going up flying, going home [6/6]
going up flying, going home
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one | two | three | four | five | six | art & soundtrack
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"Somebody's got to be the hero," Babcock shouts down at the four skaters poised to hop the boards.
The bench creaks and jostles beneath Sidney when Heater throws himself down and immediately puts his head between his legs to take deep, heavy breaths. Sidney knows the feeling; he's felt like puking ever since they stepped out of the locker room to airhorns and cheers so loud his teeth chattered from the sheer force of the sound. The other end of the bench tremors too; it's a full change -- forwards and defense -- so the combined weights of Toews, Nash, Boyle, and Pronger are suddenly gone. Sidney dutifully shifts down to fill the holes.
Staal and Richards are also off the bench, though they aren't yet over the boards. Instead they balance themselves on the boards to sit, ready to kick off and make the change just a little bit faster the next time the forwards get too exhausted to skate full steam. Overtime means the long change, and zero room to be stupid or slow.
Sidney checks the tape on his laces and looks up just in time to see Nash completely obliterate Ryan Callahan. He should have a look, there's a shot there. Sidney bangs his stick against the boards in encouragement, feels players down the bench do the same. "Shoot it," Pronger screams from near the top of the circle, "Shoot it Nasher!"
Miller gets a pad in the way or Nash doesn't shoot high enough or maybe the hockey gods just hate Canada tonight -- Sidney can't quite see well enough from his vantage point to tell which, but the crowd's collective "Aw!" is louder than the goal siren would have been. The air in his lungs tastes dry and fragile with tiny ice particles. There are too many bodies in the way for him to see the action clearly from the bench angle. Sidney checks the jumbotron to follow the play and in giant glowing pixels watches Toews almost manage another swipe at it, so close, before the Americans take the puck back and the chance is lost.
Skates slice, pivot, slice again in a battle at the blue line, and when Kane snaps the biscuit to his stick, Sidney leans forward with a lurch, elbows resting on the boards and gloves clasped in front of him as though in prayer. Kane cuts across to avoid Pronger -- so fast, too fast for the forwards to get back and catch him -- but Boyle manages to make the save and poke the puck away to Toews, who steps through the neutral zone and pushes it deep. Sidney feels his heart rate drop marginally. At least it's back out of their zone and headed up ice in the right direction. He can feel the boards quiver under his forearms as though they agree with his relief, the result of Eric and Richie kicking off to change.
"Water," yells Sidney and tosses the bottle in front of himself to the exhausted forwards just off the ice. Nash douses himself in the face, takes a whiff of the smelling salts, then leans back and punches Babcock in the thigh, beckoning him to lean down and listen.
"They're letting us take the point shots," Babcock shouts when he straightens, straining to be heard all the way down the bench over the roar of the crowd. His voice sounds as hoarse as Sidney's own. "Letting Miller handle top of the circles, you've got to get it in closer to get by him." Sidney nods and raises a glove to show he heard. "D, jump in to the point if you can. Make them think there's a chance of a shot, you'll draw off room to get the forwards closer."
"Shit!" Marty was one of the few watching the ice instead of Babcock, but his yell is clearly audible even all the way on the other end. All heads snap toward the action on the ice.
Pavelski is in deep, only Niedermayer between him and the goal. Sticks catch, swipe at skates and puck alike. Nieds manages to get the puck to his skate and kicks it away to his stick, then dips behind the net to recompose the rush. At the half-boards, Sidney expects a mid-range pass to Richards, who is prowling the neutral zone, but instead Niedermayer tries to throw the puck across to Weber. Pavelski is there, a perfect interception, and Sidney's heart stops again because there are no defenders any more, it's a one-on-one with the goalie.
"Kid," yells Babcock, just as Sidney whispers, "Please," because even if the next shift is his, it may not matter if this shot goes in.
"Lu!" choruses the crowd in a deep bass howl, and mercifully there are no lights, no sirens. Lu gathers the puck close, and Sidney has never been so glad in his life that they didn't see a rebound. Nieds circles back once more to pull the puck up for Canada.
"Kid!" Babcock screams again, in case he hadn't heard it in the previous pandemonium, so Sidney swings a leg over the boards to show he's ready. Iggy follows suit. It's only three seconds more and the puck is still in the far corner of their own zone when Sidney pushes off as hard as the tired muscles in his legs will let him, trying to get to the puck before the Americans.
Get in close is the mantra. Defense threaten from points, forwards get in close as they can and take the shot. It's in his head as he races Langenbrunner across the ice, momentum in his push off the boards putting him two steps ahead when he reaches the pass that Nieds had thrown into the neutral zone. Parise and the two defenders are still in front of him. He'll have to fight through at least two of them to have a chance.
It's less than a stride after he reaches the puck that he makes the decision: go for the defenders, try and out-dangle them. He heads straight for Suter, full speed, but Suter doesn't back down. Rafalski cuts over to help his partner out, and Sidney faces them both in a screen between him and the goal. "Screens," he thinks, hearing Jonny's voice from last night in his head. "Scouting on Miller is screens and distractions. Low pads for rebounds, roof it blocker side." Sidney's shot goes through the two defenders' skates, and he hopes it's enough.
By the time he's untangled enough from Rafalski to see what's going on, it's clear that there's no goal. The puck is off in the corner, and Sidney is the first to arrive, smashing his forearm into the glass with a brief rocket of pain, and kicking the puck up to Iggy, who's managed to get down to support him. Iggy misses the pass and heads towards the corner, so Sidney gives chase to the puck, which hits the ref's skates and slows down. Sidney circles back to pass it to Iggy, then glances over his shoulder. Pavelski didn't realize that the puck hit the ref. He'd overshot the momentum, for now, Sidney's defender is nowhere near between him, the puck, or the goal.
"Iggy!" Sidney shouts, giving all the force that his voice has left to the words, begging for the chance and hoping he'll be heard above the crowd. The pass comes his way and it's only a movement to settle and a short sweep to shoot -- blocker side, so he aims for as much air as he can get in the short space -- before his momentum carries him around behind the net.
Sidney can't see where the puck went, whether or not it went in, but in the end he doesn't need to. The crowd sees for him. The first hint Sidney gets that they've won is when he sees a woman in a Niedermayer jersey jump up and plaster herself to the glass, arms in the air.
The sirens sound; he can't hear them through the noise.
Sidney doesn't even reach the corner before Nieds and Weber catch up to him, slamming him back against the glass with a teeth-jarring rattle when they hug him. Iggy is next, then Nasher and Thorns and Perry.
The whole team is upon him, all their weight, whacking heads and arms and shoulders, shouting over and over, "We won, we won!" as though saying the words will make this feeling any less surreal. Sidney's whole body feels weightless, and it's not just because he's pinned so hard against the glass that his skates no longer touch the ice. It's as though someone injected helium directly into his bloodstream and now he would float away if it weren't for the hugs and pats and grabs holding him down.
They just won the gold medal --he just won the gold medal -- and there's pride, yes, and euphoria and disbelief and fulfillment and a hundred other once-in-a-lifetime emotions, but the main thing that he's feeling is relief.
He cries when they sing O Canada together.
*
Sidney deliberately leaves the doors to the balcony open by about a foot, allowing the snow to swirl inside. The heat in the room is turned up full blast, which keeps the temperature comfortable, with an occasional shiver when the wind gusts. Outside, the streets of the Village are finally quiet, though noise filters in faint from the ongoing party in the city across the bay. The elation of having their bus pull out of the GM Place parking lot to the greeting of 100,000 people cheering for them still hasn't worn off.
It's 4 a.m on Monday and Sidney is watching Jonny. They're both still wearing their medals; Sidney doubts he'll take his off until he gets back to Pittsburgh, and maybe not even then. Jonny is still awake and lying on his back in the middle of his bed, hands folded over his stomach, the lamp still on. He's wearing the t-shirt.
"Where will you put it?" Sidney asks.
"The medal? Maybe on my wall. Frame it or something."
"The scar."
For a long time, Jonny remains still, and Sidney wonders if he intends to answer. Outside, he can hear the distant pop of fireworks over the bay. Jonny's toes curl, flex out, then relax.
"Do you want to see?"
Sidney squeezes in a fast breath through his nose. There's no way Jonny's done it already, there's been no time. They've only been back in the room for an hour, and Sidney's been watching him for forty-five minutes of that time. "Sure," says Sidney, and hopes his voice is steady enough not to betray how much it frightens him that Jonny might have done this hastily.
"Okay." Jonny sits up, looking straight ahead instead of at Sidney, then tucks the medal down into his shirt and pulls the shirt off over his head, so that the medal hangs flat against his bare chest. When he lays back again, Sidney can see what he meant: there's a stark black outline on his skin, drawn in marker. It's a figure of the Rings, located a few inches below the captain's C. Sidney moves over to sit down beside him and touches the black lines. They're perfectly drawn; Jonny must have used a pattern or a stencil.
"I sort of thought you'd put it here," Sidney says at last, reaching across to lay his palm on the opposite side of Jonny's chest, in a place that would be the mirror image of the C. On one side there's the Captain's crest and soon to be the Rings, but the other side is completely unmarked, the skin clear and startlingly smooth in comparison to the rest of his chest.
Jonny bites his lip. "I'm saving that spot. For the Cup, one day. Until then, it reminds me that there's still a goal."
Sidney nods, understanding. His hand drifts back until it encounters the smooth blue fabric of the ribbon, then down to reach the medal itself. The gold is skin-warm and smooth, lying in the dip of Jonny's sternum. Curious fingers touch the smaller emblem on the medal -- five circles, entertwined -- before touching its larger counterpart again on Jonny's skin. He can feel Jonny studying him, watching his face carefully.
"I have a favor to ask," says Jonny slowly, his hand coming up to cover Sidney's and press it flat against the ink on his chest.
"Yes?"
"I was wondering --," he trails off, wets his lips, swallows, and Sidney looks up to meet his eyes in question. "I was wondering if you would do the Rings for me."
Sidney's whole body goes tense. Jonny must be able to feel it because he tightens his grip on Sidney's hand to keep it against himself. "What do you mean?" Sidney asks carefully.
Jonny wets his lips again and the silence stretches interminably, broken only by the fireworks. "Make the scar."
"You want me to --."
"Yes."
He still can't quite believe what he's hearing. "You want me to cut you."
"Yes." Barely audible.
"Why?"
"To remember."
Sidney's first instinct is revulsion. He's never deliberately cut anyone in his life. Even if he's beginning to understand why Jonny does this -- why sometimes it's comforting to be able to look and touch and remember a history of good moments -- he has never wanted to be the kind of person who would deliberately hurt someone who he considers a friend and a teammate and more, who understands him as well as Jonny.
He's about to tug his hand away and stand up, move back, when Jonny says, "Please. I want to remember everything," and suddenly Sidney isn't sure they're talking about hockey anymore. Which, yes, they're talking about hockey, but they're also talking about -- oh. Now it makes sense why in Jonny's mind it should be Sidney who carves the scar. He isn't sure that he wants to do it, isn't sure that he could do it if he wanted to, but now he understands why Jonny would ask. And in some dark part of himself, Sidney likes the idea that Jonny would think of him whenever he saw a mirror or brushed the Rings in the shower; Jonny would remember not just the win but him specifically.
"I don't know if I can," he says truthfully.
"That's not no." Jonny's expression melts slowly from shuttered and wary to vulnerable.
"I don't want to hurt you."
"You know that I'll do it myself if you choose not to. You won't hurt me any more than I'd be hurting otherwise. And I'm asking you to do this, I want it."
"Yeah, but if you did the cuts yourself you'd know whether it was too deep, I don't have any way of --."
"Sidney," Jonny interrupts, "I'll tell you. I'm going to be here, I'll tell you if it's too much or too light. I'm not going to let you do anything wrong." He squeezes Sidney's hand on his chest, holds on tight.
For a long time, they listen to each other breathe. The fireworks die away and the only noises are the flap of the wind when it flutters the curtains and occasional whoops from drunken passersby. Sidney's thoughts trace themselves in rings, endless loops of can't-maybe-want-shouldn't-can't. The strokes against the back of his hand from Jonny's thumb are comforting, calming. When he realizes that it's the third time he's had the same internal argument with himself, Sidney gives up.
"I'll try." Jonny's grin makes the trepidation almost worth it. "I can't say that I'll definitely be able to do it, but I'll try."
Jonny tugs him down for a kiss that goes slower and longer than Sidney expected. When he decides he wants more skin, Jonny's pants come off easily. Neither of them offer to remove the medals. After long enough that he's beginning to wonder if they can just forget the whole thing, Jonny pushes him off and sits up. "Stay here. And get your pants off."
Sidney's obedience is rewarded when Jonny comes back from the bathroom with a stack of towels and what looks like his shaving kit. One towel gets spread out in the center of the bed, another on top of it. The shaving kit gets handed to Sidney, who opens it and examines the contents. In addition to the usual toothbrush, razor and deoderant on one side, there's a pack of alcohol wipes, a roll of gauze, adhesive tape, and -- "Jesus," Sidney whispers as he pulls out a scalpel, sealed inside a plastic pouch marked 'sterile'.
Jonny looks up from his towel preparations. "You can get them off the internet."
"Jesus."
Jonny lays back down on top of the towels and opens the package of alcohol wipes. "You might want to do your hands," he suggests, pushing the wipes toward Sidney, who scrubs his hands harder than necessary while Jonny rubs a wipe over the area marked with the Rings. The gauze and tape are pulled out and placed at Jonny's side for later use. Sidney feels like he ought to do something else, more preparations, find a way to delay so that Jonny will see what a bad idea this probably is, but he can think of nothing else that needs to get done.
Sidney picks up the package with the scalpel again. "Now?" he asks, and opens it after he receives a nod in return. The metal handle feels thin and cold in his hand. The blade itself is dull and unreflective, except for a few millimeters at the very edge which glint sharp in the lamplight. High school biology is the only other time he's held a scalpel, and comparing Jonny's warm, living form beside him to those cold, unfeeling frogs they'd worked on makes Sidney vaguely nauseous.
"Put your other hand on my stomach," Jonny says suddenly, and it startles Sidney enough that he nearly drops the knife. When he obeys, he can feel the rise-fall rhythm of breathing beneath tense muscles. "Go as slow as you need to. Just try and stay on the lines as much as you can so the circles turn out straight."
Sidney laughs, humorless, because even with all they've done in these weird two weeks, the idea of having this much power over Jonny's body borders on horrifying. "What if I do it crooked?"
"Then I'll think about how much your hands were shaking every time I look at it." Jonny grasps the wrist of the hand on that's resting on his stomach. "I trust you. I'll squeeze your wrist hard if I want you to stop."
Sidney takes a deep breath, swallows, and nods. When the scalpel gets within an inch of Jonny's side, his hands are trembling so badly he can see it. "Mine do that too," Jonny says in a low voice. "It'll feel more steady when it's resting against something."
Though it's less than an inch, it feels like an eternity of air between the blade and the first of the lines. Sidney's back is so tight with concentration that it feels like he could snap. Jonny is stone-still, eyes locked to Sidney's face. Just before the blade touches, Sidney looks up at him. "You're sure this is okay."
"Yes."
"You're sure."
Jonny presses his lips together. "I want you to cut me," he says clearly.
Sidney lowers the blade some more -- so slowly -- until he feels the very faint resistance of the blade resting on skin, not pressing down. "Stop me if it's bad." The words sound more like a plea than he'd intended. Jonny's thumb strokes the inside of his wrist in slow circles, a counterpoint to the wire-taut strain of his stomach muscles.
It takes less pressure than Sidney thought before blood wells against the blade. He freezes. "Too much?" His voice sounds like a croak past all the tension in his throat.
Jonny's voice is all breath, and Sidney realizes that he's trying not to move his chest when he talks. "About right. Little deeper." Sidney inhales slowly through his nose and continues, using the tip as much as he can instead of the flat of the blade and going very slowly, trying to trace the circles evenly. There isn't as much blood as he'd thought there'd be, thin trickles along the curves that the knife draws, but he's seen more staggering amounts of blood from getting hit by a puck in practice. When Jonny hasn't died or screamed or done anything else alarming after the first few seconds, Sidney feels the strangling tension easing a little in his neck and his hand steadies.
It takes concentration to do this, but the focus is on far more than just the black marker design over Jonny's ribs. Sidney becomes acutely aware of the rhythms of Jonny's inhalations, the speed of his heartbeat, the strain of trying to lie perfectly still. "It's okay," Sidney whispers distractedly as he begins the third ring. "Tell me if it hurts too much. I'll stop if you tell me to, don't let me push you too far."
"Trust you," Jonny whispers. Almost more frightening than the idea that he has this much control over Jonny's body is the knowledge that he likes it. There's something heady and exhilarating about that much power, and about the idea that Jonny is giving it to him willingly. The fourth circle goes smoothly, and Sidney is almost surprised when he finishes. It didn't take as long as he'd thought.
"There," he says quietly, feeling almost reverent when he reaches out to touch the trickle of blood down Jonny's side. There really isn't so much. His fingers smear it over ribs and unmarked skin. Jonny takes a deep breath now that he can safely move his chest again, and the tug at the skin makes the bleeding a little faster, draws a low grunt from his throat.
"Hand me those," says Jonny, and makes grabby hands at the alcohol wipes until Sidney passes them over. He wipes his side off first, the finger prints that Sidney left and the little trails down to the towels. The towels themselves have only a few spots. Sidney doubts that it even soaked through to the second layer. After he's cleaned off the overspill, Jonny cleans the cuts themselves, hissing when the alcohol wipe touches the open wound.
"Hurts?" says Sidney, though he knows it does.
Jonny nods. He reaches for the gauze next, but Sidney catches his wrist.
"Wait." Jonny gives him a quizzical look.
"I just want to --," Sidney trails off, and reaches out to touch. He doesn't use any pressure, so that he isn't hurting Jonny, but his fingers are curious as they seek out the new lines, the places where the edges of the cut are already becoming raised and reddened. Jonny makes muffled noises whenever he accidentally presses down too hard on a place that's sensitive, but he allows the exploration. Except for a few small dots, it's stopped bleeding already.
When Sidney finishes tracing the design, he glances up to check for a reaction. Jonny's face is soft and peaceful, and Sidney can't resist wanting to be closer to him, leaning over to touch foreheads so that they're sharing air. Jonny tips his chin up and their mouths smooth together instantly, easily, medals clinking against each other as Sidney bends further, hovering over Jonny's body so that his weight won't hurt. "It's okay," Jonny whispers into his mouth and pulls him down, so Sidney stretches out and allows himself to enjoy how easy it all seems now. It surprises him to find that Jonny's hard; between his preoccupation with the Rings and his anxiety to make sure Jonny wasn't injured, he hadn't noticed earlier.
"So not too much blood loss," Sidney says, and earns a laugh.
"No, I think I'm good."
"We should bandage your chest."
Jonny makes an unhappy sound, but allows Sidney to straighten up, straddling him, and fetch the gauze. They've both done this part countless times for bruises or scrapes or small cuts, the daily price of playing hockey, so creating a gauze pad and taping it protectively over the cut is the work of a few seconds. Sidney is in the process of ripping off tape strips when Jonny says, "Oh, no."
"What?" Sidney's gaze darts immediately to Jonny's ribs, hoping there's nothing wrong with the wound.
"Your ribbon." One hand reaches up and Jonny touches Sidney's medal ribbon, a few inches above the medal. There's a dark spot, about an inch long. Blood. Sidney stares at it, touches. It's still wet.
"It's okay."
"You'll have to get it cleaned."
Sidney touches the spot again. Suddenly, irrationally, he doesn't want it gone. Years from now, when all of this is a distant memory, the spot will be evidence that this crazy night happened. They fought together to become a team, they leaned on and carried each other on the journey there, they won the only medal that mattered on their home soil, and Jonny will wear a mark Sidney made on him for the rest of his life. If he thinks about it too hard, the whole thing already seems impossible. Now he has proof.
"It's okay," Sidney repeats, and stretches his face into a crooked smile. "Is it weird that I kind of like it?"
Jonny's hand drops back to the gauze pad on his chest. "You're asking me about weird? After that?"
"Point."
When the tape job is finished, Sidney evades the attempts to pull him back down, and instead stretches out at Jonny's side. This development merits an unhappy grunt, which dissolves to a moan when Sidney gets his hand down to play with Jonny's balls.
"Oh. Yeah." Jonny's eyes slide closed. Watching him like this touches the deep vein of possessiveness Sidney is beginning to realize he owns. It makes him want to give something back, something to make Jonny feel good in exchange for the earlier pain.
"Keep your eyes closed." He slides down the bed, knows that Jonny will feel the motion but hoping he won't guess the intention behind it. When he's eye-level with Jonny's hips and staring, Sidney doesn't give himself any time to consider. He'll back out of this plan if he considers it too hard, so he doesn't give his brain time to protest before he leans over and licks out, sucks the head of Jonny's cock into his mouth.
He nearly gets hit in the head for his troubles, as Jonny curls so far off the bed he's practically sitting up. "Sidney! What --. I --. Are you --."
Sidney pulls off for long enough to say, "If you ask if I'm sure, I'm going to hit you," and Jonny shuts up gratifyingly quickly.
It isn't easy, really, because at first Sidney has no idea what to do with his tongue, which mostly seems to be in the way. Girls clearly are born with some sort of innate knowledge of this that he is lacking; Sidney can't figure out how to get more than an inch into his mouth at a time, and he's pretty sure there's no way it feels good. For a moment, Jonny's hands hover anxiously above his head, but then they settle in his hair and pet him lightly, soothing. When he seems bent on continuing, Jonny eventually spreads his legs and uses tentative prods to the shoulders until Sidney climbs between them, which makes the angle much easier.
After a few minutes, when he figures out how to use his hands and gets the hang of breathing in rhythm, Sidney begins to think that he might actually be doing a decent job. Jonny makes growling noises whenever he finds a good spot and the hands in his hair have migrated to feather touches against his jaw and cheek. He thinks that Jonny might like to feel the way he stretches Sidney's mouth, and it's actually sort of hot to think about Jonny getting off on the idea that Sidney has trouble taking him. Sidney uses one hand to keep from overshooting his gag reflex, but the other wanders: over Jonny's balls, up to touch the gauze pad, further to the captain's C and tight nipples, down again to the thin skin of inner thigh. When his mouth gets sore, he pulls back and jerks roughly, enough spit to make things so easy, and Jonny comes quickly with a loud broken noise and an arch in his back that has to be pulling on the wound in painful ways.
Sidney watches through the panting until Jonny goes limp, touches with light fingers at various scars and sometimes at mouth or ears. Finally Jonny rolls over and takes him in hand, jerking slowly and tortuously until Sidney is almost ready to push him away and just finish the job himself. He refrains, though, makes it last as long as he can, demands kisses and pushes Jonny's fingers towards places that will feel good but won't quite put him over the edge. When he does eventually come, he's careful that nothing gets on the gauze.
They doze off at 7 a.m., still touching. His flight leaves at 11.
*
It's a long way from Vancouver to Pittsburgh. 4300 miles, according to the pilot's announcement. Sidney spends most of them asleep, exhausted from the game and the parties afterward and the lack of sleep with Jonny after that. He doesn't regret any of it. There's not a lot that's memorable between Vancouver and Pittsburgh anyway.
The medal is still a heavy weight around his neck, tucked beneath his shirt where it's not obvious to anyone except the airport's metal detectors. Twice during the flight, he pulls it out to look at it, rubbing the dips and crests of its funny undulating shape, examining the contours of the tiny stylized hockey player on the back that marks the sport it commemorates. On the front side is the raised emblem of the Rings, seared into the lower corner -- like a scar, thinks Sidney. The blood spot on the ribbon is on the same side as the Rings. It's dried into the fabric now, a dark stain on the otherwise pristine blue-green.
He wonders what he'll tell the press when he gets back to Pittsburgh. They'll want to see the medal, and someone will notice the stain. He can cover it with his fingers if he's lifting the medal to show it off, but he can't very well cover it when the medal is hanging around his neck. Perhaps he won't tell them anything. Let them speculate; there's nothing they could come up with that would be remotely like the truth.
The flight attendant's cart shuffles by to ask about beverage preferences. Flower, who's sitting beside him, orders juice. Sidney orders water, drinks the bottle he's handed, and closes his eyes to sleep again.
Jonny had kissed him that morning, just before they both left for their separate planes. It was the only time they'd ever kissed standing up, and Jonny was suddenly taller by several inches. The angles were new and awkward, uneasy, and it felt like goodbye ought: neither of them sure what they were doing, but needing to do it anyway. Sidney had laid his hand over the fresh gauze pad on Jonny's side.
"Next time I'm in Pittsburgh," Jonny had said, and Sidney said, "Yes," unsure whether they were agreeing to supper or sex or merely a friendly hello. Then, because he needed to be certain of one thing, he'd said, "I want to see this," squeezing his fingers a little into the gauze. It might have hurt, because Jonny growled, but Sidney didn't care. "Next time. When you're --. I want to see."
Jonny had kissed him again, and Sidney is pretty sure that meant yes.
"You have a spot," says Flower, reaching over to touch the ribbon. Sidney opens his eyes and looks down at where his seatmate is pointing, then holds the ribbon away, feeling irrationally protective of the bloodstain.
"I know."
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"How'd you manage to mess it up? You didn't have a spot there when you left the party, I know it."
Sidney opens his mouth. What comes out is, "It's a gift." Flower shrugs and turns back to his juice. Sidney closes his eyes again.
For a moment, just before he had dozed off with Jonny that morning, he had wished that it could never end. That he could live the rest of his life in that space of early morning hours, with the weight of winning around his neck and the strange comfort of another body nestled against him; with gentle wind that smelled like the ozone-and-spices scent of the Games; with snow in the air and the promise of ice on the ground smooth and perfect when the sun rose.
He steps out of the airport at 9 p.m. in Pittsburgh, into gusting wind and sleet mixed with rain, the pollution and exhaust smell of cabs, two black and gold t-shirts in the line with him for baggage claims. I'm home, thinks Sidney.
*
Fin
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Author's notes
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