going up flying, going home [2/6]

[antumbral]

going up flying, going home



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one | two | three | four | five | six | art & soundtrack

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"Motherfucker," Dan Boyle yells, bent double and clutching at his stomach. "Goddammit, Tazer, I'm on your fucking team, man. I've got to play in two days." The puck skitters away across the ice, Toew's nuclear shot on goal blocked by Boyle's body. Sidney spins, takes two strides back, and corrals it. Toews has been a Howitzer all day. They're playing scrimmage-style, red jerseys versus black, trying out new lines. In fifteen minutes, Toews has scored three times on Luongo and has two assists.

On the other side of the ice, there's a murmur on the bench. "All right guys, bring it in," Babcock shouts, so Sidney bounces the puck onto the flat of his stick and carries it with him over to the bench, where the others are congregating. By unspoken agreement, the teams bunch into groups: red sweaters to the left of where Babcock stands in the middle and black sweaters to the right. Sidney goes to the right, and reaches across Seabrook to grab a water bottle and spray down his face.

Babcock glances down at his clipboard, face drawn into lines, tense as he's been all day. "Toews, I want to see you on a line with Iginla, and --," he pauses and chews for a moment on the cap of his pen, "-- and Morrow. Mo, you and Bergie swap jerseys so that you're on red, and then I want the Toews line out first. Sharks line, you guys stay together, we'll see you out second for red. Bergie, you're in Mo's spot with the Crosby line for now, we may move you later. Getzy, stick with Crosby, and Crosby line out first for black."

Brenden strips his black jersey off in a rustle of pads and tosses it to Bergie. It falls to the ice in a heap when Patrice's wayward grab misses, so Patrice lifts it gingerly, sniffs, and winces. "Gross, coach." Morrow is going through similar grimacing motions on the other side of the benches.

"Deal with it," Babcock snaps through gritted teeth. "We went four fucking rounds into a shootout with goddamn Switzerland. Right now this team has bigger problems than body odor. You don't like it, you can ride pine." For a moment, Sidney is concerned that the pen in Babcock's hand is going to break.

Bergie dips his head and murmurs, "Sorry, eh."

"All right, get back out. We'll do ten minutes this time, see how things look to go from there." Babcock shoves the pen back into his mouth and chomps down on it again. When Sidney turns away toward center ice to take the faceoff, he catches Toews out of the corner of his eye and feels the back of his neck prickle. Jonny is staring at him -- no, not staring, glaring -- and it's not outright hostile, but it's certainly not a friendly look. Sidney feels pinned and examined, transfixed enough that he can't quite look away until Lemaire blows the whistle and they both push off towards center ice.

Lemaire is on puck-dropping duties today, acting as referee and linesman both. Sidney lines up across from Toews, crouches. The key to winning faceoffs, he's found, is not to watch the ref's hand as so many coaches have told him, but instead to watch the forearm. That's where the movement starts, and it gives him a jump on most forwards if he can start his stick sweep just when that hand opens. Toews is the exception. They haven't faced each other often, but Toews seems to have a sixth sense for exactly when the puck will hit, and it's a toss-up between them for who actually gets the puck.

Sidney wins this one.

The biscuit skitters back to Getzlaf, who immediately dumps it deep towards Marty in the red goal. Sidney gives chase and manages to settle it in the corner after a few rough bounces. Mo should be behind him, waiting near the slot for the pass. Sidney almost turns, has a foot back to pivot when he hears the familiar slice of a skate from way too close. There's a half-second for Sidney to brace himself, then a bone-jarring impact with the boards as someone slams him to the glass.

Sidney takes it and slips to the ice afterward, legs weak. He can hear whoops from the bench, see a stick sweep in beneath him to try and pry the puck away. That's not going to happen on Sidney's watch, not if he can help it, so he props himself up and whacks at the biscuit as well, trying to send it up the boards to where Getzy should be lurking.

"Just let me have it," Toews growls in his ear.

"Shouldn't have --," Sidney throws an elbow back, tries to box Toews off the puck using his shoulders, "-- hit me like that." They're both talking through their teeth, clenched into the rubber of their mouthguards. "Asshole."

"Pussy." Toews subtly foot-sweeps him, not enough to draw a penalty but enough to send Sidney further off-balance and let Toews smack the puck away. Sidney gives an inarticulate yell of frustration and then barks out a warning to his defensemen, racing back to help ward off an odd-man rush from the red-shirts.

Two minutes later, Toews scrubs him into the boards again. The third time it happens, Sidney delivers a not-so-gentle elbow to the jaw. "The fuck, man?" he grunts, and pushes off the glass, Toews practically riding his back, trying to shove him up again.

"I don't know what you think you saw last night," Toews says against his ear, too quiet for anyone else to hear, "but you didn't, got it?" Sidney struggles, tries to get away, tries to get his stick on the puck. Jonny doesn't give an inch. To the rest of the team it probably just looks like a heated board battle.

"Fine, whatever. Deal with your shit the way you need to. But stop --," Sidney manages to twist, slam Jonny sideways against the boards and make off with the puck. Toews gives chase and Sidney only lets him catch up when they're all the way in the other end, fighting for it behind Marty in the red goal. "Stop taking it out on your teammates." When Toews shoves, Sidney shoves right back. "You could have hurt Boyle back there." It's getting harder and harder to catch his breath. It's been a long shift, a rough shift. "Get your head out of your own ass, and back on this team."

It shocks Toews enough that the steal is suddenly easy, and Sidney whirls out, slams his stick against the post in a wrap-around that flies skyward. There's the familiar moment of soaring hope that accompanies what seems like a sure goal, but then Marty's blocker appears out of thin air and bats the puck down so Marty can turtle over it and stop play.

Babcock blows the whistle for a shift change. "Good hockey, both of you," he says, while they skate in to the bench and try to regain their breath. "Way to dig for it on those boards." Sidney resists the urge to roll his eyes.

*

He wakes that night to the sound of the door closing. The room stays completely dark, curtains and balcony doors closed because unlike previous nights, the temperature is well below freezing. Sidney listens as Toews feels his way across the room, muffled curses when he runs into the side of his bed and a soft thud against the wall when he reaches for his suitcase and overestimates how far away it is. Rustles of clothing, a zipper, more rustling, and finally a sigh when Jonny settles into his own bed, laying on his back. The alarm clock says 1 a.m., four hours later than they usually go to sleep.

Sidney waits until Jonny isn't moving, waits until he's counted to five hundred since the last sound he heard from that side of the room. He lies awake and stares at the ceiling and thinks about Toews. "Why?" he says softly.

There's no response from the other bed, no movement or shift in the sheets to indicate that Jonny heard. He's probably asleep.

"I just --." Sidney startles at Jonny's voice. It's been long enough that he was sure he was the only one awake. "You mean this right?" Jonny pats his side. Sidney nods, then realizes he can't be seen, but Jonny continues anyway. "It was just. Some people get tattoos, you know?" which is enough of a non-sequitur that Sidney frowns and makes a questioning noise low in his throat.

Jonny turns over onto his side, facing. "I do them for special things, stuff I want to remember. Winning Juniors, winning Worlds, first NHL goal, that sort of thing."

"Like some people get tattoos," says Sidney doubtfully.

"Yeah."

"But why? Why not just get a tattoo? I mean you --," he pauses, as if saying it might make it real. But it is real, and Sidney wants to understand. "-- You cut yourself, right? To make the scars."

Another long silence. "Yes," says Jonny at last, barely a breath of a word. Sidney listens to the quiet, feels his chest rise and fall beneath the weight of the comforter. Jonny props his head up on his elbow and curls his knees in tighter. "I guess it started in U-17s, that year we won it for Canada. I fell down and got kicked at the boards in one of the early games, got cut along my side. By the time we got to the damn medal game, it was starting to heal, and I kept picking at it because it kept itching, so it was going to scar." Jonny's hand strays unconsciously down to his side, and Sidney imagines him touching the place where he'd first been cut.

"Then when we won it and they gave me MVP, I sort of looked at it and thought it was a shame that I was getting this ugly thing out of the tournament, you know? And the idea just sort of came to me, that I could turn it into a souvenir instead of this ugly cut, make it part of something that would remind me of how good it was, instead of reminding me of getting my ass kicked in that one game. So I figured out how to turn the cut into part of the tournament logo, and I sort of drew it on me." He takes a deep breath. "It didn't take that long to heal, really. It doesn't hurt that much. And now whenever I look at that one, it reminds me of how good that last game felt." A soft, near-bitter laugh. "Besides, it's not like my parents would have let me have tattoos at that age, anyway." Even quieter, "I liked it. So from then on, when something I wanted to remember happened, I made a drawing and --."

Jonny falls silent, drops his head back to the pillow and rolls to lay facing the ceiling again. Sidney stares into the darkness above him and blinks. His mind finishes Jonny's last sentence: And cut it into himself.

It almost makes a twisted sort of sense. Some people get ink to etch memories into their skin. Jonny just doesn't bother with the ink. Sidney pushes one hand into his hair, twists it there until it hurts and tries to imagine Jonny drawing on himself with a knife or a razor blade, the way the blade would push into skin, that moment of indentation and white-stretched tension before the actual cut. It must have hurt. Sidney twists the hand in his own hair harder, trying to understand, bites at his tongue and thinks of the taste of blood. Tattoos scab as well, and no one thinks those are weird. It almost makes a twisted sort of sense. Sidney pictures what he'd seen the night before when Jonny had his shirt off, tries to imagine the pale lines that creep eerily across bone and muscle. The way Toews's face must have contorted into strange shapes, trying to remain still enough to get the lines right even as he hurt himself deeply enough to scar.

Sidney sits up in bed and swings his legs over the edge of the mattress. He can hear Jonny's swift intake of breath even over the way the sheets rustle at his movement. He can practically smell the tension in the room. He flips on the bedside lamp and watches Jonny throw his arm up to cover his eyes, squinting unprepared. "I want to see," Sidney says.

The arm stays across Jonny's eyes, then slowly falls back to his side. Sidney watches fingers clench in the sheets, release, clinch again until the knuckles pale. "Please," says Sidney.

Jonny turns his head to meet Sidney's eyes. His head is the only thing that moves; the rest of him is almost preternaturally still, near-vibrating with the lack of motion. He doesn't say yes. He doesn't say no.

Sidney stands up like he's pushing his limbs through sand, and Jonny swallows hard enough to make his adam's apple bob. It's a four-foot gap between their beds, but crossing it feels like an eternity when every motion has to be gauged against whether it will push too hard, startle Jonny. Sidney sits down on the very edge of the other bed, perching, and reaches out.

There's an audible catch of breath in Jonny's throat. Sidney tugs the blankets down to bunch up at Jonny's waist, then touches his fingertips to the edge of Jonny's t-shirt. The rise and fall of Jonny's stomach completely stops. He isn't breathing. Sidney barely dares to breathe himself, but Jonny still hasn't said no, is still marble and stone beneath his hands, so Sidney nudges upwards so very slowly, so very lightly, trying not to touch. This is a weird thing to do with a teammate, a weird thing to do with anyone, but somehow after that brief glimpse yesterday he needs to see more, so he swallows down the strangeness and fear and goes ahead.

It seems to take forever to reveal one of the scars in its entirety. Sidney remembers seeing Jonny reach for his side when he talked about the cut that started all this, and there it is, the U-17 logo in ridged lines of puckered skin. Sidney bites his lip, hovers his fingers over it, not quite daring to touch. Jonny's chest heaves and nearly brings them in contact, heavy exhale of the breath he's been holding and inhale of another, this one held too. Sidney nudges the shirt up a little more, still not touching skin. He can see the bottom of the World Junior logo, the one he'd noticed yesterday, and he traces the air above that one too. He can feel the tips of the fine hairs that cover the skin, imagines that he can feel how warm the scars would be if he touched. Jonny's breaths go from held and sporadic to fast and shallow.

"Take it off." Sidney pokes a fingertip at one of the wrinkles of the shirt.

"I," says Jonny, then sits up. Sidney jerks away, still not wanting contact, but Jonny doesn't seem to notice, the shirt wrapped up around his eyes in the process of pulling it off. He lays back down when he's bare-chested, and Sidney can see them all. He recognizes some -- World Juniors on the left ribs; World Championship logo opposite it on the right; captain's C etched life-sized just over the heart, where it would sit on the jersey. Sidney hovers his hand above that one, stroking the air just above the C along the curve of the letter, down and back up, over and over, almost meditative. It curls around Jonny's nipple and Sidney wonders what it felt like to carve it, whether it took a mirror. Others designs are unfamiliar, and Sidney wonders what they commemorate. It's the C that his eyes keep coming back to, the outline so simple and stark against the smooth muscle there. The lines are neat, almost frighteningly precise.

"Thank you," Sidney says at last, and glances back up at Jonny's face. The lamplight is meager enough to turn his eyes to pure black, eerie. There's an intensity there, as though Sidney is a hockey play that Jonny needs to figure out. Sidney wonders if this is what Hiller felt. Toews nods slowly.

Standing, his thighs stiff from balancing on the very edge of the bed for so long, Sidney reaches to turn out the light. He climbs back into his own bed and after a moment Toews turns onto his side, his back to Sidney again. Sidney closes his eyes and sees those scars against his eyelids: the simple, almost powerful C; the spidery lines of the championship logos. Sidney wonders how much it must have hurt to write his history into his own body.

*

"Twenty! Twenty!" Sidney can't tell, doesn't have time to look, but it sounds like Eric Staal's voice from over at the bench. Twenty seconds left on the power play.

Kesler dumps the puck out of the Americans' zone, and Sidney circles back to pick up the play while Keith carries the puck back in. Three and a half minutes left, two goals down, and not converting on this power play is simply not an option. Sidney drifts towards the net.

"Puck," Nash yells and races down toward the boards in the corner, wide open. Keith slaps it almost blindly toward the sound, his skates slicing gashes into the too-soft ice when he pivots. Callahan in the red, white, and blue follows Keith's play and drifts up to threaten the open passing lane back to the point, but it leaves him out of position. In the crowd near the glass, someone has an airhorn. Its insistent wail bleeds into the back of Sidney's consciousness like the goal siren they so desperately need. He slides in between Drury and Orpik, looking for an opening, a path to the goal.

Nash gives an incomprehensible yell from the corner, and shoves the puck out in front of the net. Sidney doesn't even have time to think, barely has time to drop his stick the two inches that it takes to get his tape on the ice. The biscuit hits it, ricochets, and Sidney feels the impact all the way up his forearms. It all happens so fast. He's past the net and turning behind before he realizes that the deflection went in.

The building around them goes nuts.

Iggy and Boyle skid to a stop in front of him, wrap arms around his neck and head while Nash jumps into their pile and whoops in Sidney's ear. The weight of them no longer matters, their sweaty, too-strong smells. He scored, he scored, he scored, and Sidney's face feels like it might crack from the smile. Keith is both last to the huddle and quietest, grinning proudly at Sidney as the PA announces the assists. Finally, some life in the crowd again. They're only one goal down.

Back at the bench, Staal punches him harmlessly in the shoulder pad and scoots over so that Sidney can have a spot. The Jumbotron is showing the goal again, and Sidney beams up at his digital self, watches as it deflects the puck in slow-mo. "First goal by Sid the Kid," Boyle says from behind him and dangles a water bottle in his face. Sidney takes it and blinks to realize that yes, he's actually scored in the Olympics. His whole body feels light with the knowledge, the thought of it sitting quivery and solid in his stomach.

Thirty seconds have gone by on the ice. The euphoria of the goal dips and stumbles. His first Olympic goal, and they're still behind. "Crosby line out," yells Babcock, and they take the puck from a shift by the Staal line in the Americans' zone. Cycle, cycle, and Doughty lines up a shot from the high slot that's close, so close. Miller doesn't clear the rebound. They all slap at it, Sidney taking hits to the skates and shins when someone misses the puck. Finally, Miller gets a blocker on it. The crowd at the boards surges and crests, and it feels for a moment like an extension of himself, as though twenty thousand Canadians are yelling out his rage that somehow they could be so close, so good and not score.

Back to the benches when breathing becomes too much of a trial to concentrate on puck movement. Water, wait. Two minutes left. Out to take a faceoff then back immediately to make room for the Sharks line. Ninety seconds still to go. Another shift, three more impossible saves by Ryan motherfucking Miller and Sidney is so frustrated that he hurls his water bottle against the boards behind the bench. It explodes with the impact and drenches Babcock's feet, but the older man just glances at Sidney like he understands. They're all in this thing together, and if anyone else is carrying a weight even near that on Sidney's shoulders, it's Babcock.

Eric Staal is the one who spots it. "Scotty, Scotty get back!" he screams, and Sidney turns to look. He's heard Eric yell before, but this wasn't like that. This wasn't mere urgency, this was panic and oh Christ, Perry isn't going to make it. Kesler is streaking down the near-side boards and Perry's with him, but he's a half-step back. Scotty doesn't realize what's going on, hasn't backchecked hard enough, and now there's a brief window. Sidney can almost feel it in his own muscles, knows exactly what Kesler's seeing and feeling, the burn of 'stay one step ahead', the insane knowledge that this could be the big one. He's done it himself to countless defenders.

Marty's on the bench to give them the sixth attacker. They have Corey Perry out there instead of Martin Brodeur, and there's a US forward streaking toward their net. Niedermayer won't get back in time.

Sidney knows the shot before Kesler takes it, knows that it will score before it hits the goal.

The crowd goes eerily quiet. Sidney thinks that he might be going into shock, because the only thing he can think of is Star Wars: as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. At the other end of the rink, the Americans are leaping into a pile in a celebration so foreign to Sidney's current mood it almost seems obscene. Kesler's lost his helmet. Forty-four seconds left, and they're down by two again.

They've lost.

*

Sidney hikes his scarf up further to cover his face, standing in line with the rest of the team to get on the bus back to the Olympic Village. It's so quiet outside, and he suspects the hush has less to do with the snow in the air and on the ground, and more to do with the way they didn't win. When they'd come out after previous games, he'd been able to still hear the party going on in the nearby Plaza of Nations, but tonight there is nothing to celebrate. Sidney shivers. It's windy out tonight, frigid.

"Hey coach?"

Babcock turns from his position next to the bus door. "Yeah?"

"We don't have anything official to do after this, do we? I mean, we're off for the night."

Babcock frowns at him. "You're off. But don't do anything stupid. Just go back to the hotel and get some sleep, we've got --"

"Practice tomorrow, and then press. I know." He pauses, looks up at the sky and the falling snowflakes. The tires of the bus are actually steaming, heated from the friction of rolling on the drive over. "If it's okay with you, I'm going to walk back."

A raised eyebrow communicates Babcock's doubt. There's a snowflake caught in the hairs.

"I just need some time to clear my head. It's only a mile, it won't take long. It's not like I'm going to stay out all night."

The coach shrugs. "It's up to you. You've got a cell phone?" Sidney nods. "Call if you need security, we'll send people out."

The rest of the team is bundled onto the bus already, but Marty Brodeur hangs back, shuffling his feet from side to side and scratching the back of his neck. "I'll walk with you, if that's okay."

Sidney shrugs and they watch together as the bus pulls away, steam billowing from its exhaust pipe into the cold. Sidney can see his own breath. He shoves his hands into his pockets and they wait until the bus has turned out onto the boulevard before Marty touches him on the elbow. "Come on."

The walk back to the Village takes them down a wide sidewalk, coated in slush and thin mud where the crowds from the game had trampled the snow. Overhead the sky train rattles by, flash of neon in its futuristic glass tube. Sidney watches it pass, snowflakes falling into his eyes, and when he looks back down Marty is staring.

"What?" His throat feels scratchy.

"I just --. I don't know. Are you okay?" Sidney shrugs. He's not really okay, but Marty will understand. "They kept you in there an awfully long time," Marty says quietly. It isn't stated as a question, but there's a morbid curiosity lurking behind the words.

After the game, the media hadn't wanted to let him leave the green room. Predatory on the best of days, the loss set the reporters out for blood. Marty hadn't lingered at all and hadn't given any interviews. Scotty left early to settle the team down and get them ready for a meeting, so Sidney had been forced to fend for himself. In some ways the post-game interviews had been comforting; mouthing through the familiar platitudes of worked hard, bad bounces, have to respect opponents made the loss feel a little more like any other, and not like he just disappointed thirty million people and betrayed his national pride.

"They were rough on you," says Sidney, in response to the question that isn't being asked.

"I've lost it, haven't I?"

There isn't anything to say to that, so Sidney doesn't answer. He stares straight ahead down the sidewalk at the bundled-up people in front of them, and pulls his scarf up a little further so that it covers his mouth and nestles under his nose. It's not much as disguises go, but maybe it'll be enough. It means that he tastes his breath every time he exhales, warm patch of cloth against his chin that cools quickly until the next time he breathes out. Marty sees and imitates the gesture; hockey players incognito.

They stop at a light to cross the street towards the Science Center, an enormous geodesic sphere in the distance, floating futuristic at the edge of the bay. Marty puts a hand on Sidney's shoulder to keep him from stepping too close to the curb when a car rushes by, slinging mud up toward their shoes. Sidney rubs his red mittens together. Around them other pedestrians gather into a knot to wait for the walk signal, and he hunches his shoulders to try and make himself inconspicuous. The last thing he wants right now is to talk to people and have to try and be polite or upbeat. When the light goes green, Marty walks slowly. Sidney hangs back with him until the others are yards ahead and they are alone. The neon glow of the sphere reflects in the water beside them, huge and pale like a very close moon. Sidney shuffles along by the railing at the edge of the sidewalk and kicks snow over the rim to hear it splash into the bay.

They pass the sphere and are within sight of the Village when Marty says, "It'll be good for us, maybe. The extra game will give us a chance to practice more, work some of the kinks out." Babcock had said as much at the team meeting, in almost those exact words.

"You don't believe that."

A pause, and all of Vancouver is so muffled in the snow, so low and hungry and silent. "No." Their shoes crunch in the powder.

"We'll do this," says Sidney at last, because it feels like he should say something, anything.

"Yeah," says Marty, and Sidney doesn't ask if he believes that one either. He doesn't want to know.

The cold feels too familiar; he shudders at the warmth when he steps into the checkpoint to show the guards his badge.

*

"Kaner says hi." Toews looks up from where he's sitting crosslegged with his laptop when Sidney opens the door to their room.

"That little shit. Just had to rub it in, didn't he."

"I don't think it's like that. He almost seems upset," says Jonny, and frowns. "Well, not upset, he's happy they won, but --."

"He feels bad about making you unhappy?"

"Something like that."

Sidney nods and goes to brush his teeth. When he gets out of the bathroom, Jonny is still typing. Sidney lays down in his bed and lets his head roll back, closes his eyes. Hard hockey is always exhausting, even if you win. Losing is worse and his body is weary, but his brain feels like it's been overclocked on adrenaline for so long it can't slow down. He doesn't want to go out; that would involve seeing people. The TV remote is on the stand, but he doesn't want to risk the chance of spotting a scrolling ribbon or worse, a news channel that's covering the aftermath of the game. Jonny's brave to be on the internet; Sidney is determined to avoid all media until the sting has a chance to die down, if it ever dies down. A thought occurs to Sidney and he opens his eyes again. "Hey, does Kane know about --," he waves his hand in Jonny's direction.

"What?"

"Your --. The --. " Sidney waves his hand more emphatically, willing Jonny to understand his semaphore.

"You mean the scars?" Toews looks curiously down at his shirt and touches the Blackhawks logo as though he can see the shapes through it. Sidney nods. "Yeah, he knows. I mean, we've roomed together for years now. Not much he doesn't know."

"Do the rest of the Hawks?"

"Yeah." Jonny's fingers hover above the keyboard, then after a final flurry of typing he closes the laptop and angles himself to face Sidney more fully. His hands are open and relaxed on his knees. "Most of them know," Jonny says. "Seabs and Duncs. I don't bother to hide it at home. I just didn't want to be the freak right off the bat with the other guys for Canada. I mean, I wanted to actually set foot on the ice, and no way was I going to make the team if the coaches or Neids saw these and thought I was a headcase. Just seemed easier not to make a big deal."

"Makes sense, I guess."

There's a long pause, and Jonny seems expectant. When Sidney says nothing else, he sighs and straightens his arms, stretches. "Ready for bed?"

Sidney nods. Jonny turns out the light, then goes in the bathroom and Sidney can hear the sounds of teeth-brushing taking place.

The darkness of the ceiling reminds him of the silent, dejected arena. One of Sidney's calves feels tense with little spasms, as though it's not ready to be restful yet. The loss still rides under his skin like an itch that no scratching could even begin to touch. He rubs his feet together under the comforter and listens to the sounds of water running from the bathroom. There's a thick sliver of light from the doorway into the room; Jonny hasn't closed it completely.

Exhausted and off-center, Sidney kicks off the blankets and goes to the bathroom door. He can see through the few inches of opening that Toews is washing his face.

He pushes the door open a foot or so more and squeezes inside. Toews sees him enter in the mirror and whirls, face and hair dripping wet, clutching a hand towel in one fist. "Sidney, what the hell?" he says, and Sidney shakes his head because there is no answer to that question. He doesn't know what the hell either, only that Jonny is team and he can't sleep. There are water drops sliding down Jonny's cheek, caught in the fine stubble of hair above his mouth. They catch the light when he speaks.

"No really, what the hell," Jonny tries again. When Sidney still doesn't say anything, Jonny gives a growl of frustration and rolls his eyes, turning back to face the mirror and burying his face in the towel so that he's no longer dripping all over the tile. Sidney steps closer and Jonny keeps an eye on him in the glass while he dries off his bangs, until Sidney is standing behind him and watching over his shoulder in the mirror.

A hand halts him when Jonny tries to turn around, keeps him facing their reflections. Both their eyes track Sidney's fingers as they lift at the sides of Toews's shirt, pull it up enough that Jonny understands what he wants. In the air around them, indecision sings through the moment as Jonny takes hold of the shirt hem. Sidney wonders if he'll pull it back down, but after a twitch of motion tugging toward his waist, Jonny seems to change his mind and instead jerks the shirt off over his head, stretching the neck out even more than its current pitiful state. It lands on top of the towel and Jonny stands bare-chested in front of him, so that Sidney can see the scars in the mirror. Jonny had said they were symbols of triumph, moments when he'd done well.

Sidney starts with a familiar one: a skater imposed on a maple leaf, based on the Canadian World Championship medals. They'd beaten the world in that tournament. He hadn't touched the scars before, but in the mirror depth perception is odd and off-kilter, so it's more by accident than by design that he pushes his fingers hard into Toews's ribs. Some of the lines are barely perceptible to his sense of feel; if his eyes weren't glued to the image they make in the mirror, he probably wouldn't be able to follow them by touch alone. Jonny makes a low unhappy noise, but Sidney ignores him.

He's careful, slow, tracing each line of the image meditatively. Sidney imagines that he was there when they won the championship, that his fingertips are the blades that made these, pushing harder on the wide lines and touching lightly in the spider-web thin details. "How long did this take?" He can't explain his need to know more, know everything about how Toews did this to himself.

"About a month." Jonny's voice is shallow and thin, as though he's afraid to let his ribs expand enough to give him real air. "Complex ones like that you can't do all at once."

"Some people get tattoos," Sidney says, and when Jonny laughs his ribs do move, and Sidney's fingers ride the motion, settle back into the hollow just under his lowest rib when the laughter subsides. Somehow it's more comfortable to touch after hearing Jonny laugh. When he finishes the World Championship, he moves his hand toward the other side, the World Juniors design, and realizes too late what that means. He's right-handed, and touching toward the left of Jonny's chest puts his arm loose around Toews, pulls him close enough that if Toews leans back the slightest fraction, they'll be resting against each other. Sidney doesn't know if he wants that or not, whether contact might ease the gnawing of the loss in his stomach or make it worse. He isn't sure how to interpret the fact that his skin tingles when Jonny sways minutely and just barely brushes shoulderblades against Sidney's chest. He can hear it stutter in Jonny's breath too.

"All these were for Canada," Sidney says, mostly because he needs to say something to distract himself from the fact that he just realized he can feel Jonny's heartbeat.

"Yes." Deep breath. "Well, some are Blackhawks, but all those," and Jonny's hand comes up to guide where Sidney moves, pointing out the scars for international play.

"All those for Canada." A bitter grin. "See, we are good at hockey."

Jonny's eyes in the mirror are dark and arresting. Sidney focuses there and sees only in peripheral vision that Jonny is touching the World Championship design again, fingering the scar like a talisman. "We are good," Jonny says, and Sidney holds his gaze long enough for Jonny to see he understands.

"What's this one?" Sidney taps his thumb over a smaller design on Jonny's stomach, down near the left hipbone. Jonny laughs again.

"A buffalo. Manitoba gave me the Order of the Buffalo." Now that Jonny has explained, he can see it. The design is primitive, like something he might see in a cave painting, but it's unmistakably a buffalo. "I got the linework from an Inuit tattoo." The simple lines give it a certain power, so Sidney nods and lets his thumb linger a little more.

Jonny shivers and leans back. Sidney jerks with surprise and knows from the tensing then relaxing of the stomach under his thumb that Jonny felt his startlement against the full length of his spine. They're pressed flush, and Sidney never thought he'd know so intimately that Jonny's shoulders are still damp from the hasty toweling. Or maybe Jonny's sweating. Or maybe it's just him. Nothing in Sidney's experience so far has prepared him for the etiquette of this particular situation. Jonny still seems relaxed though, leaning back and letting Sidney take his weight, and after a moment curiosity overcomes trepidation. Jonny is a living medallion of the fact that tonight's loss doesn't have to be the end of Sidney's dreams.

"This one?"

"WCHA Champs."

"This one?"

"NHL --,"

"-- All-Stars," Sidney finishes with him, and Jonny nods.

He touches each design, and Jonny volunteers the occasion. Sometimes Sidney asks how long it took, if it hurt, which line was the original skate slash that started everything. The captain's C he saves for last. Maybe Sidney is projecting, but that one feels the most intimate.

"This one?" He starts at the top of the C, traces slowly. Jonny had been relaxed, but his breath goes rapidly shallow against Sidney's chest, and he swallows.

"You know that one," he says when Sidney has traced the letter all the way around his nipple.

"I do know that one." Sidney traces it again, concentrating less on the letter and more on the fine trembles that it draws when he rubs his fingers there. He's halfway through a third time when Jonny's hand comes up to cover his own and hold him still.

"We should go to bed," says Jonny thickly. Tomorrow they have to explain to a nation that they still can be better.

"Yeah," Sidney agrees, and flattens his hand over the place where Jonny's heartbeat is strongest. The breath explodes out of him in a soft whoof, and Sidney knows the feeling. Just being able to watch Jonny like this in the mirror feels terribly illicit. Touching is a whole other level of forbidden and fucked up and fantastic.

"Please," breathes Jonny. Sidney watches his mouth move in the mirror and isn't sure what he's asking, whether he wants more or for it all to stop. Sidney himself isn't sure whether to push or run screaming. They do need to go to bed.

He ducks his head and brushes his nose against the juncture of Jonny's neck and ear, gathers in the tiny ah sound it draws and the way Jonny bends his head for more. He smells like soap there and a little like sweat still. "Okay," Sidney says, and steps back enough to put air between them, shivering when his chest instantly feels cold. "Bed."

Jonny turns out the light in the bathroom and Sidney finds his pillow by groping in the dark. He's glad of the dimness; if he had to face Jonny now, after that, whatever it was, he's not sure what he'd say. Sidney sighs deeply and closes his eyes. One thing about being confused about Jonny: the loss no longer stings with quite the same biting ferocity. Maybe the scars are good for something after all, but what that something might be, Sidney has no idea.

*

"I'm not going to tell you that this is going to be just like any other practice, gentleman, because it's not." Babcock is pacing. Sidney leans back against his stall in the players' lounge and tracks the coach's progress with his eyes: eight steps in one direction, pivot, eight steps in the other. In the center of the bench, nearest to the maple leaf logo on the floor, Marty and Lu are both leaning forward, jaws twin hard lines of goalie apprehension. Eric Staal is pretending to wrap his sticks, but he isn't looking at the tape at all, and Sidney knows that he'll have to redo the work later if he wants any of the sticks to actually be useable. Marleau is playing with the tennis ball again, squeezing it hard enough that every so often it spurts out of his hand and bounces toward the floor. Thornton usually retrieves it for him when this happens, hands the ball back over and settles down to wait again. The whole room smells of stale sweat and shaving cream, aftershave.

Babcock pivots once more, then raises his head and points. "Lu, you're in tomorrow." Both goalies react identically; shoulders slump and heads go down into hands. The team as a whole holds its breath -- Marleau stops playing with the ball, Staal sets his tape down in his lap. Surprisingly it's Marty who recovers first, straightening his spine and looking straight ahead, not making eye contact with anyone in the room. He reaches over and pats Lu on the back, two heavy thumps that resonate loud since none of the rest of them are talking, and Lu glances up at him, surprised. A moment for something to pass between them, Sidney doesn't pretend to know what, and Lu nods, first to Marty then to Babcock.

The relief through the rest of the room is palpable.

"Expect new line combinations too. Nothing's set in stone this morning, but we're going to try some things. This afternoon we'll go with the looks we liked from this morning, and you can expect those to be the lines for tomorrow's game. Video's going to be tonight after supper, I've booked one of the projector rooms in Canada House." Nods from around the room, no surprises about the schedule. "All right, coaches have the lines we'll start with, so let's get out there and warm up." A pause, but no one moves. The line of Babcock's shoulder says there's something more to come. He faces the team. "We fucked up last night. We let the whole fucking country down, but starting today, we're going to fix it."

With that they head out onto the ice in a silent, glum line to group up by the color of their practice uniform. Sidney is in white today, along with Staal, Iginla, Niedermayer, and Weber. They settle along the paint of one of the faceoff circles and crouch to the ice, extending first one leg then the other, stretching and getting a feel for the surface. It's slushy today, and has been getting worse with every game since the Olympics began. By the time the medal rounds take place, they'll be skating in water with some ice cubes floating in it.

Wind sprints, shooting drills, passing drills, screen drills. Sidney skates with an angry Nash and Morrow; with Toews and Staal, who both seem focused and philosophical; with Marleau and Heatley in a line where he doesn't fit because he isn't Thornton. Sometimes Babcock lines up three centers in a drill just for the hell of it, and Sidney can't see the method to the madness at all, but he's trusting that the coach has a plan. He's back with Staal and Iginla and they've just come in to the boards from a neutral ice transition drill, breathless and frustrated because it isn't working, none of it's working today, when he notices Yzerman on the end of the bench, perched in the backup goalie's seat. Sidney glides to that end, settles himself near a rack of water bottles, and pops out his mouthpiece to chew on one end.

"How do you feel?" says Yzerman.

"Tired." It sounds abrupt, but at the moment he's too weary for politeness. Yzerman grunts and nods, watches as Toews and Morrow stave off offensive zone pressure from the Sharks line and Toews clears the puck back down past where they sit. "Point!" Babcock screams, "Get your ass up to the goddamn point, Weber, we don't have time for this shit."

"What does it sound like?" Yzerman asks at last, and Sidney looks over to study his face. He's wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead, watching the play on the ice with more attention than it probably deserves. His eyes have more lines around them than Sidney remembers from photographs, and Sidney wonders briefly if the Games are taking as large a toll on Yzerman as they are on the actual players for the team.

"What does what sound like?"

"The arena. Right now." This time Sidney really does stare at him. Surely there's a point to this conversation. Out on the ice, Keith is yelling to Doughty about a new plan for near-side faceoffs and Marty is baiting Weber about his slapshot skills.

"Um, like a hockey team practicing?"

"Empty."

"Yeah, I guess." There are twenty thousand seats around them, and Sidney knows what he means. Even if they don't make noise, there's a weight to the emptiness that he can sense, and the enormous space distorts even the noise from the ice, swallows it up into the void. It's different from the practice rinks he's used to -- small with close walls and only a few bleachers -- and the strange absence of noise makes Sidney feel smaller in the arena than he ever does on game day when it's full of people.

"Think about it tomorrow when you come out of that tunnel. They say you can hear when Canada takes the ice from all the way across the bay in the Village."

"Uh. Okay."

Stevie sighs and props his feet up on the boards. "Don't think about the games you've already played. Don't let yourself dwell on what you should have done differently with America. You've got the rest of your life to make stupid plays in games you'll lose, there's nothing special about that. That kind of noise, though, that energy, that's once in a lifetime."

Iginla reaches behind them and pokes Yzerman with his stick. "You're getting sentimental in your old age, Stevie."

Steve throws his head back and laughs, and Sidney wonders what it must have been like to play for the man. Even now, years away from when he'd worn the C and lifted the Cup, there's something magnetic about him, a sense that he could take the ice this very moment and be the difference-maker for the team, the one who turned them around. "Yeah, well, now I'm old enough that all the young ones have to listen to me." He slants a grin sideways at Sidney. "One of these days I'll come down here and spout complete bullshit just to fuck with you guys. Say that you should tape your stick to the left if it's raining or some such nonsense."

Sidney tracks the path of the puck as it ricochets off Doughty's shinguard for a turnover. "You've ruined your plan, now that we're warned."

"Yeah, well --," Stevie begins, but is interrupted.

"Crosby line, offensive zone faceoff." Babcock makes a note on his clipboard. Sidney vaults out and heads for the dot.

It's Thornton across from him, and Sidney focuses on Lemaire's forearm to try and get a jump on his movement for when he'll drop the puck. For a split second of waiting, the entire arena is silent, no one moving on the ice. It's like standing in the middle of a yawning hole and holding his breath, waiting for the space to fill with energy. He's never noticed it before.

*

Part Three

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