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Marc was mind-numbingly exhausted. His face hurt, his body hurt, his brain felt like it was going to melt out of his ears. His everything hurt, and it was the best feeling of his life.
He wondered how long this feeling of surreality would last - he was a Stanley Cup champion. By the Three, they had done that, last night.
Especially since it was after playing against the Red Wings in the finals again. (Sometimes he wondered about the serendipity of that. Last year, making it all the way to the finals and falling to the Red Wings, this year; making it all the way to the finals and playing against the same team?) But this time: this time, they had won.
Marc sighed. He should probably sleep soon since he was getting all metaphysical about everything. Or, go and get the Cup from Sid. Although, considering Sid had literally stumbled up the stairs and took the Cup into his room at Mario’s, maybe he should just leave it. He would never be able to unsee anything in that room. And it’s not like he needed to sleep yet, he could just go and grab a pick-me-up out of his bag, except that was across the guest room from him.
So, get up, get his pick-me-up, make fun of Sid. Prank Tanger. Go home and put out milk, honey and bread. Change his clothes, then come back to Mario’s. Wait. First step, figure out what time it was beyond ‘morning-ish.’
He looked at his wristwatch, blinking against the moving bits. He should have gone with a less fancy watch. Or one with a less bright sun. One of the two. He clicked the little nob on the side to let the screen transition to the secondary setting.
“Here, if i had to watch you struggle any more, I would've hurt something laughing at you.” Marc jumped as Kris shoved a coffee mug in his face.
“What’s in it? Wait. Where did you come from, I thought you were sleeping out by the pool?” Marc asked, downing the slightly steaming drink almost in one gulp before Kris started answering him.
“Nathalie made everyone come into the living room this morning, said she didn’t want her homeowners insurance to go up just because a drunk hockey player drowned in the pool. And that is coffee and that weird blue energy drink stuff that you keep in your bag. What is that, anyway?”
“Something my grandma taught me. She just called it, uhm, athshlánaithe since she learned how to make it from one of the war brides from down the street.”
Kris furrowed his brow and slowly blinked. “Athshlánaithe? What language even is that?”
Marc giggled. “Your Irish is worse than your English accent, and I didn’t think that could be possible. But it basically means restorative. Sid knows how to make it too. His family would call it by the Welsh name, probably.”
Kris nodded slowly. “Better question. How much did I drink last night, because I thought it was glowing?”
Marc took a slow deep breath, trying to remember what his grand-mère had said to say. “You were very very drunk last night. We all were. But it glows a bit because of this one mineral that is added. A, what do you call it, a chemical reaction. It’s mainly to make it fun for kids to drink because it tastes sort of horrible. Most of the folk remedies do.”
“How many folk remedies do you use? Eh, no, conversation for later. Fun times for now. Wanna go wake Sid up or just steal the cup back from him?”
Marc sighed in relief.
“And after that, you can explain why your ears are slightly steaming pink.”
Too soon. Tabernak.
“I don’t know what you mean by that, Tanger,” Marc said as he followed Kris out of the downstairs guest room.
“I don’t know what you mean by I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh fuck no, I am too hungover to listen to all this French-Canadianness,” Jordie said from the couch. “You two need to stop your everything anyway. Someone from the Staff ordered us in breakfast, and since I got the game winning goals, one of you - and by one of you, I mean Tanger and not Flower because goalies are crazy, should get me food.”
Kris rolled his eyes before heading towards the kitchen, Marc slowly following him. On the one hand, he wanted to avoid whatever this conversation with Kris would be before he managed to convince him that he was hallucinating. On the other hand, food.
That was one of the downsides to the potion his grand-mère had taught him how to make, it always left you hungry as it so quickly converted fat into energy.
Entering the kitchen, Marc went straight for the orange juice sitting on the counter and poured himself a glass while Kris headed for the sausage, scrambled eggs, and pancakes. “How come you didn’t tell Jordie to get his own food?”
Kris picked up orange juice and took a swig, an eyebrow raising in surprise, before looking over at Marc and answering. “Because now he can’t say he didn’t see it coming when I give him his food. Pass me a cup of the coffee, the sugar and the pepper, would you?”
Marc laughed as he pressed the lever thing on the coffee. “You’re a dick sometimes.”
“Only sometimes? I must be losing my touch,” Kris said as he doctored up the hot coffee.
“Not going to do anything to his food?” Marc asked.
“Nah, not after the game last night. He needs to replenish his energy.”
Kris took a second gulp of Marc’s orange juice before passing it back to Marc. “Speaking of replenishing energy, how much longer are you going to, badly, hide the fact that you are magic?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“I know for a fact that the coffee has been sitting in that carafe for at least an hour and was only lukewarm when I made the cup I brought you. I was going to microwave it but you always get bitchy about that.
Just like the fact that the orange juice has been sitting on the counter the whole time. But somehow it’s ice cold even though you didn’t even put any ice cubes in it. Hell, Flower. I’m a hockey player. I’m stupid, not dumb.”
Marc stared at Kris, not realizing he was shaking until the orange juice sloshed onto his hand.
“It’s okay, you know. People aren’t going to think you have magic, you can just do weird shit and they’ll nod and be all ‘goalies,” Kris said as he gathered up the plate of food and the doctored coffee for Jordie.
Marc didn’t say anything as Kris left the kitchen. He just made himself up a plate of the pancakes and went outside, heading towards his favorite tree. He always did his best thinking by green growing things.
“Okay Dianthe, I have a bit of a situation,” Marc said as he sat down, leaning with his back against the tree. “Er, I think I need some advice, but I’m not sure what the situation actually is.”
Marc smiled as he felt amusement flowing through him. “Yeah, Yeah. Laugh at me all you want. I think I’m ridiculous.”
The tree almost seemed to hum in interest.
“I guess I wasn’t as careful as I’m supposed to be? And Tanger has seen me do enough strange things that he called it magic, to my face.”
Marc shuddered as a faint chill crawled up his spine. “I don’t think I need to be that worried. He didn’t seem mad? He seemed almost re-”
“Of course I wasn’t mad, it’s not like you are the only one on this team with Potential, ” Kris interrupted.
“Also, you are bad about being discreet. My baby cousins are better then you are at hiding magic.”
Marc shook his head. “No one else ever said anything.”
“Everyone knows goalies are weird.”
“Why does everyone keep saying that? Goalies aren’t weird. Sid, though? Sid is weird,” Marc said.
“Yeah, but not only is Sid’s dad a goalie, he wanted to be a goalie when he was younger. So that’s, like, genetically a goalie. That means he’s weird.”
“If being weird is a goalie thing, how come I didn’t get to sleep with the Stanley Cup.”
“You could have, if you were willing to get into the bed with Sid.”
Marc grimaced. “I assume sleeping in a bed with Sid will be fine, but he probably did unspeakable things to the Cup.”
“Wanna see if we can get the video recorder off of Duper and wake Sid up? I got silly string from Geno last month and haven’t used it yet.”
Marc laughed.