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There’s a scar on Magnus’s upper lip. That’s generally what happens when you get punched in the face as often as he has been. There’s a scar on his upper lip where it’s been split in the same place on at least two occasions, and his nose goes in a direction it was not intended by genetics to go in, thanks again to the aforementioned punches his face seems to be magnetized to attract. One of his teeth is chipped. At least one. It shows every time he grins, which is often and widely.
Taako is standing by the bench, arms folded over the logo on his chest and his entire face scrunched up in an annoyed frown as he contemplates the myriad ways in which Magnus’s features have been… ahem, ‘fucked up’ through his years throwing himself around on the ice like if you die in hockey you don’t die in real life. Merle is sitting on the bench watching him with both eyebrows raised, highly amused by the answer to the question he hasn’t even asked yet. Taako’s ears are twitching, aware of the dwarf standing there, knowing he’s going to ask, and already mad about it.
“What’s eating you today, then?” he asks when he’s apparently had enough of watching Taako twitch. “Y’know, in my medical opinion, your face is gonna stick like that if you keep making that expression.”
“Fuck off,” Taako says immediately and instinctively, no real venom in his voice. Now that the door’s been opened though, never let it be said that he’s the one who started this conversation, but if Merle asked … “If you really must know, Magnus is a mistake of nature.”
Merle’s eyebrows climb higher, somehow, which Taako figures should not have at that point been physiologically possible. “This aught’a be good.”
“The dude is… an enforcer.” With a fling of his arm, Taako indicates out over the ice to where Magnus is standing, illustrating his point. “He’s an enforcer, which I only say because goon has gone out of style and Carey,” Magnus’s defense partner is next to him, both of them hip checking each other in an attempt to set the other off balance, laughing loud enough to be heard from the bench, “said if she heard me call him that again she’d kick my ass and my face is too pretty to get all the marks on it that he’s collected. I’d like to get out of this game scar-free, thanks.”
“The fact that you play fantasy hockey and still think you’re gonna get out of this with your looks intact is hilarious.” Merle’s tone of voice indicates he doesn’t actually find the prospect of Taako sustaining injury serious enough to leave a permanent reminder very hilarious at all. He may have been on Taako’s ass about being more careful, once or twice. A week. For his whole career. “I’m medical staff, I would know, and you play reckless. You’re gonna catch it one day, just a question of when.”
Taako scoffs. “None of your concern, dude.” Before Merle can break in that yes actually it really is his concern, it is in fact literally his whole entire job, Taako continues. “Anyway, Magnus is a mistake, and I cannot believe him. He’s an enforcer but he’s- he’s-” His face twists like he can’t believe what he’s about to say. Which, really, he can’t, and isn’t that just the point of this whole conversation? “He’s soft.”
“Soft,” repeats Merle.
The word is crammed with mirth, and just barely not a laugh. Taako isn’t looking at Merle but he can imagine the expression he’s wearing, and if he were not already on the completely unstoppable roll that was today’s Fantasy Taako TED Talk, “Magnus Burnsides: Mistake Of Nature,” he might be affronted enough at the teasing to end the conversation. Maybe ice Merle later during drills or something. As it stands, he definitely has more pressing things to address.
“Yeah! Freakin’ soft! And it’s wrong. He’s, like, seven feet tall-”
“Actually six foot-”
“Whatever, anyway, he’s like seven feet tall, he’s built like a brick goddamn shithouse, he’s got biceps the size, of, like, fantasy basketballs. He’s top of the team in penalty minutes. Top of the team!”
“This week,” Merle interjects, “Carey might overtake him tomorrow night, she’s only two minutes behind right now.” Again, his interjection is ignored entirely.
“And then he goes he does all these damn clinics with kids. And he hugs people. All the time. Sometimes the other team, if they’re buddies, and to Mags almost everyone is buddies. It doesn’t fit. Like okay. Alright. Season opener, right? I got- I got fuckin.” The same arm that had gestured towards Magnus and Carey flings out again, fingers splayed wide, this time an aimless physical grasp for whatever words Taako is having a hard time grabbing ahold of. “Checked across the fuckin rink and I was pretty sure my head got knocked into another realm, and you know what he does? Do you know what this chucklefuck does?”
“I was there, actually,” Merle grumbles, amusement souring at the memory of being brought out on the ice that night, Killian guiding him in his street shoes across the slick surface to where the forward was crumpled on the ground. Taako had gone down and not got up and he couldn’t get off the bench fast enough. He’d felt his heart lurch to a stop in his chest that night and he doesn’t like revisiting it. “So yes, I do know, thanks. ”
Taako, with no such reservations about revisiting the night of the (second) worst injury of his career, barrels onwards, continuing to narrate the evening in question as if Merle hadn’t, in fact, been there. In fairness to Taako, his brain had been rattled pretty soundly around in his skull during the process of shoulder meets head meets boards, and whether or not he remembers Merle being there is anybody’s guess. Then again, Taako will happily tell a story as many times as he wants, to anyone he can captivate into listening, present during the events or not, so there’s no clear indication either way.
Merle prefers to think Taako is being difficult. Much better than having to think about one of the players he’s charged with the safety of suffering memory loss. Of any kind. For any reason. Taako is still talking, which makes avoiding that thankfully easy.
“Of course he then proceeds to knock the shithead who wholloped me into Tuesday, which, okay, whatever, sure, that’s his job, but then he’s? I opened my eyes and there he was with his face all scrunched and worried and shit and he grabbed my hand and? Squeezed it?” With a wordless noise of annoyance, Taako turns away from the ice where Magnus and Carey are still roughhousing with each other. He flops back against the boards and tucks his waving hand back against his chest, glowering ahead at empty seats, and says, “I hate him.”
“No you don’t.” Merle doesn’t even sound slightly convinced, which is appropriate, considering he most definitely isn’t.
“He’s the worst ,” Taako insists, with enough conviction for both of them.
“Yeah I’ll give you that one.” Merle snorts. “I’ve literally got an entire first aid kit in my office with his name on it.”
“Soft enforcer,” Taako repeats again. What kind of business did those words have pairing up and doing an out-of-place box-step all over Taako’s brain. “Mistake of freaking nature.”
Before Merle can find anything to say in response to that, Magnus has skated over to their side of the fantasy rink. He skids to a stop and leans over the boards to throw an arm over one of Taako’s shoulders, chin propped on the other. It’s like being draped in a particularly warm, heavy fantasy Snuggie. A fantasy Snuggie that breathes and squeezes him and laughs a little, vibrating through his back. Taako rolls his eyes at Merle and leans back, giving his weight over to the man on the other side of the boards and pretending there isn’t a metaphor there at all.