Fic: Te Célébrer, Chaque Jour (2/?)
Part 1: http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/14623.html
Week One
January first
Ryan likes to sleep in whenever he can. He’s an absurdly finicky sleeper, can’t sleep if it’s too cold, too hot, if it’s noisy, if people are talking, anything. It has to be absolutely quiet.
His phone buzzes on the nightstand, and the vibration wakes him up. Ryan groans, burying his head under his pillow. His phone keeps buzzing. And buzzing.
“Fucker,” Ryan snarls, throwing out an arm to grab his phone. He punches buttons until it stops buzzing. Unfortunately, he answers it, and doesn’t hang up like he’d wanted to.
“Hey!” he hears the voice from the phone, and reluctantly puts it to his ear.
“What. The fuck.”
“Good morning to you too.” Alex. He should have figured.
“Yeah, you’re goddamn right it’s morning, it’s too early to be calling me!”
“It’s nine!”
“Motherfucker!”
“Don’t you want to know why I’m calling?” Alex asks, too smugly for his own good. Ryan growls.
“Why?” he grinds out.
“Open your door.”
“What? Is that some kind of - what?!”
“The door,” Alex repeats, “of your apartement.” He says this with a rollick that it definitely doesn’t have in English.
“You’re outside my door?!”
“Oui. Come open it.”
“How do you even know where I live?”
“I find a way” he says triumphantly. Ryan rolls his eyes; the awkward phrasing must mean that whatever’s in his head doesn’t translate well to English. “Now come open the door!”
“Fine,” Ryan huffs, throwing off the covers and hanging up the phone. He pulls on a pair of sweatpants he finds on the floor, doesn’t bother with a shirt; he keeps the heater cranked up to thirty, so he can wear almost nothing to bed. Still trying to puzzle out how on Earth Alex got his address, he crosses the messy apartment and yanks open the door. True to his word, Alex is standing on the other side. He’s all bundled up in a coat and scarf and toque, grinning.
“Hi,” he says cheerfully. “Happy birthday!” Ryan almost says it’s not my birthday, until he remembers that he doesn’t want Alex to know this.
“Uh… thanks.”
“This is for you.” Alex holds up something he’d had in his hands; Ryan hadn’t even noticed. It’s a cupcake. It also has sprinkles on the icing. Ryan almost asks how Alex knew he likes those, but decides against it; must have been a random guess.
“Um… thank you.” He takes it, and feels like an idiot, standing shirtless and barefoot in the doorway, now holding a cupcake, all at nine in the morning.
“I have to go,” Alex says, “I’m meeting Kevin for brunch.” Ryan arches an eyebrow at the oddness of this statement. “I owe him brunch because he gave me your address. He chose brunch because it’s bigger than breakfast and lunch.”
“That little fuck! He sold me out for food!”
“It was easy,” Alex grins. “Anyways. Happy birthday!” He’s gone before Ryan can really figure out what he’s supposed to say to that.
He has the cupcake for breakfast, and, in what he feels is a very forgiving move, doesn’t text Kevin any death threats.
January second
It’s absolutely freezing in the morning when they’re all boarding the plane. Ryan’s not particularly happy with the entire situation; they’re bound for St. Louis, which promises exactly nothing in the way of better weather. He heads for the back of the plane and grabs a blanket before scrunching himself into the seat by the window. He’s asleep before they’ve even taken off, which he’s grateful for because just before he drifted off, he heard Alex’s voice down the aisle.
Alex doesn’t hunt him down until after the game, after they’ve lost embarrassingly. Ryan goes straight up to their room to burrow under the comforter and pretend like the entire world has ceased to exist. His plan is ruined with the world barges in on his dark hiding place under the blankets, in the form of Alex jumping onto his bed.
“Ryyyyan,” Ryan can hear the grin, and of course it’s Alex. Alex is the only one that doesn’t call him Kes. Reluctantly, Ryan pulls back the blankets.
“What.”
Alex drops something next to his face. “Happy birthday!” Again, Ryan holds himself back from pointing out that today is not, in fact, his birthday.
“Um. Thank you.” He sits up, inspects Alex’s gift. It’s a magazine, with Alex himself on the cover, celebrating his first Canucks goal. Ryan rolls his eyes.
“I feel you are not impressed enough by me,” Alex grins. “This should help.”
“Ha, ha.” Ryan bats at him with it, and Alex slides off the bed, still smirking. He leaves the room, already yelling before the door has even closed. No doubt he’s off to have some touching I told you so, dumbass moment with Bieksa, as all moments with him seem to be. Ryan flips the magazine open, but it turns out, the cover’s just ripped off another and attached to this. It’s not a hockey magazine, it’s about cars. Tuscans, in fact, which just happen to be his favourite obscure sports car. Maybe Alex’s actually gone to hold up his side of a bargain for this piece of information. Maybe some part of Ryan is just a little, tiny, barely bit impressed.
January third
The bus is probably the most annoying part of road trips; they’re headed to the airport, which, in St Louis, is as far from the Blues’ ice rink as humanly possible. Ryan jams his earphones in and slouches down in his seat so he can read. He has a newspaper open in front of him; he wouldn’t admit to it, but he’s got the magazine Alex gave him open behind it. There’s the off chance it’s really interesting. He doesn’t get more than five pages in (admittedly, it is his third read-through) before someone starts kicking his chair, a little violently.
“What.” He looks up, and hurriedly covers the magazine with a newspaper. Alex is leaning over the top of the seat from the row behind.
“Happy birthday!” he chirps. Today’s not Ryan’s birthday either, but he doesn’t say anything. Burrows leans over further, close enough for Ryan to smell his shampoo, and drops something into Ryan’s lap. It’s a little notebook, and when Ryan flips it over, he sees what’s written on the front: People I want to punch in the face.
“Very funny!”
“Someone like you, it’ll be useful,” Alex snickers, and he drops back into his seat before Ryan can do something useful, like hit him with it.
Okay, maybe he finds it a little funny.
January fourth
Ryan’s focused on his juggling, and keeping the apples from hitting the ceiling of the plane, and ignoring Kevin’s drop drop drop taunts from the seat in front of him.
“Shut up, Juice,” he growls, eyes on the apples. Kevin snorts with laughter.
“Guess I’m just overwhelmed with my burning jealousy. You, Kes, are probably the most talented man I’ve ever met.”
“I coulda told you that,” Ryan sticks his tongue out, without looking away. “Fucker.”
“Aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine today.”
“I’ll throw one of these at you. And I’ll hit you in the face with it.” Out of the corner of his eye, he sees someone drop into the seat next to his. He can pretty much guess who it is.
“Hi Alex,” he says, somewhat dryly. Alex had spent the morning annoying him to death, having been under the impression - Ryan had no idea why - that Ryan cared what he thought about the weather (cold as fuck), their next game (who’re we playing again?), some TV show (don’t watch it. No, don’t want to know what it’s about), Ryan’s choice of shirt (what the hell’s wrong with my sleeves?), and a whole bunch of other things.
“Why are you…” Alex frowns, gestures to Ryan, “jongles.”
“Yeah, Kes, why are you juggling?” Kevin contributes, being, in Ryan’s opinion, exactly zero percent helpful.
“Uh, maybe because you guys are boring as fuck?” he lets the apples drop neatly back into his hands. “Don’t be jealous.”
“Not very useful,” Alex says, completely ignoring the glare Ryan shoots at him. He just grins, which he always seems to be doing when he’s with Ryan. Ryan’s pretty positive that this is because Alex wants to irritate him to a slow and painful death.
“What-fuckin-ever.” Ryan takes a bite out of an apple and tries to glare menacingly. It never seems to work on Alex, who just snatches one of the apples for himself.
“I don’t really like apples very much,” Alex informs him, as if he cares. “But especially not apple-flavoured cider.” Before Ryan can interject with just how little he cares, Alex adds, “oh! That reminds me!” He pulls something out of his pocket. “Happy birthday!” All Ryan can really see is that it’s got a little bow on it- and where did he even find that, exactly? - before Kevin has snatched it out of Alex’s hand.
“Holy shit!” He looks sincerely impressed, so Ryan makes a grab at it. Kevin leans back, out of Ryan’s reach. “Dude. Can you be my best friend instead of his? This is fucking amazing.”
“Give it!” Ryan flails an arm over the back of Kevin’s seat. Kevin snickers, finally handing it over. It’s a case for his Blackberry; he lost his case - has no idea how, actually - and his phone is currently in the dangerous state where he fumbles it frequently and worries he’ll drop it and break it like an idiot. This case is different though; it has a bottle opener on the back. “Fuuuuck,” he exhales appreciatively, before catching himself. He scales it back a bit. “Dude, cool.” Alex just grins at this.
A little while later, Alex has wandered off to join in a noisy poker game, and Kevin takes this opportunity to jump into his seat next to Ryan.
“So,” he says, with that grin that Ryan’s come to be wary of, “care to explain why Alex thinks today’s your birthday?”
“Actually…” Ryan mutters, “he thinks it’s every day. Or, well, not thinks it is, but. Acts like it is.”
“And why the hell is that?”
“I dunno. I didn’t wanna tell him the exact day. So, he. Yeah.”
“It’s online. It’s on the roster. It’s tattooed on teenage girls with hearts around it. Why is he doing all this?” Again, Ryan just shrugs in response. Kevin leans back in his seat, and fuck if he isn’t smirking again. “So why is he doing this?”
“Didn’t you literally just ask me that? It’s because he doesn’t know what day it is!” Ryan’s starting to get frustrated, hissing angrily, because he doesn’t want to consider any fucking implications.
“Think about it.” Kevin grins and then sticks in his earphones so Ryan can’t ask any more questions.
Ryan sulks, and when the flight attendant takes drink orders, he asks for a bottle of anything, and asks her not to open it for him.
January fifth
Ryan hates early morning flights. Hates them hates them hates them. After defeating the Stars to horrified screams from the crowd, they’re heading for Chicago, and Ryan is sincerely not looking forward to the flight. He collapses into his seat, growling when Kevin takes the one next to his.
“You,” he groans, “are the last person I want to deal with.”
“That hurts my feelings, Kes. I think I’m pretty great.”
“Sure, when you’re not convincing me to do stupid things or spouting cryptic shit at me.” This makes Kevin laugh, and he doesn’t leave.
“Didn’t you sleep last night?”
“No.” Ryan leans his head against the window, closing his eyes.
“Why not?”
“I dunno. Bur snores.” This isn’t actually true; Alex came back as late as he did from their partying. He’d paused only to strip off his jeans and shirt before throwing himself onto his bed, surrounded by a ridiculous number of pillows. He was barely even visible from the other bed, let alone audible.
“Well, I want to be entertained, so I’ll catch you later.” Kevin slaps Ryan’s knee, eliciting a growl, and heads towards the back of the plane. Ryan has about two minutes of quiet before he hears someone take Kevin’s place.
“Goddamn,” he mutters, yawning. He casts half a glance and sees that it’s Alex. “Hi.”
“Happy birthday!” Alex grins, and holds out a cup. It’s a travel mug, white with a Canucks logo; around the top, it says nos meilleurs joueurs sont les Quebequois.
“What does that mean?” he asks, reaching out; he forgets his question as soon as he realizes it’s not empty. “Coffee!” He sits up, taking a sip. “Thanks,” he says over the top of the mug. Alex’s grin has a little edge of smugness to it, so Ryan resolves to find out what the French means as soon as possible. He feels a lot less like committing murder after the coffee wakes him up a little, and for the rest of the flight, he finds Alex more amusing than aggravating.
They don’t do very well in Chicago; the game is a struggle, and in the end, a beauty of a goal wins it for the Hawks. The bus ride back to the hotel goes by in silence, so Ryan’s surprised that once up in their room, Alex starts flipping through channels, chattering like they hadn’t lost.
“There’s a bunch of movies on!” he’s exclaiming, sitting on the end of his bed while Ryan lingers by the doorway. “Do you prefer horror - I think it has to do with something under a bed that eats people, or maybe it’s the bed that’s eating them? - or there is a cowboy movie, or this has aliens -”
“Don’t you…” Ryan starts, falling quiet. Alex looks up, inquisitive look on his face. Ryan crosses the room, sits heavily on his own bed. “Man, we just lost. Like, bad.”
“Et? The game’s over now,” Alex shrugs, “we will review what we did wrong, we will fix it, and win the next game.” Ryan just blinks at him. “It was frustrating, ouais, but it’s over, so. Movie?” It’s a little disorienting, but Ryan tries to keep up.
“Uh… I dunno. The boogieman one. Horror.” After a loss, Ryan usually tries to go to sleep, ends up spending hours going over and over all his mistakes, everything he should have done better. Alex, however, doesn’t seem willing to let him go through with that, excited as he is about the movie he found.
He’s been quiet a while, and when he looks up, Alex is giving him a look that’s halfway confused, halfway concerned. And maybe half irritated, if he can have three halves.
“Just thinking,” Ryan hastens to explain - okay, lie, but he’d feel like a jerk killing Alex’s little movie fest here - and says, “I’m starving.” It’s true, at least, even if it’s not really what he was thinking.
“Me too. What should we get?”
Room service seems lacklustre, and ends up making Alex whine about how much he misses some Chinese place on Broadway back in Vancouver.
“I don’t know if it is chicken or pork, but it is so good,” he laments, glowering down at the room service menu like its lack of sweet-and-sour-whatever is offensive. He looks up in confusion when Ryan stands from the bed, crossing the room to put on his jacket. “Where are you going?”
“We’re gonna go get Chinese food,” Ryan explains, “should be easy enough to find, right?” Alex grins then, and it’s a little different than usual, but he doesn’t give Ryan time to puzzle it out, already jumping up to grab his coat and shoes too.
They end up in cramped restaurant a block away, shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the menu. For a tiny place with less than ten tables, it’s extremely crowded.
“Ben…” Alex says under his breath, “I don’t remember if it’s chicken or pork that I like.” He frowns up at the menu, eyes flickering between the pictures. Ryan shoves his hands in his pockets, listening as Alex goes back and forth. His phone’s in his pocket, and he runs his thumb over the bottle opener on the back of the case. Alex doesn’t notice when Ryan leaves his side to go up to the counter and place an order. Ryan starts to understand why this place is so popular when he’s given the little white boxes with their food within five minutes.
“Okay, let’s go,” he says, nudging Alex with his shoulder, plastic bag in hand.
“We haven’t ordered anything!”
“I did it,” Ryan holds it up, “let’s go.” Alex follows him through the people, winding around groups waiting for tables.
“What’d you get?” he asks as they walk back, snow crunching under their shoes.
“Both, seeing as you never were going to figure it out.”
Alex catches the humour in this and snickers; Ryan was sort of expecting him to be offended, since it’s something most people miss.
“So you can just try both, and I’ll take the other one.”
“Awesome,” Alex grins, and Ryan laughs, because he knows Alex learned that word from Cory Schneider, who spends the entire game going awesome! from the bench every time Luongo makes a nice save.
The horror movie is over by the time they get back, but Alex finds another - about aliens and brainwashing this time. They sit on the end of Ryan’s bed - rather, Alex follows him there - and sit crosslegged eating out of the white boxes.
“Shoulda grabbed forks,” Ryan says, fumbling with the chopsticks. Alex snickers.
“It’s not that hard,” he says, easily shoveling pieces of sweet and sour pork into his mouth. “Forks are for, heuuu… rate” He pauses, “losers!”
“Gee, thanks,” Ryan snickers despite himself. Alex’s little French mumblings have started to grow on him, maybe.
By the time they’re halfway through their second movie, Ryan’s forgotten about the slapshot he should have made and the passes he shouldn’t have missed and the play he shouldn’t have ruined, and all he’s thinking about is chopsticks, aliens, and how to get chicken into Alex’s box to trick him into eating it.
January Sixth
They’re back at home on Friday, with only a practice on the schedule. The practice leaves Ryan in an unusually good mood, riding on a high of perfect tape-to-tape passes, top-shelf shots, and new, promising plays.
“What are you going to do now?” Alex asks, dropping onto the bench beside him. Ryan shrugs a shoulder, tossing things off the floor into his locker.
“I dunno,” he says, and he tells himself it’s because he’s happy after practice that he then says, “wanna get takeout and play video games?” He feels a twinge of embarrassment for a second, because he’s not sure twenty-four-year-olds even play video games anymore, but Alex nods.
“We should go to -”
“That Chinese place?”
“Yeah!” Alex grins like Ryan’s done something super impressive.
“Hey!” Kevin heaves an elbow pad across the room, hitting Ryan in the shoulder. “You busy?”
“Yeah, too bad, you’re gonna have to live without being graced by my presence for a day,” Ryan throws the elbow pad back, glances over at Alex to make sure he doesn’t mind leaving out Kevin.
“Do you remember if the better think was pork or chicken?” Alex asks, seeming very concerned about this.
“Pork, dude. I’m gonna tattoo it on you, okay?”
It turns out that twenty-four-year-olds aren’t too old for video games; Alex somehow managed to simultaneously eat and kick Ryan’s ass at Call of Duty, with a fair bit of chirping thrown in just to show off.
“I can see you!” he crows, and Ryan growls, running his guy in circles to get out of Alex’s sights. Alex laughs, and mercilessly snipes him just before the game times out.
“Bastard,” Ryan makes a face at him from across the couch. Alex pumps his fist in the air, mouth full of rice.
“oor ustt ealuss!” he swallows, then reaches over to fish something out of his jacket pocket, which is sitting between them on the couch. “Happy birthday!” He holds it up, and Ryan bursts out laughing.
“You fucker.” They’re chopsticks, steely grey and shaped like a clothespin, complete with spring. “These are for people who can’t use chopsticks!”
“So, you, basically.”
Ryan would have continued to argue this further, if he didn’t find the chopsticks actually incredibly useful.
January seventh
“Nice mug,” the woman at the Tim Horton’s counter is obviously trying not to laugh. Ryan frowns.
“What?”
“Bit biased, but I’m sure plenty of fans would agree. That new guy’s crazy good, hey?” She hands him his mug of coffee. Ryan digs out his wallet from his pocket with one hand, still frowning.
“What does it say on there? The French?”
“You don’t know?” she laughs. He tries not to stare at the fact that her earrings have put holes in her ear that he can see through. “It says ‘our best players are the Quebecois.’” Ryan mutters something unsavory under his breath at that.
“Guy’s got some sense of humour.” He hands her a couple loonies. “Thanks.”
After their game that night, a sweep of a win against the Flames, Ryan ambushes Alex by his car. “You!”
“Ouais?” Alex gives him that lazy smile.
“I found out what the French on my coffee cup says!” he wants to be intimidating, but can feel himself grinning, “very funny.”
“I try to only tell the truth.” Alex unlocks his car, and grabs something out of the glove box. “Happy birthday!”
“Is this soap?”
“It’s made of beer.”
As super annoying as Alex can be, Ryan’s pretty sure he’s never laughed so hard, in the middle of an empty parking lot in the snow.
Part 3: http://ice-hot-13.livejournal.com/15495.html