Advent Calendar, Day 21: Fic - The Only Player
William startles next to him when a couple of rows in front Jack laughs loudly and unselfconsciously. Stephen doesn’t need to see Sophie to know that exact expression on her face: the one she gets when she wants to cover her ears but is too polite to do so.
It’s an expression he’s seen dozens of times, because Sophie and Jack sitting together when they are travelling is a ritual. They don’t hang out much generally, and frankly Stephen doesn’t think they have that much in common generally, what with Sophie being quite shy and sensible off the ice and Jack never shy and not always sensible, but this routine is sacred. He wonders whether the absolute trust they have in each other on the ice is the result of or the reason for this ritual. Stephen used to be a little jealous of that trust.
‘Jeez, I still can’t believe he’s only pulled a muscle,’ William shakes his head, ‘I mean, I’m fucking glad that’s all it is, but I thought something was broken for sure.’ Stephen can’t help but smile at William’s incredulous tone. And this here is another ritual. Unlike Jack and Sophie, Stephen sees a lot of traffic in the seat next to him and most of the times it’s rookies: guys who are still finding their feet, who are adjusting to being on a new team, learning not to be in too much awe of Jack, learning how be on a team with a woman and Stephen is always there to help them.
‘Jack is very resilient,’ Stephen says mildly, though privately he’s just as glad that Jack, with all the injuries he’s had, has never been in real danger, even when a skate blade mangled his ear. The league does not call him Lucky Jack for nothing.
William just shakes his head again and goes back to playing a game on his tablet. The plane is quiet, as quiet as it can be with the constant hum of the engines and the snatches of subdued conversations drifting over to Stephen.
Stephen likes these quiet moments, even if he’s stuck thousands of feet above the ground in a seat that’s not doing his back any good. In moments like these, between one game and the next, between practices and the everyday demands of life, he can actually take time to think. And he can’t help but think about his team.
Logically, Stephen knows that every team is special, that every player has a quality that makes him stand out, but he wonders whether the sport media nickname for them ‘The Surprise Team of the League,’ came from more than their sudden breakout to the top.
There’s Pullings, who’s been on the team since their entry into the NHL, and who has refused higher paying contracts in other clubs, out of loyalty. Not that anyone doubts for a moment that Pullings does not want to be anywhere else, except playing on Jack’s right wing.
There’s Mowett, the only hockey player who’s also a published poet (and frankly, Stephen’s doesn’t understand why anyone would publish his poetry). There’s Martin, who almost went into seminary, but left halfway through to concentrate on professional hockey.
There’s Killick, who Stephen suspects was Jack’s nanny (Jack swears he was his father’s driver), but who’s bullied his way into being the team’s equipment manager. There’s Diana, their head of PR, and sometimes it still pains Stephen to look at her.
There’s Sophie, so small and fragile looking, especially when surrounded by her teammates, but she’s the first woman to play full-time on an NHL team and almost every game she dons the goalkeeper’s protective armour that seems to swallow her up and faces pucks that come flying at her at hundred miles per hour.
And there’s Jack, their captain, with his optimism and his ready laughter, who looks like the type of player who is only capable of physically steamrolling his opposition, and yet he is so incredibly smart on the ice and his tactical play is almost second to none. Jack, who talked the management into bringing Stephen up from the minors, even though he had a terrible reputation as a team player. Jack...
Stephen sighs and curses himself inwardly for an old sentimental fool. Suddenly, he feels like he needs to wash his face, so he squeezes past William into the aisle and makes his way towards the toilet. Jack catches his hand as Stephen passes by him and presses a quick kiss to his knuckles. This is just as much of a ritual as Jack seating with Sophie, as rookies treating Stephen like a counselor, as Mowett reciting a poem between they go out onto ice.
It’s how it started between them, when Stephen’s fingers and wrist were badly broken and he was so terrified he’d never play again, or never play as good as he did, that he would not listen to reason. He didn’t take the painkillers or he took too much, he refused to believe the doctors, who said he will get better, he refused to speak to his teammates and through it all Jack did not leave his side.
‘Jack, I’m scared,’ Stephen had finally choked out one night and Jack took his broken hand gently but not gingerly and kissed it.
‘Dear Stephen, I don’t love you for the way you play hockey,’ he said and kissed him on the mouth.