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Gabe wakes up alone with the feeling that he shouldn’t be. It’s confusing for a second, though the cheerful mess orients him quickly enough. Stephen isn’t anywhere in the house, which Gabe determines when he wanders out to quickly survey the place, but he frequently wanders off on long, sprawling walks, complaining about cabin fever, usually bringing Gabe back some treat he won’t buy himself. Gabe makes himself toast and egg-whites, biting his bottom lip whenever a smile threatens to take over his face, wonders if Stephen will come back and fall into it like it’s normal, wrap an arm around him from behind, chirp his sad breakfast. If he’ll pretend it didn’t happen--but Gabe won’t let him, not this time, they’re not fourteen anymore and Gabe’s mom isn’t on the other side of an unlocked door, and he feels nowhere near ashamed. If he’ll come bearing treats or trying to take up as little space as he can in wide open rooms.
He doesn’t show up at all, not bearing coffee in the morning, or lunch and a sheepish smile, or dinner and profuse, embarrassed apologies, and when Gabe’s called him three times only to get one ring, and worked himself up into thinking that he’s dead in a ditch, victim to feral dogs or Penguins haters, he calls Anouk. He hasn’t talked to her in awhile, not since Stephen bucked up and stopped ducking her calls, and she sounds puzzled when she answers, pauses when Gabe asks her if she’s heard from Stephen.
“He didn’t call you when he landed?” she asks.
Gabe breathes in raggedly. “Landed where?” he says, finally.
“Los Angeles,” she says. “That surgeon the Penguins staff arranged for. You two forget everything, we should still be making you calendars.”
Gabe says nothing, and the silence stretches, one ugly beat, two, before she says, dark, “he didn’t tell you.”
“No,” Gabe manages.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Gabe,” she says, sounding tired. “I can send you the information he gave me.”
“That’d be good,” Gabe says. He feels wrung dry, suddenly, like he hadn’t just spent the day waiting around for Stephen to come back. Wasting his time, he guesses.
“I’ll give him hell when he calls me,” she adds, gentle, and Gabe’s reminded that she knows better than anyone what it’s like to be left out of the Stephen Petersen loop. Gabe’s usually the one covering for him with her.
“Don’t bother,” he says. “It’s not worth it.”
“Gabe,” she says.
“I’ve gotta go,” Gabe says. “I’ll call you soon. Love to Johan and the girls.”
“Gabe,” she repeats, but he thumbs the phone off, can’t deal with Anouk and her unbearable empathy right now.
*
Gabe doesn’t have time to think about it. Or he does, long stretches struggling to sleep in airless hotel rooms, drives into the city, travelling on the road, but they’re being ridden into the ground, an ugly, packed road schedule and a precarious second-seed spot, a ripe chance to grasp at first. In his charitable moments he thinks that Stephen set up the appointments for now because he knew Gabe wouldn’t have been around anyway. Most of the time he figures Stephen wasn’t thinking about him at all.
The trip to Los Angeles was for consultation with a surgeon on whether Stephen was a viable candidate for tendon transfer surgery. Gabe gets this from the information forwarded to him, and later Anouk directly, who calls him from LA to tell him they’re going through with it, got a window, voice low as if she’s trying to be surreptitious about talking to him, like Stephen’s a room away. It’d be funny if it didn’t just make his stomach hurt.
Stephen doesn’t call, doesn’t text, doesn’t email. Gabe’s seen this before, though only second-hand. Stephen gets like this when he knows he’s in trouble, retreats and hopes for the best, even if he usually makes it worse by being a coward about it. Gabe’s never been on this side of it, has laughed at Stephen over it, and sighed at Stephen over it, and run intermediary for Stephen over it, but he never understood how awful facing Stephen’s cowardice feels.
Surgery is successful, or at least not unsuccessful. Stephen goes back home after. Gabe’s getting twin reports from his parents, who wandered three doors down to meddle, of course, because it’s what they do, the Marksons and the Petersens--the lines between them blurred long ago, except for the fact that Gabe, on the other end of the country, on the other end of the phone, is emphatically on the other side of the line. Gabe gets a stream of reports on Stephen’s progress from everyone but Stephen, calls when he has time, texts when he doesn’t, Anouk and Johan cagey enough that Gabe suspects Stephen specifically told them not to call Gabe and they’re doing it anyway because their son’s a moron.
Gabe gets the updates in fits and spurts: feeling’s coming back, though right now the only feeling is pain, tingling, a horrific, neverending pins and needles that Gabe can only imagine, wincing sympathetically despite himself. Doctors predict limited movement, more with rehab, some regained function, though he’s always going to be a leftie now, will have to do everything backwards until it’s all he knows. It’s better than expected, better than they’d been warned about, fulfills the exact purpose of that last round of surgery. Gabe doubts Stephen’s satisfied with it.
Other than the updates, Gabe doesn’t think about Stephen much, doesn’t let himself, has seen enough teammates falter in the face of breakups (not that this is one), family emergencies (if this is an emergency, it’s been one for slow, sickening months), knows he’s as susceptible to the downward drag of it as anyone else and isn’t above being a healthy scratch. The only time he can’t avoid thinking about Stephen is when everything finally settles down for the night and Gabe’s still all tension. Maybe that’s when the anger should take over, but it doesn’t, that’s not what Gabe focuses on, even when he tries to. Instead he’s left with the lingering burn of absence, with the feeling of Stephen’s thighs shaking beneath his fingers, minute, pre-come strong against his tongue, a finger tracing over the shell of Gabe’s ear while he’s got one hand splayed uselessly on the bed, unable to clench, unable to do anything but be present, inert. Left wondering if he touched Stephen’s hand now if it’d be plain, unprejudiced sensation, or if it’d only bring Stephen pain.
The final game of the season is on the road, and it’s triumphant, the Canucks clinching the first seed in the West, though they lose out on the President’s Trophy. The Pens clinch it, three points ahead of the Canucks, and what would have been bittersweet if Stephen was still playing was just bitter.
But all the triumph has abandoned Gabe when he gets home, a home with Stephen’s shit still all over the guest room, all over the house, like he just went for a walk, like he fucking ran, and Gabe’s so sick of looking it, eyes drawn every time he passes the open door, sheets still tangled on the bed under the vague shapes their bodies left. The triumph is gone, and for once the anger beats out anything else, the burn of it in his veins.He empties drawers, hunts down a hoodie knocked under the bed, strips the sheets and leaves the mattress bare, shoves everything to rot in the closet and then slides the door shut behind it, because who knows when the fuck Stephen’s going to be there again.
Even at the worst moments Gabe knows this isn’t for good, even at the moments when he almost wishes he could wash his hands of the fucking guy, but while guilt never stops Stephen from doing anything, he lets it fester in him after he’s done anything that needs forgiving. Gabe usually plasters over the cracks it leaves, but he can’t be Stephen’s ambassador on this one.
*
If shit had been busy before they headed full-tilt into the playoffs, it’s a mobscene in the preparation stages. The good news is it’s the enemy they know instead of the one they don’t, Dallas just edging out Minnesota for seventh, so they’ve got a divisional rival they know the strengths and weaknesses of intimately. The bad news is the North Stars know them just as well, and management isn’t taking any chances. They’re all treated to a crash course of game tape and targeted practices, quizzed hard enough that Gabe thinks he could not only name the North Stars roster down to the potential depth pulls, but also recite stats and their wives’ names, (for better chirping preparation, though the latter’s not really a management approved plan).
The Canucks were lucky enough to finish the season a few days earlier than the North Stars. It’s a slightly barbed luck, with the ever present danger of going sedate, but no one’s getting out of practice here, not with this schedule--hell, Minnesota might be more rested coming in when it comes down to it. Vancouver’s facing a closing window of opportunity, an aging team, a frustrated fanbase, and no one’s taking a single chance, from management down to the taxis they’ve pulled up from their farm team, which has missed the playoffs for the third year straight, a depressing omen for their future.
Game day eve dawns bright and early with yet another practice, though it’s a relaxed scrimmage with some of the taxis just to settle them a little more into the game plan, a couple individual meetings with the coaching staff, which Gabe’s lucky enough not to be singled out for, because he’s pretty sure the guys tapped on the shoulder are sitting the game out, and the looks on their faces say they know it too. The rest of them are kicked out early afternoon and told that they damn well better enjoy a night in. Gabe definitely isn’t protesting; he’s been longing for a night with his couch and his remote and zero hockey, though there are a couple games on tonight and he’s not sure if he can resist the call to watch at least the highlights of the Dallas-Chicago game.
He picks up some decently healthy take-out on his way home, makes sure his phone is set to silent so he can get some last ditch vegging done in peace, and considers just faceplanting on the sofa and eating directly from the carton, but his mom taught him better, so he toes his shoes off and heads for the kitchen, which isn’t as empty as it should be, not that Gabe notices until he’s stopping short at the door.
There are bags of delivery from the same place as Gabe went (great minds, he thinks reflexively), and the line of Stephen’s back as he labouriously transfers food from carton to plate. Gabe’s mom taught him better too.
“What are you doing here,” Gabe says, flat, doesn’t realize his hands are fisting until he’s got paper bag crumpling in his palm.
Stephen turns around, set, tremulous smile on his face, like he knows he’s in trouble and he’s prepared to take it. Gabe doesn’t even know what to do with him right now, wants to punch that stupid fucking smile, wants to reel him in. Wants to kiss him. Wants to make him hurt, and he doesn’t like that feeling, that’s the most foreign of all of them, and it doesn’t sit well inside him.
“Hey,” Stephen says, then presumably noticing the bag in Gabe’s hand. “Hey, great minds.”
“Stephen,” Gabe says.
“Figured I should see the playoffs,” Stephen says. “First seed, after all, not too shabby. I mean, it’s no President’s Trophy, but we can’t all have one.”
“You don’t play for them anymore,” Gabe snaps. “Don’t act like you had shit to do with it.”
Stephen’s face drops, completely falls, and Gabe wishes he’d hit Stephen instead, up and decked him, thinks it’d have hurt both of them less, because he feels sick, absolutely nauseous. Wants to kill anyone who puts that look on Stephen’s face and now he’s the one doing it.
“I can’t deal with this right now,” Gabe says.
“Do you want me to go?” Stephen asks, quiet.
“No,” Gabe says. He hadn’t even thought it. “Just. Your shit’s in the closet, you can figure it out. I need--I have a game.”
“Yeah,” Stephen says, not pointing out that it’s in over twenty-four hours, which must mean he’s trying to be as conciliatory as possible.
Gabe turns on his heel, just walks right up to his room, shuts the door behind him, and he doesn’t even realize he’s still got takeout in his hand until he’s in there, never managed to get it onto his plate, and he wants to punch a wall and he wants to go back down and scream at Stephen until his throat’s sore, but he needs to eat, so he does that, sits on his bed and stares at the wall, eating out of the carton with a shitty plastic fork. It’s quiet in the house, like Stephen’s tiptoeing around, trying not to make a sound. Like Stephen isn’t there at all, which Gabe had been getting used to. Had been trying to get used to, because it’s not something he ever adjusts to.
His phone buzzes when he’s halfway through his couscous, mechanical shovelling it in to fulfill his intake, and he thumbs the text open when he sees it’s from Anouk, idiot son is missing warning you just in case
Idiot son is in my kitchen., Gabe types back, one handed, before returning to his food, and he’s mostly finished it when he receives another, give him hell and then following that, !, and he can’t help but smile at it. Anouk’s always been better at it and they both know it.
No promises., he sends, finishing up the rest of his meal, before he heads out of his room.
Stephen is, indeed, still in his kitchen, nudging half-heartedly at an almost identical lunch to Gabe’s (seriously, great minds), but he looks up like his head’s on a swivel when Gabe comes in.
“Want some help with your room?” Gabe asks.
Stephen’s mouth twists.
“It’s hard making a bed alone,” Gabe says. With your injury goes unsaid. Everything Gabe never says settles on them like fine dust, and sometimes, the worst times, he doesn’t even blame Stephen for turning tail and running.
“Yeah,” Stephen says, that same weak, tremulous smile that Gabe already hates seeing. “Thanks.”
“I’m still mad at you,” Gabe tells Stephen’s back when they’re heading up the stairs, and Stephen doesn’t falter.
“You should be,” Stephen says, “you deserve to be,” and Gabe’s left watching the curve of his spine, the broad line of his back when he heads into a room Gabe’s started designating as his, as if everything he touched wouldn’t be if he only said the word.
I’m in love with you, Gabe thinks. He doesn't say it.
He’s pretty sure it’s something they both already know.