It’s not even a contest. Anyone who wanted a tight, interesting game, they’re shit out of luck, but Mike doesn’t think any of the Red Wings fans in the building are complaining when the game draws to a close with a conclusive 5-2 win. The Red Wings themselves sure as shit aren’t, everyone barreling off the bench to swarm their goalie, so loud Mike can almost hear them over the roar of the crowd.
Mike knows how this works. He’s never experienced it, not firsthand, but he knows that this is the point when family and friends start heading down to the ice, waiting to take part in the festivities.
Liam asked Mike for a lot in coming, and Mike gave it to him, but Liam never asked him for this. Mike doesn’t know if that was because Liam didn’t want to put Mike in the position of saying no, or if Liam didn’t want to put himself in the position of hearing Mike say no. He guesses it doesn’t matter much either way. It isn’t going to happen, and they both know that.
“Do you want to come down?” Barbara asks, but like she already knows the answer.
“You go on ahead,” Mike says. Peter looks like he’s going to argue, and Mike’s relieved when Barbara takes him by the arm, steering him into the madness and leaving Mike behind.
Mike stays where he is, waiting for the arena to start emptying itself out. It’s probably going to take quite some time considering everyone’s sticking around to watch their hometown team hoist the Cup, take their victory lap across the ice.
Liam’s a speck below, but the jumbotron cuts in close when it’s his turn to take his skate with the Cup. He accepts it a little gingerly, and there’s a collective intake of breath from the spectators when it looks like he might drop it. Mike knows the strength in him though, knows that he could hoist it one handed right now if he wanted, however tired he is, however battered, that the flush of adrenaline and happiness has overtaken him. Liam whoops as he skates his lap, soundless from the distance Mike’s sitting, the bright blue of his eyes invisible beneath the shadow of the hat he’s been given, his grin practically cracking his gorgeous face.
People have started to make their way out, or wandered down to get a closer view, and after Liam hands the Cup to his linemate, Mike makes his slow way out as well.
*
It takes a long time for Mike to get back to Liam’s apartment, even though it isn’t all that far from the arena. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside to watch the game, and between them and those streaming out, the streets are nearly impassable. People are shouting at one another, drunk and excitable, the cops struggling to keep the atmosphere festive and not let it turn into what Mike knows it can become.
Mike uses his size in a way he hasn’t since retirement, forcing his way through the crowd, because fuck knows he doesn’t want to be anywhere near this if it sparks into a riot. He gets more than a few glares, and a few guys who look like they’ve drunk enough to take any excuse to start posturing, but something about the way Mike looks gets them backing down before they even open their mouths.
Mike’s barely shut the door behind him when his phone starts buzzing. He expects it to be his mother, who he knows watched the game, maybe his brother, but it’s Liam.
If Liam says hello, Mike can’t hear it over the music blasting in the background, the sound of dozens of people shouting at one another, a mirror of the streets, but heightened, because it’s the guys who won that Cup doing the yelling.
“How’s your drunken bacchanalia going?” Mike asks.
“I have no idea what that means,” Liam yells into the phone, cheerful to the point of manic. A Cup, Mike imagines, will do that, not to mention the extraordinary amount he’s probably had to drink already. It’s barely been an hour, but Mike bets there isn’t a single member of the Red Wings who could get behind the wheel of a car right now. “Except the drunken part. That part’s fun.”
Mike pities him for the hangover he’ll have tomorrow. It’s going to be one son of a bitch.
“What’s up?” Mike asks.
“I’m not asking you to come out,” Liam says, which is good, because there’s no fucking chance Mike would. “But are you going to be there when I get home?” He sounds weirdly unsure, like Mike’s going to sneak out on a flight to Minny in the middle of the night or something. Though fuck knows when Liam’s going to make it home; not likely it’ll be before the sun rises.
“Your place?” Mike asks, just to make sure.
“Yeah,” Liam says.
“Where the hell else would I be?” Mike asks. “You kicking me out or something?”
“No,” Liam says, “I just—”
“I can try to find a flight,” Mike says. No way he’d be able to find one out tonight, but he doesn’t think that’s what Liam’s asking for anyway.
“I want you to be there,” Liam says. “I just didn’t know — I’m holding you to it.”
“Don’t drown in your own vomit,” Mike says.
“I love you,” Liam says, and hangs up before he can hear, once again, Mike not saying it back.
*
Mike wakes up to the sound of Liam walking right into a wall. At least he’s pretty sure that’s what it was, considering when he gets into the hall Liam’s glaring at the doorway into the living room, rubbing his head and looking betrayed.
He stinks of champagne so strongly Mike can smell it from the bedroom door, like he bathed in it. That’s possible, honestly. Mike knows they spray that shit around everywhere like it isn’t fifty bucks a bottle, the most expensive shower anyone’s ever had the unpleasant privilege to experience.
“Need some help?” Mike asks, when Liam’s betrayed expression shifts to confusion, like he’s forgotten what he’s supposed to be doing.
“Mike!” Liam says, then beams at him. “Hi!”
Mike bites back a smile.
“Hey,” he says. “Good night?”
“The best,” Liam says, then makes his wobbly way right into Mike’s arms. “Better if you were there though,” he mumbles into Mike’s chest, low enough that Mike can pretend he didn’t hear him.
“You need a shower,” Mike says. And now he probably needs a shower too, thanks to Liam clinging, sticky, to him.
“No,” Liam says, shaking his head against Mike’s chest. “Sleep.”
“Not letting you get in bed like this,” Mike says. “C’mon.”
He has to haul Liam to the bathroom, does most of the work of undressing him, Liam attempting to help and only making things more difficult. Even if Liam hadn’t transferred the stickiness of the champagne, Mike probably still would have to get into the shower just to prop the kid up.
Mike stands behind him, the hot spray only hitting him intermittently as Liam keeps trying to turn towards Mike and scowling whenever Mike shifts him back to face the shower head. It takes at least three more attempts from Liam’s scrabbling hands before Mike realizes he’s trying to grope him, and doing a shitass job of it.
“Doubt you could even get it up right now,” Mike says.
“I could,” Liam says, offended. “And anyway, you can.”
“We have sex right now you’re likely as not going to crack your head on the tile and knock yourself out,” Mike says.
“We could go to the bed,” Liam says hopefully.
“Soon,” Mike says. He’s pretty sure the second Liam gets horizontal he’s going to pass out, and it’s best to get the rest of the champagne stench off him first. Liam doesn’t seem all that interested in doing anything but leaning on Mike and clumsily groping at him, so it looks like Mike’s going to have to do it for him.
Liam’s in rough shape after four playoff rounds, speckled with bruises, some livid and new, some probably weeks old. His body’s a patchwork of them, more discolored than not. Mike’s seen his body in bits and pieces since he got here, but he hasn’t seen him naked since the first night, and even then it was enough to make Mike suck in a breath, imagining the kind of pain Liam was stubborning his way through. It’s worse now. The Lightning don’t play nice hockey. Good hockey, sure — t
hough obviously not good enough to win the Cup — but not nice.
There’s extensive bruising on his side Mike hadn’t seen, black in the center but fading almost green at the edges, testimony that it’s been awhile since he got it, at least a game ago, possibly more. This round for sure, because Mike didn’t notice it when he arrived, and it’s an ugly bastard, impossible to miss. Mike has a feeling this is what Liam came back from Tampa with. He hadn’t thought too much of the fact Liam had been coming to bed in a t-shirt as well as his boxers, but now he’s pretty sure Liam was actively hiding it, knew exactly what Mike would say about if he saw how bad it looked.
Mike curves a hand over it. He’s gentle about it, but Liam still sucks in a breath between his teeth, sharp and pained. If it hurts him this much drunk, it must be fucking torture sober.
“They’re broken, aren’t they,” Mike says, flat.
“Pretty sure, yeah,” Liam says.
“How many games have you been playing with broken ribs?” Mike asks.
“Three,” Liam says.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Liam,” Mike says.
“They wouldn’t have let me play,” Liam says.
“No shit,” Mike says. “You know what would have happened if you got nailed here again? You ever heard of a punctured goddamn lung? You could have shrapnel loose in your fucking body right now.”
“They wouldn’t have let me play,” Liam repeats. “I wanted to play for it. I wanted to win it.”
Mike understands that. Mike understands that more than anyone.
“I want you going to a doctor tomorrow,” he says.
“I’m going to be so hungover,” Liam complains, but doesn’t disagree, probably because he knows Mike will drag him there himself.
Liam’s dead weight by the time Mike hauls him out of the shower, drooping against the sink while Mike gives him a rough dry. Rough as in fast: no way Mike’s going to be anything other than gentle right now, when even a soft touch has Liam gasping in pain, and not in the way either of them likes it. Liam obediently shuffles to bed when Mike nudges him there, makes one last valiant attempt to grab Mike’s dick, then passes out, snoring like a chainsaw.
*
Mike wakes up to Liam still snoring away, splayed out on the bed. His bruises look even worse this morning, maybe because the filter of sunlight through the curtains gives Mike some natural light to see them, maybe because he’s seeing them all at once, Liam’s body black and blue and green and every shade in between. Mike presses a kiss to Liam’s forehead, one of the few places that won’t hurt him, and gets up to make breakfast for himself, because he highly doubts Liam will be able to keep down anything but toast and water, if that.
Liam doesn’t surface until past noon, a pitiful, pained looking figure. Mike wouldn’t have an ounce of sympathy, but he knows it’s not just the hangover, that with the Cup behind him every single one of those nagging hurts has flared to blazing life, and the hangover’s a bitch that’s intensifying all of them.
“Can you eat?” Mike asks.
Liam takes a minute to answer that, clearly checking on the state of his stomach, then nods a little, mumbling a thank you when Mike puts a plate of plain toast in front of him. Best to start easy.
“How’re you feeling?” Mike asks.
“I want to die,” Liam tells the toast.
“Fair enough,” Mike says, then, “You promised to go to the doctor.”
“I will,” Liam says.
“You promised you’d go today,” Mike says.
“You can’t hold me responsible for things I say when I’m drunk,” Liam complains.
“You go to the doctor today and I won’t tell your parents you were playing with broken ribs,” Mike says. “You don’t, I call your mother right now. Up to you.”
“You’re an asshole,” Liam says, but calls the team doctor after breakfast. It doesn’t sound like he’s getting anywhere, saying things like yeah, maybe in a few days after he reevaluates how he feels, until Mike quickly scribbles down a note and slides it under his nose, mention your fucking ribs, and suddenly he’s getting told to come right in, which he does, returning a few hours later looking a little sheepish, like maybe the doc bawled him out too. Good.
Liam’s got two broken ribs. A host of other shit — all those bumps and bruises, a muscle strain in his left calf. Nothing but the ribs garnered much attention, apparently: the rest of the shit he’s nursing is probably the same shit his teammates are dealing with, and Mike wouldn’t be surprised if some other idiot on his roster was hiding something fairly serious — Mike remembers a guy who bragged about how he played with a broken foot, had to get the docs to numb it to get it in his skate without him screaming his lungs out — but he’s in shit with the doctors for hiding the rib injury, which is what he deserves.
He’s unrepentant, of course. He didn’t just hoist the Cup, he earned it. Never mind the fact that if he’d sat out the last three games he still would have: he was a goddamn force of nature in the three rounds previous, had the series winning goal in the second round. He risked his goddamn health just to be on the bench when the buzzer went and they all became champions.
Mike wants to strangle him. Mike wants to strangle him, and wants to yell in his fucking face about it, but he knows if he does Liam’s going to be able to throw his entire history right back at him, the concussions he came back too early from, too many to count, any one of which could have been the bullet in the gun that’s going to kill him someday.
Liam could throw it in his face, or he could ask when Mike started trusting doctors so much anyway. It’s weird, how Mike doesn’t for himself but does for Liam. Maybe not that weird, considering everything Mike’s got is in his head, physical symptoms or not, and Liam’s wearing all his hurts like badges of honor.
*
Mike doesn’t stick around. The Red Wings start making arrangements for the Cup Parade and other thinly veiled excuses to continue to drink their livers away, and Mike heads home, the two of them going their separate ways as they always do, as Mike’s long used to. He doesn’t watch the parade or anything, but Liam sends him plenty of pictures of him and his idiot teammates looking completely trashed, completely happy.
Liam asks him to come up to Halifax for his day with the Cup in late June, but that’s something Mike’s not willing to do. It’s one thing to sit in the stands and watch him work for it, watch him win it, another thing entirely to watch him have his day with it. Mike knows if he goes he’ll spend the day hiding from ubiquitous cameras — hiding from Liam, because the cameras will all be on the Cup, on him as a result — and he knows, down to his bones, he’d resent Liam for it.
He doesn’t want to resent him, and he’d try not to. Tell himself the things he’s been reminding himself since it became more and more clear the Red Wings had a clear shot at winning it all: Liam deserves it. Liam earned it. If Mike wanted it for anyone, it’d be him.
Still, it’s something Mike wanted too. It’s something Mike’s wanted longer than Liam’s been alive. Something he’s never had. Something he never will have, now.
It’s strange, the shit that gets under your skin, the way the lost opportunity to hoist the Cup can sting as much as his inability to go more than couple weeks without his head turning on him, even though the headaches objectively have a larger impact on his life. It’s a stupid, petty thing to be upset about, but he knows if he goes, he’s going to ruin Liam’s goddamn day, as much as Liam thinks otherwise.
Liam deserves better than that. Liam deserves better than a lot of the shit he’s stuck with, but this? This is within Mike’s control. He’s going to let the kid have his day.
On his Cup day, Liam texts him a picture of him with the Cup, sunburned along his cheeks and grinning hugely, like he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted.
Mike’s so fucking proud of him. Mike’s so fucking proud of him, but the picture still leaves a sour taste in his mouth.
He saves it to his phone anyway. Liam looks goo
d. Liam always looks good, even when he looks like shit, even the way Mike last saw him, violent shades of purple. He looks good, and he looks happy, and it’s a picture Mike wants to hold on to despite it all.
He doesn’t make it the background of his phone or anything, he’s not a masochist and he’s not that far gone, but in the days that follow, he finds himself pulling his phone out to look at it. It feels a little like pressing on a bruise, but it feels good, too, and eventually the bruise fades and Mike’s just left smiling at how goddamn happy he looks.
Chapter 23
On July 1st, Mike wakes up first thing in the morning, turning on the TV with a fair amount of trepidation. He hasn’t watched Free-Agent Frenzy for years, but Liam’s been uncomfortably vague about his plans. Well, his career plans at least. Mike knows every intricate damn detail about how his summer’s going, but when they talk free-agency, it’s all beating around the bush. He’s told Mike about the teams who’ve reached out to him as much as they’re allowed to, but beyond a few preferences — all Western Conference, which Mike is pretending has nothing to do with him despite the fact Eastern Conference teams play a style more suited to Liam — he hasn’t really declared his intentions one way or the other.
It makes Mike nervous. Nervous enough that he turns on the NBC coverage a full hour before free-agency opens, listens to the talking heads debate the likely landing places of the most high profile players. Liam’s on that list, thanks to a consistently good career, a flash of brilliance during the playoffs, and a newly minted Cup ring. All the teams they talk about as options for him are Eastern Conference ones, and they couldn’t be more wrong, but who could blame them for thinking it? It really is the best place for Liam, not that Liam gives a shit. Selfishly, Mike hopes he stays in the West.
All of three minutes after free-agency opens they announce that Liam Fitzgerald’s signed with the Minnesota North Stars on a three year, 14 million dollar contract. The talking heads are all discussing what a deal the North Stars got, how Liam’s in his prime years, keeps getting better, but Mike only vaguely hears them through the blood pounding in his ears.
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