You Could Make a Life

by Taylor Fitzpatrick

  "You too," Dan mumbles, and when he hangs up he turns off his phone entirely. He goes onto the sites just long enough to check that his statement is up before he snaps his computer shut, goes to sit on the couch. Stares at the dark TV, not sure if he wants to punch something or burst into tears.

  Marc obviously has no doubts about which approach to take, from the way the front door hits the wall when it opens, gets slammed shut behind him. He barely looks at Dan before he goes into their bedroom and Dan follows him in when he hears the bang of something on the floor, half afraid Marc's breaking shit.

  He isn't, has just forcibly dragged a suitcase out of the closet, is ransacking the bureau, dropping half his sock drawer in without even looking. "What are you doing?" Dan asks dumbly, and Marc looks at him like he's stupid.

  "Where are you going?" Dan clarifies.

  "Home," Marc snaps, grabs a handful of underwear, just throws it right in.

  "You mean Montreal," Dan says.

  "I mean home," Marc says.

  Dan swallows, nods. "That's probably for the best," he says, finally. It takes Marc out of the blast radius. Something Marc's agent would have thought about, probably something in the binder.

  "For the best," Marc says flatly, then drops what he's doing, pushes his way into Dan's space. "And you know what is best for me, right?"

  "I — what?" Dan asks, reaches out, though Marc shrugs his hand off before it even reaches his shoulder.

  "Fuck you," he spits out, and then walks out of the room without even bothering with the suitcase, the front door slamming before Dan can think to move.

  *

  It's not like it's front page news. Not even front page sports news after some guy in the MLB gets caught with a pretty staggering amount of coke on him. It would be front page regardless if it'd been Marc, but it isn't. Dan's just some fourth liner — who happens to have a newly minted Stanley Cup ring — getting caught with his tongue in some guy's mouth. At least it isn't in the mouth of the Saviour of the City. Dan's the first guy in the league to get outed, but he'd have to have minutes in the double digits before it really mattered to anyone but the homophobes and the gay rights blogs.

  But it's not like it isn't getting attention either. Dan's agent is fielding interview requests, a lot of them, and Toronto's sports press is leaping on it in the absence of any news actually relevant to the Leafs franchise. By the time Dan's been able to field the interview requests (the answer's a blanket no), and dodge all the calls from people who've somehow managed to get his number, it's three days in, and he hasn't heard from Marc at all.

  Marc's got a temper, sometimes a vicious one, but his moods come and go as hours pass. He doesn't hold onto things, more laid-back than Dan about it, despite all appearances. So Dan's confused when he leaves Marc a questioning message, bemused when he still hasn't heard back from him the next day, and then angry right back, because Dan's been stuck with the press corps on his ass about this, and Marc's not even bothering to pick up his calls.

  It dims, somewhat, when his alert notifies him that Marc's signed his contract, 8 years, 64 million, because Marc kept focus, and Marc got the deal done, and it's worth it, because Marc can stay the face of the franchise, because Marc can stay here.

  *

  When it's been a week since he last talked to Marc, calls screened and texts ignored, Dan's reached incandescent rage. He hasn't gone this long without speaking to Marc since — he's never gone this long without speaking to Marc, and when he stopped by to visit his parents, Sarah gave him a look so venomous before walking right out the door that Dan had to think for awhile if he'd done anything. To text Sarah in confusion, just to get that same nothing back, so now it's his boyfriend, and his sister, and his mother who presses her lips together when he asks what the fuck he did, and rubs her hand over the back of his neck, and doesn't say anything to even remotely clarify the situation, can only offer hugs, which are not very useful, but still appreciated.

  By the time the week's through, the press has mostly dropped the story in the face of free agent frenzy, far more interested in solid trades than idle speculation in the face of Dan's terse admission and subsequent radio silence, and he thinks it might be over, before Marc brings it right the fuck back. Dan stares at his computer with mounting horror, before slamming it shut and marching down the stairs.

  "Is he fucking serious?" he shouts, and from the way neither of his parents even bother to look up, Dan figures out they knew this was coming before he did.

  "Are you fucking serious?" Dan yells at Marc's voicemail for good measure, since Marc's not going to pick up, and even if he would, he's busy marching in Toronto's Gay Pride Parade anyway. Even though it's over 30 degrees and so humid the air sticks to Dan's skin he goes for a run, because the only other idea he has is to drive downtown for the sole purpose of punching Marc in his idiot face.

  He returns home to a text from Alex, Freckles is alright, which is high praise from him, since he's hardly Marc's biggest fan.

  It's like everyone in the whole world has lost their goddamn mind at the same time.

  *

  Marc gives a long interview with the local media after the parade, talks about how kids should be proud who who they are, and how team sports should be inclusive, and how, yes, he was here because of Dan Riley, but he was also here because everyone should feel safe in their own skin. It's obviously rehearsed, and obviously...obvious, and Dan can't leave Marc another message because his voicemail inbox is full, so either Marc's dealing with the same sort of media barrage Dan is, or he hasn't even been bothering to listen to Dan's messages.

  Dan fumes, calls Marc multiple times and doesn't get an answer, so he sets himself at calling Sarah until she snaps, which only takes four minutes of consistently spamming her phone.

  "What do you want?" she snaps, and there's noise around her, so much of it.

  "Are you with Marc right now?" Dan asks, horror dawning on him, and she hangs up on him.

  r u srs? he sends.

  Are you? she sends back, cryptic.

  *

  She does clarify the next day, though, when she storms in, the Canada flag barrettes in her hair in honour of the occasion only slightly dimming Dan's terror, because she was once bigger than him, and some part of him will always feel like she continues to be. As it is, she ignores Dan's existence for a total of half an hour — impressive considering the festivities only include the Riley family — and then she jabs her finger somewhat painfully into his solar plexus.

  "You're a moron," she says.

  Dan rubs his chest. "You always think I'm a moron," he says. "Can you at least tell me what I've screwed up this time?"

  She doesn't soften at all. "Talk to Marc," she says, short, which seems to be the catch phrase everyone's using.

  "I'm trying," Dan protests, "I've been trying."

  "Well maybe you should have done it in the first place," she snaps, and eats her hot dog angrily enough to fill Dan with dread for the rest of the day.

  *

  They next day the Leafs call him in, and Dan steels himself before he goes like he's going into battle. He may be limping, but he isn't lame. They sit him down, make him tea, his agent coffee, and Dan's hands shake where they're fisted on his thighs.

  They offer him a two years, 1.3 million total.

  Anywhere else he'd get at least two million, 2.5 in some of the cities that are hurting, cities where he'd get more ice time, more attention. He doesn't even blink before he says yes, signs everything he needs to before he even broaches the recent news, too much of a coward in the face of getting exactly what he wants to do anything but take it.

  "Aren't you worried?" Dan asks, when the documents are signed, and the lawyers are gone, when it's down to him, his agent, and his general manager. "About the attention?"

  George looks almost confused. "You are aware that press is good, right?" he asks, finally. "That we want publicity?"

  "This kind of publicity?" Dan pushes.

 
Now George just looks pitying. "What kind of city do you think you're playing in, Riley?"

  Dan looks at his hands in his lap, barely keeps them from clenching back into fists.

  "I don't know what you've heard," George says. "But we're with you."

  Dan's hands do clench then, and his eyes burn, and he keeps his head down, doesn't deserve it.

  *

  Marc's staying somewhere in Toronto, according to Dan's google alert. Going places with Dan's sister, leading to articles mockingly asking if Marc's going after the right Riley, which hits far too close to the exact speculation that Dan tried to avoid.

  Marc's somewhere in Toronto, but it's not exactly a small town, and even though Dan's trying to take everyone's advice and talk to Marc, it's sort of difficult when Marc won't pick up his calls and blends in among five million people like a disappearing act.

  He sulks around the house for a day before his dad gives in, because he's always been the soft touch. Dan's been staying with his parents since Marc left, somewhere comforting and easy in the face of all the bullshit, and his dad watches Dan throw himself dramatically on the couch before he says, "Have you tried checking your own apartment?"

  Dan blinks at him. His dad blinks back mildly. "Why would he go there if he's avoiding me?" Dan asks.

  "He's got Sarah to tell him if you're on your way back," his dad shrugs. "She's on his side."

  "And...you're on my side?" Dan asks.

  "No," his dad says. "I think you're both being idiots, but I'd prefer you'd go be melodramatic somewhere I'm not."

  Dan gets up, gives his dad a hug, and drives home for the first time in days.

  *

  Marc's napping on the couch with the TV still blaring, which is typical. Dan turns it off, and that's the thing that wakes him up, which is also typical.

  Marc starts to smile when he sees him, still mostly asleep, Dan thinks, because he immediately shuts it down.

  "You are supposed to be at your parents," he says, sitting up. He has bed head (couch head?) and he's wearing sweats and an old OHL t-shirt of Dan's. It takes Dan a moment to remember how pissed he is, in the face of realising how much he missed his stupid face.

  "My dad," Dan says.

  "Traiteur," Marc mumbles, rubs a hand through his hair, which only makes the bed head worse.

  "Hi," Dan says flatly. "So I haven't heard from you in over a week."

  "I figured you would be busy," Marc says. "With the media."

  "Are you actually mad at me about this?" Dan asks. "Because I covered your ass, Marc."

  Marc scowls. "You covered my ass?" he repeats.

  "Not — " Dan says. "Not like that," he says, because it's not Marc's fault any more than it is Dan's, both of them incautious and drunk and euphoric. "I didn't want you to jeopardise your contract," he finally manages.

  "Because I am to play for a homophobic team," Marc says flatly. "Who would drop me if they knew I was in love with you."

  "It's not — it's not homophobia, necessarily. It'd just be bad business," Dan says.

  Marc laughs humourlessly, stands up, the better to get right up in Dan's face. "Do you really think they did not know it was me in the photograph when I signed that contract?"

  Dan goes cold. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asks.

  "I was in the room with them while you played martyr," Marc shouts. "Do you think they did not see my fucking face? Do you think that you tricked them? How stupid are you?"

  Dan feels stunned, sick. Thinks of George practically feeding him support, knowing Dan was fucking their star forward.

  "At least you have plausible deniability," Dan says, finally.

  "Plausible deniability," Marc says, spitting the words out like profanity. "The only one afraid to come out was you. And for me it stays a secret forever? Or we end before it can be noticed?"

  Dan swallows, hard. "Are you breaking — "

  Marc starts laughing before he's even finished, a miserable laugh, pulls Dan in by the shirt like he always does, absent manhandling that inevitably gets Dan's collars stretched out of shape. "Why didn't you ask me?" he asks, quiet.

  "Ask you what?" Dan says, pulse still hammering, question unanswered.

  "What I wanted," Marc says. "Whether I wanted you to call me some 'hook-up'. Whether I wanted to come out."

  "Marc," Dan says helplessly, could explain how much that would kill his career, but Marc would never hear it, always so sure of an idea the minute he has it, always so sure the world works the way he wants it to.

  "It would happen eventually," Marc says. "So why not now?"

  That's the stupidest reasoning Dan's ever heard, and the only thing keeping him from saying so is that Marc's shaking against him, just barely, like he's scared. Like he's as scared as Dan is.

  "You are mine. I am not giving up on you," Marc says. "And I am not ashamed. I am not going to hide you. And you cannot leave me alone with this." He lets Dan pull him in the rest of the way, then, curl a hand in his hair.

  "I wasn't trying to hide you," Dan argues.

  "No," Marc agrees. "You were trying to save me. And I never asked you to."

  "I wanted to anyway," Dan says, quiet.

  "I know," Marc says, pulls back. "I have a press conference tomorrow."

  "Marc," Dan says.

  "I have a no-trade clause," Marc says. "And an eight year contract. And you keep telling me Toronto loves me."

  Dan looks at him helplessly.

  "And you are not alone in this," Marc says. "I will not let you be."

  *

  This time it does make front page news, in Toronto at least. The determined set of Marc's chin is on TSN and Sportsnet and every single news program in Canada, as far as Dan can tell. This time, there are reporters outside their door, and so many phone calls that they both turn their phones off, communicating with their agents and families via email, and Marc seems to agree to every single gay charity event in the Greater Toronto Area that summer, pencils Dan right in beside him.

  Dan experiments with the creation of the perfect grilled cheese sandwich, gets Marc to test his prototypes, which he does warily at first, and then more confidently once Dan proves that even he can't mess up grilled cheese.

  "We do need to leave the apartment at some point," Dan says, and Marc just wrinkles his nose at him, mouth full of cheddar and tomato.

  "And start training," Dan says, "especially if you keep eating all that cheese."

  Marc liberates a hand from his sandwich for the sole purpose of giving him the finger.

  "I miss jogging," Dan says forlornly.

  "Sex is exercise," Marc says, through his mouthful, which should be disgusting but sadly isn't.

  "You can't just bribe me with sex," Dan says.

  "I ordered groceries," Marc says. "And beer. They will be here in an hour."

  "You can't just bribe me with sex and food and beer," Dan says, which doesn't sound true even to his own ears.

  Marc swallows the last bite of his sandwich. "59 minutes," he says, and wanders off to the bedroom.

  "Asshole," Dan mumbles, and follows.

  ix. a pressing wait

  Being out is perhaps not as bad as Dan was bracing himself for. Marc does all the interviews Dan won't, because he's big on positive role models and someone speaking out for the kids, an accepting world. All stuff that Dan should probably care about more, he admits, but mostly he just wants everyone to leave him and Marc alone.

  Dan gets dragged to charity events all summer. His role there is simple: he lurks beside Marc like a bodyguard, while Marc charms everyone around him and Dan glares at any potential threats, because he may as well embrace the role.

  There's a lot of articles about them, ones Dan won't read but Marc does, gets himself worked up and slams around the kitchen while making himself a smoothie, slams around the bathroom while he's brushing his teeth. If Dan could keep Marc from reading them, he would, but Marc isn't easily dissuaded from doing anything he wants to do. Case in point: th
e fact that Marc's actually out at all.

  For two days straight Marc rants about an article linking his on-ice production to whether Dan is on the roster or not, and finding a positive correlation with Dan being injured or called down and Marc's points per game average. Dan just finds the stats interesting, though he hopes it doesn't lead to some diehard Leafs fan coming at him with a tire iron.

  Marc goes down to New York towards the end of summer for the kind of media glad-handing he hates, with a lot of photo opportunities of him and the Commissioner, who he hates even more. "Thought Gervais was trying to keep this shit out of your contract," Dan says, when Marc's packing a bag.

  "Yes, well," Marc says, then stops.

  "Well?" Dan asks.

  "They had leverage," Marc says.

  "Okay, you've totally lost me," Dan says.

  "It is a business," Marc says. "A player asks for something, you ask for something in return."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Dan asks, and then, because he's not stupid, "Fuck, seriously?"

  Marc shrugs.

  Dan gapes. "Marc — " he says, finally.

  "Not a big deal," Marc says, and when he's in NYC, beside the Commissioner, he's all smiles.

  But all and all, despite the articles, the general media interest, the fact that apparently management blackmailed Marc into something he was openly against doing until they discovered Dan was a bargaining chip they could use against him, it's mostly the same summer as always. Toronto as home base, with periodic visits to Montreal; training, specifically targeted to strengthen Dan's ankle, at first, then the cardio, strength, shinny mix, like always. And stupid fundraisers, but Dan keeps his mouth shut about them, especially after Marc returns from New York.

  When they get back to the preseason, the guys are also mostly the same as always, though three of them (three!) come to Dan to say they had suspected, Buchanan just smirks and clasps Dan's shoulder, and Larsson finally gets to complain about the injustice of how they all got to be oblivious while he kept walking in on it.

  A few of them are suddenly a little weird around Dan — everyone's always weird around Marc, except Dan and Larsson — but once training camp's over and the roster's set, Coach makes a short, threatening speech about league rules on hate speech and his own personal pledge to send down anyone who can't handle it to the minors until they 'grow the fuck up', so if anyone has a problem with it, they aren't saying anything within earshot.