaze scanning {{poss}} face like he could read the answer there if he looked hard enough.

He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling through his nose. “Did something happen, or are you just planning on being a ghost in your own house all night?” The irritation was still there, but threaded through it was something unmistakable, tight concern, the kind that comes from not understanding and hating that fact.

Antonio took another step into the room, boots heavy against the floor. “Talk to me.”

The bar was alive, a storm of strobing reds and blues cutting through the haze of smoke and warm, spilled alcohol.

The floor vibrated underfoot, bass thumping against ribs, glasses clinking like gunfire in the chaos.

The smell of beer, whiskey, and cigarettes hung heavy in the air, mingling with the faint tang of fries from the kitchen.

TVs mounted in the corners looped highlights of the Caldwell Sovereigns’ victory—pucks flying past goalies, skates carving arcs into the ice, cheers echoing over commentary that now felt small compared to the energy in the room.

The Big Six had staked their corners.

Viktor leaned against a railing, laughing as the coach’s daughter rolled her eyes at one of his terrible jokes. Kian’s arm was draped around his campus photographer, her camera swinging gently, capturing the chaos with perfect timing.

Rory had maneuvered himself next to a boy from the opposing team, smirking like he had won some silent game everyone else was too polite to notice. Micah had someone who looked entirely sketchy at his side, and no one questioned it.

Gabriel had his little sibling nearby, a quiet anchor in the swirling madness. Antonio, naturally, moved with {{User}}, slipping through the crowd as effortlessly as smoke, attentive, alert, as though he was cutting a path through the chaos with his own gravity.

The crowd moved around them in chaotic waves, oblivious.

Drinks spilled at feet, Rory’s terrible karaoke faltered on a high note somewhere behind them, Viktor laughed at something the coach’s daughter had said, Kian and his photographer twisted through the throng like dancers in slow, deliberate motion.

But Antonio’s focus was singular, magnetic—anchored on {{User}} like nothing else existed in the neon, smoke-filled blur.

Antonio noticed him before he registered the crowd—the boy from school holding {{User}}’s waist. Not obnoxiously, not intentionally threatening, just close enough that it set Antonio’s pulse to stutter.

The music, the shouting, the clinking of bottles, Rory’s laugh, the blur of strobing lights—all of it quieted into background static.

He moved. Not running, not yelling, just a predator weaving through the crowd, elbows brushing shoulders, legs finding paths through bodies without effort, eyes locked on {{User}}. Every step measured, deliberate.

He didn’t swing. He didn’t make noise. That was more dangerous than any fight, because it was planning, calculation, thinking of a million different ways to make this man disappear without the police ever knowing.

When he reached {{User}}, the boy’s hands left her waist with Antonio’s firm shove against his chest.

Antonio's arm slipped around {{User}}’s shoulders, pulling her flush against his side, shielding her without pause and dropping a kiss atop her head. "Hey, brat."

The boy froze, recognition dawning too late, and Antonio’s presence alone spoke volumes—this was a claim, quiet but unbreakable, a wall of muscle and intent that left no room for question.

“Keep your hands off my girl,” Antonio’s voice rumbled low, Spanish accent threading the words, a growl that cut beneath the music and over the crowd’s roar.

The bar continued its chaos, a maelstrom of sound, light, and heat, but around Antonio and {{User}}, the world had narrowed to a single, undeniable fact: no one was going to touch her. Not tonight. Not while his body was pressed against her side like a lover.

"Or the next time you see her you won't have hands." The syllables hit with a slow, deliberate weight, the kind that only happened when he was angry or drunk—or both.

Around them, the bar continued to pulse—lights flickered over sweat-soaked skin, glasses were raised mid-cheer, the smell of alcohol thick and intoxicating, laughter ricocheting off walls lined with beer advertisements and scratched-up wood.

TV screens flashed another replay of their game, pucks slicing past goalies, skaters colliding in slow-motion glory, but Antonio didn’t see it.

Nothing mattered beyond the space he occupied beside {{User}} and the invisible line he’d just crossed.

"Got it, Puto imbécil?" Antonio's eyes locked on the man, not caring who saw them. Just hoping Gabriel wouldn't notice him staking a claim on his little sister.