Behind the Net (Pierre's POV) - Chapter 7
Title: Behind The Net (Pierre’s POV)
Author: shmorgenheigen
Chapter: Seven
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 5009
Summary: This is a re-write of the story Behind the Net told from Pierre’s perspective; just a reminder that the original story was written in 2014 so that’s when this story is set. Pierre Bouvier is a high school senior living in Juneau, Alaska who lives a pretty remarkable life. Though he’s the most popular boy in school, the captain of the hockey team, dating the most popular girl in school, and is from a family that is rich beyond measure, Pierre can’t help the feelings of boredom and apathy that he struggles with on a daily basis. Through an unexpected twist of fate, his favorite target of bullying ends up becoming a more significant presence in his life and suddenly Pierre is left questioning everything he ever knew.
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, didn't happen!
Author's Note: Hey there! I have no idea if anyone will ever see this. I’m currently pregnant and spending a lot of time sick in bed and that led me to take a stroll down memory lane and read some of my old stories to pass the time. When I read Behind the Net, I was struck by how much untold story there is from Pierre’s side. I became obsessed with the idea of re-writing this story from Pierre’s point of view and before I knew it I had written the whole thing, which ended up being three chapters longer than the original story because he has so many thoughts, feelings, and experiences that David never knows anything about. So here it is! All twenty chapters posted at once. I haven’t posted on this page for 8 years at this point and the fandom is totally gone so I’m not anticipating that anyone will actually see this, but if anyone does happen to see and read this, leave me a comment and let me know!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The rest of the weekend had gone by with a sense of excitement and accomplishment for both Pierre and David. The boys had stayed at the rink for several hours on Saturday and again on Sunday, Pierre giving David tips and instruction about how to move his body, how to slide to use his legs to block the puck, how to use his hockey stick to deflect and fling the puck away from the goal, and so on.
“It’s awesome that you can catch the puck,” Pierre told him, his hands on David’s shoulders with a reassuring nod. “But there’s more to it than that. A lot of the time the puck’s not gonna be in the air, it’s gonna be on the ice and you’re gonna have to use your body or your hockey stick to block it.”
“I still have to use a hockey stick?” David asked, sounding nervous and uncertain.
Pierre smiled and gave him a gentle shake. “Hey, you’ve got it. You don’t have to be accurate or worry about where you’re sending it as long as it’s away from the goal. You’re gonna have one glove open and a hockey stick in the other, but it’s more about using it to deflect the puck or fling it away from the goal. It’s okay that you can’t aim the puck down the ice worth shit because you don’t have to,” he finished, not intending to be mean but the way David’s expression changed as if to say “Gee thanks” made Pierre question his choice of words. Being gentle and bending the truth wasn’t something he was used to doing when it came to David.
Still, David didn’t argue with him and instead nodded his head in acceptance. Pierre gave him another reassuring smile and squeeze of his shoulders before he backed off and grabbed a hockey stick for the other boy.
“Here,” he said, tossing it David’s way. David caught the stick and again Pierre found himself impressed. “It’s also not always going to be a shot from far away,” he continued, finding a puck on the ice with his own stick and beginning to skate slowly David’s way, using his hockey stick back and forth to accelerate the puck forward. He looked up at David with a devious smile as he got closer, seeing David’s face turn nervous the closer he got. “You’re gonna have guys running into you, trying to force their way in the goal with the puck past your body. The best thing you can do is drop down and use your body as a shield and try not to give up any ground.”
“Oh god, okay,” David muttered quickly, bracing himself and focusing hard on Pierre as he advanced on him.
“Try to stop me,” Pierre told him suddenly, before dashing his body into David’s and trying to smack the puck into the goal around the other boy.
David gave a quiet yelp and lost his balance, his legs sliding out from under him and sending him falling backward into the net. Out of instinct he dropped his hockey stick and tried to grab onto Pierre for support but the older boy’s momentum was too great and the two went down together in a tangled heap.
Pierre laughed wholesomely, landing on top of David with his hand going down to the ice. The ice felt cold and cutting against his bare skin but he hardly noticed it, too deeply amused to feel anything other than his laughter. Though he wasn’t wearing any pads so he didn’t have his typical momentum behind his hit, and though David was wearing padding which would make him sturdier, it was still too easy for him to knock the other boy to his back. He looked down at David’s face for a moment who had flushed a brilliant shade of red, laughter still erupting uncontrollably from him, before he pushed himself backward and brought himself up right again.
He offered a hand down to David who didn’t hesitate to take it and pull himself up. Again, Pierre could feel that he was doing most of the work but it didn’t feel difficult; even with the padding, David felt light and small in his arms. He shook his head and released David’s mitt, skating backward several paces.
“Okay so that’s what you don’t want to do,” Pierre joked, his eyes twinkling in amusement.
“No shit,” David retorted, but it was with a sarcastic laugh and Pierre could feel that David wasn’t angry with him.
“I’m gonna do it again, but this time drop down like this,” Pierre told him, and he demonstrated the way that David should fall and the way his legs should land. “Think of making yourself like a boulder. You don’t want me to be able to push past you, you want your legs to cover as much of the goal as you can and your body to be a barrier.”
David practiced the move a couple of times, looking down after each drop to see how his legs had landed and trying to flatten them down to the ice. Pierre could see that David would have to work on his flexibility a little bit but ultimately what he was seeing felt promising. Once David seemed to feel like he had gotten the hang of what he should be doing he stood himself up again and got back into a ready position, giving a strong nod.
The devious smile played on Pierre’s lips again and his eyes shined as he ducked his head, ready to try again. He dashed forward once more, never taking his eyes off of David as he approached. Then, once he was close enough, he moved to hit the puck into the goal. David dropped down, his legs spreading in a bent sort of split and his body and arms working to block Pierre as best as he could.
When the puck bounced off of his leg and went flying off at an angle away from the goal, David’s face lit up and he gave an enthusiastic, “Yes!”
Pierre backed away a couple of paces and laughed again softly, nodding his head slowly in approval. “You’ve still got a ways to go but I really think you’ve got it,” he told the younger boy. Gliding forward slightly he reached his hand out to David again who again took it and helped himself back up.
“Yeah?” David asked, sounding hopeful but still a little uncertain.
Pierre nodded, smiling a sweet and gentle smile down at the younger boy. “Yeah, you’re gonna do it.”
And with that they repositioned and continued on, running through this drill over and over, Pierre coming from different angles, stopping at different distances, trying to give David the true feel of any potential scenario. In almost all cases, David was able to stop him. By the end of the day, it was really beginning to look like they had figured out a way to get David onto the hockey team and Pierre felt a shining sense of accomplishment over it.
Monday afternoon came before he knew what happened and Pierre found himself sitting in the locker room surrounded by his teammates, all of them wearing pads and skates, sitting around with helmets in their hands and joking about stupid things. Excitement buzzed through the room like an energy that could be felt by all; the start of a new season was something these boys had been waiting for anxiously for months.
Pierre felt an odd sense of nerves considering he didn’t have to try out, but he couldn't help but think of David and wondered how he would perform with others around. Was he the type to suffer performance anxiety? Would he get out in front of the hockey team and suddenly forget everything Pierre had taught him? Would Pierre see the return of the newborn giraffe on skates? He wasn’t sure when he had started to care, but he was suddenly aware that he did. He wanted David to do well. He wanted him to get on the team. Did this mean he wanted to be the younger boy’s friend? Did this mean that they kind of already were?
Then there was the question of how his teammates would respond to David’s presence. He had always gone out of his way to make fun of David in front of his friends, to tease him relentlessly and had egged on others when they did the same. He had a hard time imagining that the others would simply drop all of that history and accept David with open arms, but he wondered how resistant they would be. Would they torture him until he gave up? There had been something about the new found fire in David’s eyes that made Pierre think the boy would refuse to give up, even if the others did nothing but torture him.
Suddenly the room grew quiet and Pierre felt an elbow in his side. He looked at the boy next to him who had nudged him, who was inclining his head off to the side with a look of bewilderment. Pierre’s eyes followed to where his teammate had been indicating and saw David standing there in the middle of the room, being stared at from all sides as if he was a girl who had walked into the boy’s locker room.
“What the fuck does he think he’s doing here?” the teammate who had nudged Pierre whispered, before adding on, “What a freak.”
And just like that it came crashing down around Pierre. He couldn’t just all of a sudden behave like he was cool with David, because no one else knew of the arrangement that the two had, and he reminded himself that he had been resolute that no one would. The pressure to be who he was supposed to be and to act the way he was supposed to act crashed down over him and he knew he would have to make this transition slowly if the others were to eventually accept the junior into their ranks. And like he was putting on a show, he fixed a mean look on his face and stood, making his way over to where David was standing with his back turned and his face in the locker he was storing his things in.
“Are you lost or something?” Pierre's asked loudly from behind David’s shoulder. He heard snickers from behind him and knew his act was believable. He waited for David to turn to him and say something, having become used to the younger boy standing up to him, but instead he saw the return of the David he used to know, the quiet boy who seethed in anger but refused to engage. He could hear David take a steadying breath and watched as the younger boy clicked a combination lock on the locker he had chosen. Without giving Pierre so much as a glance David moved to a bench, looking at no one as he sat down and began to put on his skates. There was more muttering around him, and Pierre knew he had to keep going or it would look weird to everyone around. He followed after David and sat down next to him, wrapping a strong arm around the other boy’s shoulders in a way that was less than friendly. David grimaced and tried to pull away from him, keeping his head turned resolutely down, focusing his energy on the laces he was trying to tie.
“Are you deaf? I asked you a question. Are you lost?” Pierre tried again, but David refused to answer him. In the past these types of interactions had filled Pierre with a sick kind of pleasure but this time he felt nothing, truly acting with every action and every word. It was nothing but a show, and for once he didn’t take pleasure in it. “I don't know what you think you're doing here, but you're high if you think you're getting on the hockey team,” Pierre continued, his voice soft and calm, almost in a matter-of-fact kind of way.
The door to the rink opened up and the coach called for everyone on the ice, and just like that the tension was broken and everyone turned their attention to the door to the rink, standing and moving without giving David another thought. Though Pierre wanted to give David another glance he knew that he shouldn’t and instead he dropped his arm and moved away, acting as if the younger boy didn’t exist within a second. He followed his team to the rink and stood at the edge for a moment before he felt a squeeze in his stomach and wanted to go back in to see David again. Knowing that everyone was on the ice and accounted for, Pierre turned to head back into the locker room, unable to deny the pull he felt.
“I forgot something! I'll be there in a second!” Pierre called back to a couple teammates and his coach as he headed back through the door. Once it had swung shut he walked right up to David, the act of animosity completely dropped and smiling his perfect, pearly smile at the younger boy. “You ready?” he asked, speaking to David as if they were friends.
David just stared at him, a look of shock and disgust on his face, before he shook his head and stood up, bumping his shoulder purposefully into Pierre's as he passed him, muttering, “Whatever,” under his breath.
Pierre, completely stunned by the aggressive move from the younger boy, scoffed and turned to look at his retreating back. “What the fuck's your problem?” he asked, truly confused at David's attitude toward him.
“You're such a douche bag!” David hurtled at him, turning in his skates awkwardly to face Pierre head on again.
“Why?!” Pierre responded quickly, feeling offense and anger boiling over inside of him.
“Really, Pierre? Really?” David replied, walking a little awkwardly on his skates back to Pierre, staring up into his eyes with a deeper kind of fiery anger than was usually there. “You do nothing but make fun of me and put me down in front of your friends, and then you're gonna turn around and act all buddy-buddy with me? You're pathetic.”
Pierre was floored by the accusation, not understanding what David wanted out of him. What did he think was going to happen? How much did he expect out of him? Did he think that they were all of a sudden going to be acting like best friends in front of everyone that Pierre knew? He felt incredulous that David could have ever expected that out of him.
“That's in front of my friends!” Pierre retorted as if explaining something stupidly simple that David should have already understood. “It's not like anyone can know we've been helping each other out. You knew that, David. If you thought this was gonna change anything, you're the pathetic one!” Pierre argued with him, stepping closer so that there were mere inches between their faces.
David glared hard at Pierre for a long moment before he shook his head and gave an angry laugh. “You're such a loser,” David muttered darkly. Pierre felt those words like a stab through the heart and he stood still as stone, staring with angry bewilderment into David’s eyes. “I might not have many friends, but at least I have a future,” David continued, cutting into Pierre with his words like they were knives. “You're going to end up stuck here like the rest of the jocks, probably working on a boat for a job that keeps you from your family for months at a time and beats the hell out of your body. And when I'm far away, sitting on some beach in the middle of the week on paid vacation, I won't even stop to think of you, because you're so far beneath me you aren't worth even a second of my time.” And before Pierre had the time to fully process what the other boy had said to him, David walked out to the rink, leaving Pierre standing in silence by himself.
“You're going to end up stuck here like the rest of the jocks, probably working on a boat for a job that keeps you from your family for months at a time and beats the hell out of your body.” Pierre replayed those words in his mind, seeing a future for himself in which he didn’t succeed in hockey, in which he was unable to complete any degree because he wasn’t smart enough, in which his parents had cut him off because he hadn’t followed their desires for him, in which his only option was blue collar work that tore him apart. His chest squeezed again and anger coursed through him causing his hands to shake and his vision to blur. It was his deepest fear and somehow David had read him like a book, even though he thought he had done well to keep those parts of himself hidden from all.
“And when I'm far away, sitting on some beach in the middle of the week on paid vacation, I won't even stop to think of you, because you're so far beneath me you aren't worth even a second of my time.” Pierre could see this too, could see David living a life that he loved and not having a thought to spare for him. Beneath him, Pierre’s mind repeated the sentiment, his shaking getting worse and the fire in his veins blazing. David thought that Pierre was beneath him. David didn’t care at all about Pierre. Though he shouldn’t have been surprised, though he knew that he deserved it, he still couldn’t stop the indignation as it coursed through him.
With a raspy yell that emanated from deep within his chest Pierre brought his fist into the nearest locker, his anger exploding out of him out of his control, heat and rage and pain all coursing out of him with a loud clattering bang that he hardly heard or registered. Then, slowly a hot throbbing in his knuckles and wrist began to blossom and he became acutely aware of his ragged breathing and his shaking fist. Regaining control of himself, Pierre dropped his hand back to his side and took several deep breaths, recognizing that he had lost control and he needed to pull himself together. His entire team was out on the rink and he was expected to be out there.
Giving himself a few more seconds, Pierre pulled on his gloves to hide his throbbing hand and went back out to the rink, gliding smoothly out to the center to stand next to the coach. His eyes bored into David with hatred, cut entirely through by the words that continued to echo through his mind. Douche bag. Pathetic. Loser. Beneath me. Try as he might, he couldn’t set the anger aside and focus.
As the tryouts went forward and his teammates ran various drills, Pierre watched without really seeing. His thoughts were swirling, his anger thudding in his temples. He was glad that this year he didn’t have to participate in the drills because he didn’t think he would have performed well, too worked up and distracted with the argument he had just had with David.
“Who do we got for goalie?” the coach asked Pierre suddenly, flipping through pages on his clipboard and looking at names. Their goalie from the previous year had graduated so the role had been left vacant at the end of the year.
Pierre leaned toward his coach and said, “That kid,” pointing and looking over at David who was standing in the goal waiting.
“What’s his name?”
“Desrosiers,” Pierre replied shortly, offering only his last name. “He’s a junior. Never played before.”
The coach ran his finger down the page, looking for that name on the tryout sheet. “Desrosiers…. Ah, Desrosiers. David.” He looked up and over at David, looking him up and down. “Kinda small, isn’t he?”
Pierre gave a quiet grunt, not wanting to say anything about David one way or the other.
“Okay, let’s see what he’s got,” the coach said, before bringing his whistle to his lips and giving a quick, loud blow. “Come on guys, round up!” he called, and soon everyone had skated toward him and was standing around, including David, though he stood toward the back. Pierre glared at the younger boy hard from behind the coach’s shoulder, his arms crossed stiffly across his chest.
“Desrosiers, where are you?” the coach asked, craning his neck to try and see over the heads of the other students. David raised his hand timidly, moving a bit closer. “Okay, in the goal,” he instructed simply and David gave a nod, not hesitating as he skated to the end of the rink.
Pierre skated toward David, throwing the necessary equipment down at his feet without a word, glaring hard. Pierre could see that David looked nervous but he didn’t let it sway him, not caring in the slightest how the younger boy was feeling in that moment. He turned his back and skated away, grabbing a hockey stick and moving toward the middle of the rink. He threw a puck on the ice harder than he normally would in his anger and glared intensely in David's direction, ready to make the younger boy suffer for the words he had said to him.
Without warning, Pierre slapped the puck toward David, giving the other boy no time to think. Still, David reached his arm out and caught the puck in his mitt as if he hadn’t even tried, something which only stoked the angry flames in Pierre’s stomach. He saw as David grinned from behind the mask and a sick feeling of spite exploded in his chest, irritated at David’s happiness. He barely waited for the puck to begin to drop from David’s hand before he was sending another one at him which to his great annoyance David was able to drop down and block with his legs. Feeling his blood pounding in his ears Pierre continued to fire one puck after another, shooting them at David relentlessly and without mercy. He was giving it everything that he had, and with each save that David made, Pierre only grew more irritated.
After several minutes of this, the coach gave a hard blow on his whistle and Pierre stopped in his tracks, standing up straight and turning to skate away from David without giving him a second glance. He already knew without a shadow of a doubt that David had just made the team. Pierre had used every last bit of his anger and focus and infuriatingly David had still blocked every single puck from entering that goal. As angry as he was with the junior, Pierre knew that David had earned his way onto the team.
As Pierre skated back to rejoin the rest of the team, he could see the disheartened looks on the faces of his teammates and he knew they were not at all pleased that David had done so well. Anyone watching the last several minutes who had even an ounce of understanding of hockey would know that he had just given the performance of a lifetime. There was no question in anyone’s minds at that point who their goalie for the season would be, and no one (except for maybe the coach and David himself) was happy about it.
“Great job everyone,” the coach started, giving several nods of approval. “That was really promising stuff. I’ll post the official roster by the end of the day tomorrow but I think everyone here can feel good about how today went. We’re gonna have a great season,” he finished shortly. “Alright, now everyone get out of here! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t say here,” he joked, though the dismissal for the afternoon was real.
Pierre held back by the coach’s side, watching as everyone headed back to the locker room to change and leave. His eyes found David’s back and he watched him begin to retreat, glaring hard, glad that he was about to have a break from the other boy’s presence.
“Desrosiers!” the coach called from beside him and Pierre groaned internally, feeling frustration mounting inside of him. It was with a hard, unwavering look on his face and his arms again crossed over his chest that he watched David approach, looking a little nervous but also a bit pleased with himself.
“Yes sir?” David asked, sounding a little timid.
“Nice work out there, kid. How come I've never seen you at tryouts before?” the coach asked, making David blush almost instantly.
“Oh, I uhh...” he started nervously, his hand finding the back of his neck. “It's something I recently picked up.”
“I see,” the coach responded with a nod, before patting Pierre on the shoulder. “Pierre's told me a little bit about you. This is your team captain. If you have any questions, you go to him first and he should be able to help you out.”
And with those simple words the fact that David had made the team was confirmed. Pierre swallowed hard and clenched his jaw, trying his hardest to keep his anger from showing in front of the coach.
David grinned and perked up a little, fumbling out an excited, “Does that mean I'm on the team?!”
Pierre rolled his eyes and looked away but heard the coach respond, “I'd be stupid not to put you on the team. I do want to see you get in shape. I could see you struggling a little out there, but that's nothing a little hard working out can't fix, isn't that right, Pierre?” the coach explained, turning to face Pierre.
As soon as he heard the words, “Isn’t that right?” he immediately wiped the sarcastic, angry look off of his face and turned back to the coach, nodding and giving a quick, “Absolutely coach.”
David nodded quickly, his enthusiasm evident on his face.
The coach seemed to be pleased with David's show of enthusiasm, and so he smiled and patted David on the shoulder, then Pierre. “Good! I want you two boys to be inseparable.”
Pierre felt his heart drop into his stomach and heat course through his limbs again at his coach’s words. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, he thought in frustration, though he wouldn’t dare say a word. Instead he just continued to look at his coach and nod, trying not to look angry or overly tense.
“I want you running in the morning before school, and working out after practice,” the coach continued, something which only made Pierre feel more frustrated and defeated. “Pierre, you're gonna be like David's shadow. We have a real chance to go all the way this year. David, if you're gonna be ready for this, you can't let Pierre out of your sight.”
David and Pierre both nodded, but neither boy made any effort to look at the other. Then the coach patted them each on the shoulder again and excused himself, leaving Pierre and David to stand in each other's presence, an awkward silence falling over them.
Pierre wanted to storm off, to refuse to speak to David ever again, but he knew he didn’t have it in him to disobey direct instruction from his coach like that. Hockey meant more to him than anything else and his alliance with his coach was quite possibly the most important adult relationship in his life at that moment. He had always trusted and respected the man and he wouldn’t do anything now to mess it up, least of all because of David.
“So...” David started, but Pierre glared at him hard, raised a hand and cut him off before he could get so much as another word out.
“Don't,” Pierre cut in firmly, effectively shutting David up. He glared at the younger boy hard, towering over him in a menacing fashion, allowing all of his anger to seep from him. “Let me make this clear for you: We are not friends. We have never been friends. If I was ever nice to you before, it was just to make things go more smoothly. After that shit you said to me, you've lost the privilege of my decency toward you.” Pierre's words were strong and bitter, like coffee that had been left sitting in the pot for too long. He could see the way it made David cower into his shoulders and he watched as the boy swallowed hard and gave a shaky nod.
“If you thought I worked you hard before, you haven't seen shit yet,” Pierre continued, his glare icy. Then he skated past David, though he bumped his shoulder into the younger boy's hard, effectively throwing him off of his balance and causing him to slip backward. Pierre didn’t turn to see him fall but he heard the yelp and the sound of him hitting the ice and felt a small burst of satisfaction at being able to showcase his physical superiority to the other boy. Maybe David thought that Pierre was beneath him, but it couldn’t be denied that Pierre was easily the more physically impressive of the two. He allowed that thought, at least, to bolster his ego and make himself feel better in a vindictive sort of way.
Tomorrow he would have to face David again, but at least for that night, he would go straight home and try to rid himself of the memory of their conversation, not wanting to allow it to anger him so deeply anymore. It’s not like I fucking care, he lied to himself, and although he allowed himself to think it, he knew that it wasn’t true. As much as he didn’t want to, for some reason or another, he cared way too much for his own good.
Author: shmorgenheigen
Chapter: Seven
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Pierre/David
Word Count: 5009
Summary: This is a re-write of the story Behind the Net told from Pierre’s perspective; just a reminder that the original story was written in 2014 so that’s when this story is set. Pierre Bouvier is a high school senior living in Juneau, Alaska who lives a pretty remarkable life. Though he’s the most popular boy in school, the captain of the hockey team, dating the most popular girl in school, and is from a family that is rich beyond measure, Pierre can’t help the feelings of boredom and apathy that he struggles with on a daily basis. Through an unexpected twist of fate, his favorite target of bullying ends up becoming a more significant presence in his life and suddenly Pierre is left questioning everything he ever knew.
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own, didn't happen!
Author's Note: Hey there! I have no idea if anyone will ever see this. I’m currently pregnant and spending a lot of time sick in bed and that led me to take a stroll down memory lane and read some of my old stories to pass the time. When I read Behind the Net, I was struck by how much untold story there is from Pierre’s side. I became obsessed with the idea of re-writing this story from Pierre’s point of view and before I knew it I had written the whole thing, which ended up being three chapters longer than the original story because he has so many thoughts, feelings, and experiences that David never knows anything about. So here it is! All twenty chapters posted at once. I haven’t posted on this page for 8 years at this point and the fandom is totally gone so I’m not anticipating that anyone will actually see this, but if anyone does happen to see and read this, leave me a comment and let me know!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
The rest of the weekend had gone by with a sense of excitement and accomplishment for both Pierre and David. The boys had stayed at the rink for several hours on Saturday and again on Sunday, Pierre giving David tips and instruction about how to move his body, how to slide to use his legs to block the puck, how to use his hockey stick to deflect and fling the puck away from the goal, and so on.
“It’s awesome that you can catch the puck,” Pierre told him, his hands on David’s shoulders with a reassuring nod. “But there’s more to it than that. A lot of the time the puck’s not gonna be in the air, it’s gonna be on the ice and you’re gonna have to use your body or your hockey stick to block it.”
“I still have to use a hockey stick?” David asked, sounding nervous and uncertain.
Pierre smiled and gave him a gentle shake. “Hey, you’ve got it. You don’t have to be accurate or worry about where you’re sending it as long as it’s away from the goal. You’re gonna have one glove open and a hockey stick in the other, but it’s more about using it to deflect the puck or fling it away from the goal. It’s okay that you can’t aim the puck down the ice worth shit because you don’t have to,” he finished, not intending to be mean but the way David’s expression changed as if to say “Gee thanks” made Pierre question his choice of words. Being gentle and bending the truth wasn’t something he was used to doing when it came to David.
Still, David didn’t argue with him and instead nodded his head in acceptance. Pierre gave him another reassuring smile and squeeze of his shoulders before he backed off and grabbed a hockey stick for the other boy.
“Here,” he said, tossing it David’s way. David caught the stick and again Pierre found himself impressed. “It’s also not always going to be a shot from far away,” he continued, finding a puck on the ice with his own stick and beginning to skate slowly David’s way, using his hockey stick back and forth to accelerate the puck forward. He looked up at David with a devious smile as he got closer, seeing David’s face turn nervous the closer he got. “You’re gonna have guys running into you, trying to force their way in the goal with the puck past your body. The best thing you can do is drop down and use your body as a shield and try not to give up any ground.”
“Oh god, okay,” David muttered quickly, bracing himself and focusing hard on Pierre as he advanced on him.
“Try to stop me,” Pierre told him suddenly, before dashing his body into David’s and trying to smack the puck into the goal around the other boy.
David gave a quiet yelp and lost his balance, his legs sliding out from under him and sending him falling backward into the net. Out of instinct he dropped his hockey stick and tried to grab onto Pierre for support but the older boy’s momentum was too great and the two went down together in a tangled heap.
Pierre laughed wholesomely, landing on top of David with his hand going down to the ice. The ice felt cold and cutting against his bare skin but he hardly noticed it, too deeply amused to feel anything other than his laughter. Though he wasn’t wearing any pads so he didn’t have his typical momentum behind his hit, and though David was wearing padding which would make him sturdier, it was still too easy for him to knock the other boy to his back. He looked down at David’s face for a moment who had flushed a brilliant shade of red, laughter still erupting uncontrollably from him, before he pushed himself backward and brought himself up right again.
He offered a hand down to David who didn’t hesitate to take it and pull himself up. Again, Pierre could feel that he was doing most of the work but it didn’t feel difficult; even with the padding, David felt light and small in his arms. He shook his head and released David’s mitt, skating backward several paces.
“Okay so that’s what you don’t want to do,” Pierre joked, his eyes twinkling in amusement.
“No shit,” David retorted, but it was with a sarcastic laugh and Pierre could feel that David wasn’t angry with him.
“I’m gonna do it again, but this time drop down like this,” Pierre told him, and he demonstrated the way that David should fall and the way his legs should land. “Think of making yourself like a boulder. You don’t want me to be able to push past you, you want your legs to cover as much of the goal as you can and your body to be a barrier.”
David practiced the move a couple of times, looking down after each drop to see how his legs had landed and trying to flatten them down to the ice. Pierre could see that David would have to work on his flexibility a little bit but ultimately what he was seeing felt promising. Once David seemed to feel like he had gotten the hang of what he should be doing he stood himself up again and got back into a ready position, giving a strong nod.
The devious smile played on Pierre’s lips again and his eyes shined as he ducked his head, ready to try again. He dashed forward once more, never taking his eyes off of David as he approached. Then, once he was close enough, he moved to hit the puck into the goal. David dropped down, his legs spreading in a bent sort of split and his body and arms working to block Pierre as best as he could.
When the puck bounced off of his leg and went flying off at an angle away from the goal, David’s face lit up and he gave an enthusiastic, “Yes!”
Pierre backed away a couple of paces and laughed again softly, nodding his head slowly in approval. “You’ve still got a ways to go but I really think you’ve got it,” he told the younger boy. Gliding forward slightly he reached his hand out to David again who again took it and helped himself back up.
“Yeah?” David asked, sounding hopeful but still a little uncertain.
Pierre nodded, smiling a sweet and gentle smile down at the younger boy. “Yeah, you’re gonna do it.”
And with that they repositioned and continued on, running through this drill over and over, Pierre coming from different angles, stopping at different distances, trying to give David the true feel of any potential scenario. In almost all cases, David was able to stop him. By the end of the day, it was really beginning to look like they had figured out a way to get David onto the hockey team and Pierre felt a shining sense of accomplishment over it.
Monday afternoon came before he knew what happened and Pierre found himself sitting in the locker room surrounded by his teammates, all of them wearing pads and skates, sitting around with helmets in their hands and joking about stupid things. Excitement buzzed through the room like an energy that could be felt by all; the start of a new season was something these boys had been waiting for anxiously for months.
Pierre felt an odd sense of nerves considering he didn’t have to try out, but he couldn't help but think of David and wondered how he would perform with others around. Was he the type to suffer performance anxiety? Would he get out in front of the hockey team and suddenly forget everything Pierre had taught him? Would Pierre see the return of the newborn giraffe on skates? He wasn’t sure when he had started to care, but he was suddenly aware that he did. He wanted David to do well. He wanted him to get on the team. Did this mean he wanted to be the younger boy’s friend? Did this mean that they kind of already were?
Then there was the question of how his teammates would respond to David’s presence. He had always gone out of his way to make fun of David in front of his friends, to tease him relentlessly and had egged on others when they did the same. He had a hard time imagining that the others would simply drop all of that history and accept David with open arms, but he wondered how resistant they would be. Would they torture him until he gave up? There had been something about the new found fire in David’s eyes that made Pierre think the boy would refuse to give up, even if the others did nothing but torture him.
Suddenly the room grew quiet and Pierre felt an elbow in his side. He looked at the boy next to him who had nudged him, who was inclining his head off to the side with a look of bewilderment. Pierre’s eyes followed to where his teammate had been indicating and saw David standing there in the middle of the room, being stared at from all sides as if he was a girl who had walked into the boy’s locker room.
“What the fuck does he think he’s doing here?” the teammate who had nudged Pierre whispered, before adding on, “What a freak.”
And just like that it came crashing down around Pierre. He couldn’t just all of a sudden behave like he was cool with David, because no one else knew of the arrangement that the two had, and he reminded himself that he had been resolute that no one would. The pressure to be who he was supposed to be and to act the way he was supposed to act crashed down over him and he knew he would have to make this transition slowly if the others were to eventually accept the junior into their ranks. And like he was putting on a show, he fixed a mean look on his face and stood, making his way over to where David was standing with his back turned and his face in the locker he was storing his things in.
“Are you lost or something?” Pierre's asked loudly from behind David’s shoulder. He heard snickers from behind him and knew his act was believable. He waited for David to turn to him and say something, having become used to the younger boy standing up to him, but instead he saw the return of the David he used to know, the quiet boy who seethed in anger but refused to engage. He could hear David take a steadying breath and watched as the younger boy clicked a combination lock on the locker he had chosen. Without giving Pierre so much as a glance David moved to a bench, looking at no one as he sat down and began to put on his skates. There was more muttering around him, and Pierre knew he had to keep going or it would look weird to everyone around. He followed after David and sat down next to him, wrapping a strong arm around the other boy’s shoulders in a way that was less than friendly. David grimaced and tried to pull away from him, keeping his head turned resolutely down, focusing his energy on the laces he was trying to tie.
“Are you deaf? I asked you a question. Are you lost?” Pierre tried again, but David refused to answer him. In the past these types of interactions had filled Pierre with a sick kind of pleasure but this time he felt nothing, truly acting with every action and every word. It was nothing but a show, and for once he didn’t take pleasure in it. “I don't know what you think you're doing here, but you're high if you think you're getting on the hockey team,” Pierre continued, his voice soft and calm, almost in a matter-of-fact kind of way.
The door to the rink opened up and the coach called for everyone on the ice, and just like that the tension was broken and everyone turned their attention to the door to the rink, standing and moving without giving David another thought. Though Pierre wanted to give David another glance he knew that he shouldn’t and instead he dropped his arm and moved away, acting as if the younger boy didn’t exist within a second. He followed his team to the rink and stood at the edge for a moment before he felt a squeeze in his stomach and wanted to go back in to see David again. Knowing that everyone was on the ice and accounted for, Pierre turned to head back into the locker room, unable to deny the pull he felt.
“I forgot something! I'll be there in a second!” Pierre called back to a couple teammates and his coach as he headed back through the door. Once it had swung shut he walked right up to David, the act of animosity completely dropped and smiling his perfect, pearly smile at the younger boy. “You ready?” he asked, speaking to David as if they were friends.
David just stared at him, a look of shock and disgust on his face, before he shook his head and stood up, bumping his shoulder purposefully into Pierre's as he passed him, muttering, “Whatever,” under his breath.
Pierre, completely stunned by the aggressive move from the younger boy, scoffed and turned to look at his retreating back. “What the fuck's your problem?” he asked, truly confused at David's attitude toward him.
“You're such a douche bag!” David hurtled at him, turning in his skates awkwardly to face Pierre head on again.
“Why?!” Pierre responded quickly, feeling offense and anger boiling over inside of him.
“Really, Pierre? Really?” David replied, walking a little awkwardly on his skates back to Pierre, staring up into his eyes with a deeper kind of fiery anger than was usually there. “You do nothing but make fun of me and put me down in front of your friends, and then you're gonna turn around and act all buddy-buddy with me? You're pathetic.”
Pierre was floored by the accusation, not understanding what David wanted out of him. What did he think was going to happen? How much did he expect out of him? Did he think that they were all of a sudden going to be acting like best friends in front of everyone that Pierre knew? He felt incredulous that David could have ever expected that out of him.
“That's in front of my friends!” Pierre retorted as if explaining something stupidly simple that David should have already understood. “It's not like anyone can know we've been helping each other out. You knew that, David. If you thought this was gonna change anything, you're the pathetic one!” Pierre argued with him, stepping closer so that there were mere inches between their faces.
David glared hard at Pierre for a long moment before he shook his head and gave an angry laugh. “You're such a loser,” David muttered darkly. Pierre felt those words like a stab through the heart and he stood still as stone, staring with angry bewilderment into David’s eyes. “I might not have many friends, but at least I have a future,” David continued, cutting into Pierre with his words like they were knives. “You're going to end up stuck here like the rest of the jocks, probably working on a boat for a job that keeps you from your family for months at a time and beats the hell out of your body. And when I'm far away, sitting on some beach in the middle of the week on paid vacation, I won't even stop to think of you, because you're so far beneath me you aren't worth even a second of my time.” And before Pierre had the time to fully process what the other boy had said to him, David walked out to the rink, leaving Pierre standing in silence by himself.
“You're going to end up stuck here like the rest of the jocks, probably working on a boat for a job that keeps you from your family for months at a time and beats the hell out of your body.” Pierre replayed those words in his mind, seeing a future for himself in which he didn’t succeed in hockey, in which he was unable to complete any degree because he wasn’t smart enough, in which his parents had cut him off because he hadn’t followed their desires for him, in which his only option was blue collar work that tore him apart. His chest squeezed again and anger coursed through him causing his hands to shake and his vision to blur. It was his deepest fear and somehow David had read him like a book, even though he thought he had done well to keep those parts of himself hidden from all.
“And when I'm far away, sitting on some beach in the middle of the week on paid vacation, I won't even stop to think of you, because you're so far beneath me you aren't worth even a second of my time.” Pierre could see this too, could see David living a life that he loved and not having a thought to spare for him. Beneath him, Pierre’s mind repeated the sentiment, his shaking getting worse and the fire in his veins blazing. David thought that Pierre was beneath him. David didn’t care at all about Pierre. Though he shouldn’t have been surprised, though he knew that he deserved it, he still couldn’t stop the indignation as it coursed through him.
With a raspy yell that emanated from deep within his chest Pierre brought his fist into the nearest locker, his anger exploding out of him out of his control, heat and rage and pain all coursing out of him with a loud clattering bang that he hardly heard or registered. Then, slowly a hot throbbing in his knuckles and wrist began to blossom and he became acutely aware of his ragged breathing and his shaking fist. Regaining control of himself, Pierre dropped his hand back to his side and took several deep breaths, recognizing that he had lost control and he needed to pull himself together. His entire team was out on the rink and he was expected to be out there.
Giving himself a few more seconds, Pierre pulled on his gloves to hide his throbbing hand and went back out to the rink, gliding smoothly out to the center to stand next to the coach. His eyes bored into David with hatred, cut entirely through by the words that continued to echo through his mind. Douche bag. Pathetic. Loser. Beneath me. Try as he might, he couldn’t set the anger aside and focus.
As the tryouts went forward and his teammates ran various drills, Pierre watched without really seeing. His thoughts were swirling, his anger thudding in his temples. He was glad that this year he didn’t have to participate in the drills because he didn’t think he would have performed well, too worked up and distracted with the argument he had just had with David.
“Who do we got for goalie?” the coach asked Pierre suddenly, flipping through pages on his clipboard and looking at names. Their goalie from the previous year had graduated so the role had been left vacant at the end of the year.
Pierre leaned toward his coach and said, “That kid,” pointing and looking over at David who was standing in the goal waiting.
“What’s his name?”
“Desrosiers,” Pierre replied shortly, offering only his last name. “He’s a junior. Never played before.”
The coach ran his finger down the page, looking for that name on the tryout sheet. “Desrosiers…. Ah, Desrosiers. David.” He looked up and over at David, looking him up and down. “Kinda small, isn’t he?”
Pierre gave a quiet grunt, not wanting to say anything about David one way or the other.
“Okay, let’s see what he’s got,” the coach said, before bringing his whistle to his lips and giving a quick, loud blow. “Come on guys, round up!” he called, and soon everyone had skated toward him and was standing around, including David, though he stood toward the back. Pierre glared at the younger boy hard from behind the coach’s shoulder, his arms crossed stiffly across his chest.
“Desrosiers, where are you?” the coach asked, craning his neck to try and see over the heads of the other students. David raised his hand timidly, moving a bit closer. “Okay, in the goal,” he instructed simply and David gave a nod, not hesitating as he skated to the end of the rink.
Pierre skated toward David, throwing the necessary equipment down at his feet without a word, glaring hard. Pierre could see that David looked nervous but he didn’t let it sway him, not caring in the slightest how the younger boy was feeling in that moment. He turned his back and skated away, grabbing a hockey stick and moving toward the middle of the rink. He threw a puck on the ice harder than he normally would in his anger and glared intensely in David's direction, ready to make the younger boy suffer for the words he had said to him.
Without warning, Pierre slapped the puck toward David, giving the other boy no time to think. Still, David reached his arm out and caught the puck in his mitt as if he hadn’t even tried, something which only stoked the angry flames in Pierre’s stomach. He saw as David grinned from behind the mask and a sick feeling of spite exploded in his chest, irritated at David’s happiness. He barely waited for the puck to begin to drop from David’s hand before he was sending another one at him which to his great annoyance David was able to drop down and block with his legs. Feeling his blood pounding in his ears Pierre continued to fire one puck after another, shooting them at David relentlessly and without mercy. He was giving it everything that he had, and with each save that David made, Pierre only grew more irritated.
After several minutes of this, the coach gave a hard blow on his whistle and Pierre stopped in his tracks, standing up straight and turning to skate away from David without giving him a second glance. He already knew without a shadow of a doubt that David had just made the team. Pierre had used every last bit of his anger and focus and infuriatingly David had still blocked every single puck from entering that goal. As angry as he was with the junior, Pierre knew that David had earned his way onto the team.
As Pierre skated back to rejoin the rest of the team, he could see the disheartened looks on the faces of his teammates and he knew they were not at all pleased that David had done so well. Anyone watching the last several minutes who had even an ounce of understanding of hockey would know that he had just given the performance of a lifetime. There was no question in anyone’s minds at that point who their goalie for the season would be, and no one (except for maybe the coach and David himself) was happy about it.
“Great job everyone,” the coach started, giving several nods of approval. “That was really promising stuff. I’ll post the official roster by the end of the day tomorrow but I think everyone here can feel good about how today went. We’re gonna have a great season,” he finished shortly. “Alright, now everyone get out of here! You don’t have to go home, but you can’t say here,” he joked, though the dismissal for the afternoon was real.
Pierre held back by the coach’s side, watching as everyone headed back to the locker room to change and leave. His eyes found David’s back and he watched him begin to retreat, glaring hard, glad that he was about to have a break from the other boy’s presence.
“Desrosiers!” the coach called from beside him and Pierre groaned internally, feeling frustration mounting inside of him. It was with a hard, unwavering look on his face and his arms again crossed over his chest that he watched David approach, looking a little nervous but also a bit pleased with himself.
“Yes sir?” David asked, sounding a little timid.
“Nice work out there, kid. How come I've never seen you at tryouts before?” the coach asked, making David blush almost instantly.
“Oh, I uhh...” he started nervously, his hand finding the back of his neck. “It's something I recently picked up.”
“I see,” the coach responded with a nod, before patting Pierre on the shoulder. “Pierre's told me a little bit about you. This is your team captain. If you have any questions, you go to him first and he should be able to help you out.”
And with those simple words the fact that David had made the team was confirmed. Pierre swallowed hard and clenched his jaw, trying his hardest to keep his anger from showing in front of the coach.
David grinned and perked up a little, fumbling out an excited, “Does that mean I'm on the team?!”
Pierre rolled his eyes and looked away but heard the coach respond, “I'd be stupid not to put you on the team. I do want to see you get in shape. I could see you struggling a little out there, but that's nothing a little hard working out can't fix, isn't that right, Pierre?” the coach explained, turning to face Pierre.
As soon as he heard the words, “Isn’t that right?” he immediately wiped the sarcastic, angry look off of his face and turned back to the coach, nodding and giving a quick, “Absolutely coach.”
David nodded quickly, his enthusiasm evident on his face.
The coach seemed to be pleased with David's show of enthusiasm, and so he smiled and patted David on the shoulder, then Pierre. “Good! I want you two boys to be inseparable.”
Pierre felt his heart drop into his stomach and heat course through his limbs again at his coach’s words. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, he thought in frustration, though he wouldn’t dare say a word. Instead he just continued to look at his coach and nod, trying not to look angry or overly tense.
“I want you running in the morning before school, and working out after practice,” the coach continued, something which only made Pierre feel more frustrated and defeated. “Pierre, you're gonna be like David's shadow. We have a real chance to go all the way this year. David, if you're gonna be ready for this, you can't let Pierre out of your sight.”
David and Pierre both nodded, but neither boy made any effort to look at the other. Then the coach patted them each on the shoulder again and excused himself, leaving Pierre and David to stand in each other's presence, an awkward silence falling over them.
Pierre wanted to storm off, to refuse to speak to David ever again, but he knew he didn’t have it in him to disobey direct instruction from his coach like that. Hockey meant more to him than anything else and his alliance with his coach was quite possibly the most important adult relationship in his life at that moment. He had always trusted and respected the man and he wouldn’t do anything now to mess it up, least of all because of David.
“So...” David started, but Pierre glared at him hard, raised a hand and cut him off before he could get so much as another word out.
“Don't,” Pierre cut in firmly, effectively shutting David up. He glared at the younger boy hard, towering over him in a menacing fashion, allowing all of his anger to seep from him. “Let me make this clear for you: We are not friends. We have never been friends. If I was ever nice to you before, it was just to make things go more smoothly. After that shit you said to me, you've lost the privilege of my decency toward you.” Pierre's words were strong and bitter, like coffee that had been left sitting in the pot for too long. He could see the way it made David cower into his shoulders and he watched as the boy swallowed hard and gave a shaky nod.
“If you thought I worked you hard before, you haven't seen shit yet,” Pierre continued, his glare icy. Then he skated past David, though he bumped his shoulder into the younger boy's hard, effectively throwing him off of his balance and causing him to slip backward. Pierre didn’t turn to see him fall but he heard the yelp and the sound of him hitting the ice and felt a small burst of satisfaction at being able to showcase his physical superiority to the other boy. Maybe David thought that Pierre was beneath him, but it couldn’t be denied that Pierre was easily the more physically impressive of the two. He allowed that thought, at least, to bolster his ego and make himself feel better in a vindictive sort of way.
Tomorrow he would have to face David again, but at least for that night, he would go straight home and try to rid himself of the memory of their conversation, not wanting to allow it to anger him so deeply anymore. It’s not like I fucking care, he lied to himself, and although he allowed himself to think it, he knew that it wasn’t true. As much as he didn’t want to, for some reason or another, he cared way too much for his own good.