*
The Bulldogs get mathematically eliminated before the season's fully finished, so everyone's just biding time until the season's over and they can pack up and go home. The only time Dan sees anyone actually try is a game against the Marlies, the Bulldogs determined to play spoiler in the Marlies' tight race for division leader.
They lose anyway, which is basically the Bulldogs motto, Dan's gathered. Dan goes to greet the conquering heroes, gets a month's quota of touching through the hugs and backslaps he receives. It's weird to be there and not be a part of it, around guys he's shared a line with, guys he's done drills with, some he's known since his career started, to be in that room, with those guys, and know he isn't a part of it anymore.
He's about to head out when Coach Samson takes him aside, says "How're you holding up?"
He shrugs one shoulder. "Just waiting for the end of season, sir," he says, completely honest. Samson always has a way of getting that from people.
"Look," Samson says. "My wife is an Alberta girl, born and raised. When I was traded from the Flames to the North Stars, she went with me. Had to quit her job, and she couldn't get one once she was down there because she didn't have a green card, so she had to sit around in Bloomington and do nothing all day. Half the time I wasn't even there. She said for the first year there wasn't a day that went by that she didn't think of leaving me."
"Sir?" Dan asks.
"It gets easier," Samson says. "That's a cliché, but I promise you, Riley, it gets easier."
Dan swallows hard. "Thank you," he says, finally, and Samson squeezes his shoulder, lets him go.
Dan makes it back to his hotel room before he starts to cry, curls himself around a pillow and sobs until he runs out of air. When he's done, when there's nothing left in him, he calls Marc to tell him how his game went.
*
The second Dan's off the ice for the final game, he's checked out. He literally checked out that morning, packed his bags and filled his trunk, and all he has to do is throw his gear in the backseat, curse the fact he packed the trunk and not the back, and prepare himself for a six hour drive in close proximity to a sweaty equipment bag. He's dealt with worse.
He now understands Marc driving the second he was out of skates, can't manage another minute in this city when he doesn't have to be there. He stops at the first gas station for a terrifying amount of energy drinks, drops them on his passenger seat, hooks his iPod up to the stereo, and just goes.
It was a matinee game, and he makes good time, so it's only one in the morning when Dan gets in. Marc isn't there, probably won't come in until tomorrow afternoon, on his last road trip of the season before back-to-back home games close it out, so Dan takes a picture of the empty sheets, sending it to Marc before he faceplants on them and passes out.
Marc's in early, or Dan slept forever, because when he wakes up it's to Marc straddling his hips, travel suit wrinkled from his flight, smiling so wide it shows the dimple that Dan never gets to see enough of.
"Hi," Dan says sleepily.
"Hi," Marc says, leans down and kisses him, soft and easy, while Dan wakes up slowly beneath him.
"Morning sex?" Dan asks hopefully, when Marc pulls back.
"It is not morning anymore," Marc says, but he's unbuttoning his dress shirt while he says it, so Dan figures he's going to let it slide.
*
Dan is suddenly at loose ends. Marc's there a lot, more than Dan could reasonably ask for, considering they're wrapping up their season and trying really hard to hold onto the second seed. He's still gone enough that Dan realises he should actually have plans for the offseason, because it isn't really productive to throw himself on the couch (Marc chose slate instead of cadet, and Dan nodded understandingly and went to look up the difference) and tune out to French soap operas, making up the stories as he watches, totally confident that there's no way his stories are crazier than what they're actually saying, judging from his mom's weird soap opera addiction.
He's finally convinced himself to use the gym around the corner when the season ends. Toronto's out, has been out for weeks, but there's something satisfying about watching it close and knowing that Payne didn't work as a band-aid, that they didn't get anywhere using Vargas as a good example of how to play, instead of a warning of what to avoid when it's skating at you. They're calling for Payne's head already in Toronto, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Montreal manages to hold onto second, and they're matched against the Rangers, who are tough and dogged but were not actually very good this season, and everyone and their mother (and Dan's mother) has their money on Montreal. Dan steers clear of Marc while he's in his agitated pumping himself up for the playoffs mode, while Dan figures out logistics for watching Game One.
Dan could easily get into the WAG suite, and Montreal holds tickets specifically for families who feel the need to be in the action, but Dan prefers to do it himself, buys tickets expensive enough that they make him wince even with the salary he's making (maybe not if he remembers Marc's), and his mom takes a few days off work, comes as his plus-one.
They've got great seats, platinum, centre ice, and a few people clearly recognise him but are good enough to wait until between periods to say anything, a shy looking girl coming up for an autograph with her little brother, a couple others, but mostly they let him watch the game, leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs, knee bouncing nervously until his mom pats his knee and keeps her hand there, grip going tight whenever things are close. It's close pretty much the whole game, which means Dan has lost all feeling in his knee by the time the Habs take it 2-1. He could stick around, but he doesn't, drops his mom off at her hotel and stops for Greek take-out on the way back to the apartment, all healthy, because it isn't fair to rub offseason allowances in Marc's face.
Marc is home not long after Dan, and looks at Dan like he's a freaking god when he notices the take-out boxes, so Dan figured he probably made the right call.
*
He gets spotted at the second game, the Jumbotron makes that very obvious, his face suddenly blown up and everyone in his section craning their heads around to find him. His mom waves merrily at the cameras while Dan fights the urge to hide his face, because it's obviously too late now.
A whole bunch of people are suddenly wandering over all faux-casual, and it was fine between periods but it really isn't once the TV break's over.
"Are you ignoring us?" some guy says, lurking in the aisle, eyeballing Dan hard enough that even in his peripheral vision it's annoying.
"I'm kind of trying to watch the game," Dan says without looking away from the ice.
"Because you aren't good enough to play in it," the guy mutters, and Dan has to turn away from the action long enough to grab his mom's arm so she doesn't go after him.
"Fucker," she mutters, when the guy makes himself scarce.
"Mom," Dan says, scandalised.
"Well, he is," she says, and then turns her attention back to the game.
The Habs win this one too, just squeaking through with a goal halfway through overtime. The games have been too close, too tight, considering, and they're about to give up their home advantage, and Dan should be worrying, he almost wishes he was worrying, because this is his team on paper, and even if it wasn't, this is Marc's team.
Honestly, he can't summon the fear. They're up two in the series, and maybe that lead will disappear when they go down to New York and maybe it won't, maybe they'll bow out early and maybe Marc will get his name on the Cup again. Whatever happens, he's going to be a spectator, and it isn't like it was with the Leafs, stuck watching from the sidelines because of a busted ankle. He doesn't know these guys and they don't know him. He knows Marc's wanted to hoist the Cup for Montreal just as long as Dan has wanted to hoist it for Toronto. Dan got to have that, and Marc deserves the same. But god, it's two games into the first round and Dan's already worn out just watching it.
The next day there are three articles questioning Dan
's devotion to both the Habs and Marc himself, just because Dan wore a sweater to the game instead of branded gear. Three.
"Want to wear my jersey in bed?" Marc asks, smirking. "Show your devotion?"
"They make yours in adult sizes?" Dan asks innocently, and laughs when Marc punches him hard in the shoulder.
*
Dan heads back with his mom to Toronto when the Habs leave town. He's pretty sure he's going to have at least five more articles questioning his devotion, but this way he can air out the apartment that hasn't seen anyone but a house-cleaner in months, their stuff still hanging out like they'd never left.
He goes to his parents' to watch Game Three, gets a beer shoved into his hand by his dad mid-hug, then nearly drops it when Sarah gets her own hug in, says, "I brought vodka coolers," and takes the beer right out of his hand.
His dad looks at him judgmentally when he comes back from the kitchen with said vodka cooler, but whatever. They're delicious, it's the offseason, and his boyfriend is in the playoffs, so he's giving himself a pass.
Montreal drops it, and they drop it hard. There's a bit of chatting during the first period, when New York only has a one goal lead, but everyone shuts up when they knock two past Fournier in the space of a minute. After the second period Sarah goes into the kitchen, returning with the case of beer, a bottle of wine, and Dan's coolers.
"For the trainwreck," she says, and they need them, because drinking steadily gives them something to do with their hands when the lead stretches to four, then five, finally six, and the game ends at a mortifying 7-1.
They blink dazedly through half of the first period of the Vancouver-Minnesota series before Dan remembers they can talk again. "I should call Marc," he says.
"Oh, tell him we're so sorry," his mom says.
"And that his goal was really nice," Sarah adds.
"I really don't think he cares about his goal right now," Dan says, and when Sarah glares at him, "fine, I'll tell him his goal was nice."
Marc picks up on the first ring, says, "hi," so downtrodden that it hurts to hear.
"Sarah says nice goal," Dan says.
"...did Sarah watch the rest of the game?" Marc asks, after a moment of speechless silence, Dan presumes.
"I don't know," Dan says. "We all started drinking pretty heavily during the second period."
"That sounds nice," Marc says, wistful. "I wish I could have been drinking during that game."
"It's one game, babe," Dan says, finally.
"I know," Marc says. "I have to go be depressed now, tell Sarah thank you."
"I will," Dan says, and when he returns, he finds Sarah and his dad another beer in, the Canucks up two, and his mom struggling with opening another bottle of wine.
"You all have to work tomorrow," Dan says. "You are going to hate your lives so much."
"You're just mad you ran out of vodka coolers," Sarah says. "What did Marc say?"
"He said thanks," Dan says. "It was probably sarcastic, but I can't tell when he's depressed."
"Aww," his mom says, like he just said something endearing.
"You people are all insane," Dan says, and snatches a beer from the box, settling down to watch the Canucks kick the North Stars' asses.
*
Montreal takes it in seven, which is a game more than even die hard Rangers fans were predicting. It's a clusterfuck the whole way through, and drinking isn't just the default mode of the Riley family, but also half of the province of Quebec and much of Atlantic Canada. Regardless, they move forward, Marc as fuzzily bearded as ever, against Pittsburgh. It's a terrible omen, from the history Dan and Marc have playing Pittsburgh in the playoffs, but maybe it's a Leafs jinx.
It isn't a Leafs jinx. Montreal bows out in six, in Pittsburgh, and Dan makes the drive to Montreal that night, gets in just after Marc does, stands in the doorway for a minute, listening to Marc doing the dishes more viciously than Dan thought it was possible for dishes to be done.
He makes sure not to startle Marc when he goes into the kitchen, figures rules for wild animals should be pretty consistent with rules for approaching guys who just got knocked out of the playoffs.
"We have a dishwasher," Dan says, once Marc is aware of his presence, and Marc bares his teeth at him—see, wild animals.
"Want help shaving?" Dan asks, and that gets Marc turn the water off, to follow Dan to the bathroom. Dan kneels in front of Marc, who takes a seat on the toilet lid. It's easy to get most of it—Marc isn't much of a beard grower, and it came in thin and fine and blond as always. Dan rubs his thumb over Marc's cheek once he's clean shaven again.
"Pittsburgh," Marc says, tired.
"Pittsburgh," Dan agrees, and takes him to bed.
*
When summer starts (fucking Pittsburgh taking the fucking Cup once again), Dan is suddenly made well aware of his free-agency. Not that he'd forgotten about it—it was hardly the kind of thing he could forget about—but between finally having Marc back in his space, half hearted training, the playoffs and its fallout, it hadn't exactly registered.
It's a bad crop this year. It's an inexplicably bad crop this year: it's like everyone decided that 13 was their unlucky number and took steps to avoid free-agency. Everyone except Dan and a few other stragglers who clearly hadn't gotten the memo.
His agent tells him it's good news, excellent news, that the dearth of right-wingers will make him attractive, considering how adaptable he is on the wing. That he'll have his pick of it, if he wants it, and that Montreal has already made it clear that they'll sign him at the same salary if that keeps Marc happy. Over half a million isn't exactly something to sneeze at, even when Marc's making more than ten times that, and Marc's salary makes the potential of making twice as much almost irrelevant in the long run, considering Dan's mom has snatched control of their finances and forced them to invest to the point that at this stage their growth practically makes that difference all by itself. It's ridiculous to say that money doesn't matter, but it doesn't matter that he could break a million on some teams if that sent him anywhere he didn't want to be.
What does matter is where he'd play. Montreal will pay him NHL salary, they've made that clear, but they've made it equally clear he isn't going to be breaking into that roster if they have any say in it. He's worked too hard, he's given up enough, he's learned to associate the AHL with his heart breaking. He can't do it another year.
He spends the the week before free agency interviewing. It sounds less exhausting than it is, because he ends up flying to three cities, driving to two more, Marc doing his best to be supportive without actually endorsing anyone in particular, so intent on letting it be Dan's choice this time that it just leaves Dan feeling alone.
No one's allowed to offer him anything, not officially, but for that entire week Dan seems to communicate with management completely through exaggerated winks and nudges and charades, because he guesses playing charades doesn't break the NHL's offer rules, or at least qualifies as a loophole. When the day arrives he's narrowed it down to three teams he's willing to go to, and two of those three submit offers when the time comes.
He totally hangs his agent out to dry, printing out the preliminary information and going into the bedroom, where Marc's been pretending he has an urgent need to read and that need just happens to take him out of the room Dan's talking contracts in. Dan hands over the sheets, and Marc looks down, then back up.
"I said it was your choice," he says.
"Just read," Dan says, snatching Marc's book out of his lap, bookmarking his place.
Marc does, then looks up.
"You had more than two interviews," he says.
"Well these are the two I'm considering," Dan says.
"And they are just coincidentally the closest teams to Montreal?" Marc asks.
Dan shrugs at him.
"Did you get an offer from a better team?" Marc asks.
"I thought you didn't want to be involved," Dan parrots.
"Dan," Marc says.
Marc's jaw sets.
"Oh jesus, Marc," Dan says. "You said I could choose, I'm choosing. You want the Quebec rivalry?"
"I hate the Nordiques," Marc mutters.
Not as much as Dan hates the Senators, probably, and that's the only other option. "Battle of Quebec it is," Dan says.
"Dan," Marc whines. Dan would describe it as something else, but there's really nothing else to call it.
"You said it was my choice," Dan says, and Marc looks pained, but says nothing.
"We could have rivalry sex," Dan says, nudging Marc's hip. "That sounds hot."
"Ugh," Marc says. "To an Ontario boy, maybe."
Dan snorts, tugs Marc in. "Ottawa?" he asks, finally.
"It is your choice," Marc dutifully says.
"Well," Dan says. "At least they speak some English there."
*
Dan turns down the Montreal offer. He turns down the Quebec City offer. He drives up to Ottawa with Marc the next day, signs some papers, drives them right on to Montreal, to the apartment that is really rightfully Marc's. It isn't a long drive, Ottawa to Montreal, two hours, probably less if Marc's driving it, which is sort of the point.
They stay in Montreal the next few weeks, training, getting time in with Marc's family, and in Dan's case, making near daily commutes to Ottawa to go to apartment viewings and try to find somewhere decent. The contract's for three years, and even if Dan's been lucky in that he's just been bouncing around Ontario and Quebec and not across the continent, he'd like to be sure he's staying in the same place for a little while.
He does find somewhere decent. About the size of their absurdly expensive place in Toronto, all new kitchen fixtures so Dan can take up the cooking experiment again (Marc looks unenthused about that plan, but what does he know?), and a spare bedroom to make it easier for his family to make the trip if they're so inclined. It's a little insane to sign the lease and realise that between the two of them they're juggling three rents, but their place in Toronto, sunny and bright and with a view of the lake, isn't something he's willing to give up.
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